You know what it is back?
The word back comes from Greece and means Mix or Fusion. In Portuguese, the crasis indicates the contraction of two identical vowels, more precisely, the merger of prepositionThe like article feminine The It is like The from the beginning of pronouns. Whenever there is a fusion of these elements, the phenomenon will be indicated through the presence of the grave accent, also called backrest accent.
In order to correctly use the back-accent indicator, it is necessary to understand the usage situations in which the phenomenon is involved. Learning to put the accent depends, above all, on verifying the simultaneous occurrence of a preposition and an article or pronoun. Note below the main cases in which the grave accent should be used, cases in which its use is not allowed and cases in which its use is optional:
Cases where crasis never occurs
x before male word (because the article "a" does not occur before male, female gender indicator): deferred payment; horseback riding; salt to taste.
xbefore verb (because there is no article before the verb): The suspect is willing to help.
xBefore pronouns in general (because there is usually no article before them): He told her he won't make the trip; Did he say anything to you?
xBefore city name (because there is no article used before city names): Aren't you going to Christmas?
Do not stop now... There's more after the advertising ;)
xExpressions formed by repeated words: Face to face; face to face; minute by minute.
x“A" before plural inflected words: The data collected does not refer to indigenous populations.
xAfter prepositions like to, before, with and against: The meeting was scheduled for 6 pm; The demonstration is against corruption.
Cases where crasis always occurs
? Female adverbial phrases that express the idea of time, place and mode: Sometimes Mariana goes to school by bus; The student did the lesson in a hurry and handed it to the teacher.
? Prepositional phrases: Doctors are waiting for the patient to the left of the hall.
? Conjunctive utterances (there are only two phrases of this type): As time passes, the couple becomes more in love; As the days passed, the fear grew.
Cases where the backquote is optional
→ Before feminine possessive pronouns mine, yours, ours etc. (because in these cases the use of the article before the pronoun is optional): The gifts were delivered to my sister or The gifts were given to my sister.
→ Before women's names (because here the article is optional): Felipe made a request to Raquel or Felipe made a request to Raquel.
→ Before the word until (if after it there is a female word that admits an article, the backquote will be optional): The friends went to the square or Friends went to the square.
By Luana Castro
Graduated in Letters
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
PEREZ, Luana Castro Alves. "What is crasis?"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/o-que-e/portugues/o-que-e-crase.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
