Re: A Request for Clarification: Syllables Rob Zook Fri, 07 Nov 1997 13:14:54 -0600 At 12:29 PM 11/7/97 -0600, you wrote: >From: Rob Zook >Date: Friday, November 07, 1997 11:25 AM > >>Marketa, >> >>I have a little better list of words we need syllable rules on. BTW, these >>are spelled with Saul's alternate transcription scheme. I have added >>a possible syllable seperation. We need you or your father to agree >>or disagree. > >Actually, we don't. For one thing, this information isn't critical now, and >may not ever be. For another, it may not be anything our experts currently >know. Without the rules for forming syllables we cannot figure out what sets of consonents in the middle of a word are or are not consonent clusters. We cannot even tell how to correctly pronounce the words we do have. I realize I'm thinking ahead a bit here, but not much I think. For any given syllable in a language one could find up to 24 different variations on how a syllable is formed if we take into consideration consonent clusters and dipthongs. CV CCV VC VVC CVV CCVV VCC VVCC CVC CCVC VCV VVCV CVCC CCVCC VCVV VVCVV CVVC CCVVC VCCV VVCCV CVVCC CCVVCC VCCVV VVCCVV The way syllables are formed in the middle of the words are also probably different then how they are formed at the beginning and the end. The distribution of syllables in a language probably is not random. If we do a computer generate set of Vulcan words, we need that information to develop the proper distribution of syllables in the final set. I was looking at the Language Maker program, and I'm not as sure as I was that it would work for this purpose. So I'm thinking of what information I would need to create words similar in nature to those we already have. Rob Z. -------------------------------------------------------- Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. -- Bertrand Russell