From: ct2r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Canh Hoang Tran)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: Re: ** Rules for placing accent marks? **
Date: 12 Nov 92 23:07:38 GMT
Article-I.D.: andrew.gf0r1O200iV300Y1dD
Organization: Freshman, MCS general, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Hi,

Tua^~n wrote:

>From: JFT%NCCIBM1.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu (JFT@NCCIBM1.BITNET)
>Subject: ** Rules for placing accent marks? **
>Date: 12 Nov 92 20:29:42 GMT
> 
>Hi,
>  I am curious, what are the rules for placing accent
>marks in the following situations:
>   1) the word is made of two vowels, does the accent
>      mark go above the 1st or 2nd, or does it depend?
>      Ex.  a'o= coat, dress, shirt.... the accent is
>           above the first vowel.
> 
>    2) the word has two vowels in between consonants.
> 
>       Ex.  qua?n ly'= administrative... accent is
>            above the second vowel (of qua?n)
> 
>Can anyone tell me some unique cases, or tell me all
>the rules, or are there any?
> 
>Thanks,
> 
>Tua~'n (John).

I can~t think of any rules to use diacritical marks, and I don~t think
there are such rules for that.  But thinking about diacritical marks in
Vietnamese language, I found that there are some ~tip~ points, as I call
it to use diacritical marks. 

Before I go on to lead you to confusion, let me clarify about one thing:
~qua^`n~ is the bad example you gave, ~qua^`n~ just has one vowel
instead of two as you said. Why? Because ~u~ goes with ~q~ to make
compound-consonent ~qu~, it~s analogous to ~t~and ~h~ in the
compound-consonent ~th~ in either VNese language or English, either ~th~
has its own characteristic, differs from either ~t~ or ~h~ alone; as the
matter of fact, we never find ~q~ without ~u~ after it in any VNese
word, they must go together. Thus, it~s misleading if ~u~ is considered
as a vowel.

Another point which I want to clarify: In the general keyboard, the
following symbols are considered as diacritical marks:   ~, `, ?, ~, . ,
and no-sign for the case none of above symbols are used for a particular
word.  Other symbols listed here are considered as vowel-distinguisher: 
^, * or +, (.The issue here is about diacritical marks.

Let~s consider anothing: Generally, the component of the words in VNese
language are: --> consonent(s)-vowel(s)-consonent(s) <--.  Note that:
	_There is at least one vowel for any particular word.
	_For the sake of this explanation, I name the consonent before the
vowel as ForeConsonents, and the consonent after the vowel as
SupConsonent.
	_ A word might have zero, one or more ForeConsonents or SupConsonent.

Now let~s consider some ~tip~ points about diacritical marks:

(1)Point#1: Diacritical marks are unaffected by the presence of
ForeConsonents, thus regardless whether the number of ForeConsonent is
zero, one, two, or more, diacritical marks is affected by some other
factors.
Example: Will be given in conjunction with other examples in other points. 

(2)Point#2: In contrast, the presence status of SupConsonent affectects
to the location of the diacritical points.

(3)Point#3: If there is at least one SupConsonent, then the diacritical
marks are located above the vowel preceed the SupConsonent of the word
regardless the number of the vowels the word contains
Ex:"bu*o*'ng":stubborn: ForeConsonent:b;
SupConsonent:n,g;-->diacritical:above o*; "u*o*'t":wet:no ForeConsonent;
SupConsonent:t;-->diacritical:above:o*
(4)Point#4: The one-vowel word has its diacritical mark right above it.
Ex: needless because this statement is straight forward.
(5)Point#5: If there is no SupConsonent, then the diacritical marks are
affected by the number of the vowels the word contains.

	@In the two-vowel word, the diacritical mark locates right above the
first vowel from left to right.
Ex: "a'o" : no ForeConsonent, no SupConsonent; diacritical:above "a"
Ex:"ga.o":rice: one ForeConsonent:g; no SupConsonent, diacriticl:below
"a"
	@In the three-vowel word, the diacritical mark locates right above the
middle vowel.
Ex:"nhie^`u":many:2 ForeConsonent:n,h; no SupConsonent; diacritical:
above middle vowel:"e^"; 
Ex:"tuye^'t":snow:1 ForeConsonent:t;1 SupConsonent:t; diacritical:above
middle vowel:"e^"
(6)Point#6: In the multiple-vowel word, if just has one
vowel-distinguisher, then the diacritical marks are located right above
the vowel which has vowel-distinguisher. This ~tip~ point doesn~t work
with multiple-vowel word which has more than one vowel-distinguisher.
Ex: Take a look at the two examples of point #5: "nhie^`u" and
"tuye^'t", both of them have some featurese: multiple-vowel word,  has
one vowel-distinguisher ("^")-->diacritical is located on the top of the
vowel which has vowel-distinguisher. 
Ex: "ngu*o*`i": people:multiple- vowel, has 2 vowel-distinguisher: (*
and *), and the diacritical mark is affected by other factors.  It is
determined by using Point #5
Ex: "ngu*?i":smell: this is multiple-vowel word, "u" has vowel
distinguisher and thus the diacritical mark is located above it. Note
that this word complies to point #6 as well as point #5
Although I listed 6 ~tip~ points above, I usually don~t use it when
using Vietnamese language since it is so familiar with me (compare to
English is so familiar with you).  The diacritical marks and the
vowel-distinguisher make Vietnamese language become more interesting and
unique compared to other languages; and it's importantant too, imagine
that without it, netters of SCV must guess and the reading process must
be a lot slower.  I have been living in United States for about 2 and
1/2 years and am attending Carnegie Mellon University as a freshman. 
Please feel free to send me Email or post on the SCV bulletin board if
you want to add more ~tip~ points or you find some exception cases. 
Hope that this explaination helps!

Sincerely yours,
Canh Tran

 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese