OUR ENGLISH ALPHABET HAS ONLY 26 LETTERS TO REPRESENT 4

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SPELLINGSee 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 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
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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) 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)

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CONSONANT 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)

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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 aint, cant, couldnt, wont,
  wouldnt, shant, shouldnt, maynt, (mightnt,
  mustnt)

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CONSONANT 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)

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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
  lty-gt changes the /t/ sound into a /c/ sound.
• addict ? addiction
• act ? actual or action
• part ? partial
• predict ? prediction
• (Nilsen Nilsen 9-10)

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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 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)

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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 Maxs
• 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 angular
• penal but perpendicular
• spiritual but similar
• venal but velar
• (Fromkin Rodman Hyams 2007 277)

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VOWEL 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)

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VOWEL 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)

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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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(No Transcript)
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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
• (Nilsen Nilsen 28-34)

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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,
• 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.