Re: Plan B phonology (was Re: Another weird idea!)

Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:

>Hallo!
>
>R A Brown wrote:
>
>
>
>>>[Plan B]
>>>
>>>
>>Ah, that's why I couldn't find 'Plan A'     :-)
>>
>>
>
>Add to this that "Plan B" is, at least in German, an idiom meaning
>`a backup plan one takes recourse to when the first attempt has failed'.
>
>
..and in English also.

>>But what occurred to me reading the article again is why if Jeff is
>>using an alphabet of just sixteen letters, and each letter can be
>>encoded uniquely as four bits, why he did not simply use hex digits.
>>
>>While it is, for example, no surprise to find |b| pronounced as /b/, it
>>is kind of odd to find it has an allophone /E/.
>>
>>
>
>Of course, it has its own "logic", in extracting, for most of the
>letters, both values from the same English words.  The result are
>vowel/consonant pairings that are entirely arbitrary, and the vowel
>inventory being patently English.  Bugger.
>
>
Exactly so. And the fact that we have |f| = fOUGHt or Fought, but no
example of just plain 'short o' in the inventory, leads me to think it
is patently Merkan English  :)

>>      One might find using
>>what are clearly not alphabetic symbols, i.e. hex digits, more
>>acceptable for their dual vowel/ consonant function.
>>
>>
>
>Yes.  A better solution for the Plan B phonology would be to have
>16 consonants that are always pronounced as consonants, and a rule
>that inserts epenthetic vowels to make the whole thing pronouncable
>
>
Exactly the same thought occurred to me yesterday! I began playing
around with a system whereby the epenthetic vowel was generated by the
least significant bit of the first consonant & the most significant bit
of the second one.  Umm - think I'll work on that one   :-)

[snip]

>>I recall that Srikanth used numeric digits with dual pronunciations in
>>his Lin; but while, if they occurred between consonants they were all
>>pure vowels (no diphthongs as there are apparently with Plan B), when
>>they occur next to a vowel they are not consonants - as in Plan B &
>>Max's 'weird idea') - but determine both the length and the tone of the
>>adjacent vowel.   Weird    :)
>>
>>
>
>Aren't the phonetic values of Lin symbols a secondary representation
>of a telephathic language?
>
>
>
Yep - according to Srikanth, they are the values given by Jamphuta &
hLuuTik (L and T are retroflex) and their child Skalumbi who are a
tribal family living in the Chambal Valley of central India and are his
telepathic contact with the Lynu, the extragalactic speakers of Lin.

But the point is that Srikanth chose numeric digits to represent these
phonetic values used by the 'tribal family'.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://wwww.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

Reply