Re: Neosyllabaries

Richard Wordingham wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...> wrote:
> > Richard Wordingham wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> wrote:
> > > A. According to Kuipers (
> > >
> http://home.gwu.edu/~kuipers/kuipers%20insular%20seasia%20scripts.pdf ):
> > >
> > > The Indic scripts of Insular Southeast Asia are similar to what
> > > Bright calls an alphasyllabary. He defines these as scripts in
> > > which "each consonant-vowel sequence is a unit, called an aksara,
> > > [and] in which the vowel symbol functions as an obligatory
> > > diacritic to the consonant" (Bright 1996).
> >
> > Yes, that's Bright's definition of "alphasyllabary."
>
> Is or was?

Do you have some reason to suppose he's changed his definition? If so,
he hasn't told me about it (and after the Sejong article, he said he was
tired of the whole matter and wouldn't deal with it any more).

> > > B. Richard Sproat ( http://compling.ai.uiuc.edu/rws/newindex/indic.pdf
> > > )interprets this as, 'They are alphasyllabic scripts (Bright, 1996a)
> > > (though Daniels (1996) prefers the term abugida), meaning that they
> > > are basically segmental in that almost all segments are represented in
> > > the script, yet the fundamental organizing principle of the script is
> > > the (orthographic) syllable'.
> >
> > Sproat has overlooked the distinction between "alphasyllabary" (formal)
> > and "abugida" (functional). Perhaps this is based on the faulty
> > "definition" of the latter that was found in the Unicode literature.
>
> > > Have I missed something in these quotes? Neither (A) nor (B) requires
> > > an implicit/inherent vowel, which Peter Daniels sees as an essential
> > > feature of an abugida.
> >
> > And, if you look at Bill's context, for him too. When we moved out of
> > India, to, say, hPags pa, it became clear that his definition was
> > deficient.
>
> > The sole defining feature of an abugida is the inherent vowel. Bill
> > chose to make the defining feature of an alphasyllabary the use of
> > "diacritics" rather than full letters for denoting vowels. Functional
> > vs. formal.
>
> There seem to be three concepts floating around:
>
> 1) Bright-1 alphasyllabary (Definition A above).
> 2) (Daniels) abugida
> 3) Bright-2 alphasyllabary - both a Bright-1 alphasyllabary and an
> abugida.
>
> Lao is a Bright-1 alphasyllabary, but not an abugida. I can't think
> of an abugida that is not an alphasyllabary.
>
> What's the issue with hPags-Pa? Is it that independent and dependent
> vowels have the same symbol? (I'm assuming that the apparently
> optional horizontal bar at the top of the vowel symbols is not a
> distinguishing feature - perhaps it is!) Are the syllable-final
> consonants an issue? Is it or is it not a 'Bright-2 alphasyllabary'?

He says it's not an alphasyllabary because the vowel signs are separate
letters and not appendages. But the consonant symbols are still /Ca/.

I don't know what "Bright-2" may be.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...