Re: [lojban] no stressed syllables in a name

[tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>]

On 12 August 2011 11:31, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, but I find that I naturally pronounce "Bergen" as {bErgen}. Granted,
> I don't put a /lot/ of stress on the first syllable, but it's definitely
> there.
> I find myself incapable of pronouncing it with no stress at all,

You never have to pronounce it without a stress in Lojban. Nor do you
have to assume that it must have a stress and {bErgen} is the only
natural way for everybody, if that's what you mean by "it's definitely
there".

> although if I want to sound like a twat, I am able to put even /more/ stress
> on gen than I do on ber.

That would effectively be perceived as {ber,GEN}. Stress is a relative
feature. If the syllable strengths (loudness, pitch, etc.) could be
quantified:

  .[0],[1]. = .ber,GEN.
  .[0],[2]. = .ber,GEN.
  .[0],[3]. = .ber,GEN.
  ...

  .[1],[2]. = .ber,GEN.
  .[2],[3]. = .ber,GEN.
  .[3],[4]. = .ber,GEN.
  ...

If a certain syllable in every cmevla was to be explicitly or
implicitly defined as a stress, we would never be able to indicate
that ".[0],[0]." or other ".[n],[n]." (same strength) is even
*allowed* in accordance with the facts that
  such no-stress or flat-stress causes no morpho-syntactic ambiguity
in Lojban, and
  many names in various natlangs have no stress.
By having the unmarked form of cmevla (ex. {bergen}) to generically
represent all its valid stress patterns, we could avoid the
unnecessary exclusion of no-stress or flat-stress. That was my point.

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