Richard Wordingham wrote:

>
> --- 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.

Something other than abugida?

What is an "option"?

> > > > 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.

I think she was talking about the script.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...