Posing the productive questions
All valid orthographic investigation must begin with morphological analysis. The reason is fundamental.
Morphology is the defining and delimiting component of the conceptual hierarchy; orthographic units are contained within, and do not cross or straddle, morphological boundaries.
We begin by ensuring that we investigate this spelling element by element.
- In the spelling < love > there are no possible prefixes or suffixes.
- The word is not a compound.
- It is, therefore, a single element.
We can now proceed to determine the orthographic phonology of this base.
Phonological analysis
Phonological analysis first identifies an element’s component phonemes. The spelling < love > represents the pronunciation / lᴧv / whose analysis as three single-phone phonemes is straightforward.
Assigning the ‘default’ grapheme corresponding to each phoneme gives the phonological representation < luv > that only partially corresponds to the standard spelling < love >.
The questions that need to be resolved can be represented like this.
First, we will establish the justification for the non-phonological final < e >
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