Re: Ebisedian tutorial

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

Reply