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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>All,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT face=Arial>Having read the posts and replied once off
the top of my head, I have given the matter of transcription a little more
thought. In the interest of promulgating student understanding and
</FONT></FONT><FONT size=2><FONT face=Arial><EM>not</EM> making this a
referendum on Britain vs. America's "Place In The World", I would suggest
the following.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Most students taking a course in comparative
linguistics will have had an introductory course in linguistics and, one
hopes, a course in phonology -- almost certainly at least the former. Is
there any degree of uniformity in the transcription systems in the
introductory textbooks that are most commonly being used today?
How about phonology textbooks? Use by major journals in the field might
be a secondary consideration. If it turns out that there <EM>is </EM>a
reasonable degree of uniformity in the books students will have already used,
then by all means continue it. If there isn't any such uniformity, then
we're no worse off than we were before.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The other factor I would personally like to see
considered is the extent to which a transcription system provides a
"feature-like" way of handling segmental transcription. Examples and
problems need to be given in alphabetic notation, but in the study of language
change and reconstruction we are often dealing with changes affecting natural
classes. Some symbol usage facilitates seeing the relationship among
segments that share places or manners of articulation. Other symbol sets
do not. This was one of the things in the back of my mind when I
mentioned that I liked the letters with <EM>hacek</EM>s to indicate strident
palato-alveolars. The <EM>hacek</EM> signals something consistently to
the student. I like the various diacritics used by the IPA for
specialized articulations (palatalization, retroflexion, laryngealization,
etc.) and other systems have similar diacritics. If only King
Seijong had designed the IPA. . . . </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have not done the math to see which of the
various competing systems or textbooks comes out on top, given the
abovementioned criteria, but I hope Lyle will. I certainly agree that it
would be nice to have a standard, and maybe IPA approaches that, but I also
think Marc Picard makes a good point regarding relative use and
productivity. I'm just sort of glad Inow that I never wrote that
historical linguistics textbook I was thinking about producing a decade or so
ago.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bob Rankin</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Department of Linguistics</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>University of Kansas</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Lawrence, KS 66044 USA</FONT></DIV>
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