Sunday, 2 August 2020

Hireq, when and when not to render it in standard spelling

This post continues my exploration of the transformations of individual vowels from a pointed text to an unpointed one. 

Here we look at hireq, when it is ignored and when it appears. There was an overall strategy. I had several rules based on prefix to suppress hireq. They almost all disappeared when I figured out the closed syllable rule.
  1. Suppress hireq
    1. when there is an /h/ in the prefix and the stem is in hlc, hll, clm, ixg, ixt, lvi, npl, pla, rah, rgy, wlc, wmy, wgh, wqh, xmt, yll.
    2. or the stem is in hlc, irw, nwa, rbb with conditions for some affixes.
  2. Suppress hireq when it is in a closed syllable, 
    1. if the last character of the prefix is /n/ 
      1. and stem is one of ptk, ckd, clm, csh, dmh, mlt', pla, pzr, rah, rpa, wbr, wck, wmy, and the first syllable of the word is closed with a schwa.
      2. or any stem with a weak first character and the syllable is closed with a hatef-patah (only one instance of this).
    2.  if the stem is not in /n/ and the stem is not in bqw, clm, csa, gll, irw, igy, lbb, nwa, rxp, qll, qvh (or it is qvh with the last character of the prefix a /t/).
      1. There is an exception for words from stems hlc, wal with a final schwa.
  3. Allow hireq to be come 'i*i' - (which will later translate to double i).
    1. for words beginning with v||schwa||i||hireq where the stem begins with i and the word is not the name of a person, location, or people (I do have this explicit semantic information in my data),
    2. for some stems formed with weak consonants (ibw, iry, ixr, n'ty, ndr, lvn, ain, ild, nwa) with conditions on the affixes,
    3. for the long list of stems (see this post) that allow i with prefixes i, vi, iv, hiv (happens with stem idy),
  4. Allow hireq to become i 
    1. for several lists of stems with conditions on the affixes.
    2. for stems with yod as part of the stem, excluding any stems, another long list, where hireq is explicitly prevented.
  5. Much later in the process, the last steps, 
    1. prevent double i where the stem does not allow it.
    2. prevent the weak hireq from forming a syllable with a common single or double prefix unless this is overridden for a stem.
Though the prevention logic has simplified considerably, this whole process seems too complex still. 


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