False etymology

In the XV-th — XVI-th centuries the English orthogra­phy became even more inconsistent because of the attempts of some not very competent philologists to improve orthog-

27

raphy by introducing etymological spellings. Very often these etymological studies resulted in false etymology. For example, “island” from O.E. “ land” was written and should be written without — <s>.However, the philologists of the Renaissance thought that this word was related to Latin “insula” and in­troduced <s> into its spelling.

Similarly, M.E.O.F. “1angage” became N.E. “language” under the influence of Latin “lingua”.

Numerous irregularities and inconsistencies of the English or­thography, which can be understood only if we know something about the history of the language, create almost insurmountable difficulties for people trying to learn how to spell English words correctly.

This unfavourable situation brought about quite a number of spelling reforms (now there exist about 2000 projects). Out of those 2000 projects we have singled out the four most widely known ones.

Among them Sir Isaac Pitman’s simplified spelling should be pointed out. The fact is that Pitman was very much concerned about the difficulties which English spelling presented to children as well as to foreigners. He devised an alphabet which remained based on Latin letters but was the result of an elaborate phonetic analysis of English.

It is interesting to mention that his grandson, Sir I.Y. Pitman devised the I.T.A. (the Initial Teaching Alphabet) the main pur­pose of which was to provide a kind of phonetic alphabet which would make it easier for children to write and read in English. For example:

Ie hav just cum from a scml whxr the nue reedirjiz taut. Ie met thxr a littl girl ov siks. That littl girl ov siks haz just red tm mee very buetifmlly Wurdzwurth’s Daffodilz.

The second project is by Dr. Mont Follick (teacher and politi­cian) who was concerned about difficulties of spelling and low educational level of his fellow citizens. He wrote a book “The Case for Spelling Reform. To the schoolchildren of Britain — a consistent alphabet. To the nations of the World — an interna­tional language”. In 1949 he even tried to introduce to the British Parliament a bill that was to enforce rational spelling by law. But

28

this bill was defeated. Here is an example of Dr. Mont Follick’s project:

dhis point wil bie aprieshieited huen dhis fuutnout is studid az an egzampl ov dhu greit daivurjens from dhu normal apierans huitsh dhis IPA alf abet introdiusez.

The Simplified Spelling society was founded in 1908 and is still in existence. Here is an example of a new spelling, suggested by it: Objekshonz to a Chaenj in dhe Prezent Speling.

We instinktivly shrink from eny chaenj in whot iz familyar; and whot kan be mor familyar dhan dhe form ov wurdz dhat we hav seen and riten mor tiemz dhan we kan posibly estimaet?

Prof. Axel Wijk (Stockholm University), in contrast with the three previous projects, held that only the irregular spell­ings should be discarded and replaced by regular ones. In his project, the spelling of 90 per cent of the vocabulary is re­tained. This is an example of Regularized Inglish /suggested by A. Wijk/:

Hamlet. Act III, Scene 1.

To be, or not to be: that iz the question: Whedher ’tiz nobler in the minde to suffer The slings and arroes ov outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea ov trubbles, And by oppozing end them? To die, to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The hart-ake and the thouzand natural shocks That flesh iz eir to, ’tiz a consummation Devoutly to be wisht.

In connection with the above examples the following ques­tions may well be asked: What is there that prevents the English orthography from being reformed? Why is it absolutely impossible to change the existing orthography altogether?

The English orthography is at present firmly established. In spite of all the projects, it still remains the basis of the written form of speech. With all its shortcomings, inconsistencies, irregu­larities it continues to be the common code wherever English is used as a literary language.

29

Moreover, in the course of time the spelling of English words in a very considerable number of cases has become ideographic: their orthographic form has acquired the status of ideograms. That is to say, the spelling of each word is apprehended as a whole, it is not divisible into separate letters.²⁰

It could be added that orthographies in general reflect the ac­cumulated historical, cultural, traditional and etymological facts, which would vanish if any of the rational modern writing systems were adopted.

Chapter 4.

SYSTEMS OF TRANSCRIPTION

In the preceding chapter the four main projects of orthograph­ic reform were explained and exemplified. We are now turning to ’transcription’, i.e. various attempts to explain the pronunciation of English words ’over the head’ of the orthography, to bypass the investigation, study and teaching of the objectively existing orthographic system by substituting for it an agglomerate of ar­bitrarily chosen or devised symbols.

It should be pointed out from the very outset that when we turn to the study of different systems of transcription we should be able to distinguish, first and foremost, between the so-called “Broad” phonetic transcription and the so-called “Narrow” one. Various modifications of the latter (serving to reflect the fin­est shades of sound) may be found in the works by A.J. Ellis, H. Sweet, A.M. Bell.²¹ However, those systems are so complicated that they have never been used by language teachers for the sim­ple reason that the learner of the language would be required to acquaint him/herself with a very ingenious sign system in addi­tion to the alphabet of the target language.

Therefore, here we are going to discuss mainly the Broad Pho­netic Transcription, which in its original form was devised by the members of the International Phonetic Association.²² Although at the time (1886) the concept of phonemes as distinct from sounds,

30

generally, had not been formulated or explained, the principle on which the whole system was based was a strictly phonological one: one letter, or one single symbol per phoneme, including all its allophones.

Thus, the so-called Broad Phonetic Transcription is an inven­tory of the phonemes of the language. In modern terminology it can only be described as an attempt at a ’phonological’ transcrip­tion. For example, [k] stands for the strong velar plosive, [Г] for the strong post-alveolar fricative, [6] for the weak dental fricative and so on.

Unfortunately, the Broad Transcription, which at one time tended to symbolize the actual pronunciation of English, has now become a kind of compromise orthography. As time went on, it has increasingly lagged behind the actual pronunciation of words. For instance, words like “power”, “tower”, “flow­er”, “our”, “shower” are still transcribed as [pauэ], [taua], etc. The learner of English is thus led to believe that what we actually hear in words of this kind is a combination of the narrowing diphthong [au] and the neutral vowel [э]. Actually in these words we hear a special kind of centering diph­thong [a:э].²³

We should specially emphasize here that it is absolutely unnecessary to turn to the Broad Phonetic Transcription (or re-spelling) if we know the rules of reading.²⁴ Quite often it may even be harmful. Thus, for example, it is a well-known fact, that Russian students of English are very often misled by respelling when they try to pronounce such transcribed words as: [hsend], [ha:d], [jet], [jes]. More often than not they sub­stitute the English glottal fricative [h] which is (as we know already) an extremely weak breathing out of air by Russian [x], whereas the English mediolingual resonant [j] in the words [jet], [jes] is invariably substituted by the Russian frica­tive [й].

The so-called “Broad Phonetic Transcription” could be de­scribed as a kind of “improved orthography”, primarily because of the underlying logical principle — one symbol per phoneme. It could even be regarded as one of the many projects of a more rational variant of the English orthography.

31

It should also be noted that the ’phonological’ transcription which has been discussed above, in the course of the hundred years which elapsed since its original creation has been widely modified. Thus, for instance, for vowel No. 6 we find now at least three different symbols: [o], [o] and [cd]; for vowel No. 11 — [э:] and [e:].

However, none of those innovations is in any way an improve­ment, if what we are aiming at is the phonetics of the sound, the way the sound in question is actually pronounced. If what we are aiming at is a phonetic transcription proper, then all improvements and innovations should be directed at finding a way of actually explaining the pronunciation of this or that sound in this or that context. All these new symbols do not change the existing tran­scription in any way that can promote the study of English speech. It is merely substituting or suggesting more symbols for something that is comprehended only on the phonological basis, because all these new symbols do not take us one step forward in the sense of really explaining the actual pronunciation of sounds.

Besides, the innovations, or variant symbols are usually in­troduced more or less one by one, without due regard for the systemic character of all imaginable writing systems, be it nota­tions, transcriptions or orthographies. Whatever the innovations, they can be accepted only if the systemic character of all the systems of the diacritical level is taken into consideration, only if they are based on a very carefully devised system. And that was the good thing about the original International Broad Phonetic Transcription proposed a hundred years ago, because the great phoneticians and linguists like Otto Jespersen or Henry Sweet could never have dreamt of introducing symbols or making im­provements ’piecemeal’, as it were.

So, the Broad Phonetic Transcription remains a system of notation which can be used if the aim of the speechologist is to extract the particular phonological system from a stretch of natural human speech. In other words, there are situations in our everyday work when this notation is very important and even indispensable: for example, when pointing out the difference be­tween a sound and a phoneme, or when explaining to the students what phonemes a word consists of.

32

Chapter 5.

MODERN ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY

AS A SYSTEM

Before we turn to the main subject of the present chapter, it is necessary to remind the reader of one of the projects of the spelling reforms we have discussed above.

We would like to remind you of Professor Wijk’s project, be­cause it is closely connected with what follows. That last project of spelling reform was probably the only truly scientific one. Prof. Wijk knew his subject well enough and was sufficiently educated and inspired to understand the difference between those spellings which were quite unique and extremely difficult to remember, on the one hand, and those spellings that at the present stage of the development of the English language are rational, on the other. In other words, he distinguished quite clearly between irregular and regular spellings.

As Prof. Wijk himself puts it, “the chief purpose of my work consisted in making a thorough scholarly investigation and trying to find out why any attempts to reform the English orthography were unsuccessful”.²⁵ It took him several years to work through the various spellings systematically, to collect and arrange all the exceptional spellings, to discover and formulate the rules for the pronunciation, and to collect and arrange the statistics concern­ing the distribution of the irregular spellings.

The results of the investigation were in many respects surpris­ing. They showed among other things that the vast majority of English words, about 90 or 95 per cent of the vocabulary, actually follow regular patterns in so far as their spelling and pronuncia­tion are concerned.

At first sight it might appear that the spelling of English words is erratic and hieroglyphic. This first impression is due to the fact that the simplest and most frequently used words of the language fall out of the orthographic system. It is these words that are er­ratic and hieroglyphic. But because there are so many of them in every speech event, the completely erroneous impression is fully accounted for.

33

But the English orthography is an objective reality, it exists independently of our conscience and we base all our research on the study of this reality. We arrive at abstractions, generalizations and construct theories only on the basis of observing the realities of speech.

For us the following question is of paramount importance: How can the English orthography (which is objectively given) be studied scientifically? In order to answer this question we turn to the research which was carried out by A.I. Smirnitsky, who succeeded in presenting the English orthography as a system. He showed that the relationship between phonemes and graphemes can be apprehended only by devising a system of the “Rules of Reading”. This system is incorporated in the Russian-English dictionary²⁶ compiled under the general supervision of A.I. Smir­nitsky. It is also included in the manual “Angliyskiy yazyk” by O.S. Akhmanova.²⁷

The cornerstone of Smirnitsky’s “Rules of Reading” is the unified approach to the stress and the phonological system of Modern English. As far as the phonological system is concerned, we shall never tire of repeating that the phonological approach to the vowels of English cannot possibly be understood, or explained, or used for practical purposes, unless the indissoluble connection between strong and weak phonemes is fully realized.

As it has been already explained above (see Chapter 2, p. 16– 17) in English there are eleven strong vowel phonemes ([i:], [i], [e], [ж], [a:], [э], [э:], [u], [u:], [л], [э:]) and only three weak vowel phonemes ([i], [u], [э]). It could be reiterated in this connection that only these three vowels can occur in a completely unstressed position. A.I. Smirnitsky proved that the system of the “Rules of Reading” works only if the place of the stress in words is marked or indicated, because in contrast with French, for example, where the word-stress is fixed, in English it is movable.²⁸

To go on discussing the particular system of the “Rules of Reading” we should bear in mind some of the underlying proc­esses, on which all imaginable systems of rules are based. Smir­nitsky’s research has led him to believe that with as complicated a system of units as the English vocabluary, the “Rules of Read­ing” are bound to be very difficult. The main reasons for this are

34

the following. Firstly, the English vocabulary consists of words borrowed from different languages, at different times, of words which have undergone various metamorphoses in the course of the development of the language. Secondly, the orthography does not indicate the placement of stress in the enormous variety of English words.

Therefore, as A.I. Smirnitsky’s research has shown, the “Rules of Reading” for English should be based on the consistent indica­tion of stress in polysyllabic words. Otherwise stated, all words are pronounced with the reader being sensitive to the law of the unifying word-stress. However, in many cases English words car­ry not one unifying stress, but other, additional stresses as well, and these secondary stresses may be so strong as to be mistaken by the foreign learner for a unifying one, e.g. ’analyse º analyse, ’realize º rea’lize, and so on.

When we deal with an empirical science like linguistics, all scientific research is based on what actually is, and not on the imaginary or specially modelled objects. At the same time, scien­tific research not only helps us to explain what the object in ques­tion is, but should also indicate the direction in which improve­ment should go, how the existing state of affairs could be adjusted to a number of requirements. When Smirnitsky had worked out his “Rules of Reading”, he did away with the extremely cumber­some methods of the Broad Phonetic Transcription which were discussed in detail in the preceding chapter.

As is shown below, the “Rules of Reading” have proved to be of enormous practical importance in the numerous editions of the Russian-English dictionary. The only question that remains in this connection is, of course, the following: What should a mod­ern philologist who has set his heart on improving the English orthography do in order to help people to learn to read? — He should insist on introducing the indications of stress in all Eng­lish words which consist of more than one syllable.

It could be added that Smirnitsky’s system of the “Rules of Reading” would be an absolutely ideal new project for the reform of the English orthography, because it can teach people to read in English without turning to the dictionary every time they come across a new word.

35

In order to show the enormous practical significance of the rules of reading we would like to turn to the Russian-English dictionary that we have already mentioned. The dictionary con­tains the complete rules of reading and the appendix with the list of exceptions. The vast majority of exceptions are frequently used syncategorematic words which go back to the Old English period and which are not read according to the rules. They are usually memorized at the initial stage of learning the language and are reproduced ideographically. No one thinks of them in terms of “Rules of Reading”. Here is the list:²⁹ above, also, among, amongst, another, any, anybody, are, as, become, begin, come, could, do, does, done, don’t, ever, every, everybody, full, get, give, good, have, hers, his, into, is, many, most, never, nothing, of, off, one, other, ours, put, shall, should, some, than, that, the, their(s), them, then, there, these, they, this, those, through, to, toward(s), two, very, was, were, where, who(m), whose, with, within, without, would, you, your, yours.

It follows that the dictionary contains information on the pro­nunciation of this or that word only when it is not read according to the Rules and when it does not belong to the list of exceptions, i.e. when merely indicating the stress would not be enough. We would like to illustrate this point by turning to a couple of dic­tionary entries from Smirnitsky’s Russian-English dictionary:

двой//ной double [dA^—] two/fòld книжн. ~ oe значение double meaning: материя ~ ной ширины double-width material [’dл^—...] ~ подбородок double chin; ~ рамы double windowframe sg.; ~ бухгалтерия фин. book-keeping by dou­ble entry; /перен/. double-dealing [’dл^—]; вести ~ ую игру play a double game.

In this dictionary entry only one English word is transcribed (to be more exact, only the beginning of the word “double”). This can be accounted for by the fact that the digraph “ou” is usually read as [au] (in “round”, for example), as [аuэ] before “r” (in “our”) and as [o:] before “ght” (in “thought”, for instance).

Therefore, the word “double” is an exception and its pronun­ciation should be specially indicated. All the rest of the words in this dictionary entry cause no difficulties whatsoever: “meaning”, “material”, “chin”, “window-frame” and so on. They are all pro-

36

nounced according to the rules of reading, and it is necessary to indicate only the place of stress in them.

One more example:

подход 1. /действие и место/ apprˆoach воен. apprˆoach march; 2. /умение подойти/ mˆethod of approach; /точка зрения/ point of view [...vju:]; индивидуальный подход indivˆ idual approach; правильный подход the right mˆethod of apprˆoach; классовый f class approach; правильный подход к делу corrˆect/right approˆach to the matter; марксистский f Mˆarxist point of view/mˆethod of appˆoach.

Here only one word “view” is transcribed, because the com­bination of letters “iew” is not included in the rules of reading.

So far the “Rules of Reading” have been applied to separate words. What happens when we turn to a text?³⁰

“Teaching a natural human language is in many ways com­parable to the teaching of music — for example, playing the piano. It goes without saying that language as used by a good speaker (especially by someone reciting poetry, for example) is like a rhapsody when played by a competent pianist — that is something very complex, unconstrained and free, something that is “manipulated” with grace (and often charm) and undeniably fraught with different emotional, expressive and evaluative over­tones. But nobody has ever learned to do this wonderful thing without first long and painstakingly playing the dullest and un­interesting scales”.

How many words in this text are read according to the rules? Here is the list:

Fact, teaching, a, natural, human, language, in, ways, compa­rable, music, for, playing, it, goes, saying, used, by, good, speak­er, especially, reciting, poetry, like, rhapsody, when, played, com­petent, complex, unconstrained, and, free, manipulated, grace, charm, undeniably, fraught, different, emotional, expressive, eval­uative, overtones, but, nobody, thing, first, long, painstakingly, dullest, uninteresting, scales.

The exceptions are:

the, is, that, many, to, of, example, piano, without, as, some­one, something, with, often, has, ever, learned, do, this, won­derful.

37

It is evident that the pronunciation of the majority of words in the text presents no difficulty, provided we know the place of the stress.

As far as exceptions are concerned, they can be subdivided into two main groups: 1) words that are included in the List of Exceptions adduced above. These are, mainly, syncategorematic words: the, is, that, many, to, of, without, as, someone, some­thing, with, has, ever, do, this. 2) there are very few words the pronunciation of which does not conform to the rules: “piano”, “learned”, “wonderful”.

The tremendous methodological significance of the rules of reading cannot be overestimated. They were elaborated by A.I. Smirnitsky in order to overcome the positivistic approach to the relationship between spelling and pronunciation that we find in most English dictionaries and in so many of our own, where even the simplest and shortest words like “pen” or “it” are laboriously re-spelled with the help of this or that variant of transcription.

* * *

Now what about those other dictionaries where the principle of pronunciation without re-spelling is regularly applied?

Let us begin with the well-known Oxford dictionaries (The Oxford English Dictionary, the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, and so on). Here the Rules of Reading are introduced in the form of the “Phonetic Scheme”. In order to pronounce, or read a word all one requires in most cases is just the placement of stress (which in Oxford dictionaries is marked after the stressed syllable). In the majority of dictionary entries only stress is indicated. Here are some examples:

ban’ish; dispose’ (-z);

matut’inal or matutin’al

As can be seen even from the few above adduced instances, the use of diacritics in indicating the pronunciation of vowels is very extensive.

There is a marked similarity between Smirnitsky’s Rules of Reading and the system of the Oxford dictionaries: in both all

38

that is required is the placement of stress and the knowledge of the Rules.

In Longman New Universal Dictionary (the first edition of which was published in 1982) the approach is completely differ­ent. Here the principles of the Broad Phonetic Transcription and simplified spelling are boldly combined without further ado.

This is what the new Longman system of transcription looks like:

legitimatization /l3'jitim3tie’zaysh(3)n/

matutinal /matyoo’tienl/

machination /,maki’naysh(3)n/

peripeteia /pa'ripi’tee-a/

rhyme /riem/

rough /ruf/

hair /hea/

knight /niet/

expiratorial /ik, spie -ara'tawrial/

That is how all the opening words in all the dictionary entries are laboriously ’re-spelled’.

Part II. THE SUPRASEGMENTAL LEVEL

Chapter 1.

SYNTACTICS AND SUPRASYNTACTICS

The basic tune of English is the Descending Scale, in which the first stressed syllable is high and each succeeding stressed syllable a little lower, until the very last syllable of the sentence is reached, which “falls down to the bottom of the voice’³¹. For example:

’My i’dea is_\this.

•^

Recent research in the field has shown that teaching the De­scending Scale to the students should be based, first and fore­most, not on using short, elementary sentences like the one ad­duced above, but on turning to the longest possible stretches of speech³². This is of paramount importance for the Russian learn­ers of English, because in their native language frequent sudden changes in pitch are a norm, and may be observed even within short stretches of speech.

Let us now turn to the text which has been suggested as a pragmalinguistic model for teaching the Descending Scale to

40

Russian students at the philological faculty of Moscow Uni-versity:³³

“It is now generally assumed that English language teach­ing is essentially based on a particular variety of the language which has been chosen as a model for the learner to follow. The native speaker generally has considerable ability in the reception and comprehension of other forms of English which show marked divergencies in their phonetic and phonological characteristics. There can be no doubt that such receptive ef­ficiency has been brought about by half a century of aural exposure through radio and television to most of the important spoken forms of the language. There can also be little doubt that the kind of English the foreign learner is supposed to imitate as a model should be the neutral normalized literary pronunciation”.

Each sentence in this text is pronounced with an uninter­rupted Descending Scale, or a “Glide Down”. Here this prosodic contour ’covers’, as it were, quite long stretches of speech. This obliges the student to concentrate, first and foremost, on the pe­culiarities of the Descending Scale and to observe the main rule: to pronounce each stressed syllable together with the following unstressed ones on the same level tone, avoiding any possible sudden changes in pitch.

It should be noted that an uninterrupted contour of the De­scending Scale is regularly reflected in writing: in the above-adduced text there are no punctuation marks whatsoever within the sentences.

Suprasyntactic phonetics is defined as the branch of phonol­ogy which studies the metasemiotic functioning of the features of phonation. Suprasyntactics is divided into two parts: logical suprasyntactics and timbre suprasyntactics.

Logical suprasyntactics deals with the “intensifying stress” (accent d’intensite’) the function of which is to bring into promi­nence a certain element in the utterance for the sake of contrast. Although logical suprasyntactics is a common feature of different

41

languages, the prosodic means employed by each to express logi­cal stress may differ widely enough.

In English logical stress is expressed either by means of a high-falling tone at the end of an utterance, e.g.:

In the X-th century the West Saxon dialect emerges as the main form of Old English and is used in the literature of the period.

A falling-rising tone may be also used to express the intensify­ing (or logical stress) especially in “midsentential” position:

English tǒday is richer than ever before, but, like all living lan­guages, it is still in the process of changing.

Although in actual speech logical and timbre suprasyntactics are very often closely interwoven, for pedagogical purposes it is most important to keep them as clearly apart as possible.

As far as timbre suprasyntactics is concerned, the two main timbres are: the ’serious’ and the ’paradoxical’ ones. Recent re­search in the field³⁴ has shown that the serious timbre is a va­riety of enunciation which is based on a careful and correct re­production of the prosody of punctuation marks. The following prosodic features³⁵ are typical for the ’serious’ timbre: the mid register of the diapason, the Descending Scale (modified strictly in correspondence with the prosody of punctuation marks) and the absence of stylistically conditioned modulations of loudness and tempo. This timbre is the foundation of all scientific com­munication.

However, when we turn to the metasemiotic level of language study, to the English We Speak About, we cannot do without the “paradoxical” timbre. In other words, whenever we come across a literary text, we invariably accompany it with such modifica­tions of prosodic parameters as the use of the high register of the diapason, slowed down tempo and a slightly decreased loudness combined with non-resonance, as well as the use of a variety of prosodic contours. The terms ’metasemiotic’ and ’metasemiosis’ cannot be dispensed with when we discuss the ’paradoxical’ tim­bre, and therefore, should be clarified below.

The fact is that quite often the expression and the content of the sign together become expression for some new kind of content, a ’meta’ content. The following simple examples may

42

help to explain the idea. From the semiotic point of view (or on the semantic level) words and expressions like ’rarely’, ’not frequently’, ’not often’, ’hardly ever’, ’once in a blue moon’ are identical. No difference is observable in what they denote. On the metasemiotic level, however, they are different. They have different stylistic connotations (overtones).

Metasemiosis may be expressed lexically (as in the above ex­amples) as well as by various prosodic and paralinguistic means. Paralinguistics concerns itself with the phenomena of sound which are not part of the system of phonological oppositions on which the semiological function of speech sounds depends. Here comes the list of paralinguistic features which are divided into two distinct groups:³⁶

Quality features: whisper, breathiness, huskiness, creak, fal­setto, resonance.

Qualification features: laugh, giggle, tremulousness, sob, cry.

Chapter 2.

THE SEMIOTICS OF PUNCTUATION MARKS

In the very first chapter of the present manual we have stated that our basic premise is the dialectical unity of the oral and written forms of English. We try as best we can to show our read­ers (using concrete material), that there is a constant interaction between these two forms. Here we should not forget about “inner speech”, because it has been shown by numerous experiments that there is a constant feedback between our ’inner’ and ’outer’ speech. In other words, whenever we say or read something, we always have a constant interaction between ’inner’ speech and ’outer’ speech, or enunciation.

It is a well-known fact that punctuation marks are a funda­mental semiological system on which the whole suprasegmental aspect of the feature level is based. The whole of written English, for example, can be passed on only if we have become experts in the reading of punctuation marks. Otherwise stated, howev-43

er imperfect the English orthography may be, we cannot begin reading English literature (be it fiction, or scientific literature, or newspapers) unless we are in full command of the rules of reading punctuation marks.

It is extremely important to remember in this connection that punctuation marks are a double-edged weapon, so to speak. They are always objectively there, both on oral speech and in writing. For example, this is what we can read in one of the authoritative books on the subject:³⁷

“Not everyone can spell, but everyone can punctuate — and does.

If you read those ten words aloud, you can hear that the stops tell us how to say them. After ’spell’ there is a slight pause, shown by a comma. After ’punctuate’ the speaker breaks off abruptly to emphasise ’and does’, and a dash indicates the break. ’Does’ is the end of what the speaker has to say, so there is a full stop. If that ’does’ is very emphatically spoken, an exclamation mark (!) could replace the full stop.

People who cannot write use punctuation every time they speak; they time their words and put in pauses, so that the hearer can take in the meaning in units of a convenient size. In the same way a writer punctuates to help the reader to understand, using a code of signs. This written form of punctuation can be as easy and automatic as the spoken kind; and reading aloud is an excellent guide to using the code of signs”.

We have already discovered that the segmental and the su-prasegmental aspects of our research have got very much in com­mon. On the segmental level we have letters and their combina­tions, on the one hand, and sounds, on the other. And there are also numberless crutches in the form of transcriptions that people have devised³⁸. As we have seen, this has been done very often to the detriment of the objectively existing pronunciation and orthography, to the real thing, as it were.

To learn the rules, of reading for orthography is extremely dif­ficult, because their number is enormous, and the system is very complex. Besides, there are quite a number of historically condi­tioned phenomena. For punctuation marks the general picture is much easier to follow, for the simple reason that the number of

44

items (punctuation marks) is incomparably smaller. Here, as well as on the segmental level, we observe a certain opposition, a cer­tain gap between speech and writing. In different languages this opposition is resolved in different ways. Russian punctuation, for example, is viewed through the prism of formal rules. In English, however, the principle is different. It is semantic-stylistic, and at the same time declamational-psychological. In other words, the way this or that author uses punctuation marks depends almost entirely on his/or her intention.

All this does not mean to say, that in English there are no rules to guide the use of punctuation marks. There are certain rules, of course. If we assume that punctuation marks in Eng­lish constitute a semiotic system, then every bit of expression-plane must be indissolubly connected with the corresponding bit on the content-plane. Otherwise those marks will cease to be signs. But they are signs, and punctuation itself is a code. And if punctuation marks are signs, then their basic ontology (whatever they are) is the indissoluble unity of expression and content.

In what follows we are going to concentrate on punctuation marks by studying them attentively one by one. We shall begin with the simplest ones. Let us take the full stop. At first sight, what could be simpler?

Whenever you finish a sentence, you produce the typical low falling tone.³⁹

First of all, the full stop is particularly important because it marks the lowest part of the diapason and the end of the Glide Down. Nothing can be more difficult than reading the full stop, and the reason for it is obvious. On the one hand, the full stop marks the end of the particular Glide Down, but in two completely different ways: the low fall and the high fall. In this connection we must state the extremely deplorable fact that 90 per cent of the students do not know and do not understand when to use a low fall and when to use a high one. Unfortu­nately, there is a general tendency to invariably use high falls at the end of sentences.

It goes without saying that a philologist-anglicist should not only be able to produce both the low fall and the high fall off

45

the cuff, but also be fully in command of the rhetoric of this opposition. For example:

1. My dear young friends! For quite a number of years I have had the pleasure of trying to explain to you’very ’many_\things.

2. My dear young friends! I’m so pleased to see you again. For so many years I’ve been teaching you something, but, unfortunately, most unsuccessfully.

If we look closely at these two instances, we shall see that to use a low fall in the second case would produce a very strange effect. A low falling tone would impart the meaning of drama, even tragedy to it. And in the situation like this it would be simply absurd, it would not be in keeping with the situation.

At the same time, any text consisting of simple statements is, of course, a succession of low falls and as such it is heard in our inner speech. Thus, for instance:

There are’very’few’rules in punctuating. ’All in’telligible ’writing ’needs _|full_|stops. They are the’basic and most important ’part of the _|code. A’full stop is re’quired when a ’speaker’pauses

for_|breath.

This example shows us that a low fall is, as a rule, used in a statement that is not contradictory or arguable, which is pre­sented as a fact.

It would certainly be very convenient if we had a low fall for a full stop and a high fall for an exclamation mark. But, unfortunately, this is not always the case. There is no direct cor­respondence between high fall and low fall on the one hand, and full stop and exclamation mark, on the other.

If we turn to A.C. Gimson,⁴⁰ we can find that exclamations could be pronounced with a low fall:

_|Tragic! (according to A.C.Gimson, this utterance is quietly sympathetic; or distant and unmoved, especially if the fall does not reach the lowest level).

_|Morning! (perfunctory).

It goes without saying that it is extremely difficult to read these examples because they are very short sentences (consisting of one word) taken out of context. Nevertheless, Gimson states

46

that there is a possibility of pronouncing exclamations with a low falling tone.

It follows from what has been said above that instead of a dichotomy (full stop — low fall; exclamation mark — high fall) we have a trichotomy: statements with low falls, statements with high falls pronounced only in certain situations, and exclama­tions. There are very few examples of statements with high fall in books of scientific register, and quite a number of low falls and exclamation marks, for instance: