Return-Path: Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0tF5t5-0000ZTC; Mon, 13 Nov 95 22:53 EET Message-Id: Received: from listmail.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id FD9FFC47 ; Mon, 13 Nov 1995 21:53:54 +0100 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 13:50:43 -0700 Reply-To: Chris Bogart Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: Re: TECH: Pitch Accent X-To: lojban@cuvmb.bitnet To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 810 Lines: 14 >Nick Nicholas has proposed to me that high pitch (a la Japanese or >Serbo-Croatian) should be tolerated in Lojban as an alternative to primary >stress. Nora points out that there's no a priori reason why it should be >high rather than low pitch that means "accented". Comments? I can't hear stress if it's marked only with pitch. You'd think it would be easy to hear, but at least in my experience it's not. I don't think the two systems of stress are compatible, regardless of the choice of high or low. If you want to use Japanese-style stress as an alternate standard, I would think high would at least be superficially more consistent with the existing standard. Is it easier for pitch-stress-language speakers to learn English-style stress than vice versa? I'd guess it would be but I don't know.