From: verdy_p (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Thu Dec 17 2009 - 07:57:26 CST
verdy_p schrieb:
I wrote:
« In the purely typographical ligatures such as "ff"/"ffl"/"ffi" where the suggested ligature between the two "f" is
still possible, and even in the case of "ffi"/"fi"/"ffl"/"fl" where an syllable break is still possible after the
last "f" (in English or German, but not in French), or "ct"/"st"/"ſt" where syllable breaks exist in most latinized
languages. »
And I just see now that an incorrect word was used, as I really wanted to say « where an syllable break is still
possible after the *first* "f" » (i.e. between the two "f"). French normally does not allow syllable breaks in the
middle of "fi" or "fl" (which may be ligated including with another "f", even though it may be ligated in absence of
syllable break for hyphenation). But there still exists exceptions to the general rules, and French also needs a
dictionary lookup for these exceptions.
I think they should be extrmely exceptional, given that there's no productive prefixes or suffixes or syllables
ending in "-f" that can be used before a radical or another syllable starting by "i-" or "l-", without needing a
second "f" starting the next syllable. Hyphenation breaking rules (purely based on syllable breaks, but possibly
modified by purely typographic preferences such as the minimum width of broken syllables) do not rule where
ligatures are allowed in French.
You can safely apply them everywhere some letter pairs have a ligature even if this occurs between a prefix and a
radical, or between two parts of a compound word (which are now preferably joined without any orthographic hyphen in
most cases: the junction does not remove the syllable break or hyphenation in case of linewrap, but it allows new
ligatures that were not possible when there was an orthographic hyphen). So the complex German rules about forbidden
ligatures does not apply to French (and probably not to English and to most Romance languages), even within words
that may be borrowed from German.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Dec 17 2009 - 07:59:46 CST