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

[Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 05:17 PM 4/30/04 -0700, Jorge "Llambías" wrote:
> --- Pierre Abbat <phma@webjockey.net> wrote:
> > There are fixed rules for breaking syllables between vowels, but AFAIK not
> > between consonants.

There are.  From the old morphology paper:
> Medial consonant pairs are split into separate syllables by 
> convention.  They will thus be pronounced as /...vC,Cv.../.  It will take 
> some time, but try to practice each of these permissible medials with a 
> vowel preceding and following, such as abda, abda, abga, etc.
...
> Consonant triples can occur medially in lujvo, in le'avla, and in 
> cmene.  When they occur in lujvo or brivla, they are pronounced with the 
> first consonant appended to the syllable preceding the cluster: 
> /...vC,CCv.../.  In Lojbanized names, pronunciation and syllabication of 
> triples is not constrained.
>
> It can be seen that the first two consonants of a consonant triple in a 
> Lojban brivla must be restricted as for permissible medial consonant 
> pairs: they must be on the list above.  The second pair within the triple 
> must be a permissible initial consonant pair, as per the list above.  In 
> addition, there are a few triples that meet the above conditions but are 
> still not pronounceable so as to be easily and uniquely resolvable from 
> other combinations.  Hence they are also not permitted.

...

> A word has a syllable for each of its vowels (V), diphthongs (vv), and/or 
> vocalic (syllabic) consonants.  The last syllable in a word is the ultima; 
> the next-to-last is the penult, or penultimate syllable.  The 
> third-from-last is called the antepenult or antepenultimate syllable.  The 
> point at which two syllables meet is a syllable joint.  If a syllable 
> joint occurs between two vowels (V'V), it is called a vowel joint.  If the 
> syllable joint occurs between two consonants (C/C or C/CC), it is called a 
> consonant joint.  Vowel/consonant joints (V/C) are also 
> possible.  Unseparated consonants (CC or CCC) are called consonant clusters.
>
> In Lojban words, syllabication is determined by the medial consonants.  A 
> single medial consonant starts a new syllable (a V/C joint).  A consonant 
> pair is split into two syllables in Lojban words, although it is 
> acceptable to keep a permissible initial together in the second 
> syllable.  Consonant triples are split as C/CC joints.
>
> It is permissible to vary from these rules in Lojbanized names.  For 
> example, there are no definitive rules for syllabication of such cmene 
> with consonant clusters longer than three, such as the English name 
> armstrong, which we will analyze below.  The close-comma is used to 
> indicate variant syllabication both orthography.
>
> An additional syllable split can be found wherever a V'V disyllable 
> occurs; however, diphthongs are never split into multiple syllables.
>
> y, r, and n occasionally occur as audible hyphens (attaching sounds) 
> between word components.  When these sounds serve as the central vowel of 
> a syllable (r and n being pronounced vocalically), the syllable does not 
> count in determining stress per the method described below.  (This 
> principle applies to all vocalic central vowels, including l and m, and is 
> not limited to occasions where these five letters (y, l, m, n and r) are 
> used as hyphens.  On the other hand, r and n hyphens ARE permitted to be 
> joined to a prior vowel syllable, in which case they are pronounced as 
> consonants and not vocalics; this syllable IS counted in stress 
> determination, since the hyphen is not the central vowel.  The consonant 
> or consonant pair after the hyphen then starts a new syllable.  (These 
> hyphens will be defined more completely in Section II when lujvo are 
> discussed.)

----------------------------------------------------------

>  Thus {tciuaua} is /tciu,AU,a/,
>
> Is there any way to represent a triphthong, or is {uau} necessarily
> two syllables, either /ua,u/ or /u,au/?

In Lojban, vowel groups pair from the left if possible, unless there is a 
close-comma.  So "uau" is "ua,u".  However, I believe that later decision 
when we tried to write the morphology algorithm said that use of 
close-commas do not create a minimal pair, so "ua,u" and "u,au" are the 
same word.

lojbab

--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org