The effect of <X, holam, ZWNJ, vav> would normally be to visually display (from RTL) X + holam, then vav. The ZWNJ would be ignored in most processing, although it could be tailored to make a difference in string comparison and searching (see UTS #10).
It may be that that is what is desired in this case; I have not had time to follow the discussion in this area. I will mention the other cases of the use of ZWNJ, ZWJ with combining marks. ZWJ and ZWNJ are generally used with indic (http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/ch09.pdf, p223) after any combining marks, i.e., they do not normally come between a combining mark and its base. That would be parallel to this usage. Contrast that with use of a format character *between* a base and a combining mark, which as pointed out on other instances, is in general a bad idea. It breaks a combining sequence into two, which has ramifications for everything that parses combining sequences. Now, there may be circumstances where breaking a sequence is exactly what is desired; where the combining mark really is *not* intended to be graphically placed on the base. One example is the proposal in http://www.unicode.org/review/pr-9.pdf. In this case, the purpose of the ZWNJ is explicitly to separate the combining mark (halant) from the base. The halant is freed up to ligate with the following mark. This is an appropriate usage because of the ligaturing effects between halant and specific following characters in Indic. Prima facie, that would not be appropriate for scripts where these sorts of complex ligations do not occur. Mark __________________________________ http://www.macchiato.com ► “Eppur si muove” ◄ ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Cowan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Peter Kirk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2003 13:21 Subject: Re: [hebrew] Re: Consensus, draft 2 > Peter Kirk scripsit: > > > My preferred version of this is <holam, ZWNJ, vav>. This would not so > > much force the holam to attach anywhere as prevent it from forming holam > > male. > > I have no objections, but the use of a format character rather than an > invisible combining character may create problems for font designers, > so I'll defer to John Hudson on this point. > > > And exactly the same with <holam, alef> sequences. > > Indeed. > > -- > "They tried to pierce your heart John Cowan > with a Morgul-knife that remains in the http://www.ccil.org/~cowan > wound. If they had succeeded, you would http://www.reutershealth.com > become a wraith under the domination of the Dark --Gandalf > >
