Ch.10 Written Language

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Ch.10 Written Language

• Introduction to English Linguistics
• Jungtae Kim, Ph.D.
• 2008.5.29

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• How language is represented in writing.
• See the four e.g., in p. 235
• Language may be represented in ways other than
  alphabetic spelling I ? NY.
• /i/ key, see, me, tea, receive gt the same
  phoneme, but different spelling
• A kid drowned ? deround
• ESL students Las yere I seen the basketball teme
  play
• gt gt language development and language variation
  affect writers encoding language

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Writing system

• Writing system developed from drawing,
  pictographs, iconic (an actual depiction of an
  object in the real world)
• See the e.g., sun an object ? ideograph
  (referring to abstract idea as well as to
  concrete objects heat, light, daytime, warmth,
  etc)
• Sumerians e.g., head, water -gt drink
• See Pictography e.g., in p. 236
• THREE writing system 1) Morphographic, Syllabic
  system, Alphabetic system
• See Morphographic writing e.g., in Chinese in p.
  236-237
• English eg., Deer X-ing X cross, ..

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• Syllabic system each symbol represents a single
  syllable,
• 4T - /for//ti/ in forty,
• bee syllabary a symbol being used to
  represent sound rather than meaning
• Japanese the most well-known syllabic writing
  system in the world
• 1 word 1 morpheme 1 symbol, Chinese words - gt
  Kanji
• Hirakana used to write grammatical elements
  such as inflectional endings
• Katakana - used to write Western loanwords

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• Alphabetic system each symbol of the writing
  system represents a single phonological segment
• Greet alphabet 24 letters, Roman, Cyrillic
  (Russian) alphabet contain 26 and 31 letters ?
  represent the several hundred thousand words
• Chinese about 50,000 characters
• Morphographic writing systems are rare Chinese,
  Japanese, Cherokee, Cree
• American English 14 vowels, 23 consonants, CVC,
  CCCVCCC
• See the e.gs., in p. 241

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The English Spelling System

• The alphabetic system in writing English only
  approximates a segmental system
• Not a unique match in English between phoneme and
  grapheme
• box, x /ks/, xylophone /z/

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Reasons for Inconsistency in English Spelling

• The imperfect relation between segment and symbol
  in English spelling
• 1. historical, English writing was
  standardized in the fifteenth century, perfectly
  segmental, e.g, knife, name, right,
• e.gs., in p. 242
• English has borrowed much of its vocabulary from
  Latin and Greek, e.g., phone, phi

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English Spelling and Morphophonemics

• English spelling is alphabetic each grapheme
  represents a single phonological segment
• Three levels of phonological representation
  morphophonemic, phonemic, and phonetic
• Morphophonemic spelling each morpheme would have
  a unique graphemic representation, plural s
  /s/, /z/
• Phonemic spelling each phoneme would have a
  unique symbolic representation caps /caps/,
  cabs /cabz/
• Phonetic spelling each allophone would have a
  unique symbolic representation caps caps,
  cabs caabz
• English spelling is based on primarily
  morphophonemic, e.g., photo, photograph,
  photography. ? keeping meaning photo
• E.g., English spelling is not purely
  morphophonemic, wife, wives -gt Final Devoicing,
  wive, wives

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Analyzing Errors in Written English

• Phonology and spelling
• Spelling errors are a direct consequence of the
  phonology of English.
• Phonological rules affecting the pronunciation of
  a word can cause confusion for writers
• Unstressed vowels -gt neutralize to ,
• Phonological process - Unstressed Syllable
  Deletion deleting a completely unstressed
  vowel, , optionally deletes the adjacent
  consonants in the same syllable.
• e.g., reading writing, and rithmetic
  arithmetic
• a kid, guvment for government,

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• Vowel epenthesis thero for throw, Southren for
  Southern,
• Consonant cluster reduction attrac for attract,
  
• Post-vocalic liquid deletion ho for whole
• Voicing assimilation haf to for have to
• Vowel neutralization before nasals whin for when
• Some orthographic errors Capitalization, I, you
  , me
• Spanish ingles, English
• German all nouns are capitalized
• See the e.gs., in p. 246

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Morphology and Writing

• Some errors in English words morphology gt
  phonology
• Misanalysis of verb morphology, drowndedgt
  drowned, /d/
• Confused with drownPAST
• Confused with morphological deviation, e.g.,
  He do it without thinking.
• Verb form errors
• a syntactic error He come over here twice
  before.
• Come gt came, or has come
• Confused with count and noncount nouns
• e.g., a furniture, man appeared,
  foolishest for most follish