Re: Mixed up priorities

From: Otfried Cheong (otfried@cs.ust.hk)
Date: Sun Oct 24 1999 - 05:02:20 EDT


> At 00:22 24/10/1999 -0700, Otfried Cheong wrote:
> >Long-s versus ordinary s is exactly the same distinction as KAF versus
> >FINAL KAF, TSADI versus FINAL TSADI, etc. in Hebrew, yet those do not
> >have a compatibility decomposition. Why?
>
> 1. Compatibility with existing standards, such as 8859-8.
>
> 2. Compatibility with a huge installed base.
>
> 3. It is not exactly the same, since in Hebrew there are many exceptions to
> the rule and it is quite complicated or even not possible to decide
> algorithmically which letter to use.

I don't see how that differs from the distinction between round-s and
long-s in German. You would have to do a pretty clever morphological
analysis to decide algorithmically.

Is there a minimal pair in Hebrew that shows that KAF/FINAL KAF are
different letters?

Otfried



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