RE: IPA Null Consonant

Jim Allan wrote:

> Kent Karlsson posted:
> 
> > And I (still!) very strongly disagree. The empty set symbol stands
> > for the empty set (also written {}). But there is no set here, let alone
> > an empty one. Possibly an empty string (of phonetic symbols?).
> > Written as '' or "" in your favourite programming language, and
> > conventionally written as a lowercase epsilon (ε) in math contexts.
> > (That does not make the empty string equal to a string consisting
> > of the letter ε, of course!) 
> 
> No one claims that empty set symbol used by logicians for empty set is 
> used by linguists with exactly the same meaning.

True; but I claim they are not using the empty set symbol at all...

> The glyph ! is use by mathematicians to indicate "factorial", by 

Yes.  Not just the glyph, but the exclamation mark character;
there is no math exclamation mark character defined...

> phoneticists to indicate an aleveolar or postalveolar click, and by 

Those have separately encoded *letters* in Unicode. The one looking like an 
exclamation mark is:
01C3;LATIN LETTER RETROFLEX CLICK;Lo;0;L;;;;;N;LATIN LETTER EXCLAMATION MARK;;;;
(The other click letters apparently should have different-looking glyphs.)

In addition, when the integral sign is used in IPA, it's got its own letter 
character:
0283;LATIN SMALL LETTER ESH;Ll;0;L;;;;;N;;;01A9;;01A9

> programmers in c and some other programming languages to 
> indicate "not".

Just because they wanted to use an ASCII/EBCDIC character that
would be present in *all* extensions of ASCII or EBCDIC. Otherwise the
logical not sign (U+00AC, ¬) would have been a better choice.

> Such overloading of symbols between disciplines (and even within 
> disciplines) is common.

Granted (but I don't see any evidence of that for the empty set symbol).

> > But capital "slashed o" (U+00D8) is not mentioned... And that letter
> > would be entirely appropriate for this purpose **in the contexts** where
> > it would stand for a "null consonant" (or empty string) in linguistics. 
> 
> It is not clear to me why the empty set symbol, which at least as the 
> idea of emptiness associated with it, should be more inappropriate for 
> use in linguistics for null character(s) than capital O-slash  (Ø) which 

The empty set symbol is a math symbol, not expected to ever occur (properly)
in a word-like context.  Capital O with stroke, however, is a letter, and can 
easily
and without any problems occur in a word-like context.

>   is a consonant in a real language and as such as no suggestion of 

...a vowel...

> emptiness about it, especially not to linguists who recognize its 
> lowercase form as part of IPA.

IPA and other phonetic writings are AFAIK always lowercase; so the
uppercase form can be used in another meaning in those contexts.  Indeed,
even open/closed variants of the same letter are used in different (though
non-null) meanings in IPA.

> Also, linguists might be dealing with Norwegian and may wish to use 
> actual Norwegian spelling in their explanations.

Then you are in trouble, if you/they want to use so similar (or indeed same)
symbol for two different things.  In such cases one would choose to use a
completely different symbol (letter) for "empty", like Greek Capital Omega,
or something even more distinctive.

> > But capital "slashed o" (U+00D8) is not mentioned... And that letter
> > would be entirely appropriate for this purpose **in the contexts** where
> > it would stand for a "null consonant" (or empty string) in linguistics. 
> 
> Almost *any* character not otherwise used could be 
> appropriate **in the contexts**.
> 
> > It does not appear to have wandered
> > into linguistics in any way (except by occasional  typographic mistake,
> > and that does not count), even though there is use of a similar-looking
> > symbol.
> 
> Can this supposition be documented?

Others gave references where it in most cases did NOT look at all like the
empty set symbol.

> I thought the opposite, that the slashed zero form that sometimes 

The empty set symbol has nothing to do with a slashed zero, never has.

> appears in linguistics was a variant mathematical null set symbol, that 
> the evolution was the opposite to what you suggest.

Sorry for picking on every statement you make, but there is no such thing
as a "null set" or a "null set symbol" (null and empty aren't the same).

> > I think it would be less problematic to use the letter Ø for the empty
> > set (in a math context), than to use the EMPTY SET symbol  (Ø) for any
> > linguistic entity in a word-like linguistic context. 
> 
> But it *is* being so used and has been used for quite some time. The 

Well, no...

> word "problematic" is puzzling. What problems does this usage cause?

Math formulas often contain letters; indeed it is extremely common, not to
say ubiquitous.  But math symbols, on the other hand, never occur in words.

>  From the web page http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/secs.html by 
> Markus Kuhn on the empty set symbol:
> 
> > # Used in technical drawings and on product descriptions. Note that
> > # DIAMETER SIGN is an exact circle while EMPTY SET is often a digit zero,
> > # both with a stroke.
> 
> Markus Kuhn distinguishes the diameter symbol from the empty set symbol 

They have different origin (even though a unification would have been possible, 
years ago).

> but considers slashed zero as just a variant of the empty set sign, 

I cannot imagine why.  They have no historic or typographic relationship
other than looking slightly similar (if your vision is blurred).

> presumably from the same kind of glyph variation I have also seen in 
> practise and which Ken Whistler commented on.

>From what I've heard on this thread, a slashed zero glyph appears common
in this situation in linguistics.  A slashed zero is completely unrelated to the
empty set symbol.  The latter is, however, closely related (as a matter of 
original
design) to the capital o with stroke (and indeed capital o with stroke is used 
to
denote the empty set, nothing wrong with that).

> The web page http://www.brl.org/formats/rule18.html provides official 
> Braille translations for IPA type symbols, including a braille symbol to 
> be used for either the slashed zero or round slashed circle 
> glyphs with the notation:
> 
> > slashed zero, null or empty set

The empty set symbol is still completely unrelated to a slashed zero (even if
Markus and somebody else managed to confuse them; a mistake easily made).

> Personally I prefer the slashed zero for null character(s) in 
> linguistic  contexts.

Fine.  So use that. (Which is entirely different from the empty set symbol.)

> I don't know if it also occurs in mathematical contexts as a null set 
> symbol.

Only in bad typesetting, if at all.

> Whether in linguistics the slashed zero should be considered a glyph 
> variant of the mathematical empty set sign or whether the 

I think not.

> slashed zerio 
> is a symbol unto itself (distinct from both the empty set sign and 
> normal zero) is something for practising linguists to argue over or 
> agree on.
> 
> That the slashed zero glyph (used for null character(s) in linguistic 
> texts) is to be distinguished from normal zero in linguistic texts is 
> easy enough to demonstrate.
> 
> Are there also linguistic texts that distinguish slashed zero 
> from the 
> mathematical empty set sign, giving different meanings to each?
> 
> If so, then someone who wishes for Unicode to include slashed 
> zero as an 
> independant character should make a formal proposal to Unicode with 
> sources to back up the difference in use.

"Slashed zero" is already representable as <DIGIT ZERO, COMBINING LONG
SOLIDUS OVERLAY>.  Would that representation somehow be inappropriate?
(Such as having digits in words...)

> Even if linguists in general feel that the empty set form which often 
> appears for (null character(s)) is a kludge for the proper 
> slashed zero 
> empty character symbol, a reasonable proposal could be 
> presented, backed 
> by one or more linguistic organizations.
> 
> At least slashed zero might be made available as a variant of 
> the round 
> empty set symbol through a variation selector ... if it is 
> *asked for*.

The empty set symbol and slashed zero remain unrelated.

> But that is for those who use such notation regularly to decide.
> 
> But I doubt you will find any linguist who would consider the Norwegian 
> capital slashed O as anything other than a kludge replacement for 
> either the standard round empty set symbol or the slashed zero symbol.

Again, (sorry for the repeat, but it seems necessary), the empty set symbol
as the capital o with stroke are historically closely related, and either can
be used to denote the empty set (and so can {}).  The empty set symbol
is unrelated to a slashed zero (and both are unrelated to the diameter sign).

I have yet to see anyone quote a linguistic texts that *explicitly* says that
they use the empty set symbol for this "empty" linguistic entity.

 
> Jim Allan

                /kent k



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