Det morfologiske princip vs. det fonetiske princip

Jeg leder konstant efter relativt forskning mht. retskrivningens virkning på læse- og skrive færdigheder. I det henseende er det smart at holde øje med artikler som citerer artikler som omhandler emnet. Fx kikkede jeg på hvilke papers som citerer:

Juul, Holger, and Baldur Sigurdsson. Orthography as a handicap? A direct comparison of spelling acquisition in Danish and Icelandic. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 46.3 (2005): 263-272

på Google Scholar. Da fandt jeg:

Landerl, Karin, and Pieter Reitsma. Phonological and morphological consistency in the acquisition of vowel duration spelling in Dutch and German. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 92.4 (2005): 322-344.
Abstract. In Dutch, vowel duration spelling is phonologically consistent but morphologically incon- sistent (e.g., paar–paren). In German, it is phonologically inconsistent but morphologically consistent (e.g., Paar–Paare). Contrasting the two orthographies allowed us to examine the role of phonological and morphological consistency in the acquisition of the same ortho- graphic feature. Dutch and German children in Grades 2 to 4 spelled singular and plural word forms and in a second task identiWed the correct spelling of singular and plural forms of the same nonword. Dutch children were better in word spelling, but German children outper- formed the Dutch children in nonword selection. Also, whereas German children performed on a similar level for singular and plural items, Dutch children showed a large discrepancy. The results indicate that children use phonological and morphological rules from an early age but that the developmental balance between the two sources of information is constrained by the specific orthography. Keywords: Cross-linguistic comparison; Morphology; Vowel spelling; Spelling acquisition

Hvorfor er lige netop denne artikel værd at skrive om? Fordi at det kaster lys over en gammel problemstilling som jeg aldrig har set nogen tidligere undersøge systematisk. Aage Hansen skrev i Om Moderne Dansk Retskrivning i 1969 at:

Dette etymologiske hensyn må ikke forveksles med et
andet: bevarelse af ordstammens skriftform i alle ordets
bøjningsformer og ved afledninger der stadig føles som
hørende til ordet, altså bevarelsen af et fast ordbillede i
alle ordets former, ment som en hjælp ved genkendelsen af
ordet. Altså: man skriver godt med et d der ikke svarer til
noget i udtalen, fordi grundformen er god hvor d er tegn
for lyden 5. Vi skriver hårdt og fandt for at vedligeholde
forbindelsen med hård og finde (i ingen af tilfældene svarer
d til noget i udtalen). Jeg tror mig ikke i stand til at afgøre
hvilken værdi dette identifikationshensyn har, men jeg er
skeptisk. Hvis vi var vant til at skrive god : got (som man for-
øvrigt tidligere gjorde), hård : hårt, finde : fant, mon så be-
vidstheden om formernes sammenhæng var mindre end nu?

Imidlertid er vor retskrivning i den grad præget af dette
hensyn at en simplificering her vil betyde et stort antal
ændringer. Jeg mener at retskrivningsændringer bør ske så
lempeligt som muligt, uden for mange og for store ændringer
på én gang, derfor er jeg betænkelig ved at foreslå en
gennemgående forenkling på dette punkt. Hvor derimod
bevidstheden om det omtalte tilhørighedsforhold er svækket
eller helt forsvundet, er vi ovre i det etymologiske og her
må ændringer være berettiget. Kun ét eksempel: seksten,
en skriftform der står helt alene og uden kontakt med den
tilsvarende udtaleform, og kun opretholdes for at minde os
om at ordet egentlig er en afledning af seks. –

Studiet viser, at børnene bruger det morfologiske princip til at stave efter, og at dette tilsyneladende vægter højere, eller er simplere at bruge, eller bliver lært tidligere end det fonetiske princip. Hvis flere studier kan bekræfte dette, så tyder det jo så på, at man bør beholde det morfologiske princip som vigtigere end det fonetiske i dansk retskrivning. Det har jeg ikke umiddelbart noget problem med, og har heller ikke foreslået nogle ændringer om dette i Lyddansk, netop fordi at der var en mangel på vished om det faktisk ville hjælpe.

Rød og rødt, og det morfologiske princip

Lyddansk indeholder på nuværende tidspunkt ikke nogen regler som ændrer i stavemåden på en sådan måde, at det går imod det morfologiske princip. Det morfologiske princip er:

  • Tegnkonstansprincippet / morfologiske / morfematiske princip (Jervelund 2007) / sammenhørighedsprincippet (Hansen, 1969) – ord staves så morfemerne staves ens overalt. Vi staver det altså TO rødt fordi det har noget at gøre med (her afledt af) TO rød. (Fra Lyddansk essayet)

Men måske man skulle ændre ved denne praksis, som Aage Hansen (1969) diskuterer:

Dette etymologiske hensyn må ikke forveksles med et andet: bevarelse af ordstammens skriftform i alle ordets bøjningsformer og ved afledninger der stadig føles som hørende til ordet, altså bevarelsen af et fast ordbillede i alle ordets former, ment som en hjælp ved genkendelsen af ordet. Altså: man skriver godt med et d der ikke svarer til noget i udtalen, fordi grundformen er god hvor d er tegn for lyden ð. Vi skriver hårdt og fandt for at vedligeholde forbindelsen med hård og finde (i ingen af tilfældene svarer d til noget i udtalen). Jeg tror mig ikke i stand til at afgøre hvilken værdi dette identifikationshensyn har, men jeg er skeptisk. Hvis vi var vant til at skrive god : got (som man forøvrigt tidligere gjorde), hård : hårt, finde : fant, mon så bevidstheden om formernes sammenhæng var mindre end nu?
Imidlertid er vor retskrivning i den grad præget af dette hensyn at en simplificering her vil betyde et stort antal ændringer. Jeg mener at retskrivningsændringer bør ske så lempeligt som muligt, uden for mange og for store ændringer på én gang, derfor er jeg betænkelig ved at foreslå en gennemgående forenkling på dette punkt. Hvor derimod bevidstheden om det omtalte tilhørighedsforhold er svækket eller helt forsvundet, er vi ovre i det etymologiske og her må ændringer være berettiget. Kun ét eksempel: seksten, en skriftform der står helt alene og uden kontakt med den tilsvarende udtaleform, og kun opretholdes for at minde os om at ordet egentlig er en afledning af seks. (s. 12)

Jeg er ligeledes skeptisk, men er ikke stødt på noget evidens mht. emnet. Dvs. indtil nu. Jeg læser en del relevant litteratur om ortografiske reformer for tiden, og stødte på dette paper:

Orthography reform and language planning for Dutch, JAAP de ROOIJ and GERARD VERHOEVEN. I International Journal of the Sociology of Language. Volume 1988, Issue 73, Pages 65–84, ISSN (Online) 1613-3668, ISSN (Print) 0165-2516, DOI: 10.1515/ijsl.1988.73.65.

Som titlen viser så handler det om retskrivningsreform i med Hollandsk. Forfatterne skelner i øvrigt mellem to principper som de mener, begge hører under det morfologiske princip:

3.  Congruency. This principle prescribes similar spellings for words with different pronunciations (compare English  divinedivinity). In Dutch hand [hant] ‘hand’ and goed [Yut] ‘good’ are spelled with d, despite the final [t] (Dutch, like German, has Auslautsverhartung). The same word, stem, or affix has to be spelled as consistently as possible. Hand is therefore spelled like the plural handen, goed like the inflected form goede, where d is pronounced as [d]. It should be noted, however, that this principle is not applied consistently. Devoiced [z] and [v] in final position are spelled as they are pronounced, s and f .  Therefore we write huis ‘house’, although the plural is huizen, and golf ‘wave’, although the plural is golven.
4.  Analogy. Following this principle, words that are assumed to be formed analogously are spelled analogously. Dorpsstraat ‘village street’, for example, is spelled with double s (although only one s is pronounced). The analogy is with dorpskerk ‘village church’, where the s is heard as a medial sound between dorp ‘village’ and kerk ‘church’. The verb form [vlnt] is spelled with a final d in  ik vind ‘I find’ (the infinitive is vinden: principle (3)), but with dt in hij vindt ‘he finds’, in analogy with  ik win ‘I win’ and  hij wint ‘he wins’, where the [t] is heard as the ending of the third person singular.

Principles (3) and (4) are sometimes jointly referred to as the ‘morpho­logical principle’.

Der findes faktisk data mht. hollandsk om dette princip hjælper eller ej:

Van Heuven’s experiments show that the congruency rule is of much help for the reader, while the analogy rule is less important. Before any empirical research had been carried out in this field, it was assumed that the morpho­logical rules of Dutch orthography were useful for the reader but were a nuisance for the writer. Thanks to the experiment, we acquired a better understanding of the first part of this assumption; but more research wasneeded for clarifying the second part.

It was generally assumed that congruency and analogy were a serious obstacle for the writer. Van der Velde’s thesis is no doubt one of the main sources of this belief. The vehement discussion after the publication of the Eindvoorstellen of the Pee-Wesselings committee demonstrated this once again. Supporters of a simplification said that the abolition of the analogy rule would result in a 50% reduction in the time spent on spelling instruction in primary schools. Abolition of the rules of congruency and etymology would definitely solve the problem of learning to write correctly. The oppo­nents of a simplification agreed with the supporters about these facts. Their evaluation was, however, different: the beauty of the system and the tradition of the written language were too important to be sacrificed to the interests of the masses.

Verhoeven’s (1979) research therefore attracted some attention because it demonstrated that ridding the orthography of morphology and etymology would reduce spelling errors only insignificantly. Verhoeven categorized spelling mistakes by students aged 8 to 21. Only one-third of the mistakes of primary-school students were violations of the rules of analogy, congruency, and etymology. Half of the errors were violations of pronunciation rules, violations of the rule for the spelling of long vowels in open syllables (for example,  zaken ‘affairs’,  boten ‘boats’), or the rule for consonants after closed syllables (for example,  zakken ‘bags’,  botten ‘bones’) (see 0 above).

It seemed very unlikely, therefore, that the abolition of morphological and etymological spelling rules could solve the spelling problem. But nobody, not even the VWS, had ever advocated that the rule of pronunciation should be abandoned or that another system for the spelling of vowels in open syllables and consonants after closed syllables was preferable to the prevailing system. A large part of the spelling errors of college students involved viola­tions of the rules of morphology and etymology. Spelling simplification was always regarded as being most useful for primary-school pupils and adults
with little education. (Paardekooper even called it the keystone of the Dutch social welfare program.) However, Verhoeven’s research suggests that it is useful primarily for the better educated. It would lead to a greater relative reduction in mistakes in their writing than in the writing of the less educated. Mistakes in verb endings were relatively few (about 10%). This does not mean that most people had mastered the system, but only that they made more mistakes in other more frequent forms. One of the most recent publications on the subject is Verhoeven (1985).

The main issue in this book is the question whether the speller is rule-oriented or visual-oriented. The influence of Anglo-Saxon research on the subject (for example Frith 1980; Baron et al. 1980; Barron 1980) is con­siderable. Two variables play a role in Verhoeven’s experiments. The first is the relationship between spelling and pronunciation. A distinction is made between forms where a distinction in spelling corresponds to one in pronun­ciation, on the one hand, and on the other, forms where a distinction in spelling has no counterpart in pronunciation (compare the type 1 and type 2 forms of Van Heuven in Tables 2,3 and 4 above).

These results provide an argument for the abolition of the analogy rule, which is responsible for the existence of forms where a written distinction has no counterpart in speech, so that only the application of rules can lead to the correct decision. The congruency and etymology rules do not lead to such forms and therefore allow the use of a purely visual strategy, which seems to be the more natural.3

The interesting point is that exactly the opposite of the position adhered to by Kollewijn and his contemporaries seems to be true. Kollewijn was an adversary of the etymological aspects of our spelling system, not of the analogy rule. However, the ‘irregular’ etymology is not the main problem, but rather the ‘regular’ analogy. At the same time, it can be argued that analogy is not a very important problem, because the less educated make many more mistakes violating more elementary principles.

The research of Van Heuven and Verhoeven thus demonstrates that con­gruency and etymology are not a big problem for the writer, and that con­gruency is helpful to the reader. Analogy, on the other hand, is difficult for the writer and of little use for the reader. This means that there are no good reasons for changing the Dutch orthography with respect to congruency and etymology. There is more reason to change or abandon the rule of analogy. There is even a good reason to change the rule for the spelling of vowels in open syllables and consonants after closed syllables (see Verhoeven 1979). But given the very old tradition of this rule and the possibility of misreading (in a technical sense) due to interference with the old system, it seems very unlikely that this will ever happen. Even the VWS makes no proposal of this
kind.

Så, tja. Måske, måske ikke. Mon ikke at noget lignende gælder for dansk. Men selvom at det måske ikke fører til mange fejl, så fører det muligvis til en masse spildt tid når folk bruger tid på at skrive stumme D’er i fx rødt. I alt fald så bør man i hvert fald lave en regel om dette valgfrit. Før at man gør det, så er det nok en god idé at lave noget dansk forskning om emnet. Idéen er at se hvor udbredt denne type fejl er på dansk. Måske er dansk anderledes end hollandsk på nogle punkter.