On 11/09/2001 12:27:06 PM Lars Marius Garshol wrote:

>Now we're getting somewhere. What is a segment?

If you're familiar with the notion of a phoneme, that is close to the
notion of a segment. In phonology and phonetics, the simplifying
assumption is made that the speech stream can be segmented into discrete
units. Each of these would be atomic in the sense that is something that
can be more or less independently articulated. There are also aspects of
phonology that are "supra-segmental". These are characteristics of the
speech stream that can span multiple segments: e.g. stress, tone,
intonation.

>* Peter T. Daniels
>|
>| Scripts are not artificial objects, created by scientists, so of
>| course there are no "pure" members of any of the classes.

[snip]

>| 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?
>
>Mainly because the modifications used to indicate the vowels are not
>entirely systematic. There is a system, but it has deviations which
>must be learned. Thinking about it I guess I agree that despite them
>Ethiopic fits the class "abugida" better than it does "syllabary".

As Peter D mentions, these classes don't have fixed boundaries, and the
objects are not classified by a set of strictly required criteria. The
classes have prototype definitions (see Lakoff's "Women, fire and
dangerous things" for further discussion), and the best we can do is point
to prototypical examples. So, ironically, Ethiopic script may not be the
best script in terms of which to typify the class "abugida". I'm inclined
to say that Evans' script (Cdn syllabics) is better as a prototypical
example.



- Peter


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Peter Constable

Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA
Tel: +1 972 708 7485
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