suzmccarth wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...>
> >wrote:
> > suzmccarth wrote:
>
> > > but I still want the similarities which syllabaries share to be made
> > > transparent.
> >
> > It has recently been clarified and necessarily restricted.
>
> Could you elaborate on this? Many writers are content to qualify a
> syllabary and say something like a 'pure' syllabary or a 'core'
> syllabary. What is this clarification you refer to?
>
> How is it essential to an understanding of writing systems, etc. and
> Why is the definition necessarily restricted rather than qualified?
>
> (When I ask this question I do not want to give the impression that
> I think these systems are all alike - you know I have used them
> enough to understand how they work - only that I would chose to
> classify them in a somewhat different fashion.)
>
> Since I have looked at and enjoyed your book, WWS, I would very much
> appreciate if you would share here what you have written in articles
> rather than refering to them obliquely.

I am not going to retype hundreds of pages of published articles here.

> > Or do you want to continue to call whales fish?
>
> Writing systems are a product of human culture. If I take a beer
> barrel and use it as a planter, it is a planter. If I take a wagon
> wheel and remodel it as a table, it is a table.
>
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>
> >A herring is
> > closer to a whale than to a shark! It's also quite appropriate
> > hydrodynamically.
>
> in some funtional way.
>
> > Should we just say 'syllabically organised' until we're sure what come
> > into the relevant category.
>
> Yes, for now,

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...