Haplology (from Greek ἁπλόος haplóos "simple" and λόγος lógos, "speech") is, in spoken language, the elision (elimination or deletion) of an entire syllable or a part of it through dissimilation (a differentiating shift that affects two neighboring similar sounds). The phenomenon was identified by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in the 20th century.[1] Linguists sometimes jokingly refer to the phenomenon as "haplogy", an autology.[2] As a general rule, haplology occurs in English adverbs of adjectives ending in "le", for example gentlely → gently; ablely → ably.
Examples
- Basque: sagarrardo → sagardo ('apple cider')
- German: Zaubererin → Zauberin (female 'wizard' or 'magician'; male: der Zauberer; female ending -in); this is a productive pattern applied to other words ending in (spelt) -erer.
- Dutch: narcissisme → narcisme ('narcissism')
- French: fémininité → féminité ('femininity')
- English:
- Old English Engla land → Engle lond → England [1]
- morphophonology → morphonology[3]
- conservativism → conservatism
- mononomial → monomial
- urine analysis → urinalysis
- Colloquial (non-standard and eye dialect spellings signalled by *):
- library (RP: /ˈlaɪbrəri/) → *libry /ˈlaɪbri/
- particularly → *particuly
- probably → *probly
- February → *Febury or *Febr(u)y (compare e.g. Austrian German Feber)
- representative → *representive
- authoritative → *authoritive
- deteriorate → *deteriate
- Latin:
- nutritrix → nutrix ('nurse')
- idololatria → idolatria (hence idolatry)
- Biological Latin:
- Hamamelididae (disallowed spelling: Hamamelidae)
- Nycterididae → Nycteridae[4]
- Anomalocaridid → Anomalocarid
- Homeric Greek: amphiphoreus (ἀμφιφορεύς) → amphoreus (ἀμφορεύς) ('two-handled pitcher, amphora')[5]
- Arabic:
- tataqātalūna (تَتَقَاتَلُونَ) → taqātalūna (تَقَاتَلُونَ) ('you are fighting each other')[6]
- * ʾaʾkulu (*أَأْكُلُ) → ʾākulu (آكُلُ) ('I eat')
- Spanish: impudicicia → impudicia ('lack of modesty', i.e. the nominal form of impúdico, 'immodest')[7]
- Portuguese:
- idadoso → idoso (aged person, senior)
- femininismo → feminismo (feminism)
- Colloquially in sequences like campo pequeno pronounced like "campequeno" or faculdade de letras pronounced like "faculdadletras".
- Italian:
- tragico-comico → tragicomico ('tragicomic')
- domani mattina → domattina ('tomorrow morning')
Reduplication
The reverse process is known as reduplication, the doubling of phonological material.
See also
Notes
References
- Crowley, Terry. (1997) An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. 3rd edition. Oxford University Press.
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