English spelling has a very interesting regularity: there exists a minimum word length for lexical words. Words of this class have to be at least three letters long, even if they consist of only two phonemes and could be spelled with two letters (e.g., ebb/*eb, egg/*eg). This regularity does not… read more
In alphabetic writing systems, the most consistent correspondences hold between written and spoken segments. Although English spelling uses the Roman alphabet and is thus largely phonographic, it also encodes non-phonological distinctions such as those among homophonic words (e.g., pair, pare,… read more
In Modern Low German, there are signs for a newly emerging dative case
under Standard German influence. The present paper analyzes this case of
potential convergence, concentrating on definite articles of neuter gender.
Methodologically, a new corpus of spontaneous speech is used, alongside… read more
Morphologically motivated spellings in English are usually thought to be restricted to cases like 〈electric – electrician – electricity〉, where the stem final letter 〈c〉 is kept constant in spelling although the corresponding phoneme varies in spoken language. However, there are many more – and… read more
It is a matter of debate how far the description of a writing system should be based on the units and categories of the respective spoken language. The present paper pursues the idea of relative autonomy: accordingly, writing systems should be based on as little phonological information as… read more
Minuscules of the Roman alphabet can be subcategorized into graphemes with length (for example 〈b〉) and graphemes without length (for example 〈o〉). While plosives, which correspond to graphemes with length, occur at the syllable edge, vowels, corresponding to graphemes without length, constitute… read more