When it came to the spelling reform times, the so-called archaic and idiosyncratic spellings spread out in the printing press era and the orthography
became more permanent. There were many words became misspelt because most of the early printers were not English native speakers. By this situation, spelling
reformers spotted that there was a need for the uniformity of the spelling to reflect the pronunciation of the word. However, many scholars were relatively over
enthusiastic and eager to modify the spelling not only correspond with the pronunciation but also with their etymologies. Thus, by the reference of Classical
Greek and Latin, some of English words were made comparatively with these origins. For example, where Latin had a b, they added a b even if it was not
pronounced in the case of letter silencing. Systematically, these are the reasons and motives to what happen related to the pronunciation and the current spelling.
That is, the spelling of the letter is originally reflected the pronunciation of the sound in the past.
Thus, this thesis uses the ter m of “stop deletion in orthographical consonant
clusters ”. It denotes the occurrence of stop deletion as a part of the spelling
system dealing with orthography as represented in the consonant clusters of English words. Then, as the term of consonant cluster which is closely related to
the phonology, it tries to seek the phonological and historical assumption dealing with the sound manifestation in the spoken form.
12. Lexical Borrowing
Borrowing is one of the causes that create a gap between the written and the spoken form of English. It can be assumed as an essential part of sound changes
that occur to some English words nowadays. Fasold and Connor-Linton 2006:
294-295 assert that borrowing is one of the most significant sources of language change in dealing with the contact of the speakers of different languages. The
process of adopting elements from the other languages or dialects is the so-called linguistic borrowing. That is, it can be lexical items loan words, or it can be also
morphological and syntactic patterns that are borrowed. The element from another language is possibly borrowed because it is prestige or it fulfills a need or a gap in
the language borrowed. The lexical borrowing typically directs to change or adapt into the native linguistic rules, thus, the process is called adaptation. It can be in
terms of phonetic equivalents or phonological change. As in earlier English, there were no phonemes v, ð, z. However, after many of French words beginning with
v, z such as very, virtue, zenith, and zone borrowed into English, phonemes v, z then gradually became different from phonemes f, s. Likewise, from
Scandinavian word borrowing, there were loan words such as they, them, their, that m
ade phoneme ð become the contrast phoneme of English with θ. Here, the case of borrowing resulted in the additional contrastive phonemes in English.
Moreover, Campbell 2004: 62 offers a definition of borrowing as taking words from another language to make them a part of its own vocabulary. He
justifies that borrowing can be done in any linguistic material such as sounds, phonological rules, grammatical morphemes, syntactic patters, semantic
associations, discourse strategies or whatever that can be borrowed or taken over from the foreign language. In this sense, words are generally borrowed because of
three reasons. First is because of need. That is, it is done because it is a new item of concept from abroad so that it is invited into the borrowing language. Second is
because of prestige. That is, the foreign term for some reason is prestigiously
esteemed. It is usually called as luxury loans. For instance, English has borrowed words pork, beef, and cuisine instead of pig, cow, and food from French because
those words are considered more prestigious as English during the period of Norman French governance in England 1066-1300. The third case, though
uncommonly done, the case of borrowing is done because of the opposite of the second case. In this point, the borrowing is exhibited due to the negative
estimation or connotation of the words, that the adoption of the foreign words will be seen as insulting or disrespectful. The example are like the word assassin that
is ultimately taken from Arabic ħaʃʃāʃīn hashish-eater: the name of an eleventh-
century Muslim sect, the later sense of murderer for hire or for fanatical reasons and the word hostess from Korean h
ɔstis which has negative connotation as women who work at nightclubs and bare that serve male costumer.
Besides, English has extensive words of borrowing, especially from Scandinavian in OE and French in ME. Scandinavian influence English in
terms of place-names 75, nouns e.g. skill, skin, skirt, sky, adjectives e.g. awkward, flat, ill, weak
and common verbs e.g. bask, call, cast, cow, crawl, die, get, give, lift, take
. Meanwhile, French influence of English borrowing is in the form of vocabulary as well as pronunciation. It can be stated as the most
enormous borrowing of English words during the Middle Ages 85. It affects almost all categories of words including governmental and administrative words,
ecclesiastical religious words, army and navy, fashion, meals, social life, art, learning, and medicine Baugh and Cable, 2002: 97, 167.
In dealing with stop deletion, English has phonotactic constraint due to the language borrowed into English. Therefore, there are some adjustments to
accommodate this restriction in terms of dissimilarity of the language borrowed and the borrowing language. The first thing is to take the similar form of the
borrowing language if it is feasibly adequate. For example as in the word futon, English is straightforwardly stated as [fut
ɒn] just like the word spelling. However, for the second case, as in the borrowing words from Greek pneumonia and
psychology, since pn and ps clusters is prohibited, English at the moment only
preserved the original spelling but the p in the cluster is mute to become [nu
ˈmoʊni‿ə] and [saɪˈkɒlədʒi] Fasold and Connor-Linton, 2006: 43.
13. List of Symbols used in this Thesis
