of voicing status. However, ʁ and r are distinctive in terms of place of
articulation while ɾ and r are distinctive in terms of manner of articulation.
Thirdly, x and ʃ are similar in features of voicing status and manner of
articulation. Nevertheless, they are different in terms of place of articulation. Alternatively,
ʃ and sk also can be argued to be more or less similar in terms of its features that sk is initiated by s as it also has features of [-voice] and
[+fricative]. To be more precise, these phonemes from other language sources are altered into English phonemes like
ʎ in Cagliari and Cagliostro Italian to become l in English,
ʁ and ɾ in Arendt, Darmstadt German, Dneper, Dienster
and Dnepropetrovsk Russian to become r in English pronunciation and x in Scheldt Dutch to become
ʃ or sk in English pronunciation. In referring to the phenomenon of deletion itself, the stop is simply deleted as in the
words bdeilium, mnemonic, oppugn Greek, tzar Russian, and Rembrandt
Dutch.
b. Word Borrowing
Furthermore, it can be recognized from this evidence that many of English words are derived from other languages lexical borrowing. In this sense, word
borrowing can be simply stated as copying words from the other languages that is done by the speakers Trask, 1994: 9-10. It is basically done because it is a novel
word that is unfamiliar or unknown before. Since the language does not have the word with similar meaning, the intended word is invented into the current
language. The example is in the word tsunami where the language is taken from Japanese. However, there is also another reason why the language is borrowed.
The instance is in the word autumn where in English, it has a similar meaning to
the word fall. Nonetheless, since French language at that time is seen as more prestigious, hence, the word autumn is as well invented into English.
Furthermore, Campbell 2004: 62 also defines the word borrowing as taking a word from other language to make them as the part of its own
vocabulary. For this part, borrowing has been done for the need as a new item or a new concept that is invited into the borrowing language. It can be in terms of
sounds, phonological rules, grammatical morphemes, syntactic patterns, semantic strategies, or whatever that can be made use of the foreign language. Then, it is
also done for the prestige, or in other words, to make the language become more prestigious. This term refers to the prestigious esteem as in the occurrence of
English that borrowed words like pork, beef, and cuisine from French since those words are considered more prestigious than the word pig, cow, and food
Campbell, 2004: 62. From this observation, the phenomenon of deletion has a contribution in terms of sounds, phonological rules, and orthography. As can be
seen from the above table, the adaptations are made in terms of pronunciation as well as the spellings to make it sound or spell more English.
These different sources bring the effect to the English language in the part of vocabulary, spellings, and pronunciation. Essentially, English spelling
nowadays is shaped from English spoken in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries in the past Blake, 1996: 203. This event makes English
nowadays has so varied sounds for one letter and distinctive letters to represent one sound. It can be justified that English is not consistent in terms of its relation
from spelling to pronunciation. This case is closely related to the occurrence of
spelling reform. Accordingly, it is the proposal made by certain group to reform spelling to be more standardized.
Accordingly, they were actually two arguments. The first argument was from the so-
called ‘former group’ who wanted to standardize spellings by maintaining the old spelling in accordance with its etymology. The second
a rgument was from the ‘later group’ who had preference to reform spellings in
line with its pronunciation Blake, 1996: 204. However, this second argument was not simply accepted since it would throw out the aspect of orthography that
was quite intolerable at that time. As a result, many words borrowed from French
were given a Latin attribute. The examples were b that was inserted in debt and doubt
, as well as the c in victuals. It also gave an impact on pronunciation by
the case of Latinization of the words admonish rather than amonest and adultery rather than avoutrie. The other examples were in the words which were assumed
to be derived from Greek that was adapted by giving the h from trone and teatre
to become throne and theatre. By this fact, it can be noticed that English has been through a very long process to become the language that is spoken,
written, read, and observed nowadays. In closer examination, the occurrence of deletion at least can be argued for
the above reasons. That is, t his occasion is the impact of the English ‘chaos’ in the
past which then affect the language in the form of spoken and written. There were some words in which the spellings were modified but the pronunciations were
retained, or the spellings were retained but the pronunciations were changed. In terms of sound changes, English got a big impact because of its irregularities on
the orthography graphemes and the pronunciation phonemes. The indication
for this study can be seen in the case of letter silencing Fromkin, Blair, and Collins, 2000: 504. That is, the letters which ones in the spelling but are not
always pronounced. The examples are observed in the words such as listen, debt, gnome, know, psychology, mnemonic, bomb,
and pneumonia.
Thus, there were also cases where the spelling and the pronunciation just remained as they were adopted from the origin. In this sense, it can be argued that
there were some words that undertake deletion, and some other which were not. For example, we might suspect that the words such as fumbler and slumber as
silent b, the words istle, listen, and pintle as silent t, or the words Knesset,
Knieval, knives,
and Knopf as silent k but in fact they are not. In this case, the b,
t, and k remain pronounced.
c. Sound Change
