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The Routledge Handbook of the English

Vivian Cook, Des Ryan

English among the writing of the world

Publication details https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 Richard Sproat Published online on: 14 Jul 2016

How to cite :- Richard Sproat. 14 Jul 2016, English among the writing systems of the world from: The Routledge Handbook of the English Routledge Accessed on: 24 Sep 2021 https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315670003.ch03

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Another (from (from taxonomy ofwritingsystemsin general,anditistothattopicwefirstturn. the for proposals some examine to need first we that, do to order in But systems. writing of the writingsystemsofworld? among system a such classify one does How systems. writing modern complicated most the incorrectly givestheetymologyof his in it including by of a writing system for a is designed or adapted, usually by native, but in any case One issue that it wouldbe useful forthe reader to bear in mind at the outset is the fact that Taxonomies ofwritingsystems is another.case or Afamous reason one for inserted been has ‘silent’ a (such as one would find in a dictionary) includes numerals, there are many casesword ofEnglish orthography.standard English no wordsof While vagaries where the for not it were possible been have hardly would joke the same the at yet go’, we when together go all ‘Wewill song his to above quoted introduction Tomthe used he when silly being course of was Lehrer Introduction certainly by the sixteenth century.sixteenth the by certainly spelled or , where was introduced for etymological reasons (Latin In this chapter we will examine some of the proposals for where English falls in the typology These are some of the many aspects of that conspire to make it one of you an idea of what an individualist he was he spelt it . The 3 was silent, you see. give to Henry,only was whose know to used I fellow a of point this at reminded am I insula), with whichisland English amongthewriting (1755). (Interestingly,Dictionary oftheEnglishLanguage(1755). he 2 After this the with the became standard, became the with spelling the this After island ascomingfromLatin systems oftheworld is completely unrelated. Johnson ensured the survival the ensured Johnson unrelated. completely is with an introduced on false analogy with insula.) Richard Sproat debt, Tom Lehrer originally debitum) and 3 isle 27 1 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 such as Phoenician were classified as largely because he did not have any other category intowhichtoshoehornthem. any have not did he because largely syllabaries as classified were Phoenician as such ) denote the of characters basic the where systems (writing Semitic thus classifications: Gelb’sodd . some segmental forced ultimately system and West full-fledged writing), through ‘ syllabic systems’ (Chinese, Sumerian), through syllabaries pictographic and ‘limited systems’ (into which category he classified Mayan, now known to be (1963) a teleological view of writing that saw all writing systems as being on a linear path from presented ’, of ‘father the dubbed often Gelb, Ignace developed. were systems Figure 3.1 involve will this Always correct. were below) see – (1968 Halle and Chomsky much, this In language. the way of the represent a to is it rather transcription: phonetic of system a not is system writing Alanguage. that competent speakers ofa language, in order to be used bynative or competent speakers of Richard Sproat 28 Egyptian systems known at the time that there were three types of writing in the world, namely Chinese, his in Gébelin according to Wilkins, is ‘exceedingly complicated and perplexed’ (p. 14). perplexed’(p. and complicated ‘exceedingly is Wilkins, to according along with 20 additional ‘aspirated ’ makes for an ‘’ of 202 units. The system, and seven , the latter of which are applied ‘to every one of their 26 Consonants’, which Philosophical Language (1668) discusses ‘Aethiopic’, which he notes contains 26 consonants his in Wilkins Bishop . encode systems it isnoless‘natural’ thanothermoreseeminglyregularsystems. of learning the system easier. But no matter how English orthography ends up being classified, representation is notrequiredtoberegular, thoughofcourseregularity canoftenmakethetask t ant ni te wnit cnuy hwvr ta sseai txnme o writing of taxonomies systematic that however, century, twentieth the until wasn’t It For centuries scholars have been trying to make sense of the differences between how writing semasiographic polymorphemic unit

Taxonomy of writingsystemsaccordingto Sampson(1985) (e.g. word) based on (1775) declared on the basis of an extensive survey of writing of survey extensive an of basis the on declared Monde Primitif(1775) 4 andalphabetic(p.399). logographic writing morphemi some glottographic cs representation of the pronunciation, but that Essay Towards aReal , anda yllabi cs phonographic getlfeatural egmental 3 Antoine Court de Court Antoine Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 and level of the taxonomy systemsdivide into function ofthecoreunitseachsystem. the to according classifications branching) (or arboreal provide (1989) DeFrancis and (1985) par. a on more writing of types various the put that insteadclassifications presenting into Sproat 2009fordiscussion). again, (see, autism or disability intellectual with associated deficits severe system. expressible in spokenlanguage, and which are automatically expressible in any glottographic for beingafullwritingsystem:itisimpossibletoexpressinBlissymbolics all ofthenuances test crucial a fails Blissymbolics was, attempt the though brave that notes who (2009), Sproat does as system, this discusses (2004) Rogers that hascometobeknownasBlissymbolics. system Bliss’s Charles being these of famous most the systems, semasiographic developing at attempts genuine been have there But game. parlor of form a instead was it that showing effectively demolishes Sampson’s ‘Yukaghir love letter’ as an example of writing of any kind, , syllablesormorphemes. h mrhms en witn O te te hn, lsiyn Egih ad oen as Korean) (and English classifying hand, other the On written. being the there arecomponentsofthe writing systemthatclearly relate directly to themeaningof make newcharacters,whichin turnisapowerfulargument for DeFrancis’ theory. to way normal the considered apparently was this that means – Vietnamese2000) Sproat (see for system Nôm Chữ the into borrowed also was characters new creating for method this that characters ever developed are based on this semantic-phonetic construction – as well as the fact roughly 3500 year history of the script. Nonetheless the fact that over 95 percent of the Chinese poor. The reasons for this are several, including the huge phonetic changes in Chinese over the are rather good,butthisisbynomeansrepresentative, and quiteoftenthephonetic hint isquite hints phonetic and semantic the instance particular this In value. phonetic its for purely and trees; of denoting characters for used typically ‘oak’pieces, form) two Mandarin of modern composed its is (in Thus meaning. the about hint a gives that another and pronunciation, the about hint a gives that piece one pieces, two of composite a are characters many example, for Chinese, For information. morphological encode also that those and ‘pure’ are that distinction: systems another between is there category basic each within But information. vocalic of amount are ‘defective’ inthat they represent only consonants, orperhapsconsonantswithalimited that systems those are Hebrew) or for systems writing the (e.g. systems Consonantal being between syllabic and segmental systems, and within the latter, consonantal and alphabetic. taxonomy ispresentedinFigure3.2. His other. the at systems featural as well as 1994), Unger and DeFrancis of also (see notion scale the whole the with issue takes also He writing. from syllablesdowntophoneticfeatures. systems wherethesymbolsofsystemrepresent one oranother phonological unit ranging hs apo, o eape pooe te aooy eitd n iue ..A te top the At 3.1. Figure in depicted taxonomy the proposed example, for Sampson, Thus views, teleological less take to tended have Gelb since systems writing of Scholars With glottographic systems Sampson is on more solid ground, and here he divides the world apo’ smsorpi ctgr hs las en otoesa: erni (1989) DeFrancis controversial: been always has category semasiographic Sampson’s Treating‘morphoconsonantal’Chinese, as like Egyptian since, sense of deal great a makes For DeFrancis all full semasiographic of existence the on Sampson with disagrees only not (1989) DeFrancis toe noig specifically encoding those glottographic, logographic 5 Today the main function of Blissymbolics is as a aid for children with systems, whereeach representsamorpheme, and phonographic writing systems are essentially phonological, with the main distinction semasiographic (systems based purely on meaning) linguistic English amongthewritingsystemsofworld logographic 象 information, such asrepresenting xiàng 木 mù ‘elephant’, whichisused systems at one endof ‘wood, tree’, which is Sampson 橡 xiàng 29 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 first noted by Poser by noted first observation an developing – systems syllabic’ ‘core termed Sproat what are common more Much it. represent to separate more or one has language the of every where had todowiththeprecisedivisionsofphonographicdimension. (2000) Sproat with disagreement of points major whose (2004), Rogers by modified further was system This 3.3. Figure in system classification planar the propose to (2000) Sproat led these as such Considerations nil. essentially is logography of amount the where Finnish, like information conveyed (on Japanese writing, see Okada, this volume). There are some systems, finds written on a page is purely phonographic, but there are still large amounts of logographic one what of portion large a where Japanese, like others, are There Chinese. like logographic, heavily are that systems some are degree. There of matter a really is logography forth, so and while itusuallymakessensetoclassifyasystemasbasicallysegmental, basically consonantal, Furthermore, dimensions. orthogonal, indeed separate, two really are logography, of not or arboreal representationssuchasDeFrancis’ isthatthetypeofphonography, andtheexistence with problem The systems. writing of taxonomies to made be could that refinement further a this of topic chapter,the andwereturnatlengthtoitbelow.to directly course of relates issue This meaning. the indicating of function ‘morphosegmental’ isnotasobvious,sinceheretherearenocomponents thathaveaclear Figure 3.2 Richard Sproat 30 sequences of two or more consonants (with no representation of the vowels). In this, and in and this, represent In vowels). the of representation the no (with consonants of more or many two of sequences since polyconsonantal – out system separated polyconsonantal is unique Egyptian a consonants. as represents just basically system the where systems where all or nearly all segments of the language are represented in writing, to consonantal Following the syllabic systems there are various segmental systems ranging from alphabetic, symbols. of combination a use must one syllables complex more for where just but VCV), or , Cherokee Pure Syllabic At one end of the phonographic dimension are the (actually quite rare) full syllabic systems DeFrancis’ neat separation of each phonographic type into ‘pure’ and ‘morpho-’ hints at hints ‘morpho-’ and ‘pure’ into type phonographic each of separation neat DeFrancis’

Taxonomy ofwritingsystemsaccordingtoDeFrancis(1989) 7 Syllabic – where the basic symbols generally do represent basic syllables (often syllables basic represent do generally symbols basic the where – We Pure Consonantal Chinese Morphosyllabic st Semitic Egyptian Morphoconsonantal osnna Alphabetic Consonantal Segmental Greek Pure Phonemic 6 English, Hangeul Morphophonemic Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 Figure 3.3 quirkiness also shows up in another way, in the difficulty that children have in learning the learning in have children that difficulty the in way, another in up shows also quirkiness Bosch den (van list the tops always among English , correspondence WesternEuropean letter-to-sound of complexity the of studies quantitative writing In segmental system. a uses that language any of correspondence letter-to-sound complicated It is no secret that English spelling is quirky and unpredictable. Indeed it probably has the most Preliminaries Theories ofwhereEnglishfalls now readytoaddressthemainquestionofthischapter:where doesEnglishfit? like Sproat’s. taxonomy planar a adopted he had English placed have would Sampson where from differs topic wereturntobelow. behave logographically: a goodexample is heterograms On theother hand, somesystemswhosebasic symbols are purely phonetic nonetheless can are – etc. Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, placed higher on the – logographic scale than, logography e.g., most West of Semitic degree writing systems, or largeGreek. a have that systems Penn and see Choma (2006) for some but interesting proposals on – corpus-based ways to estimate impressionistic it. Writing very (2000), Sproat by noted as is, logography’ of ‘Amount alphasyllabaries. not treat ‘polyconsonantal’ asaseparate category, andontheother hand doesseparate out the treatment ofalphasyllabic Having laid out a few different ways to think about writing system classification, we are we classification, system writing about think to ways different few a out laid Having see shall we as which – scale logographic the of end low the at English places Sproat categories. of set a than rather scale a is dimension logographic the above, noted As

Amount of logography

osnna oyosnna AlphabeticC Polyconsonantal Consonantal Perso-Aramaic W. Planar taxonomy, afterSproat(2000) Semitic Egyptian systems such as , Rogers’ system differs. He does He differs. system Rogers’ Devanagari, as such systems Ty pe ofPhonography Devanagari Korean, Greek, English amongthewritingsystemsofworld in Perso-Aramaic writing systems, a systems, writing Perso-Aramaic in Japanese Mayan, Sumerian, ore SyllabicS . 1994). This 1994). et al. Modern Chinese yllabic Yi 31 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 thealpha/alef with pictographic, originally were symbols and the that (Daniels finds bce one 1996), 1800 Bright roughly of scripts Proto-Sinaitic the with ultimately ending scripts symbols. phonographic Certainly if purely one traces the designed, letters back via originally Latin, through Etruscan, as Greek and thence were, to Semitic alphabet, Roman the of letters taxonomy ofwritingsystemsjustdiscussed? never gainedafoothold(formore,see Yule andIshi,thisvolume). have proposals such reasons, various For pronunciation. on directly more based something by p. 231). Its complexity has also manifested itself in innumerable proposals to replace the system 5.3, Figure particular in see 2009; (Dehaene system alphabetic other any to compared system, Richard Sproat א / always/p/? the that or Spanish) in does it (as /a/ the represent always must the that say it does where example, For simple? be to has correspondence letter-to-sound the that say it does where But Finnish. or Spanish in those as such in as regular as way no in is correspondence letter–sound the so: transparently be cannot it Clearly phonographic. symbols toinvolvesomelogographicelements. but atthesametimethereisaclearprecedent for systemsbasedpurelyonphonographic Perso-Aramaic approaching nothing has course, of orthography, English ones. that herewearedealing not withlogographic or morphosyllabic symbols, butwithsegmental grammatical endings. It is also reminiscent of the Japanese Assyrian the adaptation of of Sumerian script, reminiscent except adaptation highly of Chinese script, with syllabic phonograms (known as course, of is, situation The endings. grammatical spell complements’which ‘phonetic with combine may heterograms these Furthermore, suggests. spelling the what from pronunciation different totally has that Persian a represent to used being is the spelling since Aramaic logographic clearly is system a Such (nām). word ‘name’<ŠME> e.g. – be borrowed to be nonetheless may is word which a – the Aramaic script to Persian languages (Skjærvø 1996). In such cases, an Aramaic so-called are this system. of writing Acase phonographic clear one mightexpect,fortworeasons. English letters gives ussubstantially less insight into the nature of English orthography than became that symbols the of purpose original system. the phonographic Yet a as classified be (if must surely it then logographic, not is system the If expression. graphical inconsistent) highly explicit an have morphemes of properties lexical-semantic whereby writing, Chinese of else, Englishorthographylacksanythingcorrespondingtothesemantic radicals that arepart seem to suggest that the system must be some form of purely phonographic system. If nothing would and – below see argued, (1985) Sampson as – system logographic partly a as English Chinese andMayan–wheresomeoftheelementswereusedfortheirsemanticvalues. contrast to all known independently developed ancient writing systems – Egyptian, Sumerian, marked in is This depicted. they what with semantically do to anything have symbols the did ‘ox’, for word the being stop), glottal the for But even there the symbols derived their function via the acrophonic principle – ‘alef the head, ox an representing beth / ב / / ב / beth () the word for ‘house’, etc. At no time etc. no ‘house’, At for word the () representing a house, and so forth. so and house, a representing heterograms kana) used for the Japanese read in adaptations of heterograms, as aPersian spelling (symbol for Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 as beingpartlyphonographicandlogographic. English orthography. Anticipating the conclusion, we will see that English is best characterized wants toassumethatEnglishispurelyphonographic,thereareoptionsopenone. one if case, any In marking. lexical more of cost the at perhaps depth, shallower a assume can will one as insofar depth, orthographic and we marking lexical below, between see trade-off a is there as crucially but enough, simple and obvious seems This default. the being spelling and there may be several ways to spell a given sound, which is clear in English with pairs like lexical marking. some that nonethelessadmitsof phonographic system could havea one Thus deep a as characterized always is English indeed ORL; deep way,relatively consistent a have must spelling insofarasitdoesnotobviouslyrepresentsurfacepronunciationsinanythinglikea English approach, that takes one If Belarusian. than level deeper a representing Russian with orthography relatestothelevelofphonological representation assumed bythetwoorthographies, Belarusian and Russian between difference main the that example, for argued, I work that In is, and more specifically that there is a missing phoneme following the that is somehow is that the following phoneme missing a is there that specifically more and is, ‘saving’ the from being pronounced with a lax variant? Chomsky and Halle argue that there first syllable, which should have by rights become a lax /ɪ/ by the rule. Is something somehow lax /æ/ in the second case, but not in the first. Yet explains This laxes. word the of end alternations like opaque the from third syllable a in a whereby laxing’ of reduction include that unstressed vowelstoschwa,vowelshift,andspirantization of /ty/to/ʃ/. rules then by derived /æsignātyon/, are forms and surface The /æsign/ sense. like make more the something from rules phonological via derived are pronunciations surface the that assumes one if forms. Yet surface their in different quite versus not exclusively, center on stress-induced alternations in Latinate , cases like largely,though arguments The representation. morphophonemic underlying represents it that English orthography, namely that Englishspellingisanearoptimal orthography forEnglish,in on thesis controversial most the probably been has what presented SPE) henceforth – (1968 .the to in correspondences Halle and Chomsky Thus, the upon depending technique used–seeBisaniandNey(2008)forarecentoverview widely differs rules those of expression the though examples, training applications largely viewstheproblemasoneofinducingappropriaterulesfromaset technology for conversion noting letter-to-sound on worth work is of industry It cottage sound. small the to that spelling from rules rewrite ordered of set complex a on based on phonology. and Perhaps focused the spelling best-known example of between this have is the relation work of Venezkythe them characterize (1970), who develops of can a system that Many rules of spelling. sets developing English of descriptions many been have There The taxonomyofEnglishorthography the as (2000) Sproat in formalized was that something and 1992), Frost and (Katz on work psycholinguistic that correspondsroughlytothenotionofdeep With these preliminary issues in mind, we now turn to some previous attempts to categorize Or consider the word nightingale. letter-to-sound the from burden the shift to attempt that approaches been have there But scene, and one must simply memorize which words take which spelling, with perhaps one orthography in the . But there is a second complication in that te omr rnucd əsɪ/ n te atr ˌsgnɪə/ seemingly /ˌæsɪgˈneɪʃən/, latter the and /əˈsaɪn/ pronounced former the assignation, orthographically relevant level /oˈpeɪk/ versus /oˈpeɪk/ Chomsky and Halle argue for a general rule of ‘trisyllabic opacity /oˈpæsiti/, where the is pronounced as a as pronounced is the where /oˈpæsiti/, nightingale (versus English amongthewritingsystemsofworld (ORL) of phonological representation. phonological of (ORL) ) orthography familiar from familiar orthography shallow) has a tense () /aɪ/ in the . Sound Pattern of English assign seen 33 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 nominative form꽃이 /kkoč To compound. the of components the of take anotherexample,꽃 basis the on predict to hard nonetheless is that one pronounced /kkænnip/. This is an instance of a fairly common nasalization process in compounds, principle is broken. Thus a pair such as such pair a Thus broken. is principle that roots shouldretain their spelling in alternative forms, thereare many cases where this Halle’sand principle Chomsky while notes, (1985) spelling. Sampson English As of theory a spelling, andthesurfacepronunciation,ismorecomplicatedin thecaseofEnglish. like Korean,exceptthattherelationbetweenmorphophonological formsrepresentedbythe doycai mrhpoei cags Fr xml, h cmiain of ‘sesame’ and잎 combination the example, For changes. morphophonemic idiosyncratic but forms, derived different across morphemes the actualsurfacepronunciationofwordsiscomplicatedbysometimesregular, andsometimes of spelling its in consistent quite be to Korean 1996). tends (King Korean being case such one true, obviously is this where orthographies are there this, Besides assumption. this on depends also reading of studies psycholinguistic in precisely this claim, and as noted above at least some of what counts as ‘deep’ orthographies makes (2000) Sproat by arguedfor level relevant orthographically of notion representation. The a priorisilly about the idea that an orthography might represent a somewhat abstract level of worth notingonereasonwhythehypothesisisnot is it problems, those of some examining before But approach. an of areductioof adabsurdum it seriously, andthethesisisatthisstagelargely forgotten, exceptperhapsasaclassic instance for Englishitrepresentsamoreabstractlevelofphonologicalrepresentation. is thatforFinnishandSpanish,theorthographylargely representssurfacephonology, whereas difference only The Spanish. or Finnish, like just system, phonographic (segmental) a is it is: the rootportionshavedifferentpronunciationsintwoforms. the root sincethey are related, as shouldelectric/electricity are and properties, arguably morphologically related. phonological Thus share (putatively) that words between relationships show to intended are they Rather words. of pronunciation superficial the representing by learners language in mind. They are not intended, for example, to make life easier for second-language orthographies are designed, or at least should bedesigned, with knowledgeable speakers ofthe be: should things how is Halle, and Chomsky argued this, And representation. phonological be explainedbyarguing thatEnglishorthographyrepresentsnotsurface,butunderlying the orthographyas,namely/x/. would phoneme appear to beaphoneme that has nosurface form instandard English, but isstill represented in missing that argue, they Conveniently, deletion. the prevent to conspiring Richard Sproat 34 support for the SPE hypothesis as a pedagogical tool. If the hypothesis was on the right track, right the on was hypothesis the If tool. pedagogical a as hypothesis SPE the for support two relatedwordsspeakandspeech ? from SPE’s point of view. Or why is there a change in the spelling of the be respelled as in the second word, since consider Or . in but itishardtoseewhatthey could be,especially given thatEnglishwords cancertainly end case, for no apparent reason. Perhaps the form * is ill-formed for independent reasons, This said, there are sufficient problems with the hypothesis that it can largely be rejected as There are, needless to say, so many problems with the SPE hypothesis, that few scholars take English system writing of type what about claim direct a makes thus hypothesis SPE The can others, among English, of properties idiosyncratic and quirky seemingly two Thus apo as dsuss xeiet b Crl hmk (90, h atmtd o find to attempted who (1970), Chomsky Carol by experiments discusses also Sampson should the why reason apparent no is there collide / collision, where > /ip/ ‘leaf’ yields ‘leaf’ /ip/ > /kkot/ ‘flower’ restores the pronunciation of the in the the in the of pronunciation the restores ‘flower’ /kkot/ h i/. Under the SPE hypothesis, English would then be just assign ‘sesame leaf, perilla’, written as as in the first the in as the respells should sharethesamespelling for despite the fact that in bothcases identical 깨 /kkæ/ /kkæ/ vowel in the h > but but > Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 down towhat dowiththeunpredictability. the question of where to putit in the taxonomy of the world’s writing systems really comes phonographic toalarge degree, whichever level of representation onetakesittorepresent,so marking thewordwithanadhoc feature[+Greek]. in the predict to way no is there example For avoid. cannot SPE’srepresentations abstract phonological representation, with a fair amount of marking of lexical exceptions which even abstract somewhat a assume can one best At SPE. in assumed as abstract as nearly anything spelling isweakenedfurther. not do participate in such alternations – words the import of the SPE theory as English a general model of English of majority vast the – SPE in discussed alternations the to relevant once onenotesagainthatthe1169 examples werefromthatportionofthevocabularymost on balance, I argued, the statistics provide at best weak support for the SPE hypothesis. And since this only means a few additional rules specifying how to spell surface vowel forms. So forms. Alternations such as the /eɪ/~/æ/ alternation in unreduced their in represented be vowels that merely suffice would it SPE: by assumed that surface pronunciation,butsuchahypothesisneednotassumedeeprepresentationas to supportahypothesisthatEnglishorthographyrepresentssomethingmoreabstractthan appear would This marked. be to needs as syllable second word the of schwa the the of spelling in the example with for ORL; do deep to the for have needed marks not schwa, lexical of 1452 spelling the marks of lexical percent 509 40 versus than (1452 more larger However much needed). is markings lexical of number the and 58) the applicationofotherwiseexceptionlessrules. override to required markings lexical of number the and needed; rules rewrite of number the the phonological representation [sic]. The measure of complexity comprised two components: from spelling the predict to required rules the of complexity the computed I hypotheses, two the first that it is surface phonology, the second an underlying phonology. Then, for each of the the In hypothesis. technical terminology SPE of Sproat (2000), the there were two by towards hypotheses as to bias the by necessity nature of inherent the ORL, an contained almost experiment the influenced spelling, were the latter the since Obviously constructed. also were pronunciations underlying SPE-style English. American of dictionary online an were from pronunciations taken Surface relevant. most is hypothesis SPE the where portion the the of – forms Latinate 1169 of set a on a analysis the based is I pronunciation. spelling surface of English where one hypotheses, two representation of an underlying morphophonemic level, and the other where it is arepresentation compared I (2000) Sproat In analysis. Chomsky foundnottobethecase. ought semantically related, coupled with theSPEhypothesis,wouldapriori obviously are forms two the fact the Still, spelling. English about hypothesis the for problem . was notabletomakeuseofherhintthatheconsidersignature grader who was not able to recognize the relationship between signature illogical system is. Yet as Sampson notes, Carol Chomsky ran into a problem with one seventh- then itoughttohelpchildren learning tospellEnglishpointouthowlogical this seemingly photograph And itistheselexical markings that are the crux ofthematter: English orthography is surely On balance thenthestatistics do notstronglysupportEnglishorthographyrepresenting versus (69 larger somewhat was hypothesis shallow the for needed rules of number The statistical from comes hypothesis SPE the of utility the doubting for reason another Yet This, strictly speaking, is a problem with morphological awareness rather than a direct a than rather awareness morphological with problem a is speaking, strictly This, to be aware that the forms are related, at least when prompted, something that Carol that something prompted, when least at related, are forms the that aware be to from either deep or surface pronunciation, which has an initial /f/, other than other /f/, initial an has which pronunciation, surface or deep either from English amongthewritingsystemsofworld chaste ~chastityhavelittleconsequence in understandinghowtospell suggest that readers and geophagy, the sign, and thus 35 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 of phonographic system, and at the same time has a greater or lesser degree of logography. English merelyhasmorelogography thanmanylanguagesthatuseanalphabeticscript. of degree lesser or greater a has time same the at and system, phonographic of In exactly. into fits a planar system, onthe other hand, every writing system isbasically one oranother kind it which of neither English systems, shoehorn phonographic must or one logographic, latter, either the under In system. arboreal Sampson’s to is it than systems worth notingthatsuchanideaismoreeasilyaccommodated to aplanartaxonomyofwriting English since the logographic aspect of English is by no means as systematic as it is in Chinese. radical double-jade where theyask: extent, it is also partly logographic. This was proposed in Bloomfield and Barnhart (1961: 27), information is to propose that, while the orthography is obviously phonographic to a significant Bloomfield and Barhnart’s and Bloomfield like pairs Thus entries. lexical distinct really are pronunciation same the have that words two Sampson (1985:203)proposesasimilarideawhenhesuggests: Richard Sproat 36 杷 using the tree radical a loquat; see Figure 3.4. Even though the words are clearly related, are related.transparently Mandarin, in Thus they if even words two in components semasiographic different use will often Chinese, that have more systematic semasiographic components as part of their logographic system, like name andthereforeshould bird the from derivable etymologically is crane mechanical the that objection The (/mole/). (/bæs/); , again, is either of the above-mentioned meanings (/mol/) or a Mexican sauce fish a or (/beɪs/) range or instrument musical a either is pronunciations: different have but spelling same the share that words distinct many also are measurement. there of And unit chemical a or animal, an is institution; financial a or riverbank a equipment; construction the and bird the both spells consistent: hardly is system the course Of differently. spelled words different keep to desire general a by motivated be can forth so and Granting that there is something to Bloomfield and Barnhart’s and Sampson’s idea, it is it idea, Sampson’s and Barnhart’s and Bloomfield to something is there that Granting The alternative to focusing solely on how exactly English orthography encodes phonographic Irregular or unpredictable spellings thus become simply a way of encoding the fact that fact the encoding of way a simply become thus spellings unpredictable or Irregular Alphabetic writing, which indicates all the signi writing. word of scheme older the into back principle alphabetic the from lapses writing our where exactly is this and does, it course Of louse’. a of egg ‘the nit from word this someone mayaskwhetherthespellingofknitwithkdoesnotservetodistinguish Now and thinkofEnglishspellingasatleastpartlylogographic. alphabet Roman the of origins phonographic the by obsessed be ourselves letting avoid We may see another kind of method in the apparent madness of our spelling, though, if we word writing. of direction the in step a is ) extra this without nit noun the (and extra an with knit verb the spelling Our ... word every and each for character separate a provides hand, enough. Wordother clear the is on it writing, that means which speech, actual as clear as commonly used for musical instruments. No such pressures exist in exist pressures such No instruments. musical for used commonly 王王 木 that we sawabove, whereas the instrument is written be spelledthesamecancounteredbyobservingthatorthographies knit / nit, or knave / nave, knight / night, brake / break, see / sea, pípá is eitheraloquatortypeoflutethatlookslike fi cant speech sounds of each word, is just 8 the fruit / tree is written 琵琶 using the 枇

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 English bilingual edition of his 1707 treatise entitled The Principles and Duties of Christianity traction. gained Manx– a Apublished later Thomas Wilson,bishop, years English hundred an by inspired Welsh,partly orthography an used never orthography this reason whatever for but century seventeenth early translation of the An Anglican 1996). (McManus onwards era Christian the of orthography Roman-based the and era pre-Christian the of stones the to back dated that Scotland Manx, though a Gaelic , had lost contact with the Gaelic literate tradition in Ireland and Kra_uia_ntuet.p Bt aalbe ne te raie omn Attribution- Commons Creative ShareAlike 3.0UnportedLicense(CCBY-SA the 3.0)) under http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/파일:Bipa_ available Both (Korean_musical_instrument).jpg from right org/wiki/File:Eriobotrya_japonica3.jpg; separate lexicalitemswithspellings–canbeborrowed. keep to tendency the particular in and – unpredictability this that fact, key,in So system. the English orthography, there is little question that this unpredictability is seen as a key feature of orthography partlylogographicappealstoamechanismthat isalreadyneeded. the assumptionthat words ormorphemes can bemarked for their spelling, calling English exists, and (partly) logographic systems also exist, and since the latter necessarily unpredictability depend the upon But level. deep any at ‘explaining’anything really isn’t it all, after out’: large amount of unpredictability by appealing to lexical marking. This may appear to be a ‘cop- English thus appearstobeat least partly logographic, which allows onetohandle the rather U Figure 3.4 The Manx spelling introduced there, which was heavily based on English, became with some with became English, on based heavily was which there, introduced spelling Manx The npredictability asakeyfeatureofEnglishorthography A good example of this is the orthography of Manx Gaelic, discussed in Sproat (2000). Sproat in discussed Gaelic, Manx of orthography the is this of example good A of component unpredictable large the of characterization correct the whatever case any In

Left: pípá 枇杷 ‘loquat’. Right: Pípá into Manx by the WelshPhillips the Bishop by Manx of Common Prayerinto 琵琶 ‘pipa, lute’ (left from http://en.wikipedia. English amongthewritingsystemsofworld 37 9 .

Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 much a part of the system as the actual letter–sound correspondences. So much so that this that unpredictability itselfcanbeborrowedoradapted. so much So correspondences. letter–sound actual the as system the of part a much keep themdistinctinwriting. to just words, homophonic spell to ways different invent to inclined feel would they contrast in sounds; given spell they how in consistent be to compelled feel not would system, spelling Put anotherway, anyonefamiliar withEnglish orthography andusingthat as abasisfornew words. spell to chooses it how in unpredictable is that system a yield to guaranteed be almost then myhost’s viewiseminently sensible: basing anorthographyforManxonEnglishwould been have not need orthography orthography,English of heart the at as spellings unpredictable Manx views one if But unpredictable. fashion. consistent completely a or in spellings , such in as , spelled adopted have could English on orthography commonly new a basing anyone and – example is for , /eɪn/ – English in sounds certain on English,itshouldbehighlyunpredictable. based was it if that sense made it that commented hosts my of One unpredictable. highly was spelling system for a Gaelic dialect that was based on English spelling. I also mentioned that it explaining to myhoststhereasonforinterestinManxorthography, namelythatitwasa was I project. unrelated an on there colleagues some with work to Liverpool of University the affairs waswhatheusedtofromEnglishorthography. spellings forwordswithidentical orverysimilarpronunciations other thanthatsuchastateof variant these introduced have would Wilsonwhy reason any of think to hard is It ‘colt’. lhiy or similar pronunciations, but different spelling: different but pronunciations, same the similar have or that words of set another take to Or same. the sound they if even differently but whatis the of English, not are themselves spellings the So /m/). and /b/ lenited reminiscent of spelling Gaelic traditional are sequences and the (though perspective English an from : as amarkerthatapparentlyservednophoneticfunction,butallowedonetodistinguish widely used is example For spellings. different have yet and same, the almost or same, But whatisofinterestherethelarge numberofcaseswordsthatarepronouncedthe including the ways in which English conventions for spelling sounds were adapted to Manx. the nineteenth,bywhichpointlanguagehadlargely diedoutofcommonuse. of end the through century eighteenth the from Manx for spelling standard the modification, Richard Sproat 38 The unpredictability of English spelling – the sense in which it is logographic – seems as seems – logographic is it which in sense the – spelling English of unpredictability The spelling of ways common are there all after non-sequitur: a is that view of point one From orthography,Manx visiting on was research I conduct to Man of Isle the to trip my Before This use of is not very English-like, and many of the resulting spellings also look odd look also spellings resulting the of many and English-like, very not is of use This (2000), Sproat in length greater at described are orthography the of characteristics The like English is the idea that words that mean different things ought to be spelled be to ought things different mean that words that idea the is English like tie ‘theill’ taal ‘flow’ meeley ‘soft’ lott ‘lot’ leih ‘forgiveness’ beill ‘mouths’ thie ‘house’ thaal ‘adze’ mheeley ‘mile’ lhott ‘wound’ lheih ‘place’ bheill ‘grind’ leigh‘law’,leih‘forgive’, lheiy 10 ‘calf’ and Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 N world’s writingsystems,thoughthatisofcourseonlyabeginning. onto two dimensions have a better chance of characterizing where English falls among the phonography and logography separate that taxonomies Planar logographic. bit a time same of spellingpronunciationsdiscussedbyHouseholder(1971)attest. readers expectacertain degree ofregularity between spelling and sound,asthe large number English that point the misses also It one’srules.) in features as and position word conclusion of Venezky’s workisthatEnglishspelling isfarmoreregularonceoneincludes to sound correspondence of the kinds worked out in detail by Venezky (1970). (One important the system logographic also missesthe point that there are broad generalizations about letter words must be specified: there is often no way to predict them from the pronunciation. Calling of representingsegmentsismisleading since itignoresthefactthatspellingsforsomany is a good example of this. Calling it segmental because the basic units have a primary function orthography English and cooperative, so always not are systems writing But bins. predefined the of one into neatly fall will system writing a taxonomy,that the is of then, assumption The thebasic violate main type of unit that encoded by the symbols, whether they be morphemes, syllables or segments. those entities to to apply assumptions of the taxonomy. Taxonomies of writing difficult systems have traditionally focused on most the are obviously Taxonomies C 10 onclusions 9 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 8 otes

So the best we can probably say is that English orthography is a bit segmental, but at the I thankDesRyan and Vivian Cookfordetailedcommentsonanearlierversionofthischapter. language among asmallcommunityofenthusiasts. the resurrecting in succeeded has movement revival a years, recent more In tongue. native out a as dying completely before century twentieth the of half first the into survived Manx Spoken of myearlierworkonthetopic. A few of the same issues were also discussed by Sebba (2007) who seems not to have been aware derived fromthefruitname. fruit – as one of the spellings of the word for the instrument, suggesting that the instrument name is ad century second the cites org/wiki/Pipa) or was it the other way around? The English Wikipedia page for the instrument (http://en.wikipedia. (http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9E%87%E6%9D%B7), fruit the for page Wikipedia Chinese It is unclear which way the relationship goes: was the fruit In anunpublishedpresentationatthe1992LinguisticSocietyof named after the instrument as claimed on the geminate consonants. encode they how to according graphematics’ systems ‘comparative writing of different finer-grainedclassifies theory his include in (2011)Weingarten thus could encoded: are properties dimensions phonological how the Further in distinctions of below). depth the (see as such level dimensions relevant further imagine orthographically could one (2000), Sproat in noted I As rarely ifeverfoundinorthographicsystemsusedeverydaysettings. native speakers of the language in question, in the proper of the text. Such systems are typically involve liturgical languages wherethe purpose isto instruct people, who are often not find such mechanisms, such as the prosodic system of Masoretic Hebrew (Aronoff 2008), does one where cases rare The features. prosodic phrasal other or intonational represent to ways standard have not do most example, for limitations: their have systems writing segmental Even was known. Note that Court de a Gébelin was writing several decades borebefore the true nature of Egyptian designed writing himself Wilkins that striking similaritytothewayEthiopianGe’ezscriptworks. system writing inspired phonetically the Interestingly, Johnson intheeighteenthcenturycannotbecorrect the of edition occasional suggestions one sees to the effect that the spelling may have been invented by Samuel 1549 a in occurs spelling The – the name of the the of name the – Dictionary ofNamesashaving枇杷 English amongthewritingsystemsofworld . Thanks toDesRyan forpointingthisout. Book of Common Prayer, andthusthe Book ofCommon America Meeting. 39 Downloaded By: 10.3.98.104 At: 17:03 24 Sep 2021; For: 9781315670003, chapter03, 10.4324/9781315670003.ch03 Wilkins, J. (1668) graphematics’, ‘Comparative (2011) R. Weingarten, Venezky,(1970) R. of complexity the ‘Measuring (1994) Gelder de B. and W.Daelemans Content, A. A., Bosch, den van Sproat, R.(2000)A ComputationalTheoryofWriting Systems,Cambridge,MA.:MIT Press. (eds) W.Bright and P.Daniels in Languages’, Iranian for scripts ‘Aramaic (1996) P.O. Skjærvø, Sebba, M.(2007)SpellingandSociety, Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress. Sampson, G.(1985)Writing Systems,Stanford,CA.:StanfordUniversityPress. Rogers, H.(2004)WritingSystems: ALinguisticApproach, systems’, writing classifying for methods ‘Quantitative (2006) T.Choma. and G. Penn, (eds) Bright W.and P.Daniels in languages’, ‘Celtic and ‘Ogham’ (1996) D. McManus, (1996) Bright W. and Daniels P. in writing’, ‘Korean (1996) R. King, Katz, L. and R. 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Aronoff, R Richard Sproat 40 eferences Society. 12–38. Mouton. writing systems’,JournalofQuantitativeLinguistics,1(3),178–188. World’s Writing Systems,Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,515–535. York, 117–120, the HumanLanguageTechnology Conference oftheNorth American Chapterofthe ACL, Writing Systems,Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,340–345,665–660. Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress,218–227. (eds) Katz L. Meaning, and Amsterdam: ElsevierNorthHollandPress,67–84. Frost R. in hypothesis’, depth C. HitchandL Hawes; A. MillarandJ.R.Dodsley. Penguin. of writingsystems”’,Linguistics,32,549–554. of HawaiiPress. University Press. Communication, ’, An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, Language, 61(1),28–72. The Structure ofEnglishOrthography,Linguarum, Janua in 82 Number Hague: The Reading in the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. :TheDiverseOnenessofWriting Systems,Honolulu, HI.: University 50(5), 434–451. 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