ENGLISH PHONOLOGICAL AND GRAPHOLOGICAL SYSTEM

A. 'Levels' of Language

The Sounds/Letters Level:

Phonology (speech) and Graphology (writing)

Spoken language physically consists of distinctive speech sounds (phonemes)

strung together to make up words. Phonemes are sounds which distinguish one
word from another (e.g. /bet/ vs. /pet/ or /bit/) and linguists indicate phonemic
transcriptions of speech by enclosing the transcription in slash brackets (/). This
level of language is often called the phonemic or phonological level. Written
English does not have sounds (although we can to some degree 'hear' the
sounds behind the writing in our imagination). Instead it has a set of alphabetical
symbols which we conventionally associate with the (phonemes) of English,
sometimes in a one-to-one fashion, or sometimes in spelling combinations (for
example, the two-letter combination 'sh-' is used to represent one phoneme /S/,
as at the beginning of the word 'shin' (/Sin/). The written equivalent to the
phonemic or phonological level in speech is usually called graphology.

Let us look at a simple sentence to illustrate phonology and graphology:

1. Girls like cats.

In graphological terms, substituting the letter 'h' for the 'c' at the beginning of the
written word 'cats' above changes the spelling from; 'cats' to 'hats', and its spoken
equivalent would change from /kats/ to /hats/. In both cases, not only would the
sound or letter change, but also the whole word and so the meaning of the
sentence as a consequence:

2. Girls like hats.

At the end of the words 'cats' and 'hats' there is no graphological difference
between the spelling symbol and the phonemic transcription symbol used to
represent the sound. But it is not difficult to find differences, and this is not
surprising once you know that there are 26 letters in English but more than 50
phonemes. This explains why the alphabet needs to use combinations of letters
like 'sh-' to represent some sounds. Phonemic transcriptions, although they use
equivalent alphabetical letters where they can, have to resort to other symbols in
order to have a different transcription symbol for each phoneme. For example
'girls' has 5 letters but only 4 sounds /gÎùlz/, and although the plural at the end of
each word is indicated by the letter 's', the plural marker is pronounced as /z/ in
/gÎùlz/ and /s/ in /kats/.

Source:
https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/stylistics/topic1a/1linguisticlevels1.htm

B. THE 44 SOUNDS OF ENGLISH (Refer to PDF)

C. SYLLABLE STRUCTURE IN ENGLISH

Syllables and their parts

Words can be cut up into units called syllables. Humans seem to need syllables
as a way of segmenting the stream of speech and giving it a rhythm of strong
and weak beats, as we hear in music. Syllables don't serve any meaning-
signalling function in language; they exist only to make speech easier for the
brain to process. A word contains at least one syllable.
Most speakers of English have no trouble dividing a word up into its component
syllables. Sometimes how a particular word is divided might vary from one
individual to another, but a division is always easy and always possible. Here are
some words divided into their component syllables (a period is used to mark the
end of a syllable):
tomato = to.ma.to
window = win.dow
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: su.per.ca.li.fra.gi.lis.ti.cex.pi.a.li.do.cious (some
people might put some of the periods in different places in this word).
Syllables have internal structure: they can be divided into parts. The parts are
onset and rhyme; within the rhyme we find the nucleus and coda. Not all
syllables have all parts; the smallest possible syllable contains a nucleus only. A
syllable may or may not have an onset and a coda.
Onset: the beginning sounds of the syllable; the ones preceding the nucleus.
These are always consonants in English. The nucleus is a vowel in most cases,
although the consonants [ r ], [ l ], [ m ], [ n ], and the velar nasal (the 'ng' sound)
can also be the nucleus of a syllable. In the following words, the onset is in bold;
the rest underlined.
read
flop
strap
If a word contains more than one syllable, each syllable will have the usual
syllable parts:
win.dow

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to.ma.to
pre.pos.te.rous
fun.da.men.tal
Rhyme (or rime): the rest of the syllable, after the onset (the underlined portions
of the words above). The rhyme can also be divided up:
Rhyme = nucleus + coda
The nucleus, as the term suggests, is the core or essential part of a syllable. A
nucleus must be present in order for a syllable to be present. Syllable nuclei are
most often highly 'sonorant' or resonant sounds, that can be relatively loud and
carry a clear pitch level. In English and most other languages, most syllable
nuclei are vowels. In English, in certain cases, the liquids [ l r ] and nasals [ m n ]
and the velar nasal usually spelled 'ng' can also be syllable nuclei.

The syllable structure analysis of the words 'read', 'flop', 'strap' and 'window' are
as follows (IPA symbols are used to show the sounds in the word/syllable):
read = one syllable
Onset = [ r ]
Rhyme = [ id ] (within the rhyme:)
Nucleus = [ i ]
Coda = [ d ]
flop = one syllable
Onset = [ f l ]
Rhyme = [ a p ]
Nucleus = [ a ]
Coda = [ p ]
window = 2 syllables
First syllable: [wIn]
Onset = [ w ]
Rhyme = [ I n ]
Nucleus = [ I ]
Coda = [ n ]
Second syllable: [ d o ]
Onset = [ d ]
Rhyme = [ o ]
Nucleus = [ o ]
(This syllable has no coda)
Linguists often use tree diagrams to illustrate syllable structure. 'Flop', for
example, would look like this (the word appears in IPA symbols, not English
spelling). 's' = 'syllable'; 'O' = 'onset'; 'R' = 'rhyme'; 'N' = 'nucleus'; 'C' =
'coda'. (The tree may not come out well-aligned on your screen, because your
computer may show this page in a different font). The syllable node at the top of
the tree branches into Onset and Rhyme; the Onset node branches because it
contains two consonants, [ f ] and [ l ]. The Rhyme node branches because this
syllable has both a nucleus and a coda.

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 s
/ \
O R
/\ / \
| | NC
| | | |
[f l a p]

Liquids and nasals as syllable nuclei

The English liquids [ r l ] and the nasals [ m n ] can be the nuclei of syllables
under certain conditions. [ r ] can be a nucleus as easily as a vowel, in any
position: the words 'bird', 'word', 'her', 'fur', the first syllable of 'perceive' and
'surname' and the final syllables of 'mother', 'actor' (in casual pronunciation) all
have [ r ] as the nucleus; in other words, there is no vowel in the pronunciation of
these syllables, even though they have one in the spelling.
[ l ] and the nasals [ m n ] become syllable nuclei when they follow an alveolar
consonant in the last syllable of a word. This happens in the relaxed or casual
rather than very formal articulation of the word. Compare casual vs. formal
pronunciations of 'button', 'bottle', 'bottom'.
When one of these sounds is a syllable nucleus, this is shown in transcription by
putting a very short vertical line under the IPA symbol
[ r l m n ].
' ' ' '

(If the vertical lines don't line up under the symbols on your screen, it is due to
webpage transfer complications.)
A word with a syllabic [ r ] as nucleus is 'bird':

Summary of the elements of a phonological system

The phonological system of a language includes various units plus patterns
which are used to combine theunits into larger units. The units of a phonological
system are:
• features: aspects or characteristics of a speech sound that arise from the way
the sound is articulated or the way it sounds to the ear. 'Voicing' is a
feature that varies according to whether or not the vocal cords vibrate
during the articulation of a sound; the sound [ s ] is voiceless, but the
sound [ z ] is voiced, for example. Other features include 'manner', or what
sort of gesture or position is used to make a consonant sound (a 'stop'
involves blocking the airstream completely for a fraction of a second, as
for [ p ], while a 'fricative' involves creating a narrow opening through
which air escapes, as for [ f ]. There are also suprasegmental features,
which are 'overlaid' on syllables or words. One such feature is stress,

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 known outside linguistics as 'where the accent is in a word'. In 'potato', the
stress falls on the second syllable; in 'promise' on the first.
• segments: a segment is a speech sound such as [ m ] or [ i ]. Speech sounds
are made by putting several features together. [ m ], for example, is
created by vibrating the vocal cords (feature: voiced), closing the mouth at
the lips (feature: bilabial), and lowering the soft palate so that air can
escape through the nose (feature: nasal). These three gestures occur
simultaneously. The result is a voiced bilabial nasal,[ m ]. Thus, segments
are units that are built up from features; features are the building blocks
for segments.
• syllables: a syllable is a rhythmic unit of speech. Syllables exist to make the
speech stream easier for the human mind to process. A syllable
comprises one or more segments; segments are the building blocks for
syllables. Details on the syllable are found below.
• words: words are made of syllables.
The patterns or rule systems of a phonological system include:
• phonotactics, also known as sequence constraints. These are restrictions
on the number and type of segments that can combine to form syllables
and words; they vary greatly from one language to another. In English, for
example, a word may begin with up to three consonants, but no more than
three. If a word does begin with three consonants, the first will always be [
s ], the second must be chosen from among the voiceless stops [ p t k ]
and the third from among the liquids [ l r ] or glides [ w y ]. Thus we get
words such as 'squeeze' [ s k w i z ] in English, but not words such as [ p s
t a p ].
phonological processes, including coarticulation processes, are
modifications of the feature structure of a sound that occur for one of two
reasons: to make sounds that are near each other more alike, thus make
articulation easier (assimilation), or to make sounds more different from each
other (for instance, aspiration makes voiceless stops such as [ p ] and [ k ]
more different from voiced ones such as [ b ] and [ g ].

Source:http://w3.salemstate.edu/~jaske/courses/readings/Syllable_Structure_in_
English.htm

D. SOUND-LETTER RELATIONSHIPS

How Sounds and Words are Related in English

English has 44 phonemes and 26 graphemes

Consonant digraphs are letter combination for single sounds not represented by
a single letter
 Ch, th, ph, sh, wh
 Consonant blends
 Vowel digraphs

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  Two vowels that represent a single sound

Cueing Systems
•Pragmatic System:language variations according to social and cultural
issues”
Ex: code switching
Semantic System:meaning system that focuses on vocabulary”•
Phonological System: sounds that correspond to written symbols”•
Syntactic system:structures that govern how words are combined in
sentences.”
Direct instruction

Stages of Sight Word LearningSight Words

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Source: https://literacyeasyas123.weebly.com/sound-letter-relationship.html
E. SPELLING RULES

Spelling Rules

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Rule 1 C always softens to /s/ when followed by E, I, or Y.
Otherwise, C says /k/.

Rule 2 G may soften to /j/ only when followed by E, I, or Y.

Otherwise, G says /g/.

Rule 3 English words do not end in I, U, V, or J.

Rule 4 A E O U usually say their names at the end of a syllable.

Rule 5 I and Y may say /ĭ/ or /ī/ at the end of a syllable.

Rule 6 When a one-syllable word ends in a single vowel Y, it says /ī/.

Rule 7 Where I and Y may say long /ē/.

7.1 Y says long /ē/ only in an unstressed syllable at the end of a

multi-syllable word.

7.2 I may say /ē/ with a silent final E, at the end of a syllable, and at
the end of foreign words.

Rule 8 I and O may say /ī/ and /ō/ when followed by two consonants.

Rule 9 AY usually spells the sound /ā/ at the end of a base word.

Rule 10 When a word ends with the phonogram A, it says /ä/.

A may also say /ä/ after a W or before an L.

Rule 11 Q always needs a U; therefore, U is not a vowel here.

Rule 12 Silent Final E Rules

12.1 The vowel says its name because of the E.

12.2 English words do not end in V or U.

12.3 The C says /s/ and the G says /j/ because of the E.

12.4 Every syllable must have a written vowel.

12.5 Add an E to keep singular words that end in the letter S from
looking plural.

12.6 Add an E to make the word look bigger.

12.7 TH says its voiced sound /TH/ because of the E.

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 12.8 Add an E to clarify meaning.

12.9 Unseen reason.

Rule 13 Drop the silent final E when adding a vowel suffix only if it is
allowed by other spelling rules.

Rule 14 Double the last consonant when adding a vowel suffix to words
ending in one vowel followed by one consonant only if the
syllable before the suffix is stressed.*
*This is always true for one-syllable words.

Rule 15 Single vowel Y changes to I when adding any ending, unless the
ending begins with I.

Rule 16 Two I’s cannot be next to one another in English words.

Rule 17 TI, CI, and SI are used only at the beginning of any syllable after
the first one.

Rule 18 SH spells /sh/ at the beginning of a base word and at the end of
the syllable. SH never spells /sh/ at the beginning of any syllable
after the first one, except for the ending -ship.

Rule 19 To make a verb past tense, add the ending -ED unless it is an
irregular verb.

Rule 20 -ED, past tense ending, forms another syllable when the base
word ends in /d/ or /t/.
Otherwise, -ED says /d/ or /t/.

Rule 21 To make a noun plural, add the ending -S, unless the word
hisses or changes; then add -ES.
Occasional nouns have no change or an irregular spelling.

Rule 22 To make a verb 3rd person singular, add the ending -S, unless
the word hisses or changes; then add -ES. Only four verbs are
irregular.

Rule 23 Al- is a prefix written with one L when preceding another syllable.

Rule 24 -Ful is a suffix written with one L when added to another syllable.

Rule 25 DGE is used only after a single vowel which says its short (first)
sound.

Rule 26 CK is used only after a single vowel which says its short (first)
sound.

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 Rule 27 TCH is used only after a single vowel which does not say its
name.

Rule 28 AUGH, EIGH, IGH, OUGH. Phonograms ending in GH are used

only at the end of a base word or before the letter T.
The GH is either silent or pronounced /f/.

Rule 29 Z, never S, spells /z/ at the beginning of a base word.

Rule 30 We often double F, L, and S after a single vowel at the end of a

base word. Occasionally other letters also are doubled.

Rule 31 Schwa Rules

31.1 Any vowel may say one of the schwa sounds, /ŭ/ or /ĭ/, in an
unstressed syllable or unstressed word.

31.2 O may also say /ŭ/ in a stressed syllable next to W, TH, M, N, or

V.

31.3 AR and OR may say their schwa sound, /er/, in an unstressed

syllable.
Source: https://www.logicofenglish.com/resources/spelling-rules

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