william bright wrote:

>
> i'm getting a little impatient with the confusing way in which terms are
> being used. to begin with, virtually all writing systems are "mixed", in
> that roman script uses mostly alphabetic symbols but some logographs (the
> numbers etc.); arabic script uses mostly abjadic symbols but again some
> logographs; devanagari script uses mostly alphasyllabic symbols but again
> some logographs; chinese script uses mostly logosyllabic symbols but maybe
> some other stuff (how do you classify punctuation?). japanese script
> currently uses logosyllabic kanji plus syllabic kana plus alphabetic roman
> letters, plus miscellany. korean script is maybe the most complex and
> fascinating of all: it uses logosyllabic symbols plus alphabetic hangul
> containing possibly featural elements (i've never been completely
> convinced), arranged as if they were syllabic symbols - plus, nowadays,
> alphabetic roman letters and miscellany.

Amen!!

> the late jim mccawley had some succinctly insightful things to say about
> the "impure" nature of writing systems, in an article published just before
> his death, and unfortunately available only in an obscure korean conference
> volume. i'll send a xerox to anybody who wants it and can read hard copy.

me me -- all I have is the preprint he sent me for comments, and I don't
know whether it differs from the published version. Thank you!!

> if we aim to be a little clearer about the way we use terms, one thing we
> could do would be to use adjectives to refer to types of symbols, and nouns
> to refer to types of (mixed) writing systems. i've tried to do this above.
> thus we refer to an ALPHABETIC symbol, but to writing systems called
> ALPHABETS - which are *mostly* alphabetic. to do this consistently, we'd
> have to use some novel adjectives, such as "featural", "abjadic", and even
> "abugidic". of course this policy would make it hard to find a noun to
> refer to the unique japanese script - unless, of course, we just called it
> "japanese".

Amen!!

> alternatively, we could just keep on using terms in vague and confusing
> ways, the same as we do in all human discourse. cheers; bill

Discourse formality will clarify the level of expression in any
individual utterance.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...