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In Australian slang, there is a word "Onya" which is used in the exact same way as "Good on you".

What transformations have taken place in the formation of this slang? I'm finding it difficult to see since "Good on you" is not a single word. I think there is vowel reduction "you" -> "ya" (schwa phoneme). But what else is there, elision, shortening?

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    Certainly it's a shortening; I don't think it's exactly an elision, since the word good is dropped completely rather than elided. You could also call it a corruption - 'the process by which a word or expression is changed from its original state to one regarded as erroneous or debased.'
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Jul 9, 2021 at 8:02
  • Possibly as near an answer as one will get, possibly a duplicate: Are kinda/sorta/oughta and sposta acceptable in formal writing?.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 9, 2021 at 12:01
  • This is a form of apheresis where it is affecting a phrase rather than a word. I'm uncertain whether it has a name or not. But it's why we say "thank you" in place of "I thank you" and the like.
    – GArthurBrown
    Commented Jul 9, 2021 at 12:07
  • In the US, the phrase good on you exists, but it's stressed on good and you In Oz, the stressed syllable is on, with good reduced to /gd/ before on, Naturally the initial unpronounceable stops disappear.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jul 9, 2021 at 14:22
  • It's East London UK slang for good on you.
    – John
    Commented Aug 28, 2021 at 0:56

1 Answer 1

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The grammatical dropping of complete words from a phrase is known as:

ellipsis.

Sometimes the plainer term 'deletion' is used.

(Elision and syncope and apocope and etc are used for phonological dropping of sounds).

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