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Re: Ebisedian tutorial

From:H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@...>
Date:Monday, August 19, 2002, 19:01
On Mon, Aug 19, 2002 at 01:37:26PM -0500, Peter Clark wrote:
[snip]
> Hmm - IPA / phonetic descriptions of the sounds would be appropriate, rather > than forcing the reader to refer to the main grammar.
Good idea. I'll work on that.
> Also, while I think I > know the answer from previous discussions, more on "smooth" and "rough" > breathing would be apropos as well. What do you mean by "a preceeding > semivowel of the same value"?
Hehe, I was being lazy, 'cos the real reason I wrote the document was to explain how Ebisedian noun cases work, and I didn't want to spend too much time on doing IPA transcriptions. :-) I guess I should perhaps import the charts from the reference grammar, which includes IPA values for each letter in the alphabet, as well as include IPA transcriptions of vowel breathings.
> And just to be clear, shouldn't the description > of rough breathing "with a preceding _unvoiced_ glottal fricative"? After > all, if someone knows what the heck a glottal fricative is, you might as well > make it absolutely clear.
I'm still debating on whether to throw heavy-duty phonetic jargon at the reader, though. Maybe I should just try to compare it to English (although not every sound is present in English) and relegate the technical jargon to footnotes?
> Side note: I like how nasality is indicated _under_ the vowel. Different, but > good.
The reason for that is mainly to reduce clutter---some words may require several diacritics on the same vowel, and having a smooth diacritic with an acute over a tilde over a macron just looks more like tattoo art than a letter. :-P Having the nasality tilde under the letter reduces this clutter somewhat. Besides, nasal vowels aren't common; so when they do appear, you do want them to be conspicuously marked.
> Noun cases: that's clear for me. In fact, I think you did a rather nice job > of explaining it.
Thanks. That's encouraging to know. :-)
> Although don't forget to include examples of the others.
Yep, working on that right now. :-) T -- Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon Bonaparte

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Peter Clark <peter-clark@...>