From: Peter_Constable@sil.org
Date: Mon May 26 2003 - 09:42:54 EDT
I'm not sure what Andrew is wanting since IPA does not provide any
prepresentation for "null consonants" -- a null has phonetic value
(consonantal or otherwise) to be represented.
On the other hand a null (slashed-zero or empty set) symbol is commonly
used in linguistic notation, but in phonology, and in morphological
analysis lines of interlinear text.
Thomas M. Widmann wrote on 05/26/2003 06:01:39 AM:
> Aronson, "Georgian", p. 44:
> [...] Examples:
> da=v-c̣er-∅-t we will write it დავწერთ
> v-c̣er-∅-t we are writing it ვწერთ
> a=∅-a-šen-eb you will build it ააშენებ
> ∅-a-šen-eb you are building it აშენებ
> [...]
These are very likely indications of a phonologically-null morpheme --
something that is often done when one item in a paradigm is phonologically
unmarked (e.g. English singular as in "book" vs. "books").
> Here we establish a correspondence set in initial position:
> ∅/p/p
> but in order to dertermine whether the proto-phoneme was *p or *∅
> we must establish a further contrasting set [...]
>
> Durand, "Generative and Non-Linear Phonology", p. 127:
> [r]-insertion
> ∅ → r / [ə, əː, iə, eə, oə, aː, oː] #₀ V
These are other common uses, showing through diachronic change or
synchronic derivation the development of a phone(me) where none existed
before/in underlying representation.
> > I agree the EMPTY SET symbol is the right character to use. It has
> > the right semantics, and in most fonts it will look sufficiently
> > different from the IPA vowel symbol O WITH STROKE.
>
> The only alternative I can think of would be U+0030 DIGIT ZERO, but
> that would look wrong in most fonts.
EMPTY SET is probably the better choice for that reason.
> If U+2205 EMPTY SET is indeed the right character, it might be an idea
> to give it an extra name (LINGUISTIC NULL or LINGUISTIC ZERO), since
> its meaning is of course not "empty set" but rather "empty element".
An annotation about could be added, though I probably wouldn't suggest an
alias: it isn't commonly known as "linguistic null" or "linguistic zero".
If you want to see an annotation, you could make such a request to UTC.
- Peter
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Constable
Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
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