Re: OFF: More Pinyin reform...

"Daniel A. Wier" wrote:

> There are two <e>'s -- a back one (similar to a schwa) and a front one.  The
> latter only occurs in <ie>, but the two could be set apart by writing the
> 'real e' as <eh>.  However, I've also toyed with writing NO vowel for the
> 'schwa e' and using <e> for the fronted version.  So _be_ ends up as just
> _b_, and _sheng_ becomes _shng_ (see below).
So "ne nen" is to be written "n nn", or even "nnn"?  Please! :-)

> (The tone marker could be
> placed over the nasal -- but I'm thinking of marking tone to the right of
> the syllable and not over the vowel/sonorant.)
James Carter, the inventor of -gua!spi, holds with writing the tone mark
to the *left*, on the ground that it's the first thing you need to
know.  In his notation, - is (Mandarin) tone 1 and ! is tone 4, so now you
know how to say "-gua!spi".

> Labials (b p f m) cannot be followed by <u> and another vowel.
That is because they are already, well, labialized.  Thus buo /bw@/ is written
bo.

> Alveolar sibilants (z c s) cannot be followed by <i> and another vowel.
> Retroflexes (zh ch sh r) cannot be followed by <i> and another vowel.
> Palatized sibilants (j q x) must be followed by <i> (or <ü>, u-umlaut, but I
> changed it to <iu> as above).
> Velars (g k h) cannot be followed by <i> and another vowel.
This is the famous phoneme collapse that makes it so difficult to give
a satisfyingly final phonemic analysis of Mandarin.

> So could it be possible to merge the palatals with one of the other three
> sets?
The Pinyin notation chooses to (semi-)merge the retroflexes
with the alveolars, on the grounds that the further you get from
Beijing, the more these are merged anyhow.

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