Re: Vulcan Word Generator (VWG) trials and tribulations
Saul Epstein 
Fri, 26 Mar 1999 15:16:58 -0600

(Quotes Rob Zook: Thursday, March 25, 1999 7:02 PM)

>At 05:43 PM 3/25/99 -0600, Saul Epstein wrote:
>>(Quotes Rob Zook: Thursday, March 25, 1999 4:32 PM)
>>
>>>At 03:20 PM 3/25/99 -0600, Steven Boozer wrote:
>>>
>>>>Refresh my memory, I've forgotten where we left the approved
>>>>transcription. (Marketa did approve it, yes?)
>>
>>She did, and therefore I REALLY, REALLY hope we can abide by it.
>
>Does that mean you'd object horribly to a little tweeking here and
>there :)

I'm just not sure how much room there is for tweaking without setting
off a
cascade of little adjustments that amounts to enough of a change that
the whole has to be re-ratified. That only took us, what, a year and a
half last time?

>Here's a new list based on the revisions we've suggested (feel free
>to object again Steven if you don't like these changes either :).
>I've elimnated all the words which passed without protest, and ones
>which don't have any letters which conflict with the approved
>transliteration.
>
>a:                     -> ?

I suggest a: -> ah

>da'-Nii-khirch         -> da'-Ni?-khirch

I suggest da'-Nii-khirch -> da'-ni-khirch

>farr                   -> far? or keep it rr?

I suggest farr -> fahr (based on "Amok Time")

>kahr-y-tan             -> kahr-ai-tan or kahr-i-tan? It's a TOS book
>                          word.

Toss-up, then. Though the coiner probably meant <i>.

>k'-tveh-i              -> k'-tve-i or k'-tve-hi?

Probably the latter.

>na'-Tha'-thhja         -> thhja = a aspirated dental fricative+y?

Unfortunately, we don't have a dental fricative. I seem to remember
Marketa saying /na'tha'thaja/...

>tal'-shay-a            -> tal'-shai-a or tal'-sha-ja?

Or even <tal'shya>. ;-) I'd lean towards your second option, though.

>Several times I ran accross a set of consonants which involved /r/
>either in the form /CrC/ or /rCh/. I propose that we leave that as
>a proper spelling and that by default the r is pronounced as /*r/
>in both cases (where * represents the neutral voiceless vowel).

R can be pronounced in such a way that it is of the same family as
English W and Y: sometimes vowels, sometimes consonants. So the [*]
(similar to MSV /a/, in fact) probably isn't necessary even in a
narrow transcription. What's sometimes known as "Syllabic R," shows up
in the writing of Czech and, ah, Srbo-Hrvatian. Whether those in Indic
words like <krsna> (with subscript dots under r,s, and n) are syllabic
may be disputed. English, especially in the standard dialect of
Ireland and N. America, is full of syllabic Rs, we just write out
fossil vowels in wrds like brd, hrd, and subrb. Some dialects went the
other direction, deleting the R instead of the preceding vowel.

>Another thing we should resolve is whether or not to treat the /'/ as
>phonemic. I advocate the idea of /'/ as a phoneme.

I like the idea of a /'/ phoneme, too. But that will mean we'll have
to be more careful about what happens to it as words are put together
from smaller parts -- especially if MSV is going to be more
agglutinative (sticking whole words together to derive others) than
inflective (sticking affixes to whole words to derive others).
Languages of the former type tend to resist letting the beginnings and
ends of words be mutated when joined with others. We should also try
to resist the temptation to insert it where it looks convenient...

--
from Saul Epstein
locus*planetkc,com - www,planetkc,com/locus
"Surakri' ow'phacur the's'hi the's'cha'; the's'pharka
    the's'hi surakecha'."
                                        -- K'dvarin Urswhl'at