Transcript SPELLING See also “Phonology” by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen.

SPELLING
See also “Phonology”
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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Spelling Perspective!
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OUR ENGLISH ALPHABET HAS ONLY 26 LETTERS TO
REPRESENT 45 DIFFERENT SOUNDS
AND SOME OF OUR LETTERS (LIKE C, Q, H, AND X) AREN’T VERY
USEFUL
ENGLISH HAS 5 VOWEL LETTERS TO REPRESENT 13 VOWEL
SOUNDS
AND WE USE THEM ALL UP FOR OUR SHORT VOWELS, AS IN:
pat, pet, pit, pot, and put
SO WE DON’T HAVE ANY LETTERS LEFT FOR OUR LONG
VOWELS, AND THE RESULT IS CHAOS
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SO THIS IS HOW WE SPELL OUR LONG VOWELS
A, E, I, O, and U:
A: He ate the freight. It was his fate. How do you spell 8/eight?
E: The silly amoeba stole the key to the machine. or
Did he believe that Caesar could see the people?
I: I write eye-rhyme, like “She cited the sight of the site.”
O: Our chauffeur, although he stubbed his toe, yeomanly towed
four more boards through the open door of the depot.
U: blue, blew, gnu, Hugh, new, Pooh, Sioux, through, two
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VIOLATIONS OF THE PHONEMIC
PRINCIPLE
SAME PRONUNCIATION BUT DIFFERENT
SPELLINGS (DIFFERENT MEANINGS): citesight-site, marry-Mary-merry, pair-pare-pear,
there-their-they're
SAME SPELLINGS BUT DIFFERENT
PRONUNCIATIONS (SAME WORD
FAMILIES): nation-national, obscene-obscenity,
sign-signature, go-gone, ct. soup-supper
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CONSONANT GRADES:
FULL, H-MARKED, REDUCED, ZERO
REDUCED GRADE: act-action-actual, critic-criticize, medicinemedication, part-partial, rite-ritual, seize-seizure
MARKED GRADE: chip, cough, hiccough, enough, phone, ship, this,
thought (NOTE: The <h> of ch, gh, ph, sh, and th indicate that these
are strange kinds of c, g, p, s, and t respectively.
ZERO GRADE: acknowledge-knowledge; amnesia-mnemonic; though,
thought, through, thumb-thimble-Thumbelina
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MORE CONSONANT
ASSIMILATIONS
MODAL PLUS "HAVE" ASSIMILATION:
coulda, mighta, shoulda, woulda
MODAL PLUS "TO" ASSIMILATION:
gonna, hafta, hasta, supposta, useta
CONTRACTIONS: *ain’t, can’t, couldn’t,
won’t, wouldn’t, shan’t, shouldn’t, *mayn’t,
(mightn’t, mustn’t)
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CONSONANT ASSIMILATION
FOR EASE AND SPEED
VERB 3rd sing pres ind: sings, hits
VERB past: buzzed, jumped
VERB past part: popped, killed
NOUN plurals: cats, dogs
NOUN possessives: Mike's, Fred's
ADJ substantive: its, ours
PREFIX: (NOTE: im- assimilates as follows): illegal, immature,
impotent, indelicate, irreligious
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ASSIMILATION: PALATALIZATION
When a word that ends with a /t/ is followed by a –ual, -ial, or -ion
ending, the palatal vowel <y-> changes the /t/ sound into a /č/
sound.
addict  addiction
act  actual or action
part  partial
predict  prediction
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ASSIMILATION: STOPS BECOMES CONTINUANTS
Because /k/ is a stop, and vowels are continuants, an affix
beginning with a vowel often changes /k/ to /s/.
critic  criticize or criticism
fanatic  fanaticism
romantic  romanticism
This ability of the <c> to have two different pronunciations allows
us to spell these words the same way even though they are
pronounced diffently. The benefit of this is that it helps us to
see that these words are in the same word-family even though
the <c> part is pronounced differently.
(Nilsen & Nilsen 18)
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CONSONANT DISSIMILATION: FOR CLARITY
VERB 3rd person singular present indicative: buzzes
VERB past tense: heated
VERB past participle: spotted
NOUN plural: horses
NOUN possessive: Max’s
NOUN: belfry
ADJ: ignoble
(Nilsen & Nilsen 14-16, 18-20)
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DISSIMILATION AGAIN
“-al” is a suffix that changes a Noun into an Adjective,
but when the Noun ends in /l/, dissimilation occurs:
“anecdotal” but
“penal”
“spiritual” but
“venal”
“angular”
but “perpendicular”
“similar”
but “velar”
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 277)
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VOWEL GRADES: LONG,
SHORT, SCHWA, R, AND ZERO
VOWEL REDUCTION (SCHWA GRADE): naturalnaturalize-naturalization, photo-photographphotographic-photography, s'pose-supposesupposition, telegraph- telegraphic-telegraphy
VOWEL REDUCTION (-R or –N GRADE): ; pinpen; absurd, bird, heard, herd, word
VOWEL REDUCTION (ZERO GRADE):
ambidextrous-dexterity, busy-business
(Nilsen & Nilsen 21-25)
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VOWEL REDUCTION AND
ASSIMILATION
BRITISH VOWEL REDUCTION: aluminum,
laboratory, secretary
LONG AND SHORT GRADES: do-done, gogone, nation-national, obscene-obscenity,
punitive-punish, sign-signature, soupsupper
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vowel reduction and word stress
When a suffix changes a word from one Part of
Speech to another, this suffix affects which
syllables are stressed, and which are
unstressed and can change to different vowel
grades like schwa or short grade:
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analysis-analytic
phone-phonetic
compete-competition
solid-solidity
maintain-maintenance
Talmud-Talmudic
medicine-medicinal
telegraph-telegraphy
(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 282)
(Nilsen & Nilsen 25)
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HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS
TRACES: ic-ich-I, knight, hostel-hôtel- hotel, scribere-écrire-scribe
DOUBLETS: chief-chef, dish-discus, hotel-hostel, ship-skiff, shirt-skirt
GRIMM'S LAW: courage-hearty, corn-horn, decade-ten, dozen-twelve,
dent-tooth, pedestal-footnote, padre-father, plate-flat, pyre-fire
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MORE HISTORIC
CONSIDERATIONS
GERMANIC UMLAUT: child, goose, man, mouse, woman
(cf. book-beech)
GREEK RHOTOCISM: genus-generic; opus-opera
ENGLISH: schwa and silent e
ACRONYMS AS WORDS: AID, AIDS, BIRP, CREEP,
GASP, MANURE, MASH, NOW, NUT, SAG, VISTA, ZIP
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FOREIGN-LANGUAGE
INFLUENCES
BORROWINGS: chaise longue, cole slaw, frankfurter, hamburger,
lingerie, rouge, schnitzel, wiener
BILINGUAL COGNATES: actual, embarazada, grocería, libraria,
molestar, principio, (cf. blanket [white], porpoise [pig fish], puny [puis
né], walrus [whale horse])
INDO-EUROPEAN ABLAUT: sing-sang-song
MODAL PAST-SUBJUNCTIVE: can-could, may-might, shall-should,
will-would
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FINAL THOUGHTS FROM OGDEN NASH
The one-l lama,
He’s a priest.
The two-l llama,
He’s a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn’t any Three-l lllama.
In response to this poem one wit remarked, “A three-alarmer
(three-l lllama) is a really big fire.”
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