Syncope typically refers to the loss of one or more sounds from the interior of a word, especially the loss of an unstressed vowel. A common example in English is the way "chocolate" is sometimes pronounced as "choc'late," with the middle vowel sound dropped. Another example is "family" often being pronounced as "fam'ly."

These changes can be influenced by various factors, including speech rate, regional dialects, or simply the evolution of everyday speech patterns.

American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual language, and its phonological units are different from spoken languages. Instead of consonants and vowels, ASL has handshapes, locations, movements, palm orientations, and facial expressions. With this distinct structure, ASL experiences language change, variations, and shortcuts, much like spoken languages do.

However, the concept of syncope in a spoken language, which refers to the omission of sounds from the interior of a word, doesn't translate directly to ASL but ASL has what is often termed "lexicalized signs." These are signs that have evolved from fingerspelling and, over time, have undergone changes to become more fluid, often dropping certain letters or adopting a more sign-like motion.

For instance:

#BACK: This sign starts with the letter 'B' and finishes with the letter 'K', skipping the 'A' and 'C' from the full fingerspelling of "BACK."

#DOG: Similar to "#BACK," this sign starts with the 'D' and finishes with the 'G,' omitting the 'O' in the process.

(The hashtag (#) before the sign is used by some authors to indicate that the sign being referenced is a lexicalized fingerspelled word.)

These lexicalized signs are similar to syncope in the sense that they drop specific elements from the original form, but the process isn't an exact match to the phonological changes in spoken languages.

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For the curious among you:

Apheresis: This refers to the omission of one or more sounds from the beginning of a word. In your example, "'pology" for "apology" is a result of apheresis.

Apocope: This refers to the omission of one or more sounds from the end of a word. For instance, "info" for "information" is an example of apocope.

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