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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear colleagues,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I would like to thank all those who replied to my
query, both on-list and off-list (in timeline order of responses): </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Greville Corbett, Andrew Spencer, Alice Harris,
Geoffrey Haig, and Martin Haspelmath via LINGTYP;</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Terry J. Klokeid, Joseph F. Foster, Jakob Dempsey,
Nora Wiedenmann, Bruce Moren, Peter T. Daniels, Michael Job, John E. McLaughlin,
Geoff Hooker, Paul D. Fallon, Mark J. Jones, Steven B. Chin, Mark A. Mandel,
Elizabeth J. Pyatt, and James L. Fidelholtz via LINGUIST List.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I. Choice of symbol 'in principle'</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Although several possibilities for marking
unaspirated have been proposed, the most familiar and widespread of them
seems to be the superscript 'equals' sign. It is used e.g. in Spencer (1996),
cited in Pullum & Ladusaw (1996), being traced back to Gleason (1961) and
Wells (1982). The superscript 'equals' is currently used, among
others, in studies of Southern Wakashan languages; it is recognized by the IPA
and is listed in the Extended IPA charts for disordered speech (</FONT><A
href="http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/extipachart97.pdf"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/extipachart97.pdf</FONT></A><FONT
face=Arial size=2> ; Handbook 1999: p. 190, symbol 680).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The other known options include: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- tilde above, U+0303. </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Used in the comparative Daghestanian dictionary by Kibrik & Kodzasov
(1990), and also e.g. in the grammar of Lezgian (Haspelmath 1993). This was our
starting point, but finally the tilde had to be dismissed as (potentially) a
*third* diacritic on top of a consonant (together with macron and
hacek/caron).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- the (right upper) corner, U+02FA, for 'no
audible release'.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- using voiced (b,d,g...) as unaspirated,
contrasting with voiceless (p,t,k,...) as aspirated. Not possible in our
case since we also have voiced series. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- voiced series + 'devoicing' ring below (b,d) or
above (g) -- U+0325 and U+030A correspondingly. Problems with uvulars as we
don't have the voiced uvular stop or affricate.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- variations of apostrophe/quotation mark placed
before, after or above the character.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- colon. Confusion with length.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- underline</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- superscript 'minus', as reported by Joseph F.
Foster. To this one we will return below.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>All in all, we accept the superscript 'equals' as
the most established means.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>II. Technical issues</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>...However, the practical realization of our
decision turned out to be far from straightforward. Having to use a good deal of
diacritics, we stick to the recent SIL fonts which have all the imaginable stuff
and even more, namely Charis SIL and Doulos SIL. These are Unicode fonts with
lots of excellent features. Unfortunately, in both of them the unaspirated
'equals' (U+02ED 'modifier letter unaspirated') is *enormous* in width --
just unusable inline. (This character is not to be confused with U+033F, double
overline, which is still bigger). One more analogous symbol is U+207C
'superscript equals sign' from the maths section, but it is spaced and as well
much too wide for a tiny modifier. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>So in fact, there is no possibility to have the
symbol of acceptable dimensions in our font without some per-character tricks
with font properties. </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>We will try to contact
people from SIL who are making these fonts, and maybe we'll find a way to settle
this question, but this is the present state of affairs.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>As a temporary technical solution, we will thus be
using the superscript minus, U+207B, which is reported to also have been used
for unaspirated.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>III. Khinalug alphabet(s)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The symbol in question will be used in our project
of documentation of Khinalug, a North Caucasian language. We're using
(alternatively, for different purposes) a 'scientific' orthography (with
superscript equals/minus), an IPA narrow transcription (with aspiration marked
instead), and a 'public' alphabet (to be finalized during this summer's
fieldwork). The 'public' alphabet making extensive use of digraphs (vs.
diacritics), unaspirated are rendered with double consonants.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Those of you who are interested are invited to
visit the project's website at <A
href="http://www.philol.msu.ru/~languedoc/eng/xin/index.php">http://www.philol.msu.ru/~languedoc/eng/xin/index.php</A>
for details. Pages will be updated as available.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Kind regards to all,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Alexandre Arkhipov</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>References</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ball, MJ. 1988. The contribution of speec pathology
to the development of phonetic description. In MJ Ball (Ed.), Theoretical
linguistics and disordered language (pp. 168-188). San Diego CA: College-Hill
Press.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ball, MJ. 1991. Recent developments in the
transcription of nonnormal speech. Journal of Communication Disorders, 24,
59-78.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Ball MJ, Rahilly J. 2002. Transcribing disordered
speech: the segmental and prosodic layers. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics,
16, 329-344.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Duckwork M, Allen G, Hardcastle W, Ball M. (1990).
Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for the transcription of
atypical speech. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 4,
273-280.</FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Gleason, Henry A., Jr. 1961. <EM>An
introduction to descriptive linguistics</EM>. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2><FONT face=Arial>Handbook 1999: </FONT></FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of
the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: CUP, 1999.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. <EM>A grammar of
Lezgian</EM>. (Mouton grammar library; 9). Berlin & New York: Mouton de
Gruyter.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Pullum, Geoffrey K., and William A. Ladusaw.
1996. <I>Phonetic Symbol Guide</I>. Second edition.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Spencer, A. 1996. <EM>Phonology. Theory and
description</EM>. Oxford: Blackwell.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Wells, J. C. 1982. <I>Accents of English</I>.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(Cross-posted to
LinguistList)</FONT></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>