Asymmetrical phoneme–grapheme mapping of coronal plosives in Dutch

Abstract

The distinction between deep and shallow orthographies is a central issue in studies of alphabetic writing. This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the relative merits of these by investigating how the coronal plosives [d] and [t] map onto the corresponding letters d and t. It turns out that an interesting asymmetry exists in word medial position in Dutch: both experienced users and children learning to write Dutch prefer ds over ts. Several mutually not always exclusive alternative explanations are provided. The fact that the d-preference is sensitive to phonological and morphological distinctions and may be influenced by speech rate, suggests that a deep orthographic representation might be the better option.