Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!jabberwock.shs.ohio-state.edu!ao-b From: ao-b@jabberwock.shs.ohio-state.edu (Monica Crabtree) Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Subject: Re: cwp overlay problem Message-ID: <634@jabberwock.shs.ohio-state.edu> Date: 24 Jun 91 20:39:27 GMT References: <1991Jun18.163505.21277@javelin.sim.es.com> <10251@star.cs.vu.nl> <1991Jun19.184240.28929@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> Reply-To: Monica Crabtree Organization: The Ohio State University, Division of Speech and Hearing Science Lines: 63 In article <1991Jun19.184240.28929@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> you write: >According to the documentation posted here (a few messages back from >here), place cwp.exe in one directory (name of your choice). Then, make >a subdirectory of that directory that must be named SYS. Next copy all >of the files *except* cwp.exe into the SYS subdirectory. The overlay >message appears because the program looks for the overlays to be in SYS. > What happened was I sent the documentation to the moderator under the impression that it was better not to include the documentation in the .zoo file and people knew where to get it. Apparently it's not the case and I apologize for the inconvenience. >why do we have to use "iu" for umlaut and then "iou" for "iu" ??? Why >not just use "yu" for umlaut so we don't have to chain through the >pinyin system modifying it all to hell??? Why, or why, do we have to The reason is a little bit aesthetic. In the pinyin system, the letters y and w always occur at the beginning of a syllable and never elsewhere. introducing as the substitute for umlaut u would be a breach of this principle. Judging from syllable-initial and non-syllable-initial alternations of other diphthongs (e.g ya-ia, ye-ie, yong-iong etc), the only logical non-syllable-initial form of yu (the syllable-initial form of umlaut u) is iu. Incidentally, this is also the spelling of this sound in the pinyin system used in Taiwan. On the other hand, there is another inconsistency between the syllable-initial and non-syllable- initial forms of the final iou (i.e. you-iu). The logical choice should have been either You-iou or Yu-iu. Now that the iu form is taken by the umlaut u, the only option left is to restore the pinyin form iu, which is the abbreviated form of iou, to its original form. >use letters rather than numbers for the tones??? What is the logic >behind the selection of letters? Knowing the logic might help in >remembering all these special codes.... The reason for choosing letters in lieu of numbers is basically for the ease and speed of typing, because this eliminates the need to reach the number keys and therefore means less hand movement. The selection of tone letters does not have any logic at all--they are taken directly from a supplimentary note to the October 1955 version of pinyin, with the default tone changed from level to falling. Admittedly, these letters are not very intuitive, but a priori, the numbers are no more intuitive, except they have been used for a while for pedagogic purposes and therefore look more familiar. The arrangement of the 'homonym id's', on the other hand, do following certain principles. The most important one is the combinatorial possibility: the homonym id is often the initial letter of another character with which a compound word can be formed. Characters that usually do not form compounds with other characters, such as those used in chemical names, plant and animal names, personal and geographical names, etc., are grouped according to their semantic category and a homonym id is given to each category. Like every aspect of language, there is arbitrariness here. But the most important thing is that enormous effort was made to reduce inconsistency, which is one of the worst enemies of learning. > >CWP is certainly not what I would call "user friendly", and a far cry >from being intuitive. But it certainly beats doing without :-). >-- >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Roy Schmidt | #include >Indiana University | /* They are _my_ thoughts, and you can't >Graduate School of Business | have them, so there! */