[Lexicog] English homonyms

[Thapelo Otlogetswe]

Setswana words have no graphical tonal marks and the
Setswana dictionaries that I know don't mark any tone,
except for a bilingual Setswana French Setswana
dictionary (Creissels and Chebanne 2000) where tone is
marked on the phonetic transcriptons.

But that's not the only problem. Setswana provides one
with a choice in writing to differentiate between [o
and e] and [o and e with a cicumflex: ê & ô]. The
outdated standard orthography [1981] states that the
vowels with circumflexes should:
 "be used for Primary School Literature, and be
discarded from Secondary School onwards, including
general literature. However, the circumflex may be
used in post-primary literature, only where there is
likely to be confusion, as well as in scientific
works" (Setswana Standard Orthography 1981: sorry no
page number).

These vowels can be characterised phonetically as:

/o/ back close lax vowel
/ô/ back mid vowel
/e/ front close lax vowel
/ê/ front mid vowel

But in practice vowels with circuflexes are only used
in elementary primary education, and by standard 4
they are usually discarded. This means that o and e
end up representing two different phonetic vowels
each. But this is not unique to Setswana, mapping the
phonetic to the orthographic is rarely one to one.
However it does mean that when the circumflexes are
ignored words like:

kgoro [door]
kgoro [a state of one's stomach being full]

bonana [see each other]
bonana [youthfulness]

are made to look basically the same when the use of
the circumflex could have differentiated them. Unlike
French which is consistent in its use of diacritics,
Setswana is inconsistent and unstable.

However lexicographers have tended to use the
circumflex since they believe it reduces ambiguity.
When we were [Daan Prinsloo & myself] approached by
Macmillan Publishers to revise the Setswana English
Setswana dictionary we agreed to use the circumflexes
on a similar principle; that they would aid users and
reduce the level of ambiguity. However that still
leaves tonal ambiguity unresolved in the entries.


=====
Thapelo Otlogetswe
University of Brighton
I T R I
Lewes Road, Brighton
BN2 4GJ, England
Tel: (+44) 1273 642912 (office)
(+44) 1273 600052 (home)
(+44) 1273 642908 (fax)
http://www.itri.brighton.ac.uk/~Thapelo.Otlogetswe/




	
		
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