MARKING DEVICES IN THE SPELLING OF ENGLISH

A way of viewing alphabetic orthographies is proposed, according to which almost everything other than the basic principle of one-phoneme-one-letter comes under the umbrella concept of 'marking devices'. For clarity of presentation, and for comparative purposes, the limited range of such devices existing in the Spanish orthography are outlined, after which the much wider range of those existing in the English system are examined. Apart from devices common to the two languages, the many uses of silent and consonant gemination are concentrated on. Further sections deal with digraph spellings of tense vowels, spellings reflecting underlying forms, and unmarked and marked pronunciations. It is suggested that the concept of marking, in the rather wide sense used, may facilitate an understanding of the real nature of the English orthography.