Spelling in Finnish: the case of the double consonant

Because of its regularity, it is relatively easy to learn to read and spell in Finnish. However, a specific hurdle in spelling acquisition seems to be the doubling of consonant letters. In this study on consonant letter doubling spelling in Finnish children (91 Grade 1 and 191 Grade 2 children), we asked two questions. First, are items with double consonant letters (e.g., “kissa” [ˈkisːɑ] ‘cat’) indeed harder to spell than single consonant items (e.g., “kisa” [ˈkisɑ] ‘contest’)? Second, is consonant doubling harder for stop consonants (e.g., “takki” [ˈtɑkːi] ‘coat’) than for continuant consonants (e.g., “kissa” [ˈkisːɑ] ‘cat’)? We found that Finnish children made more errors on items with double consonant letters than on items with single consonant letters and that this effect was larger for stop than for continuant consonant letters. Exploratory analyses showed that these effects were stronger for younger and poorer spellers. Post hoc analyses of the errors made on double consonant items showed that the children predominantly made nonlexical errors (> 90%). When they did make a lexical error, these errors typically did not map on the type of errors that would be expected from a corpus analysis of the higher-frequency orthographic neighbors. Overall, lexical influences on spelling of Finnish children seem to be minimal and unpredictable. We discuss two potential reasons why it is more difficult to spell items with double consonant letters than with single consonant letters and suggest how these could be investigated in future research.

Menafsir Ulang Makna בּ֣וֹרְאֶ֔יךָ dalam Pengkotbah 12:1

Biblical Hebrew actually composed with the consonant letter only. To get the original sound of Hebrew Bible, the Bible Editor use Nikud. This is cause one word with the same consonant in Hebrew can have many letters, sounds, and different meaning. This causes new problems in the translation and interpretation of the Bible, especially in finding the original meaning of the author of the Bible. Even so, the process of translating and interpreting the Bible can be approached in another way, namely by looking at the original context (sitz im leben) of the first reader or recipient of the original message (milieu). This phenomenon also occurs in Qohelet's writing which is the study of this paper. The word בּ֣וֹרְאֶ֔יךָ in the text of Ecclesiastes 12: 1 has the root בר which can have a variety of meanings when it is added to Nikud. While the time span from 3-2 BC century BC to the writing of Qohelet is quite far and errors in the gift of Nikud may lead to different interpretations. For this reason, a form criticism and cultural semiotics approach needs to be done to bridge this. This article is about Qohelet with the paradigm of human development that he aimed at young Jewish people at that time. Created with the approach of Cultural Semiotics and Form Criticism in the Old Testament with various book references as research aids. Bahasa Ibrani Alkitab umumnya terdiri dari huruf-huruf konsonan saja. Untuk memperoleh bunyi yang sesuai dengan aslinya, tulisan Bahasa Ibrani dibantu dengan Nikud. Hal ini menyebabkan satu kata dengan konsonan yang sama dalam Bahasa Ibrani dapat memiliki berbagai tulisan, bunyi dan menghasilkan berbagai arti yang berbeda. Hal ini menyebabkan persoalan baru dalam proses penterjemahan dan penafsiran Alkitab terutama untuk dapat menemukan makna asli dari si pengarang Alkitab. Pun demikian, proses penterjemahan dan penafsiran Alkitab ini dapat didekati dengan cara lain yaitu dengan melihat konteks asli (sitz im leben) dari pembaca pertama atau penerima pesan aslinya (milieu). Fenomena ini juga yang terjadi dalam tulisan Qohelet yang menjadi kajian dari tulisan ini. Kata בּ֣וֹרְאֶ֔יךָ dalam teks Pengkhotbah 12:1 memiliki kata dasar בר dapat menimbulkan beragam arti jika sudah ditambahi dengan Nikud. Sementara rentang waktu dari abad ke 3-2 SM masa penulisan Qohelet cukup jauh dan kesalahan dalam pemberian Nikud bisa saja menimbulkan penafsiran yang berbeda. Untuk itu, pendekatan Kritik Bentuk dan Semiotik budaya perlu dilakukan untuk menjembatani hal ini. Artikel ini adalah tentang Qohelet dengan paradigma pembangunan manusia yang ia tujukan kepada anak-anak muda Yahudi masa itu. Dibuat dengan pendekatan Semiotik Budaya dan Kritik Bentuk dalam Perjanjian Lama dengan berbagai referensi buku sebagai alat bantu penelitian.

Dots and Acute Accent Shapes in the Dobrejšo Gospel

This paper examines the distribution of three types of sporadic and infrequent diacritics in the Dobrejšo Gospel and their functions: a dot or acute-accent shape over a liquid consonant letter in OCS trъt/trьt formations, and, more rarely, over other consonant letters in clusters; a single or multiple acute-accent shape over the letter л or н in certain words; and a titlo over unabbreviated words containing OCS trъt/trьt formations.

Gemination Strategies in L1 and English Pronunciation of Polish Learners

Polish is a language where true geminates appear and the occurrence of a double consonant letter in spelling corresponds with double or at least prolonged consonant articulation regardless of the morphological structure of the word. The above principle also concerns most borrowings, such as the English word ‘hobby’, for instance. In English, true geminates do not occur and a morpheme-internal double consonant letter is only a fairly reliable indication of the way the preceding vowel should be pronounced. This discrepancy may lead to negative transfer in Polish learners of English. Our recent research of native Polish speech (Rojczyk and Porzuczek, in press) generally confirmed the results reported by Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996), among others, who found geminates to be 1.5-3 times longer than singletons. In our study we investigate the influence of double consonant letters on L1 and English pronunciation of Polish learners. They read trochaic family names containing intervocalic <nn>. Each name is preceded by a first name suggesting the nationality (Polish, English, German or Italian) of the person mentioned. By placing each tested item in a Polish and an English semantically and rhythmically equivalent sentences (This is .../To jest...), we measure the level of consonant length variation with respect to the language in which the potential geminates appear, the language context and the learning experience of the students. In this way we collect evidence and formulate observations concerning the learners’ awareness of the status of geminates in various languages and the probability of transfer in EFL learning.

Hemodynamic Response in a Geographical Word Naming Verbal Fluency Test

Functional hemodynamic response was studied in a new Verbal Fluency Task (VFT) that demanded the production of geographical words while fMRI data was obtained. Participants completed 7 trials with a total duration of 2 min. 20 s. Four simple arithmetic subtraction trials were alternated with 3 geographical naming trials. Each trial had a duration of 20 s. Brain activity was contrasted between both conditions and significant differences (p < .05, Family Wise Error correction) were observed in the prefrontal medial gyrus, typically associated with word retrieval and phonological awareness, and in the parahippocampal gyrus, posterior cingulate cortex and lingual gyrus, areas related to spatial cognition. These results indicate that geographic VFT could be incorporated into a browser of cognitive processes using VFT considering its specific relationship with spatial cognition. Further investigations are proposed, taking special interest in the gender variable and eliminating phonological restrictions, because the evoked Argentinean cities and towns ended in a consonant letter.

Zwischen Silbengelenk- und Quantitätsmarkierung – der Doppelkonsonantenbuchstabe im Deutschen / Between ambisyllabic and quantity marking – the double consonant letter in German

The layman transcribes his dialect-texts in accordance with the conventions of the spelling. The article argues that he follows these inherent rules, partly unconsciously. Therefore his dialect-writing can prove the rules of two identical letters after a stressed vowel. In the german linguistics there is a discussion, if the rules are better founded by syllabic or quantitative regularities. The empiric result is that the layman's writing is better to be explained by the quantitative hypothesis. It is argued that there is a change of rules during the last centuries: in the 16th and 17th century the rules were syllabicly based; by the influence of the morphemic principle there came a turn to a quantitative basis in the 18th century (evidently by the graphemic integration of loanwords). It may be possible that the rules turn back to the syllabic basis in the 21th century because of the increasing stock of english loanwords like english “job -jobbing” to german “Job -jobben”.

The role of letter names in children's learning of phoneme–grapheme relations

ABSTRACTThree studies were performed to explore the role of letter names in children's learning of correspondences between phonemes and graphemes. Some preschoolers and kindergartners were found to spell initial /w/ as y. They made this error because the name of y, /wai/, begins with /w/. Kindergartners in another study often said that y makes the sound /wdoubt/, even after they had been taught otherwise. Other results suggested that children benefit from letter-name knowledge to spell phonemes such as /b/, which occur at the beginning of a consonant-vowel letter name. Letter-name knowledge is less helpful for phonemes such as /1/, which occur at the end of a vowel-consonant letter name. Our findings suggest that children use their knowledge of letter names and their phonological segmentation skills when they learn the correspondences between phonemes and graphemes. They do not memorize these links in a rote, paired-associate manner.