R: Re: orthographical question.

Barry wrote:

> CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU writes:
> >During colonial days, Indonesian used e-breve for schwa (vs. {e} for [e,
> >E]).  Somewhere in the 40s they switched to {e} schwa vs. {é}, much more
> >sensible since {e} is very frequent, {é} not.  Then in 1972 they
> >eliminated
> >all diacritics, so now you just have to _know_ which is which. Hmmph.
>
> And then you have Tagalog which doesnt use any accents on words, even
> though proper stress is crucial to knowing the meaning.  If i were to
> reform it, i would make set a rule that accents had to be written.
So does Italian.

There is a substantial difference between:

['lavati] = was yourself! (imperative mood + clitic acc./dat. pronoun)

and:

[la'vati] = the washed ones (past participle).

They're however written the same:

<lavati>.

Luca