suzmccarth wrote:
> Why can't I just skip Hockett altogether and say that Chinese is a
> syllabary and there is no logographic/phonographic dichotomy in
> writing systems - there are only phonological and morphological
> elements and a syllabic/phonemic continuum.
Because Chinese doesn't work like the world's other syllabaries.
It's like calling animal communication "language," even though you would
then have to come up with a new word for human language, it being so
qualitatively different from animal communication.
Or like calling all visible communication systems "writing," even though
you would then have to come up with a new word for writing, it being so
qualitatively different from pictography or quipus or tokens.
--
Peter T. Daniels
grammatim@...