pt and eo graphemes – morphemes – etymology

Summer spelling series, Question 2 is a quiz.

Answer yes, no or maybe for each of the following.

1. <pt> is a grapheme.

2. <pt> is part of a morpheme.

3. <eo> is a grapheme in ‘people’.

4. <o> marks something about the history of the word ‘people’.

Someone has asked a great question about who this is for. It’s for teachers who have been reading about various approaches to spelling including phonics, morphology and etymology. This is the second post in a series on ‘facts’ I’ve seen presented which I can’t establish as facts from my own resources and academic background.

If you just want to teach someone to spell ‘people’, jump to the bottom of this post. 😊

Answers:

1. Yes, <pt> is a grapheme

Graphemes are the written representations of phonemes. Understanding graphemes doesn’t mean you ignore morphemes or other linguistic features.

• <pt> is a grapheme which represents the /t/ sound at the beginning of words like ‘ptarmigan’ ‘pterodactyl’.
• Except for the word ‘receipt’, when you see <p> and <t> together elsewhere in a word, they represent 2 separate sounds: ‘except’, ‘helicopter’, ‘triptych’.

Source: Greg Brooks, Dictionary of the British English Spelling System, OpenBook Publishers, 2017. I recommend reading Appendix A for more information. The dictionary is available as a free download from the publisher.

• The historical roots of written language representing spoken language is well documented.

Some sources: J.M. Williams, Origins of the English Language, Free Press, 1975; Mark Seidenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight, Basic Books, 2017; David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

 

 2. Yes, <pt> is part of a morpheme

Both 1 and 2 are correct and we can hold both those facts in our heads simultaneously. In fact, Greg Brooks notes the ‘pter’ morpheme in his entry on <pt> as a grapheme.

• Once you know that <pter> is a morpheme, you can ‘ see the meaning’ in rare words that you may come across like ‘apter’ or ‘lepidopterist’. It will be incredibly helpful for anyone who goes on to study insects and a little bit helpful for anyone who can’t remember which dinosaurs had wings.
• However, it may not make it easier to spell ‘helicopter’ than saying syllables and writing graphemes:
  • hel
  • i (pizza ee)
  • cop
  • ter
• It’s interesting to note that all words created from ‘helicopter’ disregard the morphology completely so we have ‘helipad’, ‘Helijet’ and ‘heliport’.

3. Yes, <eo> is a grapheme

See information on graphemes above.

<eo> also represents:

• the short e sound in ‘leopard’ and ‘jeopardy’.
• the schwa in ‘truncheon’, bludgeon, ‘surgeon’.

 

4. Maybe – etymology is full of maybes

• ‘People’ entered English via Anglo Norman and was spelt variously: pople, people, peple, peuple, poeple, pouple, puple, pueple, peopel, popel (Source: Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “people (n.),” March 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1644676844.
  

• A French etymological dictionary will tell you that ‘peuple’ came from Latin with various spellings, some with <o>, so that connection is true.
• However, it’s also possible that the <o> in ‘people’ reflects the Anglo Norman scribes’ attempts to spell the unusual sounds they were hearing in the conquering language. (Source,  this discussion which includes a professor of linguistics)

• So the Latin connection is a yes but no one knows if that’s why the o is in people. I’ve checked all the usual sources of great etymological stories like Arika Okrent and David Crystal and can’t find anyone willing to give a definitive answer. The discussion on StackExchange includes the following as the favoured answer: