At 5:45 pm +0000 28/4/02, Andreas Johansson wrote:
>Raymond Brown wrote:
[snip]
>>
>>The trouble with [G] is that it tends to become zero, or [j] before front
>>vowels.
>
>Well, unless you've got a /j/ phoneme [G]>[j] isn't a problem.
Yes, indeed.
>Even [G]>zero
>wouldn't necessarily spell trouble if you've got a strict CV syllable
>structure.
Agreed again.
In fact - and keep it quite :) - I'm thinking of having a "zero-onset"
phoneme is 'reformed BrSc' which might be just zero, but has allophones of
[j] before front vowels and [w] before back vowels; before central vowels
it could be [G] or even [?].
>But both would be really strange allophones of /x/!
Not necessarily. In fact both modern Greek and Gaelic have /x/ with
allophone of /C/ before front vowels, and a separate phoneme [G] which is
/j/ before front vowels.
[snip]
>
>> Many people, including myself, really do find it difficult to
>>pronounce [N] as a syllabic initial; I count it as non-IAL-friendly in this
>>position.
>
>I used to find it close to impossible, but when I begun studying Quenya, I
>quickly found that few weeks of pretty infrequent and unfocused training
>allowed me to do it with little trouble.
Yes, I'm sure that if I had to produce the sound I could manage it after
practice.
>...........Still, you're of course right that
>many people'd find it difficult, and likely would have more trouble
>mastering it than I had.
That's the trouble. People will spend time tryig to master an unusual
sound in another natlang if they have to speak that language a lot and want
to be understood. But people, I think, are much less ready to do this in
the case of a conlang.
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At 8:18 pm +0100 28/4/02, And Rosta wrote:
>Ray:
>> At 2:16 am +0100 25/4/02, And Rosta wrote:
>> [snip]
>> >
>> >With brevity as the overriding goal, the best option would
>> >be the unwritten vowel one. Maybe something like this:
>>
>> But brevity is _not_ the overriding goal, otherwise I'd probably finish up
>> with something very 'Linish'.
>
>I meant 'preeminent', not 'overriding'.
Fair enough. I try to keep my basic three goals more or less equal, but
possibly one is getting the upper hand a bit at the moment.
[snip]
>> 'unwritten' vowel would be 'IAL-friendly' - What will you do with the usual
>> 'rogues' {c}, {q} and {x}? One person on this list has argued strongly in
>> the past that the glottal stop is not "IAL-friendly".
>
>That's a separate issue. To maximize brevity, you need to maximize the
>number of primitive symbols, and maximize the number of permitted
>combinations they occur in. That's my point. How you weigh those
>principles against other principles not concerned with brevity is not
>something I meant to comment on.
OK - yes, I know if brevity is the preeminent goal, then I need to use as
many symbols as possible. With the older scheme it was indeed essential to
all the symbols the Roman script afforded. But the problem always
foundered when weighing the other consideration.
[snip]
>
>Well then, either scrap the symbols that cannot represent an IAL-friendly
>phoneme, or else make the symbols represent an IAL-friendly phoneme.
>The other schemes you have been considering don't do any better in this
>regard, I think.
I shall be sad if that is so. The present review was prompted because I
thought I might have found a way to retain my goals (more or less) but do
so in a better way than the scheme I've been playing around with in the
past three years or so.
>> 2. There is no 'self-segregation' of morphemes in such a scheme.
>
>There is no inherent incompatibility between this scheme and having
>self-segregation of morphemes. I could come up with several ways
>to have self-segregation, as, I'd have thought, could you.
Yes, but to do so requires some modification or tweaking or 'fine-tuning'
(call it what you will). The question is which way to do it.
>> i.e. pushing brevity to its limits runs contrary to the other two goals of
>> BrSc.
>>
>> That's the challenge of BrSc - to balance the three goals. :)
>
>I know.
>
>What, to you, is IAL-friendliness? Something that is as easy as possible
>for as many as possible? Or would having a 'unique selling point' count
>too?
Both :)
>(On the grounds that an IAL needs something to make people want
>to learn it -- even if in actuality you don't intend for people to learn
>it.) If so, then brevity would be a major selling point -- perhaps the
>most significant possible selling point (perhaps along with nonambiguity),
This is exactly what Reginald Dutton thought way back in the 1940s; but
Speedwords has so far proved less successful than Esperanto as an IAL.
>so long as brevity is not bought at the price of excessive complexity.
Indeed - I agree. Dutton's system was certainly not without its
complexities; and that consideration is worrying me a little about present
ideas.
Ray.
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