Subject: Re: case-sensitivity and identifiers (was Re: Wide character implementation) From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 04:11:32 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3226104706223880@naggum.net> * Thomas Bushnell, BSG | Huh? If they are different words, then *by the definition of a phoneme* | the sound which distinguishes them is a phoneme. What is a "toneme"? Stress is generally not considered to be a difference in phoneme. The sound is exactly the same, but whether you have entering, departing, rising, falling, high, low, up-down, down-up, or level tone can and does change the meaning of the word. Thai, for instance, has explicit tone markers. Chinese has different ideographs for words that are pronounced with the same phonemes and different tonemes. Consider the phonemes of the word "really". The toneme is the difference in pronunciation between "Really?" and "Really." and "Really!". French, for instance, has no stress, but tends to use maringally shorter and longer vowels. They also have no tonemes, so they French have very _serious_ problems dealing with other languages and sound ridiculous in almost every other language than their own. /// -- In a fight against something, the fight has value, victory has none. In a fight for something, the fight is a loss, victory merely relief.