Re: More thoughts on BrSc orthography & phonology

At 7:44 PM +0100 04/15/02, Raymond Brown wrote:
>I've been intrigued by Dirk's scheme ever since he posted it in 2 years ago
>to this very month, and I've gone back to it again.
Hooray! I already approve :-).

>It means I can keep
>the sounds simple and have a very wide range of morphemes (and do not need
>to use all 26 letters to do this).
>
>I've dropped Dirk's high, central vowel [1] and kept only front (unrounded)
>vowels and back (rounded) vowels.  I've also made one or two other small
>modifications; the result is shown below:
>( the braces {} enclose a _set_ of syllabic values which are shown
>phonemically, but without slash delimiters):
>
>p = {pi, pu}   b = {pE, pO}
>t = {ti, tu}   d = {dE, dO}
Do you mean 'd = {tE, tO} ?

>k = {ki, ku}   g = {kE, kO}
>
>f = {fi, fu}   v = {fE, fO}
>s = {si, su}   z = {sE, sO}
>x = {Si, Su}   j = {SE, SO}
>
>w = {wi, wu}   o = {wE, wO}  (/wu/ might be pronounced [u])
>l = {li, lu}   r = {lE, lO}
>y = {ji, ju}   e = {jE, jO}  (/ji/ might be pronounced [i]
>
>m = {mi, mu}   4 = {mE, mO}
>9 = {ni, nu}   n = {nE, nO}
>
>This set of 22 letters will allow 484 two-letter lexical morphemes, and
>10648 three-letter morphemes - ample!
>
>Not used are: a, c, h, i, q, u.
>(I'm quite happy for {c} and {q} not to be used - troublesome letters, tho
>very handy for denoting clicks  :)
You're not including /a/?

>I'm not over-enamored with the use of {9} and {4}, but don't know what else
>to use.  I have toyed with the idea of {h} for instead of {9}, since the
>lower-case form is similar to {n}, and the upper-case form is identical
>with Cyrillic {H} = /n/.  But that's probably not acceptable for Roman {h};
>and in any case it still doesn't help with a symbol for /mE/, /mO/.   Other
>suggestions will be welcome :)
Personally, I don't think *I* would have a problem with <h> = {ni,
nu}. Alternatively, you could restrict the number of nasal-initial
syllables so that <m> = {mi, mu} and <n> = {ni, nu}, and not have
{mE, mO, nE, nO} at all. It does break up the symmetry of the system,
but you don't have to resort to numerals or unintuitive mappings.

>Affixes/clitics will be one-letter morphemes with unstressed vowels. In
>two-letter & three-letter morphemes stress is on the penultimate vowel,
>thus marking the morpheme boundary
>
>If we assume that all affixes/clitics will be suffixes and/or enclitics,
>then we need a marker to show the boundary between the lexical morpheme and
>the functional morphemes suffixed to it. The marker can then show us
>whether we have front vowels or back vowels in the root morpheme and its
>suffixes.
>
>We also need a marker to show that we have two lexical morphemes forming a
>compound word.  Because the second morpheme will have the marker separating
>the root morpheme from the suffixes, we probably need only show whether the
>vowels of the first morpheme are front or back.
But what if you compound a front stem with a back stem? If the
morphemes are disemous, then there can't be harmony across a compound
word boundary; each root will have to be marked separately for vowel
quality.

>In Dutton's forerunner of Speedwords called International Symbolic Script,
>he used the period/full-stop to separate morphemes.  I had thought of using
>this as one of the boundary markers, but probably it's best to keep it for
>a sentence delimiter.
>
>At the moment (and this will probably change), I'm thinking:
>(a) to separate lexical morpheme from the string of suffixes:
>     front vowels:  {-}
>     back vowels:   {'}
>(b) to separate lexical morphemes in a compound:
>     first morpheme has front vowels:   {\}
>     first morpheme has back vowels:    {/}
>
>But the percipient reader will see that I've more or less created sets of
>three-character & four-character morphemes, rather than two-letter *
>three-letter ones!  What would be more in keeing with a briefscript is if
>in some way I could do what Srikanth managed to do with his "variable
>characters" which he used for "cements", i.e. with a single symbol, show
>the vowel qualities of two separate morpheme groups.
>
>Also, I rather think I ought to be using {a}, {i} and {u} as 'cements' or
>delimiters in some way.
Hmmm. The suggestion I'm about to give will probably conflict with
the 'brief' goal, but here it is. You can use {i,u} as prefixes to
indicate vowel quality, {-} to separate suffixes from stems and {=}
to separate clitics from hosts. {+} can be used to separate
compounds, with each root of the compound given its own {i} or {u},
although I would probably prefer to not have orthographic compounds.

The reason I see this as conficting with the goal of brevity is that
every morpheme will be introduced by a character which is not
pronounced. If morphemes are 3 or 4 letters, that's a 20% to 25%
increase in text; you may find that unacceptable. On the other hand,
a morpheme on its own (not affixed or cliticized) will still have to
indicate vowel quality in some way.

I also notice that you have no syllables containing /a/. If a
morpheme has no harmony prefix, could it default to /a/? This would
give you an extra set of syllables to work with, and introduce
trisemy for at least a portion of the root shapes.

I haven't been keeping up on the Lin grammatical notes, so I'm
probably suggesting things you've already decided not to consider.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                                       Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"Today is just like yesterday, only it's not over." - Dennis the Menace

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