Hi Bob
I see T.O. spelling as not some rule based representation of words.
Instead, I see it as a set of strategies designed to point the reader
in the direction of the English word symbolized by the letters.
There is no consistent one to one representation of a sound, by the
letters.
Lets talk about these strategies.
1. one of the main English spelling strategies, is that once a
particular spelling is recognized as representing an English word,
even if that spelling is based on a foreign language, (i.e. oeuvre,
psychology, vice versa, sayanara) all other spellings of that word
are considered invalid.
Even if the pronunciation changes the spelling remains invariant.
2. Another strategy is that to prevent confusion, a new word should
be alway given a different spelling, even if it is less than accurate.
3. Another strategy in English, is that if there is no letter that
has the right pronunciation, pick a similar sounding letter and place
an h after it. An h is usually only pronounced at the beginning of
the word in English, and sometimes not even then. For instance (hour,
honor, heir, honest) so it makes a good flag for a non-standard
sounds.
4. After considering the remaining strategies, you would finally
write the words phonetically.
I believe that you, Bob, were taught a series of rationalizations
(not rules) that allow you to spell the majority of English words,
but really there is no reality behind these rules. They are just like
the "i before e after c rule. Conveniances, Mnemonics, Rules of
thumb. And as you can see with ng, are not applied consistently by
all Accent groups.
Another example. Do you believe the silent e at the end of a lot of
words was ever pronounced for English words. Maybe the idea was
borrowed from the French where it might apply for some of the their
words where the final letter is no longer always pronounced.
I think it is much more likely that the silent e is just an old
example of the English spelling stragegy described in point 2.
We should get rid of all that old baggage an get on with the task of
using Shavian.
Regards, Paul V.
_____________attached__________________________________
--- In shavian@..., Bob Schmertz <rschmertz@s...> wrote:
> Paige Gabhart incurred the wrath of Bob on Sep 26, by saying
>
> >
> >Ewout Stam wrote:
> >
> >> On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 19:18:43 -0000, paul vandenbrink
> >> <pvandenbrink@s...> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi Carl & Ethan
> >>> Thanks for responding, bye the way.
> >>> You bring up a number of new issues but I don't know if they
all
> >>> pertain to accent variation. Let me address them point by point.
> >>>
> >>> 1. Doubling in the words "English" and "Kangaroo".
> >>> The problem is not accent variation doubling. It is just that
the
> >>> diagraph "ng" for the Nasal sound "ng" doesn't work well if it
is
> >>> followed by another g sound in T.O. Original English Spelling
seems
> >>> to have refrained from representing 2 different sounds, by the
same
> >>> letter back to back. (i.e. kang-garoo, Ing-glish) Even tho it
is more
> >>> phonetic. Does any accent group say kAN-arM or iN-liS?
> >>>
> >>
> >Ewout:
> >
> >My accent group says iN-liS, and that pronunciation is listed in
my
> >Merriam-Webster collegiate dictionary (9th ed.) along with iN-
gliS, with
> >neither pronunciation considered preferred over the other. I find
it
> >interesting that I do not ever remember being aware that some
people say
> >"iN-gliS."
>
> The reverse is the case for me.
>
> I don't know if that is lack of attention on my part, or
> >that most people where I live pronounce the word as I do.
Apparently,
> >the same effect is in place with Paul since he wondered whether
anyone
> >pronounces the word without the extra "g." I would view a word
such as
> >"finger" as the exception to the standard TO rule that "N"
represents
> >one phoneme rather than "Ng"
> >
> >Do we know the earliest pronunciation of this word? Paul writes
as if
> >the "g" is doing double duty for two separate phonemes, but,
perhaps,
> >the "N" alone was the original pronunciation, and the
pronunciation with
> >a "g" sound following "N" was added by people who didn't realize
that
> >"g" in TO was part of the "N" phoneme.
>
> I believe I was taught that originally there was no "N" phoneme,
that
> there was merely an allophone of "n" before "g", and the "g"
eventually
> got dropped in some cases (esp. at the ends of words, it seems to
me).
> Singer is siNar because sing is siN, not siNg, and we don't add the
g
> sound back when adding a suffix like -er or -ing.
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Bob Schmertz
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