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on 4/20/02 7:58 AM, Rob Speer at rob@hidden.email wrote: > Diphthongs like "ea" and "ey", or "ao" contrasted with > "au", simply should not exist. I follow you on ao and au, but why the first? Is it that "ea" tends to sound like "eya"? >These are the reason > Lojban switched to ai, ei, oi, au, V'V as its only > vowel combinations. > > V.V, with a glottal stop between the vowels, sounds > much uglier to me than V'V with an h-sound. But now I > see that neither should be necessary. > > Why make new letters for [dZ] and such? This was my > idea in the C(C)V(V) form. CC does not include CW. So > this would allow for both "jai" and "djai", assuming j > is changed to be the single phoneme [Z] like it should > be. Here's what I believe the CC combinations would > be, though I must be forgetting some: > > dj dz jb jd jg jv sf sk sp st ts xf xk xp xt zb zd zg > zv > (Those x-combinations are ugly as heck. If only x were > c.) > > So, these plus the 13 consonants yield 32 initial > consonant sounds. Then these could be combined with > the vowels: > a e i o u y ai ei oi au ia ie io iu iy ua ue ui uo uy OK, I misunderstood you before. I didn't realize you were including iV and uV. Now, if we use semivowel letters, we can have ya (yah) contrast with ia (EE-ah). if we do that, we'll have 10 more possible pivor endings, or 30 altogether, for 30x32, or 960 pivor. Now, that's certainly too many, so we could limit your initial endings. If it's just limited to C, we get13x30, or 390. Wouldn't that be enough? Or, coming at it another way, we could have the pivo shape be P(F)V(V). It has to begin with a plosive which may or may not be following by a fricative, and end with one or two vowels, including semivowels. So permissible initials would be: p t k b d g ts tc (c being /S/) dz, dj That's ten times 30 or three hundred pivor. And if that's not enough, we could permit the slightly more difficult affricates ps, bz, kf, gv, tf, dv, ks, gz, kc, gj. (I know. I'm reaching here.) And I would be happy in this case with letter values: c /S/ j /Z/ y /j/ w /w/ x schwa The last is annoying, but this way we get to keep y and w with their obvious values, have no special characters for dZ and tS, and not move outside the 26 letters for our sixth vowel sound. And, when and if it's possible, x can be replaced by that upside-down 'e' symbol for schwa. Let's make sure I have those permissible vowel pairs straight. Now, with i and u only vowels, and y and w only semivowels, and x as a schwa: a e i o u x ay ey oy aw ya ye yi yo yu yx wa we wi wo wx (your original 20) and ia, ie, io, iu ix ua ue ui uo ux (all on this line 2 syllables) Yes, that makes 30 One more possibility. Allow vowel triplets and eliminate those last ten pairs. Vowel triplets could be: yay, yey, yoy, yaw way wey woy waw That adds eight, or a total of 28. And that yields 280 pivor. Trouble is, if we use any of the systems so far, it can't be pivor, because'pi' would _be_ a pivor. Need another word for small. This, you see, is one reason I want a limit on the permissible initials in pivor. So that we can have short preda of the shape CV. -- >PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS: rmay@hidden.email > Rex F. May (Baloo) > Daily cartoon at: http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp > Buy my book at: http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/gdummy.htm > Language site at: http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/Uploadexp.htm >Discuss my auxiliary language at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/txeqli/