SC2/WG2 N2594
L2/03-142R
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2
PROPOSAL SUMMARY FORM TO ACCOMPANY SUBMISSIONSFOR ADDITIONS TO THE REPERTOIRE OF ISO/IEC 106461
Please fill all the sections A, B and C below.
(Please read Principles and Procedures Document for guidelines and details before filling this form.)
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/summaryform.html for latest Form.
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/principles.html for latest Principles and Procedures document.
See http://www.dkuug.dk/JTC1/SC2/WG2/docs/roadmaps.html for latest roadmaps.

A. Administrative
1. Title:
Proposal to encode combining double breve below
2. Requester's name: Rick McGowan, Peter Constable, Ken Whistler, and Unicode Technical Committee
3. Requester type (Member body/Liaison/Individual contribution):
Individual contribution
4. Submission date:July 1, 2003
5. Requester's reference (if applicable): _____________________________________________________________
6. (Choose one of the following:)
This is a complete proposal:
YESor,More information will be provided later:_______________
B. Technical - General
1. (Choose one of the following:)
a. This proposal is for a new script (set of characters):______________
Proposed name of script: _________________________________________________________.
b. The proposal is for addition of character(s) to an existing block:
YES
Name of the existing block:Combining Diacritical Marks (0300-03FF)
2. Number of characters in proposal:
1
3. Proposed category (see section II, Character Categories):
A
4. Proposed Level of Implementation (1, 2 or 3) (see clause 14, ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000):3
Is a rationale provided for the choice?
YES
If Yes, reference:contains combining marks
5. Is a repertoire including character names provided?
YES
a. If YES, are the names in accordance with the 'character naming guidelines
in Annex L of ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000?
YES
b. Are the character shapes attached in a legible form suitable for review?
YES
6. Who will provide the appropriate computerized font (ordered preference: True Type, or PostScript format) forpublishing the standard?
Unicode, Inc.
If available now, identify source(s) for the font (include address, e-mail, ftp-site, etc.) and indicate the tools
used:__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. References:a. Are references (to other character sets, dictionaries, descriptive texts etc.) provided? YES
b. Are published examples of use (such as samples from newspapers, magazines, or other sources)of proposed characters attached?
YES
8. Special encoding issues:
Does the proposal address other aspects of character data processing (if applicable) such as input,
presentation, sorting, searching, indexing, transliteration etc. (if yes please enclose information)?
NO
9. Additional Information:
Submitters are invited to provide any additional information about Properties of the proposed Character(s) or Scriptthat will assist in correct understanding of and correct linguistic processing of the proposed character(s) or script.
Examples of such properties are: Casing information, Numeric information, Currency information, Display behaviour
information such as line breaks, widths etc., Combining behaviour, Spacing behaviour, Directional behaviour, Default
Collation behaviour, relevance in Mark Up contexts, Compatibility equivalence and other Unicode normalization
related information. See the Unicode standard at http://www.unicode.org for such information on other scripts. Also
see http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeCharacterDatabase.html and associated Unicode Technical
Reports for information needed for consideration by the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in the UnicodeStandard.

1Form number: N2352-F (Original 1994-10-14; Revised 1995-01, 1995-04, 1996-04, 1996-08, 1999-03, 2001-05, 2001-09)

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C. Technical - Justification
1. Has this proposal for addition of character(s) been submitted before?
NOIf YES explain _________________________________________________________________________
2. Has contact been made to members of the user community (for example: National Body,
user groups of the script or characters, other experts, etc.)?
NOIf YES, with whom? ______________________________________________________________
If YES, available relevant documents: ________________________________________________
3. Information on the user community for the proposed characters (for example:
size, demographics, information technology use, or publishing use) is included?
Users of IPA
Reference: ___________________________________________________________________________
4. The context of use for the proposed characters (type of use; common or rare)______________
Reference: ___________________________________________________________________________
5. Are the proposed characters in current use by the user community?
YES
If YES, where? Reference:
Users of IPA
6. After giving due considerations to the principles in Principles and Procedures document (a WG 2 standingdocument) must the proposed characters be entirely in the BMP?
YES
If YES, is a rationale provided?
YES
If YES, reference: Stay with other IPA characters and combining marks
7. Should the proposed characters be kept together in a contiguous range (rather than being scattered)? YES
8. Can any of the proposed characters be considered a presentation form of an existing
character or character sequence?
NO
If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
______________
If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________
9. Can any of the proposed characters be encoded using a composed character sequence of either
existing characters or other proposed characters?
NO
If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
______________
If YES, reference:______________
10. Can any of the proposed character(s) be considered to be similar (in appearance
or function) to an existing character?
YES (U+032E)
If YES, is a rationale for its inclusion provided?
YES
If YES, reference:
See the body of proposal, below
11. Does the proposal include use of combining characters and/or use of composite sequences(see clauses 4.12 and 4.14 in ISO/IEC 10646-1: 2000)?
YES
If YES, is a rationale for such use provided?
YES
If YES, reference:
Is a combining mark.
Is a list of composite sequences and their corresponding glyph images (graphic symbols)
provided?
NO
If YES, reference: _______________________________________________________
12. Does the proposal contain characters with any special properties such ascontrol function or similar semantics?
NO
If YES, describe in detail (include attachment if necessary)______________
13. Does the proposal contain any Ideographic compatibility character(s)?
NO
If YES, is the equivalent corresponding unified ideographic character(s) identified? ____________
If YES, reference: ________________________________________________________

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Proposal to encode combining double breve below
The combining double breve below is used in the handbook defining the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA). It is also cited in Pullum and Ladusaw’s Phonetic Symbol Guide published by
the University of Chicago, 1996. The character appears on page 266, where they call it "BottomLigature".
In the Handbook of the IPA (1999), the character is actually misidentified.
Page 173 shows "Top tie bar", IPA #433, which is a diacritic to indicate various kinds ofcoarticulation (affricate or double articulation). This is a nonspacing double diacritic, = U+0361.
Page 174 shows "Bottom tie bar", IPA #509, which is an indication of linking. That is a spacing
extender, equivalent to U+203F UNDERTIE. (But the example shown on p. 203 is not this;instead p. 203 shows the nonspacing double diacritic in question, displaying *below* twocharacters.) The IPA documentation does not properly distinguish between "tie bars" that behave
this way and U+203F UNDERTIE. Unicode has to make this distinction, because nonspacingand spacing things are quite different in implementation and properties.
In concept the nonspacing tie bar below is simply an allograph of the nonspacing tie bar above. Itis like the cedilla below the g (Figure 7-1, p. 162, The Unicode Standard 3.0) that jumps to an
inverted comma above the g, because of the presence of a descender. However, because ofproperties and because of the nature of our encoding of nonspacing combining marks inparticular, it makes sense to encode a separate character for this allograph.
Similar Characters: The proposed character is similar to U+032E COMBINING BREVEBELOW, but that mark is a single diacritic. Because of this difference in combining behavior,applying to two base characters, it must be encoded separately, as other double diacritics. Alsosimilar is U+2323 SMILE. That character, however, is not a combining character at all, butrather an ordinary spacing character.
The proposed character name and representative glyph are as follows:

Example of usage:

It is proposed to encode this character at U+035C.
Character properties are similar to other such double diacritical marks:
General Category is Mn
Combining Type is 233.
Bidi category is NSM.
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Contextual Examples from Published Sources
1. Catford, J.C. 1988. A practical introduction to phonetics. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (p. 104)

2. Lapidus, B.A., and S.V. Shevtsova. 1962. A Russian-English dictionary for the foreign studentof Russian. Moscow: State Publishing House of Foreign and National Dictionaries. (p. 228)

3. Odden, David. 1995. Tone: African languages. In The handbook of phonological theory(Blackwell handbooks in linguistics, 1), ed. by John A. Goldsmith, 444 - 75. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers. (p. 446)

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