Re: McCarthy

suzmccarth wrote:

> > > "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
>
> So what is Cree?

Because it's a "sophisticated grammatogeny," it isn't expected to fit
into the typology of writing systems, but it's more abugida-like than
anything else.

> What is Arabic?

An abjad with obligatory indication of long vowels.

> > as an example of an abjad because all long vowels are obligatorily
> > written in the string of letters (except the few examples etc.).

> > > 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.
>
> No this is not John McCarthy.
>
> Do I have to spell it out? This McCarthy is me. In 1990 I looked up
> writing systems in the Encyclopedia Brittanica in my basement and
> found David Olson's name so I sent him a paper I was writing for
> interest - no academic context. Insup Taylor and David Olson decided
> to put it near the front of their book on Scripts and Literacy
> beside John DeFrancis. Then I forgot all about it until yesterday
> when I googled my name and found out that Daniels and McCarthy both
> get mentionned on a webpage together. You are definitve, I grant
> you that. But I offer an option for lumpers, instead of splitters.

Insup Taylor is so much farther beneath contempt than David Olson (see
any review of any of her books) that it's entirely possible that I
resisted acquiring that volume. But when my shelves are reconstituted,
I'll be able to check it out.

***
Didn't you get Seshat's message about snipping unnecessary material?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...