Re: How are syllable boundaries determined


ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
ranjit_mathews@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
mb wrote:
António Marques wrote:
...
Right. Whereas those who went to incredible lengths to mark quantity
and tone in excruciating detail, like the Alexandrians, managed to
torture schoolkids for 1,600-1,800 years after all length and pitch
distinctions were lost. Just to avoid being charged with that crime,
Western grammarians still continue to use all the funny signs.

Fascinating! Can I find a Latin Bible or The Aenid or JGC's "The
Conquest of Gaul" with the funny signs?

The Alexandrians didn't write Latin.

1600-1800 years back, Alexandria was in the Roman empire, so there must
have been some Alexandrians who wrote Latin. I thought mb's statement
implied that Alexandrian Latin scribes retained some Greek conventions
when they wrote Latin too, such as using a Greek stress accent
(originally used for pitch?) for either or both of Latin stress and
long vowels.

Hardly anyone in the eastern Empire used Latin. Perhaps you were
misinformed by Mel Gibson's movie. Alexandria was a Greek city
throughout.

There was no Eastern Empire 1800 years back (although there was one

I didn't say Eastern Empire. I said the eastern Empire.

1600 years back). Even after there was an Eastern Empire, though, the
movers and shakers fancied they were Romans and continued using Latin
for administration through the turn of the 7th century.

Evidence?

The ancients wouldn't seem to have needed to if they didn't have a
distinction between diphthongs and vowel + consonant. For comparison,
in Devanagari, <houseboat> is written as /havsboT/ whereas sauna is
written as /saUnA/ and pronounced as [havsbo:t.] and /sA.:nA/,
respectively.

A pity the Indians never managed to master English.

[havsbo:t] is in low registers; in the US, I've come across a few
natives who would say something like [h&wsbou"t] which makes it sound
vaguely like "haves boat" which doesn't seem a whole lot better

Not to English-speakers, it doesn't.

Brits don't have anything that resembles [&U]; the first part of the
diphthong is always near [a] as far as I've heard from Humberside to
Bath.

I don't know how else one would pronounce the word.

Any number of ways. For one, ask a German to pronounce it.

Why would I ask a German to pronounce an English word? If there is a
"Hausboot" (which seems unlikely), it wouldn't sound much like the
English word.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: How are syllable boundaries determined
    ... The Alexandrians didn't write Latin. ... "school editions" is the operative term! ... distinction between diphthongs and vowel + consonant. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: How are syllable boundaries determined
    ... The Alexandrians didn't write Latin. ... implied that Alexandrian Latin scribes retained some Greek conventions ... Hardly anyone in the eastern Empire used Latin. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: How are syllable boundaries determined
    ... The Alexandrians didn't write Latin. ... Hardly anyone in the eastern Empire used Latin. ... I don't know how else one would pronounce the word. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: How are syllable boundaries determined
    ... The Alexandrians didn't write Latin. ... implied that Alexandrian Latin scribes retained some Greek conventions ... Hardly anyone in the eastern Empire used Latin. ...
    (sci.lang)
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