> From: suzmccarth [mailto:suzmccarth@...]

> > - in some scripts, the symbols correspond (prototypically) to
> phonemes,
> > but there are also graphical structures that correspond
> (prototypically)
> > to phonological syllables
>
> I think here that this system could be a member of both classes. Why
> create a separate class?

Because I see no benefit in having phonemic and syllabic factors as
orthogonal criteria, defining a four-way classification that doesn't fit
the classes we want to capture (there isn't any script for which neither
phonemes nor syllables are relevant), and it doesn't provide a unique
class for things like Korean and SignWriting, which was precisely what I
*was* trying to establish in Nov. 2001.

> How many people who do work with Cree, Tamil and Ethiopic really
> think that these are all one consistent type but not the same type as
> Cherokee?

I don't know, but in the scheme I just outlined, Tamil could be
considered an alphasyllabary, Ethiopic, an abugida, and Cree/Inuit
syllabics, a syllabary.


Peter Constable