One last lecture X_X...*gladly*

[major_kerina]

English Spelling Patterns

The correspondence between phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (written) - Pronunciation.


The alphabet is a system of writing in which each written character is supposed to correspond to a distinctive sound in the language - close relationship between sounds and written character representation. First of all - 5000BCE - Sumarian ideographic (word or idea representatives).
The Greeks designed the first true alphabet around 800 BCE - character represents a sound - others before but first true/complete one.
The Romans borrowed the Greek alphabet and redesigned it to make it suitable for the writing of Latin.

This Roman alphabet was finished about 100 CE (basically unchanged).
English, even though it is a far different language from Latin, uses the Roman alphabet (26 characters - 40+ phonemes. No one-to-one correspondence.)

Graphemes are the written letters of an alphabet.
Phonemes are the abstract representations of distinctive sounds in a language.
The alphabet attempts to create a correspondence between graphemes and phonemes.
No language has a one-to-one correspondence between its graphemes and phonemes (some get close).

Some languages have a fairly close correspondence such as Spanish and Finnish.
Other languages have a poor correspondence such as French and English (GO US!!!).
English, for example, has approximately 40 phonemes, depending on dialect, but only 26 graphemes.
Consequently, problems of correspondence will occur.

Across words, one grapheme or group of graphemes can correspond to more than one phoneme.
Realizations of the letter c.
cello   /c-wedgeElo/
cat     /kaet/
cyst   /sIst/

Across words, one phoneme can correspond to more than one grapheme or combination of graphemes.
Spellings for /i/ (known as "long e")
see               he                   relieve
people          ravine             flea
receive         amoeba          Caesar
key              quay

Some graphemes do not have any phonemic correspondence.
bomb - b not pronounced
knife - k not
hymn - n
malign - g not pronounced
sign - g again
iamb - final b

As unsystematic as spelling in English may seem, many correspondences exist.
For example, all words pronounced with /theta/ or /eth or eta/ (interdental fricatives) will be spelled with a th.
However, not all words spelled with th are pronounced as /theta/ or /eth/ or as interdental fricatives.
Thai  Thailand
Thames Thomas
thyme
(not as th! - not thigh...thighland...thaymes...thhhomas...thime. No thit ^^)

The relationship between graphemes and phonemes representing consonants is fairly stable.
For example, a written f will usually be pronounced as /f/ though other combinations -- gh and ph--may be pronounced as /f/ as well.
There is more variation (rare) between graphemes and phonemes representing vowel sounds - vowels vary a lot (just see how hard it is for me to show them here! @_@)

VC(C)# - Realize you need to start from the end of word back to predict. # = end of word. (C) = optional consonant. C = necessary consonant. V = Vowel.
Pattern predicts a short vowel in V position.
bat   /baet/ (short a)                        back  /bÏk/   (same)
bet  /bEt/   (short e)                         belt  /bElt/ (same)
bit /bIt/      (short i)                          list  /lIst/     (same)
not /nat/     (short o)                          lost  /last/  (same)
but /b(upsidedown V)t/  (short u)      lust  /l(upsidedown V)st/ (same)

There are exceptions to the VC(C) spelling pattern.
of (vc) - short o? no
all (vcc) - short a? no
own (vcc) - short o? no
old (vcc) - short o? no

VCe# - e = last printed character. Always end in e.
Pattern predicts a long vowel in V position.
rate  /ret/ (long vowel quality - e silent - ignore consonants before the vowel)
Pete  /pit/
lice  /lajs/
poke  /pok/
rule  /rul/

There are exceptions to the VCe# spelling pattern.
The vowel in the V position may not be long.
have (the case here)
love
give
(imagine them with the long vowel - Hayve...Lowve...Guyve)

VV
Pattern predicts the long vowel quality of the first printed V.
meat  meet (you will prounce the long E)
receive (long E)
clue (Long U)
fruit (long U)
straight (Long A)
moat (Long O)

There are many exceptions to the VV spelling pattern.
The long vowel quality may not be the quality of the first vowel.
freight  great  relieve
amoeba too  youth
aisle  height  roof
(imagine if they were regular ^^)

Another exception to the VV spelling pattern is that the vowel quality may be short.
bread  taut
guest  instead
enough  build
said   laugh

Why is this? Why is the correspondence so poor?
Languages evolve.
Language change, especially pronunciation, is normal.
One prominent example of a change in pronunciation was the Great Vowel Shift between 1400 and 1600. (Shakespeare is Modern Early) (Chaucer - Middle English) (Then Beowulf - German-ish then). It changed due to the printing press to develop conventions and words were less spelled like they sounded after 1600 in some cases (dooming us all...)

Examples!
Before our...vowels...shifted...

 /i/     /e/          /E/        /u/
bite  beet       beat       foul
wise  freeze  please     house

(can't show phonetically but I can try -- E was pronounced - spelling conventions in 1400s for the sounds but those sounds were lost by 1600s and the language never changed) - 

bita   bait     bet      fool
weasa  freeza  plesa  hoosa

 /o/   /backwards C/   /a/
fool        rose            hate
goose      no              name

foal   rooosa  hata
goosa  naw  nahma



Why?
Conservative nature of spelling.
Even though pronunciation changes, spelling generally does not once it becomes standardized of the purposes of mass literacy.
Consequently, even if a language has a close phoneme-grapheme correspondence at one point in history, the correspondence may be much less evident later due to natural pronunciation changes and the immutability of spelling.
knight - once pronounce keniked (of the rune tabla).


Spelling Reform efforts
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird
and dead; it’s said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in Mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
   (Richard Krogh).

Since the 1700’s, some very influential scholars have advocated reform of the English spelling system.
Would be reformers include Benjamin Franklin, Noah Webster, and most importantly, George Bernard Shaw.

George Bernard Shaw is famous for asserting that fish could be spelled as ghoti.
From /f/ as in enough
From /I/ as in women
From /S-wedge (sh)/ as in nation

Spelling Reform Just Will Not Work
 - The whole corpus of writings in English would have to be changed.
 - English pronunciation would continue to change even after spelling was reformed (it's all about use).
 - It would be difficult to select the English dialect on which to base the spelling reform.
 - Current spelling is associated with “being educated.”


Also!
Morphological relationships among words would be lost (the SILENT LETTER RISES FROM THE DEAD HERE!!!) @_@
hymn   hymnal
damn   damnation
malign  malignant
resign  resignation
sign   signature
bomb  bombard
iamb  iambic

And that's it! X_X Just time to do all my exercises to prepare! But not tonight....