Haplology - Definition and Examples in Language

Haplology s in Language Definition A sound change involving the loss of a syllable when its next to a phonetically identical (or similar) syllable. Haplology is a type of dissimilation. Perhaps the best-known example is the reduction of Anglaland in Old English to England in Modern English. The reverse process is known as dittologythe accidental or conventionalized repetition of a syllable. (Dittology also means, more broadly, the double reading or interpretation of any text.) The counterpart of haplology in writing is haplographythe accidental omission of a letter that should be repeated (such as mispell for misspell). The term haplology (from the Greek, simple, single) was coined by American linguist Maurice Bloomfield (American Journal of Philology, 1896). Also Known  As   syllabic syncope Examples and Observations Haplology . . . is the name given to the change in which a repeated sequence of sounds is simplified to a single occurrence. For example, if the word haplology were to undergo haplology (were to be haplologized), it would reduce the sequence lolo to lo, haplology haplogy. Some real examples are:(1) Some varieties of English reduce library to libry [laibri] and probably to probly [prÉ”bli].(2) pacifism pacificism (contrast with mysticism mysticism, where the repeated sequence is not reduced and does not end up as ​mystism).(3) English humbly was humblely in Chaucers time, pronounced with three syllables, but has been reduced to two syllables (only one l) in modern standard English.(Lyle Campbell, Historical Linguistics: An Introduction, 2nd ed. MIT Press, 2004)The words library and necessary, especially as spoken in Southern England, are often heard by foreigners as libry and nessary. But when they repeat the words as such, they do not sound right, since there should be a lengthened r and s, respectively, in those words. It shows that foreigners notice the beginning stages of haplology in those words, when there is as yet no complete haplology.(Yuen Ren Chao, Language and Symbolic Systems. Cambridge University Press, 1968) I have often noted that Americans, in speaking of the familiar Worcestershire sauce, commonly pronounce every syllable and enunciate shire distinctly. In England it is always Woostershr.(H.L. Mencken, The American Language, 2nd ed. Alfred A. Knopf, 1921) Also See What Is the Correct Pronunciation of February?AssimilationDissimilationElision