（1）A“grapheme”is the minimal constructive unit in the writing system of a language.The English grapheme A is represented by A，α，a etc.

　　（2）Orthography means correct spelling，spelling rules or attempts to improve spelling.

　　1.82.What is reference？

　“Reference”，as far as writing is concerned，means that in a sound writing system the graphemes and the phonemes are expected to build up and to keep up co-reference.For instance，the Reference of the English grapheme B generally is“b”and that of the grapheme X is“ks”.The problem with reference is that more than one phoneme can be represented by one single letter or grapheme.The grapheme O，for example，can represent its its different corresponding phonemes as in：so []，money []，together []，sob [].

　　For reference used in the sense of“sense”or“meaning”，place refer back to 1.64.

　　1.83.What is affixation，conversion and compounding？

　　（1）“Affixation”is the morphological process whereby grammatical of lexical information is added to the base （root or stem）.It has been the oldest and the most productive word-formation method in the English language and some other European languages.“Prefixation”means addition of a prefix to make a new word，while“suffixation”means adding a suffix to a word.The word“unfaithful”is result of both prefixation and suffixation.

　　（2）“Conversion”（called sometimes“full conversion”） is a word-formation process by which a word is altered from one part of speech into another without the addition （or deletion） of any morpheme.“Partial conversion”is also alteration when a word of one word-class appears in a function which is characteristic of another word-class，e.g.，“ the wealthy”（=wealthy people）。

　　（3）“Compounding”is so complex a word-formation process as far as English is concerned that there is no formal criterion that can be used for the definition of it，though it may mean simply that two words or more come together used as one lexical item，like“dustbin”。

　　1.84.What is blending，abbreviation and back formation？

　　（1）“Blending”is a relatively complex form of compounding in which two roots are blended by joining the initial part of the first root and the final part of the second root，or by joining the initial parts of the two roots，e.g.，smog→smoke+fog，boatel→boat+hotel，etc.

　　（2）“Abbreviation”，also called in some cases“clipping”，means that a word that seems unnecessarily long is shortened，usually by clipping either the front or the back part of it，e.g.，telephone→phone，professor→prof.，etc.

　　Broadly speaking，abbreviation includes acronyms that are made up from the first letters of the long name of an organization，e.g.，World Bank→WB，European Economic Community→EEC，etc.Other examples of acronyms can be found with terminologies，to be read like one word，e.g.，radio detecting and ranging→radar [].Test of English as a Foreign Language→TOEFL []，etc.

　　（3）“Back-formation”refers to an abnormal type of word-formation where a shorter word is derived by detecting an imagined affix from a longer form already present in the language.It is a special kind of metanalyais，combined with analogical creation （see 1.85），e.g.，editor→edit，enthusiasm→enthuse，etc.

　　1.85.What is analogical creation？What is borrowing？

　　The process of“analogical creation”，as one of the English tendencies in English word-formation，refers to the phenomenon that a new word or a new phrase is coined by analogy between a newly created one and an existing one.For example，“marathon”appeared at the First Olympic Games and by analogy modern English created such words as“telethon”，“talkthon”，etc.Analogy may create single words（e.g.，sunrise-moonrise，earthrise，etc.；earthquake-starquake，youthquake，etc.） and phrases（ e.g.，environmental pollution-sound pollution，air pollution，cultural pollution，etc.）。

　“Borrowing”means the English language borrowed words from foreign languages，which fall in four categories： aliens，denizens，translation-loans and semantic borrowings.

　“Aliens”are foreign loans that still keep their alien shapes，i.e.，morphological and phonological features，e.g.，“elite”，“coup détat”，“coupé”，etc.（from French）。“Deniens”，also foreign words，have transformed their foreign appearance，i.e.，they have been Angolcized （or Americanized），e.g.，“get”（a Scandinavian borrowing），“theater”（a French loan），etc.“Hybrids”are also denizens，because they are words made up of two parts both from foreign soil，such as“sociology”（“socio-”from French and –logy from Greek）。

　“Translation-loans”are words imported by way of translation，e.g.，“black humor”from French（“humor noir”），“found object”form French ，too （“object trouve”），etc.Finally，semantic borrowings have acquired new meaning under the influence of language or languages other than the source tongue.For example，“gift”mean“the price of a wife ”in Old English （450-1150AD），and after the semantic borrowing of the meaning of“gift or present”of the Scandinavian term“gipt”，it meant and still means“gift”in the modern sense of it.

　　1.86.What is assimilation，dissimilation and metathesis？

　　（1）“Assimilation”refers to change of a sound as the result of the influence of an adjacent sound，which is called“contact”or“contiguous”assimilation.The assimitative processes at word in language could be explained by the“theory of least effort”，i.e.，in speaking we tend to exert as little effort as possible so that we do not want to vary too often places of articulation in uttering a sequence of sounds.Assimilation takes place in quick speech very often.In expressions such as“immobile”，“illegal”，etc.，the negative prefixes should be or have been“in-”etymologically.

　　（2）“Dissimilation”，opposite of assimilation，is the influence exercised by one sound segment upon the articulation of another sound，so that the sounds become less alike than expected.As there are two[r] sounds in the Latin word“peregrines”，for instance，the first segment had to dissimilate into[l]，hence the English word“pilgrim”

　　（3）“Metathesis”is a process involving an alteration in the sequence of sounds.Metathesis had originally been a performance error，which was overlooked and accepted by the speech community.For instance，the word“bird”was“bird”in Old English.The word“ask”used to be pronounced [ask] in Old English，as still occurs in some English dialects.