Re: Abugida*s*: exegesis of the differences

Mark E. Shoulson wrote:

>
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>
> >Hopefully no psychologist would try to test whether their subjects
> >followed "Model A" or "Model B"; that would exclude the possibility of
> >discovering whether they actually followed "Model C"!
> >
> >This seems to be a flaw in the vast majority of psycholinguistics --
> >they investigate whether they can confirm or disconfirm some particular
> >proposal of formal linguistics, rather than trying the much harder task
> >of discovering how brains actually process language.
> >
> >
> Perhaps a flaw in some instances, in others merely a choice of
> emphasis. It may not matter in the deep underlying reaches of the mind
> what people *think* they're doing, but that doesn't make it completely
> unimportant to determine whether people think they're processing along
> "syllabary" or "abugida" lines. At least, not completely unimportant to
> everyone. It might be so to you; Daniel apparently has a different opinion.

He didn't suggest investigating whether people think they're using an
abugida or a syllabary; he suggested investigating whether thay are
using an abugida or a syllabary mode.

Since in his WWS article Getatchew Haile gives the traditional account
of how to write the script, including instructions for adding each of
the vowel markers to the basic shape, it would seem that the traditional
analysis, which is what people would think they were doing, is abugidic
and not syllabic.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...