Re: Bopomofo and pinyin

On Tue, 25 Jan 2000 18:53:59 +0100, Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
wrote:

>The phoneme inventory is controversial.
>
>Do the palatals ( {q}, {j}, {x}; SAMPA [ts\_h], [ts\], [s\] ) form a
>separate set of phonemes?  They occur only before [i] and [y], and
>diphthongs & triphthongs beginning with the corresponding semivowels.
>
>On the other hand, the dental series ({c}, {z}, {s}; [ts_h], [ts], [s]),
>the retroflex series ({ch}, {zh}, {sh}; [ts`_h], [ts`], [s`]) and the velar
>series ({k}, {g}, {h}; [k_h], [k], [x]) occur before all vowels, diphthongs
>& triphthongs _except_ those beginning with [i], [y], [j] or [H].
But are [i] and [y] distinct phonemes? [i] only occurs after {b d j l m n p
q t x y}, [y] only after {c r s z}, and neither one after {f g h k w}.

If [i] and [y] are allophones, then the palatals can only be allophones of
the velars, not the dental or retroflex series.

>If the palatals are allophones of one of the three series in the preceeding
>paragraph, of which of the three series are they allophones?
>
>Most Romanizations I have seen represent the semi-vowels [j] and [w] as {y}
>and {w}, yet they do not have separate phonemic status as far as I see it.
>
>And there are controversies regarding the phonemic status of vowel sounds
>and no Romanization scheme I've seen seems to attempt a strictly phonemic
>rendering here.
How about generally representing the phonetic sounds as regularly as
possible: [a] as {a}, [e] and [E] as {e}, [i] and [i-] as {i}, [@] as {o},
[u] as {u}, [y] as {y}? Then {e} and {o} are almost in complementary
distribution, so except for ê, you could use {e} to write both! In that
case perhaps {o} could be used for [u] and {u} for [y].

Pinyin  Thryomanes
a       a
ai      ai
an      an
ang     ang
ao      ao
e       e
ei      ei
en      en
eng     eng
ê       ê
i       i
ia      ia
ian     ien
iang    iang
iao     iao
ie      ie
in      in
ing     ing
iong    ung
iou     ieo
iu      ieo
o       oe
ong     ong
ou      eo
u       o
ua      oa
uan     oan
uang    oang
uei     oei
uen     oen
ui      oei
un      oen
uo      oe
ü       u
üan     uen
üe      ue
ün      un

Hmm, this might actually work! So what about the consonants?

Pinyin  Thryomanes
b       b
c       c
ch      ch
d       d
f       f
g       g
h       x
j       g
k       k
l       l
m       m
n       n
p       p
q       k
r       r
s       s
sh      sh
t       t
w       w
x       x
y       y
z       z
zh      j

--
languages of Kolagia---> +---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/languages.html>---
      Thryomanes        /"If all Printers were determin'd not to print any
   (Herman Miller)     / thing till they were sure it would offend no body,
   moc.oi @ rellimh <-/  there would be very little printed." -Ben Franklin