On 3/24/06, Hugh Birkenhead <mixsynth@...> wrote:
>
> > On 3/24/06, Philip wrote:
> > It removes a distinction that occurs in my speech, but I still think
> > it's a good idea.
>
> Well, using the 'list of ah-words' method, it wouldn't, because you'd be
> able to use 'ah' in 'grass'/'bath'/etc.
I thought those would be spelled with "ash"? Or maybe I assumed too much.
I thought that "ah" would be limited to PALM, while BATH would be
spelled with "ash" just as TRAP is.
> After all, you can hear the
> distinction, so there's no need for a list to guide you.
>
> You'd only lose the distinction if you completely merge the two phonemes
> into one letter.
*nods* I think I understand now.
> This is the "Cut Shavian" approach. The fact of the low functional load does
> support the concept of dropping the distinction altogether, which is what
> the subset does.
*nods* Sounds reasonable.
> > "Calf-cough" might work, but I think that that's a bit of a red
> > herring since I'd guess that those words are in lexical sets BATH and
> > CLOTH, while (I think) you were talking about lexical sets LOT and
> > PALM. "Balm-bomb" may be valid, though.
>
> "Calf-cough" is a good example of the words that could be confused if on/ah
> were merged; at least, to southern Brits. Both Americans and northern Brits
> would use 'ash' in "calf". The same is true with "bath/cloth".
But if cough is in CLOTH, I'd imagine Americans would be tempted to
use "awe" in "cough", rather than "ah" or "on".
It's sticky, and I'm starting to confuse myself :)
> "Balm/bomb" with a merged ah/on phoneme would definitely cause confusion for
> Brits. Merriam-Webster says General American makes no distinction, besides
> the possibility of voicing the normally silent 'l': 'bä(l)m/'bäm. There
> could also perhaps be trouble with "palm/pom(pom)" and "psalm/Somme",
> although incredibly rarely. There is probably no perfect solution to this,
> but if Americans can distinguish between the words based on their context, I
> imagine Brits can too.
*nods* And I think that's the kind of spirit of compromise we'll all
need to bring to the table.
Brits giving up some of their distinctions in return for Americans
learning to make some they're not used to, so that both use some kind
of "middle ground" in writing.
> > 2. the list of words in PALM is, as you said, fairly small, so
> > spelling all of them with "on" (as if they were in LOT) will be
> > "right" more often than not for those people who make a distinction. I
> > think "bra" belongs in there, though.
>
> Yes, 'bra' does belong there. And 'spa'. And 'ma', and 'pa'.
But, as http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~anth383/lexicalsets.html also
points out, "Very few really common words clearly belong to this
lexical set. Most of the PALM words are recent borrowings from foreign
languages." And bra, ma, pa are a bit "fake" since they're
abbreviations; the long forms don't have the "ah" vowel.
But yes, the list of words people would have to learn to use "ah"
"correctly" is pretty short.
> we should be aware the same approach won't solve the
> other difficulties, i.e. 'air/egg+roll', 'err/up+roll', etc.
True, since the lists would be quite a bit longer.
The best thing may be to merge the two, just as people who separate
NORTH and FORCE, for example, may need to merge, or Australians who
pronounce "bad" and "lad" differently, or the English who distinguish
between "pain" and "pane".
On the other hand, some mergers should not, in my opinion, be
accommodated in writing -- for example the pen/pin merger.
> Yes, it's the vowel differences that afflict Shavian, and it won't just 'go
> away'.
Yeah.
The solutions I see are:
1) everyone writes however they feel like, making the distinctions
they make and merging the ones they don't.
2) A particular dialect is chosen as the standard, and everyone is
expected to write that way, regardless of whether the phoneme system
is the same as your own (so you'll have to learn some distinctions you
don't have yourself [or keep looking up words in a list or dictionary]
and will have to drop some distinctions you do have).
3) As a particular case of 2), a set of rules is drawn up identifying
the "correct" spellings -- a set which may not correspond exactly to
*anyone's* native dialect.
I think that Shaw's original intent was 2), given the quote
"assuming the pronunciation to resemble that recorded of His
Majesty our late King George V and sometimes described as Northern
English"
Whether we intend to follow that desire is open to debate, I suppose.
Personally, I think that it's better to have *someone* (preferably
someone whom most people trust) decrees a set of rules, probably after
listening to the various opinions first. But trying to hammer out a
compromise between several parties and getting them to agree amongst
themselves may prove an arduous process, I fear.
> It uses a set of vowels that are perfect for Brits
*nods* (with the possible exception of the rhotic letters, though
there are areas of the British Isles which are rhotic).
> but surplus to requirements for most Americans.
*nods*
> If this alphabet is to be
> practical and truly international, I believe it needs to be written as
> similarly as possible by the greatest number of writers possible.
*nods*
> The only thing holding it back is the vowel confusion.
*nods* That's my impression, too. As you say, people's use of
consonant signs seems to be fairly uniform.
> It was designed at a time when
> the general American accent was much closer to British than it is now.
I can't judge that, but I'm sure there have been changes.
Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>