Re: US place names

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

When to use syllable breaks - when it is important to how the name sounds,
or when it breaks up an illegal structure.  The latter is exemplified by
the use of "do'i" instead of doi, forming two syllables and breaking up
the illegal "doi", suich as in "do'il" (for Doyle).  Theformer gets involked
when dealing with languages that use lots of vocalic consonants.  The example
we often use is the name Earl, which I Lojbanize as "la r,l", since otherwise
you are liable to pronounce it "ruhl" or something like that.  Explicit
syllabization dictates the grouping of vowels for diphthoings "ia,i" (ya(y)i)
vs. "i,ai" (iyai); the default is pairwise from the left if more than two
vowels are displayed.  (Normally, it is better to use the apostrophe
between vowels rather than the comma, since the glide will usually be heard as
a 'y' or 'w' sound by some listeners. as in my pronunciation parenthesese for
tehse two - you need to devoice the glide when possible).

A few other places people sometime put them is to resolve consonant clusters
in a way they prefer.  e.g. "sacki" the way I usually pronounce it is
"sac,ki  but others may prefer to keep valid clusters together (and that is
I believe the nominally preferred 'official' way) as in "sa,cki.

It is fairly traditional to epxlicitly separate r/n glue into a separate
syllable even if you can pronounce it as one syllable.  People don;t tend to
write this in lujvo, but do so in borrowings (and thus probably would do so in
names that had a Lojban glue element to them).  e.g. bangr,tlingana (Klingon)
and possible lujvo sai,n,rai, vs. SAIN,rai (which is deispreferred).
But technically all this is cultural preference because the rule is that
two words/names that differ only by placement of a comma are considerred the
same word in Lojban.

It is definitely NOT necessary to put in a comma when syllable breaks are
m,ade obvious by the syllable capitalization for stress.  Thus, in that last
example, SAINrai conveys exactly the same info and nuance as SAIN,rai.

lojbab