Re: BBC does it again


"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...
Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John Atkinson wrote:
> "Harlan Messinger" <hmessinger.removet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...
>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>> Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removet...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote [...]

>>>> It does seem (to me) reasonable to suggest that whatever
>>>> phonemic representation one chooses to use ought to
>>>> express the same thing as the phonemic model the same
>>>> person uses to describe a language. [...]

>>> I don't agree,

>> Why? Why *would* one use a representation that doesn't correspond >> to
>> the model? I can't see any advantage that would outweigh the >> confusion
>> it causes.

> One reason might be so that everyone's notation for a given > language
> variety is the same, independent of what model they espouse. Your > Dutch
> example seems pertinent. I understand (tell me if I'm wrong) that > some
> people think length is the distinctive feature in those pairs of > Dutch
> vowels, others claim it's lax vs tense (whatever that means), or > amount
> of openness and/or frontness. Most linguists involved with writing
> Dutch phonemically aren't super-interested in which model is > "correct",
> but they would find it convenient if there was one accepted > notation for
> the (generally accepted) phonemes of Dutch.

I see what you mean. It's just that it's been my impression that the
breaking down of vowel systems into matched pairs of short and long is a
preferred approach wherever possible, based on all the explanations of
seen of the vowel systems in Dutch, Hungarian, Arabic, and so on. In
Hungarian that model is engrained, with length being represented
explicitly by an acute accent in the written language, and differences
in quality between short and long forms are described as a side effect
of the length. So, for example, though short "a" is [ɒ] and long "á" is
[a:], to me it seems convenient to represent them phonemically as /a/
and /a:/, since this corresponds to the understanding the language's own
speakers have of their phonology as well as to the way it's described to
non-speakers.

And yet the phonemic representations posted by whoever in the Wikipedia
article on Hungarian phonology uses /ɒ/ and /a:/, distinguished by shape
as well as by length as in Ruud's representation of Dutch sounds, so I
accept that this is done, and that perhaps the point is that it's a
model used *consistently* for Dutch--and it certainly is one more
demonstration of the unfounded nature of Peter's contention that this is
an unused practice and one that won't be understood.-

Maybe Ruud wrote the wiki article.

Abondolo (Routledge Uralic) has a-umlaut, a-ring, and double-a (no
diacritic) (no /:/ at all)..

No ":", true. But, like all the authors in that book, he uses double letters in exactly the same way as writers on other language groups use ":" or the macron -- to denote that that vowel phoneme is long. No doubt they decided on this notation to agree with the orthographic convention in many Uralic languages, in particular Finnish. (Similar reasoning applies to their use of a-umlaut and a-ring.)

ISTM that they're not intending us to think that the double-letter notation implies anything "different" about the sounds in those languages from the sounds notated with ":" or the macron in other languages. They're equivalent notations for the same thing.

Similarly, in Polynesian and Australian languages, some authors use double letters and some use macrons, both in phonemic representations and standard orthographies. Thus the Maori orthographic convention uses macrons, while most developers of scripts for Australian languages use double letters because most of the people who'll be using these orthographies are already used to writing English, which (as usually written) doesn't have diacritics. Actually, in Maori, many writers wrongly leave out the macrons, for the same reason -- because of the influence of English.

John.

.

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