Patrick Chew wrote:

> Although, I definitely would have to say that I've seen greater/less
> than angles used exactly in the same way as has been used in this forum
> (as the single guillemets are used) by "older generation" linguists when
> writing up the blackboard and/or whiteboard. The difference in use
> between delimiting text versus indicating diachronic change was readily
> evident given the context... then again, I guess the distinction in
> angled brackets verses greater/less than signs are neutralized in
> handwriting on the blackboard....

You'd need to see them side by side to discover whether there was an
emic distinction, and there probably aren't too many contexts for
discussing diachrony and script simultaneously. (If you're writing on
the board, you should be using original scripts anyway -- your students
need to become familiar with them.)
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...