Re: Not phonetic but ___???

--- John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:
> Joe scripsit:
>
> > Indeed.  But you need to represent every single
> phoneme in every
> > single(widespread, native) dialect.  That is the
> nature of the quest.
>
> Well, a practical diaphonematic orthography doesn't
> have to go that
> far: it can allow for a few multiple spellings, or
> blur some distinctions
> with low functional load.  The familiar Wells
> lexical sets for
> vowels (KIT, DRESS, TRAP, LOT, STRUT, BATH, CLOTH,
> NURSE, FLEECE, FACE,
> PALM, THOUGHT, GOAT, GOOSE, PRICE, CHOICE, MOUTH,
> NEAR, SQUARE, START,
> NORTH, FORCE, CURE, and the weak vowels HAPPY,
> LETTER, and COMMA) make
> 27 distinctions, but that's almost certainly
> overkill.
>
> (For me the mergers are TRAP = BATH, LOT = PALM,
> NORTH = FORCE, CLOTH =
> THOUGHT, FLEECE = HAPPY, and NURSE = LETTER, leaving
> 21 distinctions.)
I was using the usual Shavian set as my base,
with a few merges (in my dialect) leaving 21
vowels (If Egg Ash On wOOl OUt EAt Age Ice
Up OAk OOze OIl AWE ARE OR AIR ERR EAR IAn YEW).

In your list I have LOT != PALM,
but PALM = CLOTH = THOUGHT

--gary