Levin: Thanks for your discussion. Holo tones/variations are the most outstanding and complex characteristics among known languages. It MAY exclude pure phonetic coding for Holo, my opinion. Vietnamese, for example, is tonal but not "changing". They don't have as much problem in their Romanization. Thx

-----Original Message-----
From: levin [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 10:41 AM
To: 'Yan, M'; ; 'keith cheng'; 'Hokkchu'
Subject: RE: [TGB] Konrad's introduction

Dear M., Maybe I should not respond any more before I read the articles you mentioned. But I cannot stand not saying something right now, after reading your response. I have tried to put it clear that I donât see there is any FLOOD of homonyms in our language. I do admit that some homonyms do cause confusions--but, still, I donâtsee any FLOOD. I admit that we should do some calculation here. And maybe there are already such calculations in the articles--I will check them when I get the articles. But I would like to point out that, taking my name as an example, there is no word--no free morpheme--pronounced as âlip8â in Taiwanese, as Ican remember now. And perhaps there is also no word pronounced as âbun5â in Taiwanese either. I should check dictionaries before I said so. But I donât have one on hand at this moment. If you can give me examples proving that there are such words, you are most welcome. So, let me put the same argument in another way: I donât know if Han Character standing for âstandingâ is a word or not in Mandarin (I believeit WAS a word in some old Han language, as may be evidenced by archaic literature; but this doesnât mean it is also a word in modern Mandarin), but as I know it, âlip8â that is thought as referring to the same âconceptâ (standing) is not a word in Taiwanese. âKhia7â is a word in Taiwanese, but âlip8âis not. I would like to emphasize again: we write WORDs, not bound morphemes or syllables. For me, âLip8-bun5â is not or doesnât mean âstand-literatureâ. âLip8-bun5â is âLip8-bun5â. Just like âLevinâ is âLevinâ. If you like, I can write it as âLipbunâ. I donât analyze my name the way you do. (Or, put it another way: if what I just said is correct, then âlip8â means nothing in Taiwanese, âbun5â means nothing in Taiwanese too.) And, by the way, I would like to urge Taiwanese parents to think in Taiwanese, not in Han Characters, when they are giving there children names. I would like to urge all of us to look more clearly and smartly at âHan3-bun5âsâ and Mandarinâs influence or their spellover us and over our sense of our own language. I agree at the need to differentiate. But, as I know it, there are many guys called âLiau7 Lip8-bun5â in Taiwan, and worse, whose names are all written in the same Han Characters. âLiau Lip-bunâ written in Han Characters or in the âideo-phoneticâ signs you mentioned will help nothing. If police need to do any guesswork in this case, then they should do it and try to find out who is the Liau Lip-bun under suspicion. This is the same forso many John, Peter, and Paul in the US. Yes, Taiwanese is a tone language among many others and, I believe, everyone agrees that tone sandhi is a remarkable feature in Taiwanese. I donât know what do you mean by âPeh-oe-ji doesnât even use tonal lettersâ. I believe you know Peh-oe-ji uses diacritics to mark different tones. Maybe your point is that Peh-oe-ji marks the so-called âpun2-tiau7â (original tone) but not the âpian3-tiau7â (changed tone)? Yes, there are some other romanization devices prefer to use âchanged tonesâ when writing. But I agreeat the way Peh-oe-ji does. The reason: There are actually different dialects of Taiwanese (or Ho-lo-oe), and the seven (or eight) tones we usually mention are only âtone categoriesâ, not actual âtone valuesâ, and most importantly, there are differentrules of tone sandhis in different dialects. The most well-know example is as the following: In âHai2-khau2â dialect, tone 5 (e-piaN, âyang-pingâ) changes into a tone similar to tone 3 (chiuN-khi, âin-quâ); but in âLai7-soaNâ dialect, tone 5 changes into a tone similar to tone 7 (e-khi, âyang-quâ). The actual situation is much more complicated. Anyway, I think, this is a good reason for not using âchanged toneâ when writing, if we would like to have a unified writing system among different dialects. For now. Lip-bun