LING477 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Phlegm, Diphthong, Phonics
16 Dec 2018
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Document Summary
The written word in english is often a poor guide to pronunciation, and pronunciation is sometimes very little help with spelling. Some problems stem from that in the very beginning our alphabet was not entirely suited for english. Other spelling irregularities stem from the fact that the pronunciation of english changed over time. A third source of irregularity is from a large number of borrowings from other languages. Borrowed words like machine (spelled like masheen if it wasn"t borrowed from french), spaghetti and phlegm still retain spelling features from their original languages. Most consonant sounds have a fairly consistent spelling. Sound [b] is spelled as or Although some consonant sounds have different spellings depending on whether they are at the beginning or the end of word. Ex: the sound [k] is spelled or at the beginning of a word (cake, kite) but as or at the end (back, bake)
