[tex-hyphen] extending `hyph-zh-latn-pinyin.tex'

[Werner LEMBERG]

Folks,


I think it would be nice to extend `hyph-zh-latn-pinyin.tex' by
covering Chinese syllables with tone marks – it's trivial to extend,
say, pattern

  a1b

with

  ā1b
  á1b
  ǎ1b
  à1b

and ditto for all other patterns.  However, such an extended file
would only be usable by XeTeX and luatex.  I now wonder what route
should be taken to stay compatible with pdfTeX and classical TeX.

  (1) Another file.

      This solution I rather dislike.

  (2) Some conditional code within \patterns to append the extended
      patterns.

      This would be my choice.  However, it clutters the patterns with
      some TeX commands.

  (3) Two \pattern blocks (one for XeTeX/luatex, another one for
      pdftex/classical TeX) enclosed by conditionals.

      A variant of (2) which might be preferable.


What do you think?  What do you suggest?  What TeX macros or
primitives should be used?


    Werner