Re: [lojban] Re: Why capital letters standing in for letterals is a *bad* idea.

[Zefram <zefram@fysh.org>]

Jorge wrote:
>>   mi DJica le nu Cilre la loJban.
>
>How can you tell it's Cilre and not ciLre, for example? Why
>loJban and not Lojban?

I can happily pronounce "lojban" as "LO,jban".  Even with my usual
pronunciation of "LOJ,ban", it sounds to me as though the stress is
almost entirely within the "lo".  So "loJban" looks quite misleading,
not to mention risking interpretation as "lo,JBAN".

Since it's the syllable that's stressed, the stress mark should
unambiguously mark the syllable.  This means either the syllable must
be explicitly delimited or the mark should be on something that is
unambiguously in the right syllable, i.e., the vowel (or diphthong or
syllabic consonant).  The two versions of capitalisation that we use are
just implementing these two strategies.  Robin's "pa<ris>" suggestion,
which I think looks pretty good, is another case of explicitly delimiting
the syllable.

Has anyone considered, as a possible principle, that stress marking should
not require (or otherwise interact with) syllabification marking?  Is it
not the Lojbanic way that the two should be independent?  This suggests
that the vowel only should be marked.

-zefram