Title: OUR ENGLISH ALPHABET HAS ONLY 26 LETTERS TO REPRESENT 4
1SPELLINGSee also Phonology
- by Don L. F. Nilsen
- and Alleen Pace Nilsen
2Spelling Perspective!
3OUR ENGLISH ALPHABET HAS ONLY 26 LETTERS TO
REPRESENT 45 DIFFERENT SOUNDSAND SOME OF OUR
LETTERS (LIKE C, Q, H, AND X) ARENT VERY
USEFULENGLISH HAS 5 VOWEL LETTERS TO REPRESENT
13 VOWEL SOUNDSAND WE USE THEM ALL UP FOR OUR
SHORT VOWELS, AS IN pat, pet, pit, pot, and
putSO WE DONT HAVE ANY LETTERS LEFT FOR OUR
LONG VOWELS, AND THE RESULT IS CHAOS
4- 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
5VIOLATIONS OF THE PHONEMIC PRINCIPLE
- SAME PRONUNCIATION BUT DIFFERENT SPELLINGS
(DIFFERENT MEANINGS) cite-sight-site,
marry-Mary-merry, pair-pare-pear,
there-their-they're - (Nilsen Nilsen 2, 8)
- SAME SPELLINGS BUT DIFFERENT PRONUNCIATIONS
(SAME WORD FAMILIES) nation-national,
obscene-obscenity, sign-signature, go-gone, ct.
soup-supper - (Nilsen Nilsen 21-24)
6CONSONANT GRADESFULL, H-MARKED, REDUCED, ZERO
- REDUCED GRADE act-action-actual,
critic-criticize, medicine-medication,
part-partial, rite-ritual, seize-seizure - MARKED GRADE chip, cough, hiccough, enough,
phone, ship, this, thought (NOTE The lthgt of ch,
gh, ph, sh, and th indicate that these are
strange kinds of c, g, p, s, and t respectively. - (Nilsen Nilsen 25-28)
- ZERO GRADE acknowledge-knowledge
amnesia-mnemonic though, thought, through,
thumb-thimble-Thumbelina - (Nilsen Nilsen 11)
7MORE CONSONANT ASSIMILATIONS
- MODAL PLUS "HAVE" ASSIMILATION coulda, mighta,
shoulda, woulda - MODAL PLUS "TO" ASSIMILATION gonna, hafta,
hasta, supposta, useta - CONTRACTIONS aint, cant, couldnt, wont,
wouldnt, shant, shouldnt, maynt, (mightnt,
mustnt)
8CONSONANT ASSIMILATIONFOR 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
- (Nilsen Nilsen 14-17)
- PREFIX (NOTE im- assimilates as follows)
illegal, immature, impotent, indelicate,
irreligious - (Nilsen Nilsen 12)
9ASSIMILATION PALATALIZATION
- When a word that ends with a /t/ is followed by a
ual, -ial, or -ion ending, the palatal vowel
lty-gt changes the /t/ sound into a /c/ sound. - addict ? addiction
- act ? actual or action
- part ? partial
- predict ? prediction
- (Nilsen Nilsen 9-10)
10ASSIMILATION 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 ltcgt 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 ltcgt part is
pronounced differently. - (Nilsen Nilsen 18)
11CONSONANT DISSIMILATION FOR CLARITY
- VERB 3rd person singular present indicative
buzzes - VERB past tense heated
- VERB past participle spotted
- NOUN plural horses
- NOUN possessive Maxs
- NOUN belfry
- ADJ ignoble
- (Nilsen Nilsen 14-16, 18-20)
-
12DISSIMILATION AGAIN
- -al is a suffix that changes a Noun into an
Adjective, but when the Noun ends in /l/,
dissimilation occurs - anecdotal but angular
- penal but perpendicular
- spiritual but similar
- venal but velar
- (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2007 277)
13VOWEL GRADES LONG, SHORT, SCHWA, R, AND ZERO
- VOWEL REDUCTION (SCHWA GRADE) natural-naturalize-
naturalization, photo-photograph-photographic-phot
ography, s'pose-suppose-supposition, telegraph-
telegraphic-telegraphy -
- VOWEL REDUCTION (-R or N GRADE) pin-pen
absurd, bird, heard, herd, word - VOWEL REDUCTION (ZERO GRADE) ambidextrous-dexteri
ty, busy-business - (Nilsen Nilsen 21-25)
14VOWEL REDUCTION AND ASSIMILATION
- BRITISH VOWEL REDUCTION aluminum, laboratory,
secretary - LONG AND SHORT GRADES do-done, go-gone,
nation-national, obscene-obscenity,
punitive-punish, sign-signature, soup-supper - (Nilsen Nilsen 21-25)
15vowel 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
16(No Transcript)
17HISTORICAL 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 - (Nilsen Nilsen 28-34)
18MORE 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
19FOREIGN-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
20FINAL THOUGHTS FROM OGDEN NASH
- The one-l lama,
- Hes a priest.
- The two-l llama,
- Hes a beast.
- And I will bet
- A silk pajama
- There isnt any Three-l lllama.
- (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2007 290)
- In response to this poem one wit remarked, A
three-alarmer (three-l lllama) is a really big
fire.