Albrow, K.H., The English Writing System: notes towards a description, Longman 1972

Vivian Cook 
Writing System Home

Note this page is rather slow and inefficient to get the IPA symbols in graphics

 System 1 The basic system

Grammatical item:
two letter grammatical words possible: be we he so no me
three letter lexical words possible bee wee heehee sow know see
initial th in grammatical words /¶/ this
[alt rule: avoid complex Vs in monosyllables: the, a, who, why]
suffixation (polysyllables):
plural s when not syllabic  /s/ or /z/; otherwise es  /iz/
past ed  /t/ /d/: irregulars problem paid, lent etc
ing keeps y; swaying, paying; deletes e
wasting

Surnames
initial capital: Cook
final doubling: Ladd, Mann,
e instead of doubling:
Lowe, Moore, Locke

System 2 ‘Romance’ spellings

       

System 3 Exotic spellings

Small groups of recent borrowings. Treated essentially as default from system 3.

Uses of e (Albrow p.30-31)
1 dummy vocalic e in gate etc
2 dummy consonantal in live, leave
3. lexical following s in house
4 final e in dge hedge
5 e in grammatical suffixes ed er est etc
6 e in surnames
Moore