Haplology is a type of dissimilation. Perhaps the best-known example is the reduction of Anglaland in Old English to England in Modern English.Continue Reading W.B.C.S. Main 2018 Question Answer – Sanskrit Literature – Haplology.

The reverse process is known as dittology–the 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 haplography–the 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).

Haplology (from Greek ἁπλόος haplóos “simple” and λόγος lógos, “speech”) is defined as the elimination of a syllable when two identical or similar syllables occur consecutively. The phenomenon was identified by American philologistMaurice Bloomfield in the 20th century.[1] Linguists sometimes jokingly refer to the phenomenon as “haplogy”.[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’)
• Dutch: narcissisme > narcisme (‘narcissism’)
• English:
  • Old English Englaland > England [1]
  • morphophonology > morphonology[3]
  • coercitive (obsolete spelling) > coercive[4]
  • mono nomial > monomial
  • urine analysis > urinalysis
  • Colloquial (non-standard spellings signalled by *):
    • library (RP: ) > *libry
    • particularly > *particuly
    • probably > *probly
    • February > *Febury, *Febuary
    • representative > * representive
    • authoritative > * authoritive