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23
Letters, accents and diacritics
There are a number of extra markings which are often found on the letters of
the Roman alphabet which it is difficult to talk about if you don’t have names
for them. In tables 23.1 and 23.2 some common ones are considered, their
names are provided, and some of their common uses are discussed. For details
of how these symbols are used in transcriptions see Pullum & Ladusaw (1986).
For details about what marks are used in individual languages, see Ritter
(2002), and for usage and meaning in the Slavic languages in particular, see
Comrie & Corbett (1993).
It is also the case that some languages add to the number of letters used in
the standard Roman alphabet in several ways, and some of these are also mentioned
in these tables, and given names for easy reference.
Table 23.1 Accents or diacritics
Accent E.g. Name Discussion
´ é acute Used to mark vowel quality in French and Icelandic,
but for stress in e.g. Spanish and for length in
Hungarian. In many African languages used to mark
high tone. Used over a consonant, usually indicates
some degree of palatality or palatalisation, e.g. in
Polish and in some transliterations of Sanskrit.
� s� caron, Used in a number of Slavic languages to mark a posthác�ek,
alveolar consonant, and in Czech to mark a fricative
hachek trilled . Sometimes informally termed ‘wedge’.
Hachek is the Slavicists’ name for this character,
while caron is the typographers’ name.