From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Wed Feb 12 15:14:50 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Wed, 12 Feb 92 15:14 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA01843; Wed, 12 Feb 92 15:09:05 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA14456; Wed, 12 Feb 92 14:42:38 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA09426; Wed, 12 Feb 92 14:42:20 EST Message-Id: <9202121942.AA09426@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 4904; Wed, 12 Feb 92 14:40:45 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 5692; Wed, 12 Feb 92 14:38:54 EST Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1992 19:37:07 +0000 Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Subject: Re: phonemes To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: (Your message of Mon, 10 Feb 92 23:57:34 EST.) <9202110457.AA28836@daily.grebyn.com Status: RO Lojbab writes: > Since the buffer is defined by convention to be a sound that is not found in] > LOjban's phonemic inventory, I see no reason why it cannot appear anywhere. > I don;t know why it WOULD appear somewhere else, except perhaps as another > kind of hesitation sound between words. > > Remember that we define the buffer in terms of its appearing in consonant c > clusters, saying it is a non-Lojban sound. We never say anywhere that non- > Lojban sounds have any meaning in any other part of a word - it is not relevant > to Lojban phonology, of course - nor is it relevant to a speaker - we teach > people what we want them to do, not the full range of things they could > possibly do. It is clear that in English one can't go round inserting [zabadaz] randomly into the phonic string and still expect to be properly understood. In fact, as far as I am aware, any insertion of extraNeous material into the string will hinder comprehension. It won't be unconsciously ignored. Does, then, the assertion that "a buffer vowel may be inserted between consonants" have the same status as the assertion "one or more segments may be inserted anywhere in the phon. string", in each case with the proviso that sounds corresponding to lojban phonemes will be understood as phonemes? If this is so, then what you're saying is that non-lojban 'noise' can be arbitrarily interspersed with lojban text, and this will be ignored, and the inserter of the noise does it at the risk of impeding communication. If this is the case, then the buffer vowel oughtn't to be mentioned at all - or at least it should be stressed that it falls outside the grammar. Furthermore, I should like to know precisely which phones map onto which phonemes, so that it may be clarified which sounds aren't lojbanic. --- And.