From: Asmus Freytag (asmusf@ix.netcom.com)
Date: Tue Jul 14 2009 - 17:54:10 CDT
On 7/14/2009 11:52 AM, Kenneth Whistler wrote:
> Asmus,
>
>
>>> Typographically, it might sit just slightly to deep. However, being a
>>> spacing character, I wonder whether this is not just a glyph/font issue.
>>>
>> For some characters the "it's just slightly off" really means it's a
>> different character.
>>
>
> It this case it does not, however.
>
That was just the bait to get you to write the detailed analysis. :)
I find your reasoning more plausible than this earlier business of the
hollow period and trying to shoehorn CJK glyphs/characters into use.
It's also plausibly based on something other than "oh, we have a low
circle, lets just use any old low circle we have lying around". The key
to that, for me, is your argument about the other modifier letters - as
well as the fact that the additional samples made available betoken
something that's typographically far from settled (ring vs. o).
I will continue to argue against solutions that look like mere
"unification by fuzzy ink" to me. I think that type of unification is as
inappropriate as if that process was used for CJK ideographs. Unlike
ideographs, the "rules" for deciding the character vs. glyph question in
some other contexts are more obscure - especially where character are
not used as part of well-understood orthographies. Even when the context
suggests that a modifier letter could be an appropriate choice, I still
believe that the analysis needs to always go to the bottom, as yours
did, before that can become the final word on the subject.
A./
> You and everybody else are arguing character encoding based on
> a well-known book that is a typographical one-off -- and a notoriously
> bad example of typography, at that. This book was typeset by a
> printer (U.C. Berkeley Press, 1968) which couldn't even insert
> typeset Chinese characters -- they were gapped, and then written in by hand.
>
>
>> The character we are trying to analyze is clearly a subscript. In the
>>
> ^^^^^^^^^
>
> The glyph(s), rather. The identity of it as a character is
> precisely in question.
>
>
>> samples it harmonizes with the subscripted double prime (or double
>> vertical bar?) for the tertiary stress.
>>
>
> Not always, because the examples vary in their typography.
>
> But the examples in that case help make Szabolcs' case, because
> the use of U+02C8 MODIFIER LETTER VERTICAL LINE and
> U+02CC MODIFIER LETTER LOW VERTICAL LINE for primary stress
> and secondary stress, respectively, is a well-known IPA convention
> that Y.R. Chao would have been familiar with. If you look
> at *that* set of characters on that page, then the low ring
> should indeed be construed as the U+02F3 MODIFIER LETTER LOW RING.
> (not IPA, but IPA-inspired).
>
> The other examples are a typographer's hack for the same thing,
> using a subscript letter "o" from the font.
>
> Incidentally, the use of the period in Y.R. Chao's system
> as a indication of neutral tone on a following syllable
> is also arguably related to the IPA system of supresegmentals,
> because in IPA, U+002E is used to indicate syllable breaks.
>
>
>> In the samples
>> (http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~uyhc/files/images/p1070002.preview.jpg)
>> it does not fully harmonize with the period used for neutral stress -
>> they appear to not have the same center, as one would perhaps expect.
>> However, the period is ordinarily positioned so that it aligns at the
>> top of these subscripts, which gives some consistency in appearance.
>>
>
> This is way overanalyzed. This kind of argumentation from
> one-off (bad) typography is not a good precedent for
> getting more characters added to the standard of dubious
> semantics and appearance -- they only add to the confusion about
> which is the "correct" character to use in representing texts
> like this.
>
>
>> Not having actual samples of material using the low ring, I can only go
>> by its appearance in the charts, and it's quite a bit lower there, lower
>> than a subscripted character.
>>
>> As long as that chart glyph is not an aberration, I would very much
>> hesitate to forcibly unify these.
>>
>
> And I think you would be wrong. Szabolcs is correct.
>
> For representing this particular convention in the Y.R. Chao's
> text (which isn't even a regular part of the Gwoyeu Romatzyh
> romanization which sees any wide use -- because it isn't
> a direct indication of pronunciation, but rather an editorial
> shorthand for saying that an alternative pronunciation with
> the tone neutralized also occurs), the best choice is:
>
> U+02F3 MODIFIER LETTER LOW RING
>
> For people who want to argue text appearance and alternative
> origin theories you also have available:
>
> U+006F LATIN SMALL LETTER O (styled subscript)
>
> U+2092 LATIN SUBSCRIPT SMALL LETTER O
>
> U+2080 SUBSCRIPT ZERO
>
> U+FF61 HALFWIDTH IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP
>
> U+3002 IDEOGRAPHIC FULL STOP
>
> So argue away and do what you will -- but the *last* thing the
> Unicode Standard needs is *another* low ring character encoded
> based on this evidence and this usage, to further muddy the waters.
>
> --Ken
>
>
>
>
>
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