occurrences. They are the different source of languages, the case of borrowing, sound change, and general agreement by spe1lling reformers of English.
a. Different Source of Languages
English has somehow been accumulated from different sources of languages with distinct spelling and pronunciation. When there was a spelling
reform movement of English 1500-1650, this incident then affected English also in terms of its adaptation to refine the language. There was a will to ascertain of a
more standardized orthography, the effort for recognition, and the enrichment of the language. The other factors are the existences of printing press, the widespread
of education, the enlarged communication, and the self-consciousness of the language Baugh and Cable, 2002: 200-201. These factors triggered the
occurrences of deletion in English. That is, the extent of sound muting and letter silencing that happen in English.
At that moment, English made some adjustment in the orthography to make English become more standardized. In the view of fact that English had
been established from different source origin, there were some form which were retained or resisted and some form which were changed or adapted to be more
‘English’. There were also some pronunciations of foreign source languages that had affected the English pronunciation. In this way, they had become adopted into
English pronunciation. Compared to the orthography, the spelling might be preserved or it had been adjusted to the English pronunciation. This happening
was the phenomenon that occurred in the English language in the period of the so- called Renaissance. In this period, there were events of enrichment coinage,
addition, borrowing, reintroduction of meaning, new sources, adaptation sound
change, spelling change, as well as the rejected words. Here, these phenomena were the matters that affected the current English, including, the phenomenon of
deletion. In line with the previous arguments, the sources that form English now
include Old English, Latin, Greek, and French. In the case of borrowing, English also has some contact with different languages borrowed to become the loan
words these days. They are French, Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Portuguese, Polish, Danish, Dutch,
and the like. The examples can be noted in Table 17 below.
Table 17. Examples of Source of Languages on Stop Deletion in English
No
Source of Languages
Examples
1.
Old English
climb
from climban
fasten
from fæstnian
know
from cn
āwan
thegn
2.
French
campaign from
champaigne mignonette,
M~ from
mignonnet
Pagnol
pæn ˈj l ǁ - ˈjoʊl
—French [pa ˈnjɔl]
Sauvignon
ˈsəʊv iːn j n ǁ ˌsoʊv iːnˈjoʊn
— French [so vi nj
ɔ ]
3.
Latin autumn
from autumnus
oppugn from
oppugnare
psychology
from psychologia
knee from
genu
4.
Greek bdeilium
from bdellion
mnemonic from
mn ēmonikos
pneumonia
from pneum
ōn
pterodactyl from
Pterodactylus
5.
Italian bolognaise
from Bologna
Cagliari
ˌkæl i ˈ ːr i —Italian
[ˈkaʎ ʎa ɾi]
Cagliostro
ˌkæl i ˈ s trəʊ ǁ kæl ˈj ːs troʊ
—Italian [ka
ʎ ˈʎɔs tɾo]
6.
German
Arendt
ˈ ːr ənt —German
[ˈaːʁ ənt]
Darmstadt
ˈd ːm stæt ǁ ˈd ːrm-
—German [ˈdaʁm ʃtat]
pfennig from
pfenning Schmidt
7.
Russian Dneper
ˈniːp ə ˈdniːp- ǁ -ər-
r —Russian
[dʲnʲ pɾ]
Dniester
ˈniːst ə ˈdniːst- ǁ -ər-
—Russian [dʲnʲ stɾ]
Dnepropetrovsk
ˌnep rəʊ pe ˈtr fsk ǁ -roʊ pə
ˈtrɔːfsk —Russian [dʲnʲ
p ɾə pʲ ˈtɾɔfsk]
tzar from ts
ĭsarĭ
8.
Dutch
Rembrandt
ˈrem brænt —Dutch
[ˈr m br nt]
Scheldt
ʃelt skelt —Dutch
Schelde [ˈsx l də]
It can be seen from the table that the origins of the words are various languages. Then, they have some adjustments especially in terms of stop
deletion. The examples can be seen from the first list that is the Old English. The words climb, fasten, know, and thegn have more or less similar form in terms of
spelling. However, the words become shorter since the inflections are declined from the words cn
āwan, fæstnian, climban to become climb, fasten, and know.
Moreover, in terms of sound change, those words also undergo deletion together
with the words thegn to become the pronunciations that are observed nowadays.
Meanwhile, in the second list, it can be seen that French words of borrowing are also more or less similar to its origin. Nevertheless, in terms of spelling,
English makes some adjustment particularly at the end of the words. It can be noted especially on the first two words campaign and mignonette from its origin
champaigne and mignonnet. Then, in terms of pronunciation, the pronunciation
was also be adapted to make it more English. It can be observed from the last two words Pagnol and Sauvignon
that the English pronunciation are pæn ˈj l ǁ -ˈjoʊl and ˈsəʊv iːn j n ǁ ˌsoʊv iːnˈjoʊn. When they are compared to the French
pronunciation [pa ˈnjɔl] and [so vi njɔ ], it can be identified that the vowel sounds are different for the first word Pagnol. Nonetheless, the apparent distinction for
the second word Sauvignon is on the n sound at the end that is pronounced as it is written.
The third and fourth lists are from Latin and Greek. They have more or less the same characteristic that they are taken literally in the form of spelling. Instead,
in terms of pronunciation, the stops were deleted from the line as it is from English pronunciation that we hear at the present time. By this fact, it can be
noted that formerly, the sound was there as it is represented by the letter in the word. However, since those kinds of consonant clusters are violated the English
phonological rule, hence, the stops in the bolded letter like in the words autumn,
oppugn, psychology , knee, pterodactyl, pneumonia, mnemonic and bdeilium were
deleted afterward in the pronunciation. In the meantime, the last four instances of sources list 5, 6, 7, and 8 that
are Italian, German, Russian and Dutch have relatively similar characteristic. Explicitly, they are slightly different in terms of sounds that they have different
symbols compared to its phonetic transcription. They are some phonemes that do not exist in primary English i.e. subsidiary consonants such as
ʎ, ʁ, ɾ, andx. In terms of phonemic features, it can be stated that they are subsequently
cosimilar to l, r, and ʃ or sk in English. The phonemic features of them can
be seen in Table 18 below.
Table 18.
Distinctive Features of Consonants Counterpart in Table 17
Phonemes Distinctive Phonemic Features
voicing status place of
articulation manner of
articulation other features
ʎ [-voice]
[+palatal] [+approximant] [+lateral]
l [+voice]
[+alveolar] [+approximant] [+lateral]
ʁ [+voice]
[+uvular] [+approximant]
ɾ [+voice]
[dental], [+flap]
[+alveolar] r
[+voice] [+alveolar]
[+approximant] x
[-voice] [+velar]
[+fricative] ʃ
[-voice] [+palatal]
[+fricative] sk
combination of voiceless alveolar fricative with voiceless velar stop
Firstly, the phoneme ʎ has features of [-voice], [+palatal], [+lateral], and
[+approximant] while l has features of [+voice], [+alveolar], [lateral], and [+approximant]. In other words, they are different in terms of their voicing status
and place of articulation. Secondly, phonemes ʁ, ɾ, and r are similar in terms
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
