no stressed syllables in a name

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Luke Bergen

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Aug 11, 2011, 1:19:31 PM8/11/11
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The only thing I could find in the CLL was that names default to a penultimately stressed form and then anything other than that you specify stress by marking the syllable that SHOULD be stressed with capital letters (or a stress marker of some kind like cribê).

But what if my name is pronounced with no stressed syllable at all?  How do I write "la bergen" with no stress?  Would saying that the whole thing is stressed have that effect?  i.e. "la BERGEN"?

Feels weird.

Remo Dentato

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Aug 11, 2011, 2:10:13 PM8/11/11
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I'm not sure what do you mean with "no stress" I instinctively put an
accent of the first "e": "Bèrgen".

Maybe it is pronounced as "byrgyn"? That I would be tempted to
pronounce with no stress (or with the same stress on the vocalic
sound).

remod

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Luke Bergen

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Aug 11, 2011, 2:38:32 PM8/11/11
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sorry, yes, I was spelling it the way I spell it in english.  It's pronounced more like "brgyn" though that "y" is very short and it has no stress.

Pierre Abbat

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Aug 11, 2011, 5:37:17 PM8/11/11
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I think that, if no syllable is stressed, you could mark that by putting a
breve on the syllable that would be stressed by default. But I don't have the
rules for default stress fully worked out. If a name consists entirely of
consonants, should one of the consonants be stressed by default?

Pierre
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li fi'u vu'u fi'u fi'u du li pa

tijlan

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Aug 11, 2011, 7:04:46 PM8/11/11
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On 11 August 2011 19:10, Remo Dentato <rden...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm not sure what do you mean with "no stress" I instinctively put an
> accent of the first "e": "Bèrgen".
>
> Maybe it is pronounced as "byrgyn"? That I would be tempted to
> pronounce with no stress (or with the same stress on the vocalic
> sound).

Not all natural languages use stress. That's especially the case for
syllable- or mora-timed languages. "Paris" in French has no stress.
"Tokyo" in Japanese has no stress. "Bergen" too can be pronounced
naturally with no stress and as other than "byrgyn" in those
languages.

MorphemeAddict

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Aug 12, 2011, 1:16:07 AM8/12/11
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OTOH, Lojban *does* have stress, so maybe a final syllable stress would be less obtrusive than trying to indicate no stress at all.
 
stevo


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tijlan

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Aug 12, 2011, 5:29:59 AM8/12/11
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On 12 August 2011 06:16, MorphemeAddict <lyt...@gmail.com> wrote:
> OTOH, Lojban *does* have stress, so maybe a final syllable stress would be
> less obtrusive than trying to indicate no stress at all.

Stress is relevant only for brivla. An unstressed (but paused) cmevla
cannot be morphologically ambiguous, and the position of stress, if
any, wouldn't technically affect the word's meaning. So there is no
reason in Lojban to think or try to indicate that a certain cmevla
should have a stress on a certain syllable or none. Conversely, it
would be reasonable for Lojban to have no default stress pattern for
cmevla. A cmevla with no stress-marking would then generically
represent all of its valid stress patterns. There is no way to
indicate exactly that a cmevla should be pronounced without a stress,
but we could at least indicate that it does not exclude the unstressed
pronunciation by not marking any, by not having a default stress. (If
we had to have a default for each such phonotactic feature that isn't
morphologically, syntactically, or semantically relevant in Lojban, we
would have to have ones for tone, pitch, intonation, etc. as well.)

Jonathan Jones

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Aug 12, 2011, 6:31:12 AM8/12/11
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Sorry, but I find that I naturally pronounce "Bergen" as {bErgen}. Granted, I don't put a /lot/ of stress on the first syllable, but it's definitely there. I find myself incapable of pronouncing it with no stress at all, although if I want to sound like a twat, I am able to put even /more/ stress on gen than I do on ber.


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.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
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Luke Bergen

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Aug 12, 2011, 9:30:20 AM8/12/11
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Keep in mind Jonathan, I corrected myself a few messages back.  I'm actually pronouncing it "brgn" or maybe "brgyn" with a really short "y".

I should just upload a cynch or something of me pronouncing it.  Maybe I AM inadvertently putting some stress on the "be" and not realizing it or something.

tijlan

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Aug 12, 2011, 10:17:00 AM8/12/11
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On 12 August 2011 11:31, Jonathan Jones <eye...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, but I find that I naturally pronounce "Bergen" as {bErgen}. Granted,
> I don't put a /lot/ of stress on the first syllable, but it's definitely
> there.
> I find myself incapable of pronouncing it with no stress at all,

You never have to pronounce it without a stress in Lojban. Nor do you
have to assume that it must have a stress and {bErgen} is the only
natural way for everybody, if that's what you mean by "it's definitely
there".

> although if I want to sound like a twat, I am able to put even /more/ stress
> on gen than I do on ber.

That would effectively be perceived as {ber,GEN}. Stress is a relative
feature. If the syllable strengths (loudness, pitch, etc.) could be
quantified:

.[0],[1]. = .ber,GEN.
.[0],[2]. = .ber,GEN.
.[0],[3]. = .ber,GEN.
...

.[1],[2]. = .ber,GEN.
.[2],[3]. = .ber,GEN.
.[3],[4]. = .ber,GEN.
...

If a certain syllable in every cmevla was to be explicitly or
implicitly defined as a stress, we would never be able to indicate
that ".[0],[0]." or other ".[n],[n]." (same strength) is even
*allowed* in accordance with the facts that
such no-stress or flat-stress causes no morpho-syntactic ambiguity
in Lojban, and
many names in various natlangs have no stress.
By having the unmarked form of cmevla (ex. {bergen}) to generically
represent all its valid stress patterns, we could avoid the
unnecessary exclusion of no-stress or flat-stress. That was my point.

Jonathan Jones

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Aug 12, 2011, 5:49:39 PM8/12/11
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On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 8:17 AM, tijlan <jbot...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 12 August 2011 11:31, Jonathan Jones <eye...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, but I find that I naturally pronounce "Bergen" as {bErgen}. Granted,
> I don't put a /lot/ of stress on the first syllable, but it's definitely
> there.
> I find myself incapable of pronouncing it with no stress at all,

You never have to pronounce it without a stress in Lojban. Nor do you
have to assume that it must have a stress and {bErgen} is the only
natural way for everybody, if that's what you mean by "it's definitely
there".

I'm not talking about any rules or mandates. I'm talking about how my tongue, lips, and vocal chords work when I attempt to say "Bergen".
 
> although if I want to sound like a twat, I am able to put even /more/ stress
> on gen than I do on ber.

That would effectively be perceived as {ber,GEN}.

Duh.
 
<snip>

Jonathan Jones

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Aug 12, 2011, 5:57:46 PM8/12/11
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I highly doubt you pronounce it as {brgyn}, as that is "Brrrrr gun" (ignoring syllable length). As far as {brgn} is concerned, syllabic consonants for me are half-ebu syllables. (Syllabic r, for example, is "er" with a very short e.) So, I say {brgn} the same way I say {bergen}, just quicker, which funnily enough actually makes the stress more pronounced.

Luke Bergen

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Aug 12, 2011, 7:01:27 PM8/12/11
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No that's exactly how it's said.  Burrrr like it's cold.  Hmmmm I don't remember off-hand, how do I differentiate "bl" as in "blame" from "bl" as in "table".  There's a word or phrase for that kind of consonant.

In anycase "bergen" in english is pronounced (by my family at least) as burrr (I'm cold) gen (kind of like gin in "begin" but maybe a bit shorter)

Jonathan Jones

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Aug 12, 2011, 9:22:58 PM8/12/11
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On Fri, Aug 12, 2011 at 5:01 PM, Luke Bergen <lukea...@gmail.com> wrote:

No that's exactly how it's said.  Burrrr like it's cold. 


I was talking about the "gun" part.
 

Muhammad Nael

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Aug 21, 2011, 9:54:47 AM8/21/11
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How about capitalizing the next-to-last syllable? De-stressing the by-default stresses one...

Michael Turniansky

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Aug 23, 2011, 2:22:06 PM8/23/11
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  We've had this discussion before, and I absolutely disagree with xorxes (And apparently, you) that stress on cmevla does not afffect meaning.  It can definitely distinguish between referents.  And isn't that what meaning IS?
           --gejyspa


 

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