Peter Constable wrote:
>
> > From: Doug Ewell [mailto:dewell@...]
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 10:59 PM
>
> > But is linearity a generally agreed-upon criterion for an alphabet, and
> > if so, why? (I guess that's really a question for Dr. Bright.)
>
> Non-linearity is systemic to some scripts. The same isn't true for any
> alphabetic *script* that I know of, but that doesn't mean that
> *orthographies* based on those scripts can have non-linear
> representations.

But wait -- you just said you didn't like calling Korean by something
that didn't reflect its relation to its substance (i.e. "featural"), so
you must want to call Korean an alphabet, and Korean isn't linear!

(Assuming that "non-linear reprsentations" refers to your "silent e"
example.)
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...