--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> suzmccarth wrote:
>
> > > What do you think "logographic" means?
> >
> > It implies to me a lexical mapping rather than phonological and
> > morphological mapping between written and spoken language.
> > Logographic would mean to me that Chinese characters represent
> > words. Have I somehow misunderstood this meaning of

logographic? I

> > realize it is broadly accepted as a descriptive term but it seems
> > that it obscures comparisons between writing systems that are

useful

> > for observing how people interact with a writing system -

problems

> > in reading and writing.
>
> Yes. "Logographic" means that what the symbol encodes is a word (a
> morpheme, to be more precise). Or, as C. F. Hockett put it, a
> logographic system is a syllabary that distinguishes homophones.

This definition of logographic clears things up for me. I guess I
missed Hockett. However it is not a transparent or obvious
definition. The problem is that if a logographic system is a
syllabary that distinguishes homophones then what is an alphabetic
system that distinguishes homophones - quasi-logographic? How can
Chinese and English be compared? One maps phonemes and the other
syllables, both phonographic, but one is popularly categorized as
phonographic and the other as logographic.

I prefer for myself the dichotomy of syllabic/phonemic, both are
phonographic and some more or less morphological.

Suzanne McCarthy

I have had to develop a framework for myself since I have studied
extensively and occasionally reported on literacy among both Cree
and Hong Kong students learning to read.


How

> does that suggest that it _doesn't_ provide ("rather than")

phonological

> or morphological "mapping"? A morpheme is a correlation between

form and

> meaning.
>
> A phonographic writing system encodes only the phonological part of
> language. A logographic writing system encodes both the

phonological and

> the semantic part.
> --
> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...