Re: Optimum number of symbols

On Sat, 25 May 2002 15:42:40 +0100, And Rosta <a-rosta@...> wrote:

>Mike S:
>> >I don't think an alphabet lends itself in a trivially easy way to
>> >a language with lots of lexically contrastive suprasegmental features
>> >such as tone, nasalization and voice quality. Well -- the result may
>> >be trivially easy, but the number of characters needed is
>> >unsatisfactorily large. (Cf. the numberless threads on this
>> >list about romanizations of Chinese.)
>>
>> My tack would be add that info with the vowel characters.
>> Considering the complexity, I'd say diacritics would be the way
>> to go:  each vowel gets a character; accent marks for tone;
>> a cedilla marks nasality.  I have to ask, what is meant by
>> voice quality?
>
>As Nik said, breathy voice, creak, etc.
>
>> The diacritics can be made more salient than they usually
>> are in the Roman alphabets.   I'm not sure why this is not
>> considered trivially easy.  If use another system, you
>> still have to encode this data one way or another.  Complex
>> phonologies necessarily mean complex scripts.  At least
>> your consonants are separate characters here.
>
>I too would take your tack, but the diacritics and, arguably,
>the vowel characters would not represent segmental phonemes.
>In consequence, the result might not, strictly speaking, be
>an alphabet.
Indeed, the decomposed parts of the character do not represent
the segment.  Only the whole character does.

There doesn't seem to be consensus as to what constitutes
this or that type of script in some cases.  However, I would
offer that the diacritics are being used here primarily to
give the characters graphical contrastiveness, not as a crutch
to sound out the character.  If you wished to go to the trouble
of designing them, I believe nondecompositional characters
would work just as well.


>A similar argument could be made for languages with very
>large consonant inventories that arrange themselves into
>orderly grids of phonation/initiation + place + manner +
>secondary articulation (e.g. palatalization). That is, a
>writing scheme that to some extent decomposes individual
>segments might be both more manageable and more faithful to
>the phonological of the language.
>
>--And.
If by "manageable" you mean a bit easier to design the characters
and arguably give the script conceptual elegance, then I agree
that can be a benefit.  I do not believe that it is strictly
necessary though.

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On Sat, 25 May 2002 15:42:41 +0100, And Rosta <a-rosta@...> wrote:

>John Cowan:
>> And Rosta scripsit:
>>
>> > I don't think an alphabet lends itself in a trivially easy way to
>> > a language with lots of lexically contrastive suprasegmental features
>> > such as tone, nasalization and voice quality. Well -- the result may
>> > be trivially easy, but the number of characters needed is
>> > unsatisfactorily large. (Cf. the numberless threads on this
>> > list about romanizations of Chinese.)
>>
>> I think that results primarily from a prejudice felt by Latin alphabet
>> users that going past the Big 26 (or 27 at most) is unacceptable.
>> Cyrillic, as Ivan pointed out, is much more willing to accept novel
>> characters as needed by newly written languages.
>
>I don't think so. Rather, if you have a very large set of putative
>segmental phonemes that are systematically and transparently
>derived from a combination of a smaller set of features, a strict
>alphabetic approach obscures that underlying phonological system and
>requires an unnecessarily large inventory of symbols.
>
>--And.
I am not quite sure what you are proposing here.  Are you suggesting
that we build characters from place, manner, voice, etc.? Or are you
proposing a more complex system in which a cluster like /mb/ is
marked only once as +bilabial?  I believe you suggested that in
another post.

When I get a chance I'll look up the threads on Chinese romanizations.


Regards

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