Re: Optimum number of symbols

Andreas Johansson sikyal:

> >In other words, purely phonemic scripts, which would insist on
> >one written form for the two meanings of /Rat/, may in fact be
> >less useful to the speakers involved. And afterall, writing's
> >_raison d'etre_ is to serve speakers interests, in whatever
> >way seems to them most useful. You cannot tell objectively
> >(and I think this was one of Nik's points) what the speakers
> >will feel is the most salient interest.
>
> Interesting. This is rather the opposite of what I was taught.
>
> In a phonology book I read some years ago, the very pair "Rad" and "Rat" was
> mentioned as an example of phonemic writing, since no matter how identically
> the two words are realized in speech, the spelling maintains the phonemic
> contrast in the underlaying forms /rad/ and /rat/. The underlaying /d/ of
> "Rad" makes it's presence clear when no longer final, as in "Räder" [rE:d6]
> ([r]=whatever rhotic you use when speaking German).
Indeed.  The problem would lie in a *phonetic* script, which would write
both of them as |rat|.  The phonemic script, on the other hand, writes
/rad/ as |Rad| and /rat/ as |Rat|, while the people pronounce both as
[rat].

This seems to be an argument for phonemic scripts, not against them.

Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton