Jorge Llambías scripsit:
> Well, it depends on how much we're willing to reform. My assumption is that
> Lojban needs to distinguish between the four forms "le'i", "le .i", "le ii"
> and "lei". We have six candidate pronunciations: /lehi/, /le?i/, /le?ji/,
> /leji/, /lei/, /lej/.
There is also "lei .i".
> Obviously /lehi/ -> "le'i", /le?i/ -> "le .i" and /lej/ -> "lei".
Yes.
> That leaves three pronunciations from which to choose for "le ii", and for
> me the best choice is /leji/ because /le?ji/ is way too close to /le?i/,
> closer than /leji/ is to /lej/, due to syllable count.
I recognize the force of this, but becdause "lei .i" has to be "lej?i"
I think "le .ii" has to be /le?ji/. This is no worse than the similarity
of initial "ii" and "i", which (for example) is completely inaudible
to sinophones: they write "pinyin" (in Latin script) but pronounce
it /pinin/. In practice this means that /ji/ has to be pronounced with
an approximant.
It really sucks to have "ii" and "uu" at all. They should be confined to
the attitudinals, and *never* used anywhere else.