What is it about?
It is about the choice of the right spelling of the English noun formation suffix 'shun' in and given word from the two main alternatives, namely, -tion and -sion; the speller is led to use -sion as opposed to -tion with respect to a special rule with a set of 7 conditions to follow.
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Why is it important?
English spelling is a problem even to native speakers. The spelling of 'shun' is one of the quite intriguing and enigmatic phenomena faced by spellers on a daily basis in written English with embarrassments, given the typical lack of correspondence between sound and letter. A synchronic rule that helps to inform the speller on when to us -sion as opposed to -tion, even with some exceptions, is certainly an important development to go by.
Perspectives
The main task in the writing of this article was to arrive at a rule for spelling 'shun' that would help alleviate the burden of memorization. To do so was to characterize the base words - verbs to which the suffix is added to form derived abstract nouns into two classes, namely, those that take the -tion spelling and those that take the -sion spelling, and then look among underived shun-words for patterns that place them in any of the two classes. I found doing so quite exciting, and I hope I have helped somehow in resolving problems with the notoriously difficult English spelling system.
Blasius Achiri-Taboh
University of Buea
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: English spelling: Adding /ʃǝn/ (or /ʒǝn/) to base-words and changing from -tion to -sion, English Today, February 2018, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s0266078417000591.
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