Re: Essential Unity was: From Peter Constable, 2001

suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
> > suzmccarth wrote:
> >
> > > So Vico didn't know about syllabic systems but he knew that it
> > > should be a tripartite chronological progression.
> >
> > "Should"?????? I reiterate, what's the big deal about the number 3?
> >
> > > I was thinking of two as offering a choice. Every writing system
> > > has to represent meaning. But then you can chose segments,
> whatever
> >
> > No, every writing system has to represent language.
> >
> > > you call those things, or syllables, or both. So if you have
> only
> > > seen an alphabet, you might try to work it back to a syllabary.
> >
> > EVERY script creator who has created a script without knowing how
> to
> > read any script has created a syllabary.
> >
> > > But if you have a syllabary you might jump sideways to a dual
> > > alphabet and syllabary. If you want something new you choose a
> >
> > Who "jumped sideways"? The only script fitting this description is
> > Korean, and Seijong('s committee) knew both Chinese and hPags pa.
> >
> > > syllabary if you want one, just like many First Nations are doing
> > > now in Canada. Or not, if you don't. Some nations which didn't
> use
> > > syllabics historically have adopted it - others have given it up.
> > > Some have adapted it differently.
> > >
> > > Language communities choose to have more or less of one or the
> other
> > > or both at once and a range of optional representation. So
> salient
> > > features are important but you can't stick a script in a
> particular
> > > class. It has certain characteristics because people choose to
> use
> > > it that way. Volition vs fate.
> > >
> > > > > How about the essential unity of all writing?
> > > >
> > > > What "essential unity"?
>
> There are 4 writing systems typologies reviewed in this article.
>
> http://www.ubs-translations.org/tictalk/tt48.html
>
> The choice is (chronologically)
>
> 1. Jaffre and Sampson - 2 types - phonographic or
> logographic/semiographic
> 2. Unger and Defrancis - Essential unity
> 3. McCarthy (1995)- 2 types - alphabetic and syllabic
> 4. Daniels - 6 types, we know those
>
> (I am a lumper not a splitter.)
>
> "Types of Writing Systems: One of the volume's distinctive
> contributions is Daniels' typology of writing systems, which fills
> in points on the continuum between the broad classifications of
> logographic and phonographic. He lists six types: 1. logosyllabary—
> the characters of a script denote words or morphemes as well as some
> syllables (Chinese); 2. syllabary—the characters denote syllables
> (Cree); 3. abjad (consonantal)—the characters denote mainly
> consonants (Arabic); 4. alphabet—the characters denote consonants
> and vowels (Greek); 5. abugida—the character denotes a consonant
> with a specific vowel, and other vowels are denoted by a consistent
> change in the consonant symbols (Indic); and 6. featural—the shapes
> of the characters correlate with distinctive features of the
> segments of the language (Korean).

Where are they _getting_ this? I certainly never said "as well as some
syllables"; I would never call Cree a syllabary; and I don't use Arabic
as an example of an abjad because all long vowels are obligatorily
written in the string of letters (except the few examples etc.).

> Other typologies have been proposed to avoid the misleading
> term "logographic": Jaffré recognizes two basic principles—

"ideographic" is a heckofa lot more "misleading" than "logographic."

> phonographic and semiographic—which come into play to different
> degrees in different systems. Thus, "there is not an infinite number
> of possibilities but...everything oscillates between syllables and
> phonemes on the one hand and morphemes and lexemes on the other."
> (15)

Is it Sampson who uses "pleremic" and "cenemic" -- as if we had any hope
of remembering which was which?

> For Unger & DeFrancis, pure logographic and phonographic systems are
> extremes that do not describe the writing systems for natural
> languages. Their unitary view finds systems clustering at the middle
> of the continuum: "The gross visual differences between alphabetic
> scripts and those that incorporate Chinese characters, though
> obvious, are ultimately trivial. They do not reveal a fundamental
> dichotomy but rather mask an essential unity that embraces all
> writing systems." (55)

Not a unity of all writing systems, but the fact that all writing is
fundamentally phonological.

> McCarthy makes yet a different division, distinguishing alphabetic,
> which is analytic, from syllabic, which is wholistic.

Which McCarthy is this? Hopefully not the John McCarthy who unleashed
"autosegmental" phonology on an unsuspecting world on the basis of
limited familiarity with Hebrew grammar, but one fears the worst.

> Whatever the typological scheme, it is widely recognized that most
> systems are mixed, representing the language on more than one level."
>
> http://www.ubs-translations.org/tictalk/tt48.html
>
> My system isn't really in circulation so I will probably revise it
> to salient features without too many people noticing or caring. I
> don't propose a historic classification but a functional one.
>
> You don't have to ask who would publish me. It was David Olson.

That's certainly a mark against you! That it was _his_ article that
replaced Gelb's in the Britannica is one of the great shames of that
enterprise.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...