Aphesis

Aphesis is “[t]he gradual and unintentional loss of a short unaccented vowel at the beginning of a word; as in squire for esquire, down for adown, St. Loy for St. Eloy, limbeck for alimbeck, 'tention! for attention!”, according to the OED online (s.v. aphesis, n.). However, the shortening process can not only affect vowels but unstressed prefixes, too, as Minkova shows in Chapter 14. Aphesis is thus the opposite of back-clipping.

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