Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

>
> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | The potential for confusion should be quite obvious. B&D does
> | contain descriptions of some proposed types of scripts, but these
> | descriptions are so brief that they can be interpreted in any number
> | of ways. Their application within B&D by the various authors is also
> | inconsistent.
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | Did you look at the article where they were introduced? (In Downing,
> | Lima, and Noonan 1992.)
>
> No. I've just read B&D, nothing else. What do you mean that this is
> the article where "they" were introduced? How can all these types be
> introduced there if you invented one of them, and Bright another?
>
> In short, I'm a bit confused about why you point to this particular
> article.

My typology was first presented there, including the first publication
of the terms "abjad" and "abugida" and the reasons for separating them
out from the traditional, i.e. Gelbian, "alphabet" and "syllabary." The
article then goes on to use the categories in investigating the origins
of writing in both modern and ancient times.

> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | - what type of script is Hangul?
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | "Featural."
>
> Maybe. The question is, what does that mean? Do we have a definition
> of the "featural" class that is good enough that we can look at other
> scripts and tell whether or not they too are featural?

The term and definition are Sampson's.

> I know the definition says that the character shapes "correlate with
> distinctive features of the segments of the language", but I have only
> the faintest idea what that means. What are "segments"? Is it a
> recognized linguistic term? And what are these "features"? Is this a
> linguistic term, or does it just mean "feature" in the dictionary sense?

Well, of course they're technical terms in linguistics!

> In short, what is a featural script?

One in which graphic elements correlate with features of pronunciation,
i.e. notions smaller than the segment.

> | Which does not, however, mean it represents Jakobsonian distinctive
> | features.
>
> What are they? What is a good place to learn about them?

Any textbook on phonology.

> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | - what about Tengwar and Cree?
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | Cree is an abugida (taking one orientation as basic and the
> | rotations as derivations, equivalent to adding a mark).
>
> That's an answer that makes sense, but it does seem that the abugida
> class needs a little stretching to make Cree fit into it. It doesn't
> seem that the designers of Cree thought the characters had any
> inherent vowel, but the "consistent modifications" are there.

Perhaps if Mr. Evans had known about my classification, he'd have done
it differently!

> What happens if you remove the requirement that abugida characters
> must necessarily have an inherent vowel, and instead just say that the
> characters are syllabic, with vowels (or lack of vowels) indicated in
> a consistent way?

Then they're not in an abugida. By definition.

> It seems to me that this makes Cree fit more naturally, but, of
> course, it may be problematic for some reason.

But invented scripts, as opposed to those developed by actual people out
of actually existinig systems, are a lot less interesting.

> | Tengwar has something to do with Tolkien but I don't know what.
>
> See p. 582 of B&D, or <URL: http://www.ontopia.net/i18n/script.jsp?id=tengwar >.
>
> | Is it the one that works like Shavian? Anyway, I don't recall any
> | Tolkien script having an inherent unmarked vowel.
>
> Tengwar is like an alphabet in that characters denote vowels and
> consonants, but the vowels are written as diacritics. The shapes of
> the characters are also designed to reflect their phonetic values.
>
> So Tengwar has in it elements of the alphabet, the abugida, and the
> featural script. The best match is perhaps to call it an alphabet.

Sounds like a Brightian alphasyllabary, where the important thing is
that vowel signs are subordinate to consonant signs.

> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | - what is the type of scripts in the Brahmic script family?
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | Abugida, by definition
>
> What? Is the definition of abugida "Brahmic-like script", or is it as
> given in B&D?

What's the difference?

> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | Various answers have floated around, and none are, I think, entirely
> | satisfactory.
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | It's my term, so my use of it is definitive.
>
> Certainly, but it doesn't mean that a well-designed typology for
> scripts need necessarily include that term, or even use it as it was
> defined by you.

That would be a bit disrespectful.

> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | I'll agree that the contenders for consistent typologies of scripts
> | are few, but I'm not sure your proposal is the only one so far.
> | You've hinted that you're dissatisfied with the term 'featural
> | syllabary' that Kenneth Whistler proposed. Could you explain why?
>
> * Peter T. Daniels
> |
> | If it's meant to be a separate type, it's objectionable for the same
> | reason "alphasyllabary" is, namely, suggesting it's not a type but a
> | hybrid.
>
> Hmmmm. Then it seems that we have different criteria for what
> constitutes a good typology. To me, a good typology is a set of
> classes such that
>
> a) each class is sufficiently well-defined that one can look at any
> script and unambiguously determine whether or not the script is a
> member of the class,

Scripts are not artificial objects, created by scientists, so of course
there are no "pure" members of any of the classes.

> b) the definition of the each class obviously defines a way of
> designing scripts, with no relation to any particular script,
>
> b) all scripts have only one class, and
>
> c) the definition of the classes teaches us something about the
> nature of scripts and their relation to languages.

And it was the recognition of the distinction between abugida and
syllabary that almost instantly led to my understanding of the origin of
writing. The identification of abjad vs. alphabet was the key to my
dissatisfaction with Gelb's system. It's an interesting observation that
it didn't come to me until after he died; I wonder what sort of Freudian
interpretation could be put on that.

> The difficulty here is not coming up with definitions of the
> individual classes that make sense, but coming up with a set of
> classes, a typology, that has the features above. So far I don't think
> anyone has met this goal. Whether anyone has really tried is of course
> another matter.

The labels are enormously important. (Does it really take a linguist to
recognize that? Well, perhaps it does, if you're one of those people who
dismisses questions of detail with "that's just semantics.")

There have been hundreds of years of confusion over Chinese because
centuries ago someone came up with the stupid label "ideograph."

> The labels stuck onto the different classes I am much less concerned
> with. From my point of view an alphabet by any other name would smell
> as sweet. Indeed, isn't "abugida" the Amharic term for the Amharic
> script? And isn't Amharic a member of a different class? I don't
> really care one way or the other, but if you consider the term
> "alphasyllabary" objectionable, why is "abugida" acceptable?

Yes, it is an Ethiopic word, and no, of course it isn't a member of a
different class! Why would you think it is?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...