Re: Moraic writing system

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

> Richard Wordingham wrote:

> > It seems to me that most 'moraic' systems are really writing (onset +
> > nucleus) + coda, but I'm not aware of a word for 'onset + nucleus'.
> >
> > What writing systems actually work in terms of onset + rhyme?

> Check out Pahawh Hmong, on which you can consult Martha Ratliff's
> chapter in WWS, or the book by Smalley et al. from Chicago. (Or
> bopomofo, though it's never become more than an auxiliary phonetic
> notation.)

Pahawh Hmong is just an alphabet - it has eleven oral vowels and two
nasal vowels. All the Hmong codas are implicit in the nucleus!

Bopomofo is a valid example - and feels distinctly moraic! It is
almost as rare as Yi in its way!

> I find it interesting that he seems unaware of the typology I

published 15 years ago now, which is also available in so widely
distributed a reference as the Blackwell Handbook of Linguistics.

I thought your typology wasn't valid for scripts with a sophisticated
grammatogeny. How would you classify Bopmofo? Just another alphabet?

Richard.