John Cowan wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels scripsit:
>
> > 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.
>
> Why call it "logographic" if it encodes morphemes rather than words?
> That merely confuses the issue when dealing with genuine logograms
> (which do exist, even though there are no genuinely logographic
> writing systems).

Because "logographic" is a term everyone is familiar with, and
"morphographic" isn't, and I don't really feel like trying to explain
"morpheme" to people who haven't had at least a year of linguistics.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...