My father (who some of you have seen on some of the other blindness-related lists, Verle Wessel) worked with APH and others in writing the braille teaching manuals. I asked for his input on this, and my suspicions were correct... It's a sylable-based rule. Contractions can't bridge between two sylables. Below is his detailed response. Unfortunately, this would be a tricky one to write programmatically, I'm afraid.
My father wrote: I am a little rusty in my old age, but I believe there is a rule that says you should not use a contraction crossing over two syllables. So the debate is not so much about contractionizing as it is about syllabification. In most cases when the O follows the Ed sound, it is accented indicating that is a separate syllable in itself. Words like speedometer and pedometer are fairly obvious. The word fedora has 3 syllables fed-o-ra with the O most pronounced. Now is you were in England Caledonia would be written in four syllables as cal-ed-o-ni-a, but If you are in America it woule be written in 3 syllables cal-ed-o-ya. In the word predominant the letters pre make up one syllable in itself, and the ed sign would not be used. He said he would double-check with one of his colleagues to enture this correctness, but he's fairly confident in this answer. Hope this helps, Keith -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Dave Mielke Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 9:11 AM To: Informal discussion between users and developers of BRLTTY. Subject: Re: [BRLTTY] Contraction error: Caledonia [quoted lines by Lee Maschmeyer on 2007/08/24 at 09:28 -0400] Hi: >Very much to my surprise, Caledonia should use the e-d sign: The problem is a rule in the table which says that "ed" in the middle of a word, when followed by "o", shoudn't be contracted. This certanly looks like a flawed rule, but I'm not sure what the right rule should be. Here, therefore, are a few otehr such words I'd like your thoughts on: bedouin chalcedony fedora macedonia pedometer redolence redout speedometer stevedore -- Dave Mielke | 2213 Fox Crescent | I believe that the Bible is the Phone: 1-613-726-0014 | Ottawa, Ontario | Word of God. Please contact me EMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Canada K2A 1H7 | if you're concerned about Hell. http://FamilyRadio.com/ | http://Mielke.cc/bible/ _______________________________________________ This message was sent via the BRLTTY mailing list. To post a message, send an e-mail to: BRLTTY@mielke.cc For general information, go to: http://mielke.cc/mailman/listinfo/brltty _______________________________________________ This message was sent via the BRLTTY mailing list. To post a message, send an e-mail to: BRLTTY@mielke.cc For general information, go to: http://mielke.cc/mailman/listinfo/brltty
