Kent Karlsson wrote on 05/29/2003 07:19:01 AM: > The empty set symbol is a math symbol, not expected to ever occur (properly) > in a word-like context. Capital O with stroke, however, is a > letter, and can easily > and without any problems occur in a word-like context.
Which is exactly why it would be a terrible choice to indicate null in phonetic transcription (and why linguists would not use that unless they had absolutely no other choice short of putting 300 instances into a manuscript by hand). > IPA and other phonetic writings are AFAIK always lowercase Utterly wrong. Uppercase vowel symbols (**including Ø**) have been used in Americanist phonetics to indicate voiceless vocoids; some uppercase consoant symbols (e.g. L, M, N, R) are used for voiceless counterparts to normally-voiced contoids. IPA uses several small caps (B, G, H, I, L, N, ?, R, Y); Uralic phonetics uses several more. Full caps have often been used as typographic approximations for small caps. Capitals C and V are regularly used to denote generic consonant and vowel. Pullum & Ladusaw mention use by some of D, H, P, S. >; so the > uppercase form can be used in another meaning in those contexts. Sorry, no go. Please abandon any suggestion of using U+00D8 to indicate null categories in linguistic transcriptions. - Peter --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Constable Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA Tel: +1 972 708 7485
