Definitions

The words of the notation

What the words on this site mean here, and where they come from. Each says whether it was coined for the notation or taken from someone else, and from whom.

The word Sentences Marks Teaching Studying language

The word

leg·o·mor·phic

/ˌlɛɡoʊˈmɔrfɪk/ leg-oh-MOR-fik adjective

Having to do with legomorphs: the sounds, meaningful parts, and changes in spelling or sound that words are gathered from. A legomorphic reading of notation finds the e of note dropped at the seam and its job passed to the a of -ate.
Having to do with legomorphics, the joining of a language's systems through speaking, reading and writing. Legomorphic Notation; legomorphic teaching.

Origin. From Greek λέγω (légō), “I gather, I pick out,” and so “I count, I tell, I say,” and Greek μορφή (morphḗ), “form, shape,” with -ic, “having to do with,” from Greek -ikós. Latin legō, “I gather, I choose, I read,” is the same word. Lego keeps the Greek verb whole, ending and all: λέγ-ω, “gather-I.” Coined by Dante Wetherow for the notation and the study it names.

Not from the toy. The word isn’t named for the LEGO brick, though the building fits. The LEGO Group’s name is short for the Danish leg godt, “play well” (the LEGO Group’s history).

Related. legomorph, legomorphics, Legomorphic Notation. From the same roots: dialogue, lexicon, legible, morpheme. See The word on the About page.

legomorph noun /ˈlɛɡoʊˌmɔrf/: A phoneme, a morpheme, or a transformation in spelling or sound: the pieces and changes a word is gathered from, and so the things the notation marks. In note the legomorphs are its three phonemes, its one morpheme, and a transformation: the silent e reaching back to make the o long.

In the grammar of legomorphics, a prime: one of the first categories a sentence is assembled from, such as the actor, the action and the acted-on (Latin primus, first).

Note, the notation’s mascot: note with its letters lifted out and the gap they leave closed, so its legomorphs stand on their own. The three circles are its phonemes, and the vault from the silent e in its cone to the bar over the o is its transformation.
Coined for the notation.
legomorphics noun, singular /ˌlɛɡoʊˈmɔrfɪks/: The integration of orthography, morphology, phonology, articulation, semantics and syntax through the legomorphic means: speaking, reading and writing, and the syntax of claims and questions. In plainer words, spelling, word parts, sounds, how the mouth makes them, meaning and word order, learned together through talk, reading and writing. Like phonics and linguistics, it takes a singular verb.Coined for the notation.
Legomorphic Notation noun: The marks and colours this site draws on ordinary spelling, so that a word’s legomorphs can be seen: its sounds, the letters that spell them, its meaningful parts, and the changes letters make to one another. The marks are listed below and drawn in Reading the marks.Coined for the notation.

Sentences

Every sentence has a head, a body and legs: who or what it’s about, what they do, and what they do it to. These are the words for its parts, and for the two things a sentence can do, claim and ask.

Sheactor

Couldoperator

Goaction

She could go.

Couldoperator

Sheactor

Goaction

Could she go?

The Dialogue Team. She, Could and Go, the actor, operator and action, make a claim. When Could, the operator, flips to the front, the claim becomes a question. Their faces are their words with the letters lifted out, like Note’s.

kernel noun: The small core a sentence is built from: an actor, an operator and an action, with an acted-on when there is one. On the route, a step's kernel words are the short, frequent words that fill those places first: the forms of be, have and do, the modals, and verbs like go. Learners over-practise the kernel in claims and questions, then grow it: She could go. She could go up the hill.Zellig Harris and Noam Chomsky called a language's simplest sentences its kernel in 1957, the sentences the others were transformed from. Here the kernel is what's built first, and the rest grows onto it in time.
actor noun: Who or what the sentence is about, usually the one doing the action. In the picture of a sentence as a head, a body and legs, the actor is the head: she in She could go.
action noun: What the actor does: the body, as go is in She could go. A sentence with a form of be and no other verb, like She is here, has no action.
acted-on noun: Who or what the action is done to: the legs, as the note is in She could read the note. Not every sentence has one. She could go doesn't.
operator noun: The first helping verb in a sentence: the word that carries not and moves to the front to make a question, as could does in She could go and Could she go? Operators are the modals and the forms of be, have and do that can move to the front, like is, has and did. Been, being and done never move, so they are never operators.Adopted from Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language (Longman, 1985).
modal noun: An operator that says how sure, able, allowed or bound the claim is: can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might and must. The nine modals are always operators. The semi-modals (have to, ought to, going to, used to) mean what modals mean but don't move to the front themselves: Do we have to go? Are we going to go?
query noun: A question word: who, what, where, when, why or how. A query asks for more than yes or no, and it comes before the operator: Where could she go? The name keeps it apart from the operator.
claim noun: A sentence that says something is so: She could go. I am.
question noun: A sentence that asks. A yes-or-no question puts the operator in front of the actor: Could she go? Am I? A query question starts with a query: Where could she go?
flip noun and verb: Moving the operator across the actor, to turn a claim into a question and back: She could go. Could she go? On the word cards, the card that moves is outlined.

Marks

The marks Legomorphic Notation draws, each on one word with that mark alone. Their names are the notation’s own. Reading the marks has them as a legend.

sound circle: One circle under each sound: red for a vowel sound, black for a consonant, green for sh, th, ch.
syllable swoop: One swoop under each syllable.
short mark: A cup over a vowel that keeps its short sound.
long mark: A bar over a vowel that says its name.
bond bar: A bar under letters that spell one sound: black for consonant units and for doubled letters, boxed or not, green for sh, th, ch, red for vowel units.
r-controlled unit: A red bar under a vowel and its r, with the vowel red, the r black and one circle.
block box: A box around the vowel protector at work: a pair or cluster with a vowel after it, which it stops from reaching back. A pair keeps its bond bar when the box comes; a cluster has none.
cone of silence: A dotted ring around a silent e.
vowel vault: An arc from an e, or a vowel after one consonant, back to the vowel it makes long.
nice-nudge: A small arc under the letters from e, i or y to the c or g it softens.
blocked vault: A half-arc that ends in a red X where a box stops the vault.
morpheme seam: A dotted line between morphemes.
sender: The letter a vowel vault comes from: a silent e, or a vowel after one consonant, like the a of -ate, which sends the o of notate its vault.
red apostrophe: A red apostrophe in a contraction, in place of the vowel it drops.

Teaching

learning loop noun: The teaching cycle. Learners move among seeing, listening, speaking, reading and writing: a clean pass, then back to the start, back to any earlier mode, or between any two. A pass can swap a part (a sound, its articulation, an actor, an action, an operator, a preposition) to fit the learner's need, interest and skill in the moment.Coined for the notation.
analog noun: A known word used as the model for words that share its spelling: would for could and should. An analog shares its letters with the words it leads to, which a rhyme doesn't have to do.
route noun: This site's scope and sequence: 32 steps through English spelling, with Edward Carney's A Survey of English Spelling as its backbone. See the route.
word sum noun: A word written as its morphemes joined by plus signs, with an arrow to the word they make: not(e) + ate → notate. A letter in brackets drops at the seam.Adopted from Melvyn Ramsden's Real Spelling. Pete Bowers brought word sums into classrooms through structured word inquiry. See Credits.
copywrite noun: The older practice underneath copyright: taking what others have said and written, and writing it again in your own hand. It's what every learner does on the way to talking, reading and writing, and what this site does with the writers it builds on.Coined for the notation. See Credits.

Studying language

Two ways to look at any word: as it is now, or as it has changed. Each comes with an everyday word that can stand in for it.

synchronic adjective: Looking at a language as it is at one time, the way it's used now, without its history. A synchronic reading of -ion asks what the ending does in the words in use today: action, notation, explanation. In everyday words, a snapshot.Adopted from Ferdinand de Saussure, whose Course in General Linguistics (1916) set it against diachronic. From Greek syn, “together,” and khronos, “time”: belonging to the same time.
diachronic adjective: Looking at a language through time, at how its words, sounds and spellings have changed. A diachronic reading of before finds Old English beforan, where be, “by,” was joined to foran, “from the front,” and finds for and fore growing from one root. In everyday words, a time-lapse.Adopted from Ferdinand de Saussure, as synchronic is. From Greek dia, “through,” and khronos, “time.”