SPELLING See also Phonology by Don L F

SPELLING See also “Phonology” by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen 1

Spelling Perspective! 2

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 3

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 4

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, signature, go-gone, ct. soup-supper 5

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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 7

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, wouldn’t, shan’t, shouldn’t, *mayn’t, (mightn’t, mustn’t) 8

CONSONANT ASSIMILATION FOR EASE AND SPEED VERB 3 rd 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 9

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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. addiction actual or action partial prediction 11

ASSIMILATION: STOPS BECOMES CONTINUANTS Because /k/ is a stop, and vowels are continuants, an affix beginning with a vowel often changes /k/ to /s/. criticize or criticism fanaticism 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) 12

CONSONANT DISSIMILATION: FOR CLARITY VERB 3 rd 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) 13

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) 14

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VOWEL GRADES: LONG, SHORT, SCHWA, R, AND ZERO VOWEL REDUCTION (SCHWA GRADE): naturalize-naturalization, photo-photographic-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) 16

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 17

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: 18

analysis-analytic phone-phonetic compete-competition solid-solidity maintain-maintenance Talmud-Talmudic medicine-medicinal telegraph-telegraphy (Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 282) (Nilsen & Nilsen 25) 19

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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 21

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 22

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 23

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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. ” 25

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