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

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

wrote:

> > > 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?

Yes. 'Alphasyllabary' as defined and interpreted by Bright is
probably inappropriate, as hPags-Pa is very clearly organised by
syllables. Sproat's concept seems more appropriate.

> > > What is an "option"?
> >
> > I don't have an immediate suggestion. However, let's start with this
> > question.
>
> Richard can speak for himself.

I don't understand why Peter Daniels is asking what he meant when he
used the word 'option'.

> > What does syllabary mean? Can these scripts in question be included
> > under a broad definition of syllabary or not. That is, hasn't the
> > definition of a syllabary been recently and perhaps unnecessarily
> > restricted? I think that there are different kinds of syllabaries
> > but I still want the similarities which syllabaries share to be made
> > transparent.
>
> It has recently been clarified and necessarily restricted.
>
> Or do you want to continue to call whales fish?

Phylogenetically, that's not as daft as you think it is. A herring is
closer to a whale than to a shark! It's also quite appropriate
hydrodynamically.

> > Let's explore the various meanings and uses of the term syllabary
> > first. Then decide if syllabary is only a core or pure (unanalysable)
> > syllabary or not.
>
> If you're going to continue to insist on calling the Indic scripts
> "syllabaries," I won't discuss them with you.

So what word do you think should be used to capture the parallels
with, say, Tamil, which is not a typical Indian Brahmi script, and,
say, Japanese kana? Tamil may have more in common with Further Indian
Brahmi scripts than with other Indian scripts - and it's more closely
related to the Further Indian scripts to boot!

Should we just say 'syllabically organised' until we're sure what come
into the relevant category. I'm now having some reservations about
describing Thai as syllabically organised, simply because of the
amount of thought required to extract the division into syllables from
the text.

Richard.