Re: The Next Step (was Vulcan in Vulcan)
Dr Maggie Hellstrom, GSI Darmstadt 
Wed, 22 Oct 1997 16:43:33 MET_DST

Just a short comment on the "lettering"/pronounciation scheme suggested by
Saul...

I have, in principle, nothing against using doubled vowels to designate the 
"drawn-out" or "longer" sounds. The only problem I see with them is that 
one might be tempted to pronounce, e,g, "oo" as [oh-oh]. An example (of 
this opposite use of the notation] might be  the way some Japanese(?) words 
that contain a part that really should be pronounced [ih-ih] sometimes is 
transcribed into English/western languages simply as "ii". Oh, well, it 
will just be a new thing to get used to.

I do have problems with some of the suggested examples of pronounciation, 
especially those using French. (This probably comes from Swedes having a 
different accent when speaking French than, e,g., native Anglish-speakers.) 
One case in point: the "ee" sound has the French word "prenez" as an 
example. Now, I would pronounce "prenez" as [pr(ehr)n(e!)] where (ehr) 
stands for the sound a hesitant speaker makes, and (e!) is a rather short 
e-sound. Other people might pronounce the word as [pr(ehr)n(ey)], with the 
(ey) much like in the word "hey" (as in hey there!). I can't quite figure 
out which (if, indeed any ;-) of my interpretations is the correct one...

Finally, just like Rob, I was confused by that infamous "That...-sentence" 
that Saul wrote. While I got the point about the overuse of pronouns, I 
have no clue what the word "deictic" means... 

Dr Maggie
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Ich bin zwar keine Berlinerin, aber eine Stockholmerin schon!"
[Although I don't live in/am no inhabitant of Berlin, I do come from 
Stockholm!]
(This is in reference to the discussion on John F. Kennedy, German grammar 
and jelly doughnuts: the sentence would be impossible without the use of 
"keine" [no] and "eine" [a]. That's my last word on this, so don't worry 
Randall!)