Re: YAEPT: Enuf is Enuf: Some Peepl Thru with Dificult Spelingz

On 13/07/06, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On 7/12/06, Tristan Alexander McLeay <conlang@...> wrote:
...
> > Reading that looks like reading an American accent!
>
> Er.
I'm not sure in what sense this "Er." is meant, but I was referring to
reading IPA of American accents, or eye-dialect spellings, spelling
reforms designed only to suit AmE, or the like.


...

> I was only trying to avoid having to pick a symbol for schwa, figuring
> I could let the full vowels stand for their reduced counterparts as
> well.  There's no obvious vowel to use for /@l/, /@m/, /@n/, and /@r/,
> though, so I let the vocalic consonant stand in...
One option is not to give unstressed vowels a defined spelling
(potentially even where it's actually clear what it is), and allow all
possible options (so "uthr, uthar, uther, uthir, uthor, uthur" etc.
are all valid spellings). It'd make spell checkers a lot more fun, but
would make spelling a lot easier and wouldn't significantly impede
spelling.

> > I also think it's only fair to distinguish /Vr/ from  /3:/.
>
> I don't.  I'm already *not* making several distinctions that are
> present in my own 'lect, such as /&/ vs /a/ - my goal was to minimize
> distinctions in the spelling.  I'd rather have one letter stand for
> two different sounds (in some 'lects) than have to remember which
> letter to use to write what is, to me, the same sound.
Yeah... I kinda knew that, but I think I got so court up in reacting
against "krrent" which is so completely counter-intuitive &
american-centric that it's not funny. I would actually be happy-enough
with "kurent", "curi", "furi"[*] if it came down to that (which is,
after all, what our current orthography does), and generalised to at
least "uthur", if not also "litul" and so forth. Or retaining the
current orthography's -er, -el/-al, -en/-an, -om, probably regularised
to just one (in any case, I've usually got a vowel in all those
contexts). -rn would also be theoretically ambigous in a word like
"Satrn" or "petrl" (I can't think of a closer pair, and ambiguity
isn't one of your concerns, but you know where I'm coming from here?).

[*]: It's not so much the fact that Americans don't distinguish the
qualities in "curry" and "furry" that doesn't cease to suprise me:
it's the fact that they don't distinguish the lengths. Are you sure
it's not something like [kr=i] vs [fr=ri]?

...
> > the argument against low functional load hear goes
> > something along the lines of "'sih' or 'nginch'?")
>
> ..uhm...what's a "hinch"?
As you just said (and I cruelly snipt):
> Although I'm rethinking the /tS/+/dZ/ unification.  That may still be
> too functional.
Probably you're right! :) (That distinction is definitely one I would
maintain; it's more analogous to /t/ vs /d/ than /S/ vs /Z/. But I
think /Z/ is better unified with /z(j)/ than /S/, with which it
alternates: /pr@Zu\:m/ vs /pr@zamS@n/, and I can't think of any
minimal pairs.)

> And while I'm heartily opposed to any analysis of English that
> seriously tries to unify /N/ and /h/ into a single phoneme, I would
> not automatically be opposed to a spelling that used the same symbol
> for both just on that basis.  I would be opposed, however, because of
> the medial cases where ambiguity arises.
Umm.... that last sentence seemes to be in contradiction with the
whole pat-pot merger thing of your orthography.

> > <y> as a vowel seems
> > available for this purpose, so "curry" vs "fyrri", "lachykyl", "uthyr"
> > should be okay.
>
> I've seen other spelling systems that use <y> for /@/.  Somewhat
> counterintuitive, but acceptable...
I think it's just a "what have we got left" thing. In terms of your
original specification (similarity with continental readings), the
reading of "u" is also counterintuitive.

> > An alternative could be to have a really simple, minimally distinct
> > orthography with a system of "pointing", so that distinctions that are
> > made in a certain dialect or optionally marked with diacritics. So
> > "Pam" vs "palm" vs "Pom" could become "Pam" vs "pâm" vs "Påm" in
> > Australia, but "Päm" vs "pam" vs "Pam" in the US.
>
> Well, if you're marking optional distinctions, you need one between
> "palm" and "pom" as well, at least IML.   That's something like
> [p_hQUm] vs [p_ham], although the former vowel is also "lateralized",
> or whatever you call the analogue of rhoticization when the
> influencing sound is [l] rather than [r\].
Hm, I was of the understanding that that ell was long dead. And I've
heard "bomb" and "calm" (& sim.) rhymed by Americans before. Do you
also revive the l's in "salmon" and "almond", and if so, how are those
words pronounced (phonemically & phonetically)? I've got /s&m@n/ and
/a:m@nd/ and essentially equivalent phonetics.

> > Of course, there is
> > generally the question of what constitutes "minimally distinct". Only
> > GA vs RP? all "standard" variants? all native variants, whatsoever?
>
> That is, of course, the key question which must be addressed by any
> spelling form that attempts to be phonemic.  As I said, I'd personally
> rather have ambiguous symbols than seemingly arbitrary distinctions.
Simplifying the task of reading & difficulting the task of writing.
Which is why I like my suggestion of using diacritics for extra
distinctions :) Just give everyone's keyboard a nifty Compose key and
they can type many combinations without thinking (and without
difficulting the process of typing double quotes or apostrophes as on
Windows US-International layout).

But how far down the path of ambiguity do you go before you stop? Are
non-rhotic spellings fine? (thus making "surprise" or "data" easier to
spell right for non-rhotics, but harder to read for rhotics).

--
Tristan.

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