Re: Accents of the same combining class displayed side by side

From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Thu Nov 06 2008 - 13:56:11 CST

  • Next message: Michael Everson: "Re: Accents of the same combining class displayed side by side"

    On 11/6/2008 2:22 AM, Karl Pentzlin wrote:
    > Am Dienstag, 4. November 2008 um 13:59 schrieb Emanuele Saiu:
    > ES> Apostrophe + acute accent ('´). It isn't codified in Unicode as a diacritic, is it?
    > ES> It is similar to the double acute accent of Hungarian ő ű, but
    > ES> the first mark should be an apostrophe (or Greek smooth breathing), not an acute.
    > ES> Apostrophe plus acute is common in traditional phonetic
    > ES> transcriptions used in Romance linguistics. ...
    >
    > At the Vienna workshop yesterday (2008-11-05), it was demonstrated
    > that side-by-side-placing of diacritics of the same combining class
    > (e.g. ring above + acute accent) is common in dialect transcription
    > systems in a productive way, e.g. used in the Obščeslavjanskij
    > lingvističeskij atlas.
    >
    > Therefore, a normative mechanism for doing so has to be added to
    > Unicode. If this could not be accomplished by extending the semantics
    > of ZWJ for doing so (then, Emanuele Sanciu's example would be encoded
    > "latin small letter c/g" + "combining comma above" + ZWJ + "combining
    > acute"), then the introduction of a special "combining mark joiner"
    > could be a solution.
    >
    > - Larl Pentzlin
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    Hi Larl!

    Wouldn't you (and others) think that the reason that such side by side
    placement is common has to do with the restrictions on vertical space on
    the line? I think, rather than being a feature of the *notational
    system* it's a reflection of typographical constraint. Can you (or
    others) corroborate or refute this?

    I would suspect that the reason this shows in phonetic systems (and
    polutonic Greek and Vietnamese) is that they all have in common the use
    of multiple accents.

    If this is indeed primarily motivated by typographic constraint, then it
    would not be useful to invent a new mechanism to encode a rendering
    issue. Instead, the explanation about permissible typographic variation
    in rendering stacked accents ought to be expanded/clarified, including
    and explanation of when and how common such variations are employed.

    A./



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