Re: definition of plain text

Your idea of propagation seems worth exploring - thanks!

On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 1:07 AM, Richard Wordingham
<richard.wordingham_at_ntlworld.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:37:20 +0200
> Peter Cyrus <pcyrus_at_alivox.net> wrote:
>
>> Perhaps, awkwardly.  But that is ultimately equivalent to marking the
>> gait on every letter, in which case I probably wouldn't need to
>> distinguish between initial and non-initial letters.
>
> If you allow C(R)V(C) as a 'fixed' syllable structure, the
> location of the syllable boundary in words like /tatrat/ would be
> significant, as in Thai.  /tata/ would also be awkward if you had null
> initials, as, again, some claim for Thai.  (There are languages that
> need to be analysed as having a phonemic contrast between null initials
> and initial glottal stops, even if German isn't one of them.)
>
> You might be able to handle syllable breaks just by having an
> optional syllable break character, analogous to CGJ and ZWSP.
>
> Marking gait on every letter may not be necessary, but gait-selecting
> characters present issues.  They're analogous to the deprecated numeric
> shape selectors U+206E and U+206F, whose use is strongly discouraged.
> These characters need explicit support in rendering engines, which is
> an argument against gait-selecting characters.  You might be able to
> propagate gait by contextual substitution, *if* you could propagate it
> through automatic line breaks.
>
> Richard.
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 18 2011 - 00:34:20 CDT