--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
wrote:

> But the Japanese child doesn't have the option the Tamil child does, of
> internalizing the fact that all the consonants and all the vowels are
> written separately and (well, except /u/) similarly.

And this is why a special name is wanted for the syllabically organised
scripts where the option of further analysis is available.

> > > One might object that an alphasyllabary should preferentially
> > > partition CVCCV as CV-CCV.
> >
> > I don't see how that applies to Tamil either. Like Cree, Tamil has
> > the V or CV (long or short vowels) unit followed by an optional C.
> > However this C is not attached to anything in either case. So I
> > think the partition is CV-C-CV.
>
> Don't leave the pul.l.i out of your transliteration! C with no vowel
> takes two symbols. You could transliterate it CVC•CV .

C and V here represent sounds.

Richard.