Orthography:Spelling & Punctuation

Linguistic Analysis

18 March 2010

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Today

• Introduction

• The history of writing

• English spelling

• Spelling and affixation

• Punctuation

• Exercises

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Pictograms

• Pictogram: an image of the object it represents

• a non-arbitrary relationship between the form and the meaning

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Modern day pictogram

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Ideogram

• non-literal abstract representations

• meaning extended to attributes of the represented object – ”sun” -> ”light”, ”heat”, ”daylight”

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Ideogram

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Logographic writing system

• a symbol stands for both the word and the concept

• Sumerian cuneiform

• Egyptian hieroglyphs

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Syllabic writing system

• Symbols representing syllables

• no visual relationship between the symbol and what it represents

• phonographic symbol: it stands for the sounds that represents the word

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The consonantal alphabet

• Phoenicians 1500 BC

• 22 consonants, no vowels

• Vowels inferred from context

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Alphabetic writing

• The Greeks 1000 BC

• Borrowed from the Phoenicians

• Consonants and vowels

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The development of the Roman alphabet

• 15000 BC Cave paintings as pictograms• 4000 BC Sumerian cuneiform• 3000 BC Egyptian hieroglyphs• 1500 BC Phoenicians’ consonantal alphabet• 1000 BC Greeks borrow the Phoenicians’

alphabet• 750 BC Etruscans borrow the Greek alphabet• 500 BC Romans adapt the Etruscan/Greek

alphabet to Latin (from Fromkin and Rodman, 1998)

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English spelling

We must polish the Polish furniture.He could lead if he would get the lead out.The farm was used to produce produce.The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.The soldier decided to desert in the desert.This was a good time to present the present.A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.I did not object to the object.The insurance was invalid for the invalid.The bandage was wound around the wound.

(http://www.mapping.com/englishhard.html)

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Homographs and homophones

• Homographs: spelled identically, pronounced differently: bass/bass

• Homonyms: pronounced the same, may or may not spelled differently: bat/bat, tail/tale

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Sound-letter correspondence?Oh, you English-speaking peopleWith your seize and tease and steepleWith your you and who and glueAnd your two and shoe and flew,

Continue with your whom and tombGloom and plume and even rheum.Torment your little Tom and TerryWith your misspelled bomb and bury

With your go and foe and doughAnd your sew and tow and know.Come and dumb and home and foamTorn and warn and tomb and comb,Sir and purr and fur and myrrh.And still we keep our eye and guy

Our much and touch our whole and bowlOur flower and hour, our coal and soul.

(http://www.spellingsociety.org/news/media/poems.php)

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English spelling

• Based on English spoken in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries

• No consistency: Shakespeare spelled “I” as “I”, “ay” and “aye”

• Idiosyncratic spellings spread through printed materials

• Need for a spelling reform

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English spelling

Middle English spelling Reformed spelling

indite -> indict

dette -> debt

receit -> receipt

oure -> hour

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The Great Vowel Shift

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Spelling pronunciation

• - writing affecting speech

• 18th century dictionaries became authorities on spelling

• honest, hour, hotel, hospital, herb

• fault

• Catherine -> Kate?

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Spelling and affixation

Back to morphology:

• suffixes

• stem allomorphs

Allomorphy:

• when a morpheme can be pronounced and spelled in different ways

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Adding letters

• Doubling of final consonants– Adjectives/Adverbs: Slim, slimmer,

slimmest etc– Verbs: submit, submitted

• Final consonant is not doubled if– Preceding vowel is unstressed: enter,

entering, inter, interring – preferred vs preference

– Vowel is spelled with a digraph: seated

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Adding letters

• Doubling of final –l– BE doubles the –l whether the vowel is

stressed or unstressedE.g. Travel, traveller, cruel, cruellest

– AmE doubles the –l only if the preceding vowel is stressedE.g. Rebel, rebelled, travel, traveled

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Adding letters

• Plural suffix: adding -e before –s

– if the stem ends in a voiceless sibilant (type of fricative: s, S, tS)

E.g. Fox, foxes, wish, wishes, hatch, hatches

– Also –es after word-final –o

E.g. potato, potatoes, hero, heroes, BUT radio, radios

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Replacing letters

• -y changes to –i(e) before suffixes – Nouns ending in consonant +y -ie when

plural -s is added (ferry, ferries)– Verbs similarly with 3rd person –s (hurry,

hurries)– Verbs similarly with past tense –d (hurry,

hurried)– Adjectives ending in a consonant + y -i

before comparative and superlative endings (merry, merrier, merriest)

– Adverbs formed from adjectives ending in –y also change to - i (moody, moodily)

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Replacing letters

• y -> ie before suffixes

• unless:– vowel + -y (trolley, trolleys)– proper nouns ending in consonant + -y

(Hillary, Hillarys)– suffix begins with –i (try, tried, trying)

– lie/die -> lying/dying

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Dropping letters

• silent –e is dropped: – before suffixes beginning with a vowel (hate,

hating)– in verbs ending in –ee, -ye, -oe (agree,

agreeing, agreed)– in words ending in –ge and –ce (manage,

managing, manageable)

• BUT –e is kept before suffixes beginning with a consonant (except due/true -> duly/truly)

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Capital letters

• proper nouns (Mary, Jones)• titles (Mrs, Sir) • corners of the world (the West end) • days of the week, months, religious holidays

(Wednesday, February, Easter)• nationality nouns and adjectives (Greece, Greek) • political parties and religious denominations

(Labour, a Catholic church)• institutions (Parliament)• historical events (World War II)• personifications (Mother Nature)

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Punctuation

The apostrophe test

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Apostrophes

• The apostrophe has three uses:

• to form the possessive of nouns (Eric’s hat)

• to show the omission of letters (don’t)

• to indicate plurals of lowercase letters (I spell my name with two t’s)

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Apostrophes: forming the possessive

• Add ‘s to the singular form of the word (the cat’s food, BUT James’ hat or James’s hat)

• Add ‘ to the end of plural nouns that end in –s (houses’ roofs)

• Add ‘s to plural nouns that do not end in -s (children’s)

• Add ‘s to the end of compound words (my mother-in-law’s chair) and coordinated nouns (Todd and Anne’s house)

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Apostrophes: showing omission of letters

• A contraction:a word in which one or more letters have been omitted

• Place the apostrophe where the omitted letters would go

• Don’t = do not

• Who’s = who is

• Could’ve = could have

• ‘60 = 1960

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Apostrophes: forming plurals of lowercase letters

• To form the plural of a lowercase letter, place ‘s after the letter.

• Do not use apostrophes to indicate plurals on capital letters, numbers and symbols.

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Do NOT use apostrophes

• For possessive pronouns– Wrong: the group made it’s decision– Right: the group made its decision– It’s is a contraction for ”it is”!

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Commas: when to use

• to join two independent clauses and a coordinating conjunction (He is nice, but he is too nice)

• after dependent clauses (Because he got sick, we went home – BUT We went home because he got sick)

• to separate elements in a series (I would like some cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms and bread)

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Commas: when to use

• Around disjuncts or conjuncts

(This explanation is, of course, an oversimplification)

• In numbers (15,000,000)

• In quotes (He said, ”Why did you do that?”. ”Just because,” she said)

• In personal titles (Pamela Brown, MD, PhD)

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Commas: when not to use

• before noun clauses, i.e. clauses that function as object or subject complement (He saw that she was late)

• before adverbial clauses which follow a main clause (I’ll come to the lecture if I can)

• before or after restrictive relative clauses

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Non-restrictive vs. restrictive clauses

• Commas are used before and after non-restrictive relative clauses, but NOT before and after restrictive relative clauses.

• A restrictive relative clause restricts the noun or noun phrase that it modifies, it specifies what is being talked about, cannot be left out.

• A non-restrictive relative clause is non-essential to the meaning, it adds extra information.

• The parenthesis test.

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Non-restrictive vs. restrictive clauses

1) The Greeks, who were philosophers, loved to talk a lot

2) The Greeks who were philosophers loved to talk a lot

1’) The Greeks were philosophers, and they loved to talk a lot

2’) Among the Greeks it was the philosophers who loved to talk a lot

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Semicolon and colon

• A semicolon indicates a longer pause than a comma, can be used instead of a full stop.

• A colon is used:

– before an explanation (see above)

– before a list (We have three issues to deal with: politics, ideology and history)

– before quotations

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Quotation marks

• Quotation marks:– before and after quotations (“That’s a

deal,” he said) – for quotations within quotations switch

between double and single quotation marks (He said, “Jane shouted ‘Leave me alone’”.)

– for titles of articles, poems and chapters, (italics are used for titles of magazines, books, journals and films).

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Dashes and hyphens

• Dashes – indicate an afterthought or personal comment.

• Hyphens– hyphenated words (self-made) – string compounds (a would-be suitor, a hit-

and-run driver)– when compounds are joined with other words

(waste paper, waste-paper basket)

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Punctuation

One more test…