Re: Quasi-logographic

--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:

> Peter T. Daniels scripsit:
>
> > Yes. "Logographic" means that what the symbol encodes is a word

(a

> > morpheme, to be more precise). Or, as C. F. Hockett put it, a
> > logographic system is a syllabary that distinguishes homophones.
>
> Why call it "logographic" if it encodes morphemes rather than

words?

> That merely confuses the issue when dealing with genuine logograms
> (which do exist, even though there are no genuinely logographic
> writing systems).
>
> --
> John Cowan www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com cowan@...

This confuses me as well. Would it not be accurate to call the
Chinese writing system a syllabary which maps a language with a
relatively high ratio of syllable to morpheme correspondance?

Suzanne McCarthy