American English Spelling: An Informal Description 0801834430, 9780801834431

Citation preview

IPA

Symbol Used Here

Example

Symbol Used Here

IPA

Example

ae

sing

e

boat

a:, a

bought

au

boy

b

pop

tf d

roar

£

shush

sass

i

7^3

tot

f

thin

g h

then

E X LIB RIS

i

but book

ai

boot

d3 k

vat wit yet

I

lime

.yu

butte

m

m

mum

z

Z

zap

n

n

nun

3

zh

azure

n

®n

lighten

9

9

alone

4

k.

\

American English Spelling

D. W. CUMMINGS

American English Spelling 4

An Informal Description

The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore and London

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

© 1988 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America The Johns Hopkins University Press 701 West 40th Street Baltimore, Maryland 21211 The Johns Hopkins Press Ltd., London

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cummings, D. W. (Donald Wayne), 1935— American English spelling. Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. English language—United States—Orthography and spelling. PE2817.C86 1988 421'.54 86-30537 ISBN 0-8018-3443-0 (alk. paper)

I. Title.

Contents

4

Detailed Table of Contents Preface

vii

xxv

Notes on Usage

xxxi

Analysis 1. Spelling as System

3

2. The Explication of Written Words

32

Tactics 3. Sequences and Distributions 4. String Patterns and Rules 5. Suffix Rules

69

90

112

6. VCV in Disyllables

123

7. The Third Syllable Rule

131

Procedures 8. Silent Final e and Its Deletion Rule 9. The Twinning Rule

145

161

10. Assimilated Prefixes

177

Correspondences 11. The Sounds and Letters of English 12. Short a, /a/

213

13. Short e, lei

217

14. Short i, HI

222

15. The Short o’s, /a/ and 16/ 16. High Short u, Ini

241

17. Low Short u, Ini

244

231

201

Contents

VI

18. Long a, /a/

249

19. Long e, lei

258

20. Long i, III 21. Long o, 16/

271 280

22. The Simple Long u, lul

288

23. The Complex Long u, /yu/

297

24. The Diphthongs, /oil and /au/ 25. Vowels before Irl

301

307

26. The Front Stops: Ibl, /p/, Idl, and It/ 27. The Velar Stops, Igl and Ikl

327

350

28. The Simple Fricatives /v/, If/, /th/, /th/, and Ihl 29. The Simple Fricatives Izl and Isl

391

30. The Palatal Sibilants: /sh/, Ichl, /j/, and Izhl 31. The Nasals: /ml, Ini, and /r)/ 32. The Liquids, III and Irl

439

33. The Semivowels, /w/ and lyl 34. Conclusion

461

Bibliography 465 Index of Words 475 General Index 539

423 456

373

407

Detailed Table of Contents

4

Preface Notes on Usage ANALYSIS Chapter 1. Spelling as System 1.1 Introduction

3

1.2 The Systematicity of American Spelling 1.2.1 Performance and Code

4

4

1.2.2 Self-regulation and Self-reorganization 1.3 Spelling Rules

5

9

1.4 Unity, Variety, and Analogy

10

1.5 Demands and Contentions

12

1.5.1 The Phonetic Demand

13

1.5.2 The Semantic Demand

14

1.5.3 The Ety mological Demand

17

1.5.4 Standardization and the Growing Visual Bias

21

1.5.4.1 Spelling Pronunciations 22 1.5.4.2 The Public Uses of Writing 24 1.6 The Principle of Preferred Regularity

25

1.7 Well-formed and Ill-formed Spellings

26

1.8 Accepted. Unaccepted, and Unrecorded Spellings 1.9 Goals of This Description

27

29

1.9.1 Minimum and Maximum Simplicities

29

1.9.2 Svstem-centered versus Use-centered Descriptions

Chapter 2. The Explication of Written Words 2.1

The Theory of Explication

32

2.2 The Explication of Elements 2.2.1 Elements and Morphemes

33 33

2.2.2 Prefixes. Bases, and Suffixes 2.2.3 Meaning and Content 2.2.4 Stems

35

35

2.2.5 Free and Bound Elements

36

33

30

Detailed Table of Contents

viii

2.2.6 Primes

36

2.2.7 Terminative and Nonterminative Elements 2.3 The Explication of Sets 2.3.1 The Set

39

[ + sume, sumpt + ]

39

2.3.2 The Set [tend, tense, tent] 2.3.3 The Set [verse, vert]

41

42

2.3.4 Immediate and Mediate Explicata 2.3.5 Sets and Connate Groups 2.3.6 Nonterminative Suffixes 2.4.1 The Linking Particles

44

45 46

2.4 The Explication of Particles 2.4.2 The Initial Particle

37

47

47

48

2.5 Explication versus Other Lexical Analyses

49

2.5.1 Explication versus Etymological Analysis 2.5.2 Explication versus Generative Analysis 2.6 On Orthographic Concepts 2.6.1 Silent Letters

52

55

2.7.1 The Explication of Form and Content 2.7.2 Element and Particle Boundaries 2.7.3 The Rule of Syllabicity

59

2.7.3.1 Lexical Simplification

61

55

56

61

2.7.4.1 Subelemental Patterning

62

2.7.5 Two Examples of Explication

63

2.7.5.1 The Set [gym, gymn + , gymnasi + ] 2.7.5.2 The Set [ly + , lyse, +lyte] 2.8 Summary

51

54

2.7 Problems and Questions

2.7.4 Merging

50

63

64

66

TACTICS

67

Chapter 3. Sequences and Distributions

69

3.1 Tactics and Tactical Patterns 3.2 Consonant Sequence Rules

69 71

3.2.1 Digraphs, Clusters, and Concatenations 3.2.1.1 Digraphs

71

3.2.1.2 Clusters

72

3.2.1.3 Concatenations

73

3.2.2 The Mixed Voicing Rule 3.2.2.1 Voicing in Clusters

73

74

3.2.2.2 Voicing in Concatenations 3.2.3 The Initial Doublet Rule 3.2.4 Final Doublet Constraints 3.2.5 The Triplet Rule

77

75

76 76

71

Detailed Table of Contents

IX

3.2.6 Doublets within Larger Clusters and Concatenations 3.2.6.1 Holdouts 79 3.3 Vowel Sequence Rules

81

3.3.1 The Vowel Doublet Rule 3.4 Distribution Rules

82

3.4.1 The Final s Rule

82

3.4.1.1 Holdouts

83

i

3.4.3 The Tactfcs of y and 3.4.3.1 The y-to-i Rule 3.4.3.2 Holdouts

3.6 Summary

84

86

86

3.5 The Short Word Rule 3.5.1 Holdouts

81

82

z Rule

3.4.2 The Final

87

89 89

Chapter 4. String Patterns and Rules 4.1 On the Term String 4.2 The Minor Strings 4.2.1 The V.V Rule

90

90 91

91

4.2.2 The VC# Rule

93

4.2.3 The V