Bug

ReadingOrderModel._merge_elements removes a trailing soft hyphen (\u00ad) before joining a cross-element continuation, but a hard hyphen (-) always follows the regular space-joining path. A split word such as algo- + rithms is therefore emitted as algo- rithms.

Steps to reproduce

The affected code path is deterministic with two TextElement instances carrying the same label:

1. Create a list item whose text is algo-.
2. Merge a following LIST_ITEM element whose text is rithms.
3. ReadingOrderModel._merge_elements(...) produces algo- rithms instead of algorithms.

Soft hyphens already produce algorithms, which makes the hard-hyphen behavior inconsistent.

Expected behavior

When the first element ends in - and the first non-whitespace character of the continuation is lowercase, treat the pair as a hyphenated line wrap: remove the hyphen and join without a space. Preserve the existing behavior for uppercase continuations, where a hard hyphen may be meaningful punctuation.

Docling version

main at 873f990 (package version 2.115.0).

Python version

Python 3.13.12.

Relationship to #3881

This is the downstream half of #3881. A companion change in docling-ibm-models makes eligible LIST_ITEM pairs reach the merge mapping; this change ensures the final document text is correctly dehyphenated once that mapping is present.