From ... Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.uchicago.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.esat.net!nslave.kpnqwest.net!nloc2.kpnqwest.net!nloc.kpnqwest.net!nmaster.kpnqwest.net!nreader2.kpnqwest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: case-sensitivity and identifiers (was Re: Wide character implementation) References: <87wuw92lhc.fsf@becket.becket.net> <1016554947.964486@haldjas.folklore.ee> <3225568971513146@naggum.net> <1016831590.163240@haldjas.folklore.ee> <3225841444459787@naggum.net> <1016909497.106880@haldjas.folklore.ee> <3225923202075012@naggum.net> <87it7m4mnm.fsf@becket.becket.net> <3225942059872001@naggum.net> <871ye9i91x.fsf_-_@cs.uga.edu> <3226021614417921@naggum.net> <3226054464281011@naggum.net> <322606153 <3226098099655467@naggum.net> <87zo0wqd48.fsf@becket.becket.net> <3226104706223880@naggum.net> <874rj4uey3.fsf@becket.becket.net> <3226112482576869@naggum.net> <87wuvzpwzy.fsf@becket.becket.net> Mail-Copies-To: never From: Erik Naggum Message-ID: <3226123116550822@naggum.net> Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 30 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 09:18:22 GMT X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@KPNQwest.no X-Trace: nreader2.kpnqwest.net 1017134302 193.71.199.50 (Tue, 26 Mar 2002 10:18:22 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 10:18:22 MET Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.lisp:30154 * Thomas Bushnell, BSG | Since a phoneme is a minimal unit distinguishing two words, if there are | two words that differ only in tone, the difference must therefore be | phonemic. Apparently, this is how some people see it -- I have not seen a difference in tone referred to as "phonemic". However, phonemes are supposed to be discrete elments of speech. A toneme is not -- the change in tone usually spans several phonemes. Therefore, it is either a phoneme of its own, which seems odd, or an additional speech element. If a "phoneme" is the _only_ smallest unit of sound it appears not to be possible to enumerate the phonemes of a language, any longer. | I mentioned stress (in English, with the "conduct" example), because | stress is also sometimes thought not to distinguish phonemes, but | really it does. So when something, anything distinguishes phonemes, they become two? That does not appear to be useful. It seems rather to mulitply them without bounds. | What is a gray area is whether how rigid one wants to be about the | definition of "phoneme". Seems if you can put whatever you want into to, it is rendered useless. /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.