From: ltran@lsil.com (Linh T. Tran x4900)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Subject: Re: ** Rules for placing accent marks? **
Date: 13 Nov 92 20:38:53 GMT
Reply-To: ltran@lsil.com
Organization: LSI Logic Corporation
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5


	Here are some rules I remember. Note that those rules might be changed
	and not used anymore in Vietnam. However, reading Vietnamese books
	published in Vietnam now, one cannot find much of discrepencies.
	The rules is by order of precedence. Zero rule was included, but 
	actually was so obvious. Well, I will explain rule ZERO later.

	-----------------------------
	ZERO RULE
	Always put the marks on the vowel, never on the consonent.
	
	FIRST RULE
	Always put the following marks on the vowel that already has a mark.
	Example:
	tha^'y, tho^?i, thuo+?, xuo^?ng, cuo^'c, nguye^~n .
	The point on the i is not counted as a mark, since all i must have
	the point. 

	SECOND RULE (contested by some scolars, but still widely used by 99%
		of books)
	Put the accent mark on the vowel which is near the center of the word.
	That has to do more with the visual balance! Since the written words
	will strike the eyes, and in the long run, unbalanced structures are
	not pleasant, the visual balance follows the same rules as in archi-
	tecture.
	Example:
	tho?i, tha'i, thu`y, chi.u,...

	THIRD RULE 
	This rule apply specifically to the couplet u+o+ . Since both of them
	has the + mark, above rules doesn't apply. The rule is: put the accent
	on the o+ .
	example:
	thu+o+?ng, thu+o+`ng, thu+o+.ng .
	------------------------------

	To answer your question on why qua?n doesn't have the mark on u but on
	a, I invoke rule ZERO. But before going into that, I would like to
	point out that the composite consonent "qu" produce a single sound
	"kw" (in Ha` No^.i's pronunciation), or "w" in deep South pronunciation.
	Thus, the u is not a vowel in the case of qua?n, since the whole 
	couplet is a composite consonent. Other composite consonents are:
	"ch", "gh", "gi" (gia`), "kh", "ng", "nh", "ph", "qu", "th", "tr",
	"sh" . Note that "gi" is the same as "qu", both are composite consonents
	which are represented by two symbols, one of which happens to be a
	vowel.

	Therefore, when rule ZERO is clear with "qua?n": only the a is a true
	vowel in this case.

	-------------------------------

	This my opinion about the rules. There are some "scolars" proposed to
	put the accent over the most prominent vowel. For instance, they propose
	to put the vowel like this: "cua?" instead of "cu?a". 

	Although there are merites in their proposal, I do believe that if
	we come up with a new system that simplify the writing of rules, that
	will be the most beneficial. When we write, we don't want to think much
	about where to place the marks so that it conform to the norm, but we 
	want to spend more time on thinking about what we want to write. Thus,
	the simpler the rule, the easier to write, and the better will be
	Vietnamese. 

	As far as I can see, no other set of rules could beat the traditional
	rules adopted up to now, at least in the regard of placing marks.

	Do we have other rules or exceptions? As far as I can see, the placing
	of the marks is simple and follows those 3/4 rules. I would like to hear
	comments from others too.

	Linh
	
	



JFT@NCCIBM1.BITNET (JFT%NCCIBM1.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu) wrote:
: 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).

--
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Linh Tran
ltran@lsil.com
of course, it is only my opinion.
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese