"Lonely," by the way, is an interesting word, an adverb derived from "lone" which is itself an aphetic form (initial vowel dropped) of "alone."  "Alone" appears first in 1300 as an adjective derived from a combination of "all one," a phrase that was current at the time.  "Lone" appeared in 1377 by the loss of the initial vowel (aphesis, hence, "aphetic").  I wonder if the need for an adverbial form could have contributed to the aphesis, since we don't add -ly to adjectives starting with the prefix a-.

Herb



-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: 2008-05-31 08:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lonely Morphology

There's even a name for it, haplology.  Wikipedia informs me, and OED concurs, that the word was introduced by American philologist Maurice Bloomfield in an 1895 Journal article.  The date and source are from the OED entry.

Herb


-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of DD Farms
Sent: 2008-05-30 21:23
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Lonely Morphology

At 06:37 30/05/2008, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
>. . . we don't generally like to repeat a syllable
>immediately.  Notice how we can say "He's becoming a good
>grammarian" but tend to avoid "He may be becoming a good
>grammarian," and if we say it in normal speech we'll drop one of the "be"s.

DD: A really great point that was new to me. I appreciate the concept
and thank you for the insight. I like things that make me stop and
think, and that really did.

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