What is rebracketing in linguistics?

Rebracketing, also known as metanalysis or reanalysis, is a linguistic phenomenon where the boundaries between words or morphemes shift over time, often due to changes in pronunciation or usage patterns. This shift results in a reinterpretation of the structure of a word or phrase. For example:

The word “an apron” used to be “a napron” (from Middle English “napron” for a small cloth), but over time, the “n” moved to the article “an.”

The phrase “a nadder” (an old term for an adder, a type of snake) became “an adder.”

Rebracketing can significantly affect the evolution of language by altering word forms and their meanings.