PEG Morphology Algorithm
> John E Clifford scripsit:
>
> > Why is {ou} not allowed? I suspect the
> answer is
> > that somepeople can't distinguish between it
> and
> > {o} but that doesn't seem to be a very good
> > reason, since it suggests that some people
> > mispronounce {o} (as I know that Lojbab with
> his
> > diminished vowel set does).
>
> Essentially all Americans pronounce long "o" as
> in "so" as ou, so we ban it.
> (In British English it's @u, more or less
> "yu" in Lojban orthography.)
>
Relevance? Lojban {o} is supposedly the
"Italian," "pure," form. since most Lojbanists
are native speakers of American English (which
doesn't differentiate much on this issue)who
cannot hit that tone, the best solution was and
is to match the corresponding solution for {e},
using the lower, "short," form. I see that CLL
doesn't do that, creating yet another asymmetry
in the phonology and so allowing {ei} but not
{ou} (of course, there is a matching asymmetry in
allowing {oi} but not {eu} and I wouldn't want to
do away with that — even though native speakers
of AE can — and do — produce this in
paralinguistic contexts; disgust being the
typical case). Strictly speaking, as a practical
matter rather than a theoretic one, {ei} ought to
be disallowed as well, since as a matter of fact
it and simple {e} are often confused in even
fairly clear contexts (the fact that we have a
number of word pairs Ce-Cei that go often in the
same places doesn't help, of course). But the
root is again regular mispronunciation of the
vowel (this time in spite of the CLL prescription).