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Germanic Lexicon Project
Message Board
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Author: Sean Crist (Swarthmore College)
Email: kurisuto at panix dot com
Date: 2005-09-14 22:48:52
Subject: Re: Cleasby-Vigfusson b0093 encoding issues
> > Ah, I see what you're talking about. The "I" is in
> > big caps, but the rest of the word is in small caps.
>
> I found a more compelling example. cv_b0093.pdf in the paragraph
> on "Spelling", they mention that Thorodd used small capitals
> to serve as double-consonants, e.g., uBi, braT, meN for ubbi, bratt,
> menn. In these cases the majuscule capital is indeed the height of
> the minuscule letters.
>
> Therefore I think <small> is necessary.
You've found cases of where the distinction between "big caps" and "small caps" can't be predicted: some all-caps words have a big-caps first letter, and some have a small-caps first letter. So if we want to represent every contrast in the original dictionary, we do need some way to denote this.
Let me ask this. Have you found any cases of a big-caps letter which is in the middle of a word, or at the end of a word? For example, are there instances like uBi with a big-caps B, contrasting with the example you found of uBi with small-caps B?
In other words, is caps size predictable everywhere except in word-initial position?
--Sean