American English Spelling

An Informal Description

By: D. W. Cummings

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Hardcover | 14 July 1988

At a Glance

Hardcover
592 Pages

Age
22+

Dimensions(cm)
22.9 x 15.2 x 4.45

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In this study of the English language as it is spelled in America, D. W. Cummings demonstrates that behind the apparent disorder of spelling in American English lies a self-regulating and self-reorganizing system that is responsive to four kinds of imperative: phonetic, semantic, etymological, and systemic. Cummings offers a systematic theory of orthography and applies this theory to the American English vocabulary with numerous examples. Cummings also describes the explication of written words into their elements, particles, and processes, and he sets out the tactical and procedural rules that control the distribution and sequencing of vowels and consonants. In the largest section of the book, he provides an exhaustive description of the major and minor correspondences between the sounds of American English words and their spellings. An essential reference work, American English Spelling moves beyond questions of how words are spelled to an understanding of why they are spelled as they are.

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"Until now we have had no work like this. In prose that is a pleasure to read, Cummings reveals order in a seemingly chaotic domain, an accomplishment that is surely the essence of humanistic and scientific scholarship."--Charles Read

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Preface
Notes on Usage
Analysis	p. 1
Spelling as System	p. 3
The Explication of Written Words	p. 32
Tactics	p. 67
Sequences and Distributions	p. 69
String Patterns and Rules	p. 90
Suffix Rules	p. 112
VCV in Dissyllables	p. 123
The Third Syllable Rule	p. 131
Procedures	p. 143
Silent Final e and Its Deletion Rule	p. 145
The Twinning Rule	p. 161
Assimilated Prefixes	p. 177
Correspondences	p. 199
The Sounds and Letters of English	p. 201
Short a, /a/	p. 213
Short e, /e/	p. 217
Short i, /i/	p. 222
The Short o's, /a/ and /o/	p. 231
High Short u, /u/	p. 241
Low Short u, /u/	p. 244
Long a, /a/	p. 249
Long e, /e/	p. 258
Long i, /i/	p. 271
Long, o, /o/	p. 280
The Simple Long u, /u/	p. 288
The Complex Long u, /yu/	p. 297
The Diphthongs, /oi/ and /au/	p. 301
Vovels before /r/	p. 307
The Front Stops: /b/, /p/, /d/, and /t/	p. 327
The Velar Stops, /g/ and /k/	p. 350
The Simple Fricatives /v/, /f/, /th/, /th/, and /h/	p. 373
The Simple Fricatives /z/ and /s/	p. 391
The Palatal Sibilants : /sh/, /ch/, /j/, and /zh/	p. 407
The Nasals: /m/, /n/, and /n/	p. 423
The Liquids, /l/ and /r/	p. 439
The Semivowels, and /w/ and /y/	p. 456
Conclusion	p. 461
Bibliography	p. 465
Index of Words	p. 475
General Index	p. 539
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

American English Spelling

An Informal Description

At a Glance

Hardcover

Industry Reviews

Shipping

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