[Spellyans] del 'leaves' and dèl/dell 'so, as'

[ajtrim at msn.com]

OK, Michael.
Thanks for your explanation.
That explains things nicely.

I did not realise that it is a rule that <àr> is regularly lowered in KS.

It appears inconsistently in the SWF: in <barv> "beard" but not in <bardh> 
"bard".
It is in <daras> "door" but not in <darbar> "device".
It is in <fals> "false" but not in <fals> "scythe".
The SWF should distinguish these two sounds of <a>.


You are right, it has to be <wàr> "on" and <war> "aware" in KS.
I don't like <warr> for "on".


Regards,

Andrew J. Trim

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Michael Everson" <everson at evertype.com>
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 2008 7:06 PM
To: "Standard Cornish discussion list" <spellyans at kernowek.net>
Subject: Re: [Spellyans] del 'leaves' and dèl/dell 'so, as'

> On 14 Dec 2008, at 16:06, <ajtrim at msn.com> <ajtrim at msn.com> wrote:
>
>> <war>  "aware" has, of course, a regular long <a> so it should only  be 
>> marked <wâr> in KS if <war> "on" is to be unmarked.
>> That would be one solution but not totally satisfactory.
>
> It would not be a solution for KS, because it would violate rules KS  has 
> already accepted. <war> is [wæːr] regularly. <wàr> or <warr> are  [wɑr], 
> regularly.
>
>> In KS this should be improved if possible (but only if possible).
>
> We write <wàr>.
>
>> The sound of the <a> in <war> "on" is not the regular short <a> so  it 
>> should not be <à>.
>
> Not correct. The vowel is short, and its quality is regular preceding - r. 
> That is, you don't have [wær] because the r lowers the vowel.
>
>> Some other symbol should be used, perhaps <ä> if that is not used  for 
>> anything else.
>
> We don't need to adopt a new graph. The rule for how <a> is pronounced  in 
> front of <r> just needs to be stated. The SWF does not seem to  recognize 
> this, but the phonological description it gives has many  errors where UC 
> and UCR practice is concerned.
>
>> Unfortunately, that would add a lot of diacritical marks to the  language 
>> as <war> "on" is a very common word.
>> Using <wàr> for "on" would have the same effect.
>
> The French manage with: à, à côté de, après, d'après, derrière,  malgré, 
> près de, and quant à.
>
> The Germans manage with für, außer, gegenüber, außerhalb, während,  and 
> über.
>
> The Danes manage with på and the Irish with díom, díot, dínn,  díbh, 
> díobh, dó, dúinn, dóibh, fúm, fút, fúithi, fúinn,  fúibh, fúthu, léi, ó, 
> tríom, tríot, tríd, tríthi, trínn,  tríbh, tríothu.
>
> All pretty common.
>
>> However, <war> "aware" is much less common.
>
> No one ever said minimal pairs were fairly distributed.
>
>> To maximise usefulness we should mark the less common word to show  that 
>> it is not the more common irregular word.
>
> That's one of the tactics one may employ in orthography design. It  makes 
> the pronunciation rules more difficult in this case, which is  why it's 
> better to write <wàr>.
>
>> The common irregular word could be easily learnt as an exception.
>
> It's better to avoid exceptions when one can.
>
>> So, I think it should be <war> "on" and <wâr> "aware" in KS, even  though 
>> that seems a bit strange.
>
> That would disassemble the system. We use <â> in words like brâs to  show 
> the [bræːz]~[brɒːz] alternation. So your idea would not work.
>
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com
>
>
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