SELF-ORGANIZATION IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH SUFFIXES: THE EMERGENCE OF CULTURE OUT OF ANARCHY
SELF-ORGANIZATION IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH SUFFIXES: THE EMERGENCE OF CULTURE OUT OF ANARCHY
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DOI：
10.1353/lan.2017.0000
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发表时间：
2017-03-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
Aronoff, Mark
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Berg, Kristian;Aronoff, Mark
英语的拼写是非语音的：同样的声音可以用不同的方式拼写，而且往往是特殊的方式。它也是无政府的：没有权威指导它的发展。然而，它并不像人们可能得出的结论那样武断。通过对四个派生词缀的拼法考察，我们发现英语词缀的拼法是相当一致的。形态简单的单词的同音词尾拼写不同，保持后缀拼写不同（参见。例如vs. /*）。因此，英语拼写为读者提供了形态线索。历时，我们表明，这个系统的出现没有明确的规定，但作为自组织的结果。我们使用赫尔辛基语料库来展示每个后缀的变化是如何逐渐减少的。今天的常规拼写逐渐出现，通过一个排序的过程中的竞争替代拼写。
English spelling is unphonetic: the same sounds can be spelled in various and often idiosyncratic ways. It is also ungoverned: there is no authority guiding its development. However, it is not as arbitrary as one might conclude. Investigating the spelling of four derivational suffixes, we show that the spelling of English suffixes is quite consistent. Homophonous endings of morphologically simple words are spelled differently, keeping the suffix spelling distinct (cf. e.g. vs. /*). English spelling thus provides morphological cues for the reader. Diachronically, we show that this system emerged without explicit regulation, but as a result of self-organization. We use the Helsinki corpus to show how variation was gradually reduced for each of the suffixes. The regular spellings of today emerged gradually, through a sorting-out process of competition between alternate spellings.