Orthoepy and prosody
Orthoepy and prosody are two areas of grammar, related to phonology and phonetics, which deal with the correct pronunciation and stress of words.
The deviations that occur in these two areas are usually reflected in writing as people tend to write words as they say, resulting in errors. Regarding orthoepy, for example, if a person normally says “tray”, when writing the word he will tend to write it wrong, even if the correct form is “tray” or even, in relation to prosody, if someone uses to say “record”, tends to write as he speaks although the correct form of writing is “record”.
Orthoepy
refers to the correct articulation of vowel groups and consonant phonemes, determining the norms that guide the correct pronunciation of words. Spelling errors are called cacoepy.
Examples of spelling mistakes :
- absurd (wrongly pronounced abisurd)
- lawyer (wrongly pronounced lawyer)
- beneficent (wrongly pronounced beneficent)
- baldness (wrongly pronounced baldness)
- brain (wrongly pronounced brain)
- company (wrongly pronounced company)
- brake (wrongly pronounced brake)
- yogurt (wrongly pronounced yoghurt)
- lizard (wrongly pronounced lizard)
- beggar (wrongly pronounced beggar)
- obvious (wrongly pronounced obvious)
- property (wrongly pronounced property)
- proper (wrongly pronounced proper)
- claim (wrongly pronounced claim)
- retrograde (wrongly pronounced retrograde)
- eyebrow (wrongly pronounced eyebrow)
- navel (mispronounced navel)
Prosody
Prosody refers to the correct accentuation of words, namely regarding the position of the stressed syllable. It is the study of acoustic properties associated with speech that are not recognizable in the orthographic record.
Examples of prosody errors :
- avaro (paroxytone word wrongly pronounced as proparoxytone)
- philanthropist (paroxytone word mispronounced as proparoxytone)
- interim (proparoxytone word mispronounced as oxytone)
- libido (paroxytone word mispronounced as proparoxytone)
- nobel (oxytone word wrongly pronounced as paroxytone)
- pudico (paroxytone word wrongly pronounced as proparoxytone)
- record (paroxytone word mispronounced as proparoxytone)
- rubric (paroxytone word mispronounced as proparoxytone)
- bad (oxytone word wrongly pronounced as paroxytone)
special cases
– Some words have double prosody, that is, double pronunciation and spelling, keeping the same meaning.
Examples of double prosody :
- acrobat and acrobat
- azalea and azalea
- bohemia or bohemia
- hieroglyph and hieroglyph
- homily or homily
- logo and logo
- Oceania and Oceania
- orthoepy and orthoepy
- projectile and projectile
- reptile and reptile
- xerox and xerox
– Certain words have different meanings depending on the accent they present.
Examples :
- cupid and cupid
- rupee and rupee
- subtle and subtle
- valid and valid
- vivid and vivid
– Other words change the timbre of a vowel when changing to the plural: the so-called metaphonic plurals.
Examples of metaphonic plurals :
- lump (ô) and lumps (ó)
- crow (ô) and crows (ó)
- thick (ô) and thick (ó)
- tax (ô) and taxes (ó)
- dead (oh) and dead (oh)
- brick (ô) and bricks (ó)
- crooked (ô) and crooked (ó)
