Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Haplology

Haplology refers to the elimination of a syllable when identical or nearly identical syllables occur consecutively. It was first identified by the American linguist Maurice Bloomfield. Haplology is a type of sound change.

Here are examples of haplology:

able ably
comfortable comfortably
gentle gently
humble humbly
pacific pacifism

Many examples of haplology occur with the adverbial form of adjectives with the affix -able. Haplology is common not only in English but also in other languages. Haplology is an example of simplification.

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