Spelling & Pronunciation Orthography-Pronunciation Discrepancies

Gap between spelling & sound Orthography (spelling) does not represent the sounds of utterances in a language systematically. English or Korean, known as using phonetic writing system, has a great gap between pronunciation and spelling. Phonetics & phonology always deal with pronunciation instead of spelling.

Examples of pronunciation-spelling mismatch Different letters, a single sound to too two through threw clue shoe Did he believe that Caesar could see the people seize the seas? The silly amoeba stole the key to the machine. A single letter, different sounds dame dad father call village many My father wanted many a village dame badly. A combination of letters, a single sound shoot, character, Thomas, physics, coat, glacial, either Some letters have no sound mnemonic, autumn, resign, debt, bough, island, knot, gnash An extreme case: “Ghoti” can be pronounced as fish

Reason for Discrepancies: Spelling Changes Old English Christian missionaries used a 23-letter alphabet for approx 35 phonemes of Old English  Deviation from the one-to-one principle After Norman Conquest (1066) French spelling conventions introduced Examples (before  after) cw  qu ‘quick’ h  gh ‘might’ c  ch ‘church’ u  ou ‘house’ Zealotry of some academics debt & doubt: borrowed from French dette & doute but silent ‘b’ was inserted to make the words resemble the original Latin debitum & dubitare, respectively. Carelessnes colonel: borrowed from French coronelle and spelled with an ‘r’, later adapted from Italian colonello  Italian spelling, French pronunciation

Reason for Discrepancies: Pronunciation Changes Deletions /l/ before a /d/  Ø ‘would, should, could’ (however, ‘cold’, ‘hold’) /k,g/ before a nasal  Ø ‘knee, knife, gnat’ (however, ‘acne, agnostic’) /l/ before /f, k, m/  Ø ‘calf, walk, balm’ however, ‘self, silk, film’ /ә/  Ø ‘nose, name’ Fricatives Allophones [v, D, z] becomes phonemic in ME. [Z] arose in 17C from the palatalization of the [zj] cluster ‘vision [vIzjәn]  [vIZәn]’ Great Vowel Shift (from ME period through 18C) A major historical change of English pronunciation Eg) geese [gε:s][gis], tide [tid][taId], loud [lud][laud] GVS occurred after invention of printing Borrowings From French: bizarre, bouquet, beige, debris From Italian: motto, mezzanine, stucco, grotto From Spanish: junta, galleon, marijuana From German: Gestalt, poltergeist From Portuguese: macaque, verandah From Russian: czar, intelligentsia

Reason for Discrepancies: Summary Even languages with phonetic writing system such as English and Korean have significant discrepancies between orthography and pronunciation Pronunciation is more vulnerable and variable than spelling  We need a better way of representing speech sounds than orthography (move on to the slides on Transcription)