Haplology

Haplology (from Greek  "simple" and , "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. Linguists sometimes jokingly refer to the phenomenon as "haplogy", an autology. 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
 * Old English cyning → English king
 * morphophonology → morphonology
 * conservativism → conservatism
 * mononomial → monomial
 * urine analysis → urinalysis
 * Colloquial (non-standard and eye dialect spellings signalled by *):
 * library (RP: ) → *libry
 * particularly → *particuly
 * probably → *probly
 * February → *Febury or *Febr(u)y (compare e.g. Austrian German )
 * representative → *representive
 * authoritative → *authoritive
 * deteriorate → *deteriate
 * Latin:
 * nutritrix → nutrix ('nurse')
 * idololatria → idolatria (hence idolatry)
 * Biological Latin:
 * Hamamelididae (disallowed spelling: Hamamelidae)
 * Nycterididae → Nycteridae
 * Anomalocaridid → Anomalocarid
 * Homeric Greek: amphiphoreus (ἀμφιφορεύς) → amphoreus (ἀμφορεύς) ('two-handled pitcher, amphora')
 * Arabic:
 * tataqātalūna (تَتَقَاتَلُونَ) → taqātalūna (تَقَاتَلُونَ) ('you are fighting each other')
 * * ʾaʾkulu (*أَأْكُلُ) → ʾākulu (آكُلُ) ('I eat')
 * Spanish: impudicicia → impudicia ('lack of modesty', i.e. the nominal form of impúdico, 'immodest')
 * 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.