SPELLING See also “Phonology” - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

SPELLINGSee also “Phonology”

by Don L. F. Nilsen

and Alleen Pace Nilsen

OUR ENGLISH ALPHABET HAS ONLY 26 LETTERS TO REPRESENT 45 DIFFERENT SOUNDSAND SOME OF OUR LETTERS (LIKE C, Q, H, AND X) AREN’T 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 DON’T HAVE ANY LETTERS LEFT FOR OUR LONG VOWELS, AND THE RESULT IS CHAOS

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

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)

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 <h> 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)

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)

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)

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

(Nilsen & Nilsen 9-10)

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)

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)

“-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)

VOWEL REDUCTION (SCHWA GRADE): natural-naturalize-naturalization, photo-photograph-photographic-photography, 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-dexterity, busy-business

(Nilsen & Nilsen 21-25)

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)

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:

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)

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

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

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.

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 290)

In response to this poem one wit remarked, “A three-alarmer (three-l lllama) is a really big fire.”