Re: Bopomofo and pinyin

At 07:35 +0100 23.1.2000, Raymond Brown wrote:
>
>I once devised a system that used: ma, mha, maa, mah.
>But {h} had no other use; /x/ was written {x}.
I like this idea.  Am I right that it takes into account the known facts
about the influence [h] may have on the pitch of adjacent vowels, and the
phonological analysis of Mandarin tones into paired High/Low gestures I
mentioned earlier?

1: HH       -- ma    (unmarked)
2: LH       -- mha   ({h} marks lower first part of contour)
3: LL (HLH) -- maa   (vowel lengthened and contour "divided" )
4: HL       -- mah   ({h} marks lower second part of contour)

This has the virtue of taking into account the traditional Chinese point of
view that the tone "belongs" to the rime of the syllable, but I'm affraid
that consonant+{h} may easily be misinterpreted!

Suppose one would instead indicate (phonological )lowness in the first
phase of the tone by doubling the vowel, but lowness in the second phase by
{h}.  One would then get:

1: HH       -- ma
2: LH       -- maa
3: LL (HLH) -- maah
4: HL       -- mah

I toyed around with a similar idea for Tibetan, except that I used an
apostrophe rather than {h} for the falling tones: H ta, L taa, LF taa',  HF
ta'.  The problem is that Tibetan has syllables with mid or neutral tone
(generally enclitic suffixes), so that one need to contrast *five*
graphemes.  Hence the system I indicating the first part of the tone in the
initial consonant spelling, which also makes more sense compared to Tibetan
orthography, whether one comes from a reading knowledhe of Classical
Tibetan, or goes on to it later.



/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson  <mailto: bpj@...> <mailto: melroch@...>
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