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Re: More thoughts on BrSc orthography & phonology

From:Dirk Elzinga <dirk_elzinga@...>
Date:Monday, April 15, 2002, 20:33
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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Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>