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Spelling

by Don L. F. Nilsenand Alleen Pace Nilsen

A Guessing Game

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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

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SO THIS IS HOW WE SPELL OUR LONG VOWELSA, 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

SAME SPELLINGS BUT DIFFERENT PRONUNCIATIONS (SAME WORD FAMILIES): nation-national, obscene-obscenity, sign-signature, go-gone, ct. soup-supper

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CONSONANT GRADES:FULL, 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 <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

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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: *ain’t, can’t, couldn’t, won’t, wouldn’t, shan’t, shouldn’t, *mayn’t, (mightn’t, mustn’t)

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CONSONANT ASSIMILATIONFOR EASE AND SPEED

VERB 3rd sing pres ind: sings, hitsVERB past: buzzed, jumpedVERB past part: popped, killed NOUN plurals: cats, dogsNOUN possessives: Mike's, Fred's ADJ substantive: its, ours

PREFIX: (NOTE: im- assimilates as follows): illegal, immature, impotent, indelicate, irreligious

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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.

addict addictionact actual or actionpart partial predict prediction

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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 criticismfanatic fanaticismromantic 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)

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CONSONANT DISSIMILATION: FOR CLARITY

VERB 3rd person singular present indicative: buzzesVERB past tense: heatedVERB past participle: spotted

NOUN plural: horsesNOUN possessive: Max’sNOUN: 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-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)

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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

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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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analysis-analytic

compete-competition

maintain-maintenance

medicine-medicinal

phone-phonetic

solid-solidity

Talmud-Talmudic

telegraph-telegraphy

(Fromkin Rodman Hyams [2007] 282)(Nilsen & Nilsen 25)

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HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONSTRACES: 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

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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,He’s a priest.The two-l llama, He’s a beast.And I will bet A silk pajamaThere 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.”

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