Richard Wordingham wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...> wrote:
>
> > "Mora" is a technical term in phonological analysis, and it has
> nothing
> > to do with writing.
>
> 'Abugida' is the Ethiopic syllabary, and has nothing to do with
> Devanagari. Surely you (PTD) must understand the transference of terms!

"Abugida" was not a preexisting term in (any branch of) linguistics.

The analogy would run if someone decided to use "sandhi" to mean, say,
'ligature'.

> > To learn what it means, study Jim McCawley's MIT
> > dissertation on Japanese phonology (pub. Mouton, 1965 -- I think it's
> > called *The Phonological Component of a Grammar of Japanese*) or his
> > student, my classmate, Tim Vance's book on Japanese phonology.
>
> Or a description of Greek or Lithuanian accentuation!

--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...