Subject: Re: [lojban] stress, capitalization & audiovisual isomorphism

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 17:09:12 EST

In a message dated 11/26/2001 11:44:00 AM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> #Indeed, it would be: specifically, it would cease to be an isomorphism,
> #since <y> would sometimes mean [@] and sometimes [j].
> 
> but <y>-adjacent-to-V would always mean [@] and <y>-not-adjacent
> to-V would always mean [j]. And vice versa from sound to spelling.
> So why is this less of an isomorphism than <V>-in-penult-syllable
> = stressed-[V] and <V>-not-in-penult = unstressed-[V]?
> 

Hard to argue the point, except to say that the isomorphism would likely fail 
at the phonemic level, since the y-glide is an allophone of /i/, not /y/. 
And there is the added glyph w for something that is only an allophone of 
/u/. On the other hand, it gets rid of ', an unsightly object, which 
nonetheless represents a real sound and not an allophone of anything (except 
non-juncture). So, as Chao would say, we could reanalyse the sound system, 
making the ' be an automatic reflex of vowel-vowel contact when glottal stop 
was absent. But then we would always have to write in glottal stops (or 
maybe just be more careful about spaces). While we're at it, why not make 
the glide an allophone of /y/ -- and make w also apply to the buffering 
vowel yer, allowing one to write out dialects?