Topic 2.1 Contractions
This topic introduces you to group signs, lower word signs, upper group signs lower group signs, initial letter contractions and final letter group signs.
Contraction:
A contraction is a braille sign representing a word or a group of letters. For example, in the alphabetic braille signs, letter p represents the word ‘people’, letter q represents the word ‘quite’, etc. Therefore the alphabetic letters p and q are contractions for those respective words.
Wordsign:
This is a contraction which stands for a complete word. Hence the alphabetic letters p and q are both wordsigns, which fall under “Simple Upper Wordsigns”.
2.1.1 Group signs
A group sign is a braille sign representing a group of letters. (BAUK, 2004). Let us look at some categories of group signs.
2.1.1.1 Five Upper Group signs (with h)
These five group signs are formed by adding dot 6 to the letters a b c d e.
Thus:
ch a and dot 6
gh b and dot 6
sh c and dot 6
th d and dot 6
wh e and dot 6
These signs may be used in any part of a word for the letters they represent.
Examples:
2.1.1.2 Group signs ch sh th and wh are also used as word signs:
2.1.1.3 Four upper Groupsigns (two with “e” and two with “ o”)
ed dots 1 2 and 4 6
er dots 1 2 and 4 5 6
ou dots 1 2 and 56
ow dots 2 and 4 6
Of these four group signs only “ou” sign represents a complete word, and that is, the word out. This rule applies only when no other letters are joined to it (Risjord, 2009)
Example:
2.1.1.4 The last four Upper Group signs
st dots 3 and 4
ar dots 3 and 4 5
Both of these signs may be used in any part of a word
Example:
st by itself stands for the word “still”.
ing dots 3 and 4 6
ble dots 3 and 456
These signs (ing and ble) may be used in any part of a word except at the beginning.
Example:
2.1.2 Lower word signs
A lower sign is one which lacks dots 1 and 4 (BAUK, 2004).
Some of the lower signs are also used as word signs to represent whole words. They can be grouped under three heads (Simpson, 2013):
· Those that must be spaced from all other signs
· Those lower word signs should be written unspaced from a word which follows
· Those that must be spaced from all other words but may in some cases be in contact with punctuation signs.
a) Lower word signs that must be spaced from all other signs
be dots 2 and 3 (lower b, the same as the group sign be)
were dots 2 3 and 5 6 (lower g)
his dots 2 3 and 6 (lower h)
was dots 3 and 56 (lower j)
These four words, “be”, “were”, “his” and “was” are expressed by the above wordsigns, lower b, lower g, lower h, lower j, only where they are separated by a space from all other signs (except the capital indicator). Therefore, if the words adjoin lower punctuation in the print copy, they must be spelt out (for otherwise they would be regarded as punctuation themselves; e.g. a quote, etc.); and so, too, is the case where a letter is added to them, as: wasn’t, weren’t (BANA, 2002)
Example:
b) Lower word signs “to”, “into” and “by”
These lower word signs should be written unspaced from a word which follows on the same braille line, even when a sense break or natural pause is present
Example:
c) Lower word signs that must be spaced from all other words but may, in some cases, be in contact with punctuation signs
enough dots 2 and 6 (lower e)
in dots 3 and 5 (lower i)
These two signs, when used as word signs must be spaced from all other words, but they may be used as adjoining punctuation signs provided the whole sequence is in contact with an upper sign.
Example:
Have you enough in that box?
2.1.3 Lower group signs (be con com dis ea bb cc dd ff gg en in)
These can be grouped under three headings:
Those that must be written at the beginning of a word or braille line
Those that must be written in the middle of a word
2.1.4 Initial-letter contractions
2.1.5 Final-letter group signs
2.2 Reading and Writing short-forms
This topic introduces you to the use of short-form words in Braille
Rules governing short-form words
According to BANA (2002), the following rules should be respected while using short-form words:
- Short-form words should be used alone or as part of a word
- Short -form words must not be divided at the end of a line, but they may be separated from any syllable addition.
- A short-form word should be used as the whole proper name only
- An addition may be made to a short-form word provided it does not result in incorrect spelling
- An addition may be made to a short-form word only if it retains its original meaning and would not obscure recognition of the word
- An addition may be made to a short-form word provided the combination does not violate lower-sign rules
- An addition may be made to a short-form word provided the combination could not be mistaken for, or have the appearance of another word. The short-form words for “after” “blind,” or “friend” should not be used when followed by a vowel. However, they may be used when followed by a consonant, or a hyphen in a divided word
- A short-form word must not be used if it would cause confusion in pronunciation or in the recognition of an usual word
- The apostrophe should always be inserted in the exclamation “h’m!” (hm!) to distinguish it from the short-form word for “him” (hm). However, the apostrophe should not be inserted when two or more letter “m’s” are used in the exclamation
- When proper names such as ‘Al” or “Ab” appear at the beginning of a sentence, they should be preceded by the letter sign to distinguish them from the short-form words for “also” or “about”
