Re: where do so many tenses come from?

"Herman" == Herman Rubin <hrubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Herman> It makes no such assumption. There is no requirement that
Herman> each sign gets the same length of code. And the best
Herman> encoding would use encodings for major groups of signs,
Herman> not for single signs. Computer compression algorithms do
Herman> not just attack single signs.

So, neither should you.


Herman> But it is still true that in general the larger the
Herman> alphabet the fewer characters will be needed. For speech,
Herman> the alphabet consists of the phonemes, or phoneme
Herman> combinations.

If you're considering also sequences of phonemes, then how do you
define "alphabet size" properly?


Herman> The most efficient known oral method of communication is
Herman> by pitch, for those with perfect pitch.

I don't think so. Are you based that on the idea that there are
infinitely many pitches available? That's not a valid assumption.


Herman> It has occasionally been used for communication, but not
Herman> often.

Tone languages use pitch. And they're not rare. Which language is
spoken by the most people today? Does it use tones?



--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: where do so many tenses come from?
    ... Herman> alphabet the fewer characters will be needed. ... Herman> by pitch, ... analysis of the tone system gives 6 tones: ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: where do so many tenses come from?
    ... Herman> each sign gets the same length of code. ... Herman> alphabet the fewer characters will be needed. ... Herman> by pitch, ... Do tone languages use mainly pitch itself, ...
    (sci.lang)