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

> suzmccarth wrote:
> > I have variously seen them refered to as syllabic alphabets,
> > alphabet-syllabaire, neosyllabaire, etc. also semisyllabary and

of

> > course, alphasyllabary.
> >
> > I have _never_ seen Indic scripts refered to as syllabaries,

except,

> > in that I say they _have_ a syllabary, by which I do not mean the
> > same thing.
>
> Your reading has not extended to popular treatments of writing

systems.

No, it hasn't. You are absolutely right about that. We have been
thinking about the same phenonmena in scripts from a very different
perspective. I realize that now. Even H. Gleason's linguistics text
doesn't mention scripts of India.

I was, in the 90's, protesting two things - first that a script with
syllabic characteristics would be considered unsuitable for modernity
and therefore CAS was somewhat discouraged until late 1980's
(Sampson),

and second that Sampson stressed the similarity between alphabetic
and syllabic scripts so those working with Cree didn't really think
about whether there were cognitive consequences to a different script
organization until John Berry wrote (but he was in psychology not
writing systems).

No more quotes - I have just been trying to figure out your resaon
for saying that the term 'neosyllabary' had 'mislead' people. I still
only have the vague idea that your are referring to something I
haven't read.

It was after reading your intro and browsing through your book that I
went to look at Fevrier and Cohen again. There was equal time on if
that is important. And Berger was on the same shelf with Diringer and
Gelb, while your book was down in the reference section. No, you
have nothing to complain about there.

However, I have quoted some misuses of your term and I regret that -
apologies. I will take time to reflect on it. I think maybe the
threat of getting an F in your course cut me to the quick.:)

> > If the syllable is the most basic and stable element of speech as
> > automatic speech recognition programs are finding, then it is
> > natural that writing returned to syllabism even after segmentation
> > was known.
>
> What does "natural" mean?

'not surprising' ?? I think that is what I meant.

> > What part of this is not true?
>
> "there are two different stages of syllabic-type scripts, one before
> discovery of the segment and one after."

After discovery of the segment, scripts developed in which the
segmental units were organized into syllabic units?

Regards,

Suzanne