More ASCII IPA suggestions ...

No-one expressed any interest in my ideas for a better ASCII IPA system, but
seeing the attention Adrian's scheme is drawing, I thought I might just as
well add this to the mix anyway. So ...

This scheme is, as shall be obvious, based on X-SAMPA/CXS, with some bugfixes
(or fixes of things that bug me, at least) and one major change.

As in X-SAMPA, all lowercase Roman letter stays. The big change is that
anything that is represented in the IPA by a superscript is represented by ^
plus the sign in question; thus ^h for aspiration, ^j for palatalization and
so on. When the superscripted character isn't ASCIIically available, whatever
is used for the character in its independent IPA use is used instead; eg ^G
for velarization.

I'm sure this scheme perserves a variety of aspects of CXS others find
obnoxious. Tell me, and we can hopefully word out an improvement! The below
mostly reproduces the IPA, but I'm perfectly open to add more non-IPA
distinctions. Anyway, this what I have ATM:


MOA/POA      Bilab. Labiod. Dent. Alveo. Posta. Retro. Palat. Velar Uvular
Phar. Glot.

Stop         p  b                 t  d          t` d`  c  J\  k  g  q
G\        ?

Nasal           m      F             n             n`     J      N     N\

Trill           B\                   r             r`                  R\

Tap/Flap                             4             4`

Fricative    P  B   f  v    T  D  s  z   S  Z   s` z`  C  j\  x  G  X  R   X  ?
\ h  h\

Lat. Fric                         K  K\

Approximant            v\            r\            r\`    j      M\

Lat. Approx.                         l             l`     L      L\

Clicks       p!             T!    t!     S!


I don't know if any further back clicks are possible, but if you can do a
palatal click, [c!] suggests itself, etc.

I do not ATM have any better idea than X-SAMPA's _< and _> for implosives and
ejectives - I'm open for suggestions.

Other consonant symbols:

W    voiceless labial-velar fricative.
w    voiced labial-velar approximant.
H    voiced labial-palatal approximant.
H\   voiceless epiglottal fricative (someone tell me what this is!)
<\   voiced epiglottal fricative
>\   epiglottal plosive (I want to change these two too - suggestions?)
s\   voiceless alveopalatal fricative
z\   voiced alveopalatal fricative
s\!  palatoalveolar click
l\   alveolar lateral flap
x\   simultaneous S and x
5    velarized alveolar lateral approximant

Affricates and double articulations may optionally be inclosed in { } to
disambiguate. Alternatively, affricate or double articulation may be assumed,
and clusters separated by '-'. Note that normal parentesis and square brackets
retain their IPA functions!

Vowels:

|  i  y        i\ u\    M  u
|      I  Y    I\ U\     U
|    e  2      @\ 8     7  o
|                @
|      E  9    3  3\    V  O
|       &        6
|        a  &\          A  Q

Superagementals:

'    Primary stress
,    Secondary stress
:    Long
;    Half-long
;\   Extra short
.    Syllable break
|    Minor (foot) group
||   Major (intonation) group

For tone, I don't have any improvements on CXS to suggest ATM. However, if '<'
and '>' are freed up, I'm thinking they could be used to enclose tonal info.
Eg, [ma<TMH>] would be the syllable "ma" with an obnoxious extra high-mid-high
contour tone on. Since ! and ^ have been hijacked, it would also allow us to
use <!> and <^> for downstep and upstep.

Diacritics:

_0   voiceless (zero)
_v   voiced
^h   aspirated
_o   more rounded (using lowercase lessens risk for confusion with _0)
_c   less rounded
_+   advanced
_-   retracted
¨    centralized (did not seem to be any reason not get rid of the underline)
*    mid-centralized
=    syllabic
=    non-syllabic (can't think of any symbol that need distinct syllabic and
non-syllabic diacritics!)
`    rhoticity
_¨   breathy voiced
_~   creaky voiced (these two increase similarity to the IPA)
_N   linguolabial
^w   labialized
^j   palatalized
^G   velarized
^?\  pharyngealized
_e   velarized or pharyngealized (no, I don't know why we need this)
^r   raised
^o   lowered (these written as if superscripts to free up _o for more rounded)
_A   advanced tongue root
_q   retracted tongue root
_d   dental
_a   apical
_m   laminal
_s   sublaminal
~    nasalized (notice that _~ is NOT a valid alternative for nasalization in
this scheme!)
_n   nasal release
_l   lateral release
_`   no audible release (similarish to IPA diacritic, and I hate brackets used
for non-brackety purposes)


The ^X = superscript X convention may also be used for writing explicitly
falling or raising diphthongs: [a^i], [^uo]. Or just use [aj], [wo], or [ai],
[uo], depending on what makes sense in context. [{ai}] and [{uo}] also works.
However, DON'T write [a_i] and [u_o], the former being undefined and the later
being a more rounded [u]. Four options (or three, when no appropriate glide
symbol is available) should be enough, not?

Bring along the feedback - flak or praise, I'm ready!

                                                       Andreas