Re: From Peter Constable, 2001

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

> Peter T. Daniels scripsit:
>
> > > 4. logosyllabary: structural units represent syllables and/or
> > > morphemes (e.g. Chinese ideographs)"
> >
> > Why "and/or"?
>
> Certainly there are now many Chinese words in which the hanzi are

functioning as

> mere syllabograms, from the classical hudie to the modern

bu'ershuwike; in

> addition, there are more marginal cases like mamahuhu and dongxi.

Okay, now I see why the 'and/or'. Thanks. (Actually this is why I
was mumbling on about 'bound morphemes' earlier. Just to say that
they weren't stand alone characters, not words.) Is there any word
that can express this about Chinese without using the
term 'morphosyhllabic'?

> No theoretical schema can precisely carve the complexities of the

Real World

> into neat little chunks.

Salient features then - no classes or types? Then a script can have
several salient features and not be placed in any one group.
Sometimes different langauge communities see the same script
different ways. Some see Cree as being phonemic, others more
syllabic. (The Cree always claim this difference but I would find it
hard to define without scanning in a collection of handwritten and
published Cree from across the country.)

Suzanne

>
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