n'

See also: Appendix:Variations of "n"

English

Conjunction

n'

1. (African-American Vernacular, others) Nonstandard spelling of ’n’.

Asturian

Etymology

Contraction of the preposition en (“in”)

Preposition

n'

1. in

Usage notes

• The preposition en contracts to n’ before a word beginning with a vowel or h: n’Asturies (in Asturias), n’honor (in honor)

Related terms

• en

Catalan

Pronoun

n'

1. contraction of en

Usage notes

• n' is the elided (elida) form of the pronoun. It is used before verbs beginning with a vowel.

Declension

Catalan personal pronouns and clitics

number	person		nominative	proclitic		enclitic		possessive
				accusative	dative	accusative	dative
singular	1st	standard	jo, mi3	em, m’		-me, ’m		meu
		majestic1	nós	ens		-nos, ’ns		nostre
	2nd	standard	tu	et, t’		-te, ’t		teu
		formal1	vós	us		-vos, -us		vostre
		very formal2	vostè	el, l’	li	-lo, ’l	-li	seu
	3rd	m	ell	el, l’	li	-lo, ’l	-li	seu
		f	ella	la, l’4	li	-la	-li	seu
		n	―	ho	li	-ho	-li	seu
plural
	1st		nosaltres	ens		-nos, ’ns		nostre
	2nd	standard	vosaltres	us		-vos, -us		vostre
		formal2	vostès	els		-los, ’ls		seu
	3rd	m	ells	els		-los, ’ls		seu
		f	elles	les	els	-les	-los, ’ls	seu
3rd reflexive			si	es, s’		-se, ’s		seu
adverbial	ablative/genitive		―	en, n’	―	-ne, ’n	―
	locative			hi		-hi

¹ Behaves grammatically as plural.   ² Behaves grammatically as third person.
³ Only as object of a preposition.   ⁴ Not before unstressed (h)i-, (h)u-.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n‿/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

Contraction

n'

1. Prevocalic form of ne.

Derived terms

• n'avoir ni queue ni tête
• n'est-ce pas
• n'importe
• n'y

Further reading

• “n'”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Italian

Etymology 1

Adverb

n' (apocopated)

1. apocopic form of ne

Pronoun

n' (apocopated)

1. apocopic form of ne

Usage notes

• Rarely elides, except before essere, è, era etc. It sometimes elides before i or e, especially when following another unstressed pronoun.

Etymology 2

Pronoun

n' (apocopated)

1. apocopic form of ne (“us”)
   • 1349–1353, Giovanni Boccaccio, “Giornata prima – Introduzione”, in Decameron; republished as Aldo Francesco Massera, editor, Il Decameron‎^[1], volume 1, Bari: Laterza, 1927:

     […] : per ciò che i nostri, o morendo o da morte fuggendo, quasi non fossimo loro, sole in tanta afflizione n’hanno lasciate.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1336–1374, Francesco Petrarca, “CXXVIII — Italia mia, benché ’l parlar sia indarno”, in Il Canzoniere, lines 31-32; republished as Daniele Ponchiroli, editor, Turin: publ. Giulio Einaudi, 1964:

     Se da le proprie mani
     questo n’avene, or chi fia che ne scampi?

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1575, Torquato Tasso, “Canto 15”, in Gerusalemme liberata, stanza 189–190; republished as La Gerusalemme liberata di Torquato Tasso, Paris: Agostino Delalain; Pietro Durand; Gio. Claudio Molini, 1771:

     tu che condutti
     N’hai, donna, in questo mar che non ha fine

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

See also

Italian personal pronouns

			nominative		atonic (clitic)11						tonic12
					accusative / dative-reflexive	accusative	dative		locative	partitive	prepositional-reflexive	oblique
singular
	first		io		mi, m', -mi, me9				―		―	me
	second		tu		ti, t', -ti, te9							te
	second formal / polite5		Lei, Ella8		―	La, -La, L'	Le, -Le					Lei
	third	m	lui, egli,8 ello,8 elli,3, 8 esso8		si,6 s', -si, se,9 ci13	lo, l', -lo, il4	glie9	gli, -gli, il4	ci, c', vi,1 v'1	ne, n'	sé	lui, esso8
		f	lei, ella,8 essa8			la, l', -la		le, -le, gli,2 -gli2				lei, essa8
plural
	first		noi		ci, c', -ci, ce,9 ne,4 n'4				―		―	noi
	second		voi, Voi7		vi, Vi,7 v', V',7 -vi, -Vi,7 ve9							voi, Voi7
	second formal / polite5		Loro		―	Le, -Le	Loro10					Loro
	third	m	loro	elli,3, 8 ellino,4, 8 eglino,4, 8 essi8	si, s', -si, se9	li, -li	loro,10 gli,2 -gli,2 glie9		ci, c', vi,1 v'1	ne, n'	sé	loro	essi8
		f		elle,3, 8 elleno,4, 8 esse8		le, -le							elle,8 esse8

¹ Formal.
² Informal.
³ Archaic.
⁴ Obsolete or literary.
⁵ Grammatically third person forms used semantically in the second person as a formal or polite way of addressing someone (with the first letter frequently capitalised as a sign of respect, and to distinguish them from third person subjects). Unlike the singular forms, the plural forms are mostly antiquated terms of formal address in the modern language, and second person plural pronouns are almost always used instead.
⁶ Also used as indefinite pronoun meaning “one”, and to form the passive.
⁷ Formal (capitalisation optional); in many regions, can refer to just one person (compare with French vous).
⁸ Traditional grammars still indicate the forms egli (animate), ello / ella (animate), esso / essa and their plurals as the nominative forms of the third person pronouns; outside of very formal or archaizing contexts, all such forms have been replaced by the obliques lui, lei, loro.
⁹ Forms used when followed by a third-person direct object proclitic (lo, la, li, le, or ne).
¹⁰ Used after verbs.
¹¹ Unstressed forms, stand alone forms are found proclitically (except dative loro / Loro), others enclitically (-mi, -ti, etc.).
¹² Disjunctive, emphatic oblique forms used as direct objects placed after verbs (or before them, chiefly in literary Italian), in exclamations, along prepositions (prepositional) and some adverbs (come, quanto, etc.); also used with a to create alternative emphatic dative forms.
¹³ Only in "ci si", replaces indefinite si (“one”) before reflexive si (“oneself”).

Etymology 3

Adverb

n'

1. pronunciation spelling of non

Ladin

Article

n' f

1. an, a

Synonyms

• na

See also

• n

Ligurian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n‿/

Adverb

n'

1. apocopic form of ne

Pronoun

n'

1. apocopic form of ne

Usage notes

• Used before various verb forms or particles beginning in vowels.
• nun does not contract.

Middle French

Adverb

n' (apocopate)

1. (before vowel sound) apocopic form of ne

Usage notes

• The apostrophe may be omitted in older manuscripts

  ilz nen parlerent ― they weren't speaking about it

Neapolitan

Article

n'

1. contraction of na
2. contraction of nu

Portuguese

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n‿/

Preposition

n'

1. alternative form of em (used before words beginning in a vowel, archaic except before a facultative contraction containing part of a proper name)

   Os trechos a seguir aparecem n'Os Lusíadas.

   The following excerpts appear in Os Lusíadas.

See also

• d'
• ne (Italian, before proper nouns)

Saterland Frisian

Article

n'

1. alternative spelling of n

Spanish

Preposition

n’

1. (archaic, before vowels or h) alternative form of en

Tooro

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /n‿/

Conjunction

n'

1. (before a vowel) apocopic form of na