LING 15 Lecture Notes - Lecture 29: Abugida, Syllabary, Phoneme
Document Summary
No writing system is better than another but certain writing systems better suited to particular grammar of language. Syllabary: every syllable represents a symbol (consonant or vowel) Not good for languages with lots of consonant clusters. Semitic languages: every verb has 3 consonants in a row; only write consonants and figure out the rest with context, put vowels in later (usually optional) Abugida: vowels written but not main symbol; usually diacritic on symbol (not huge diff between abjads) Languages can borrow grammar w/o borrowing words, can borrow words, can borrow sounds, can borrow suffixes/prefixes. E(cid:374)glish (cid:271)orro(cid:449)ed (cid:858)(cid:448)(cid:859) fro(cid:373) fre(cid:374)(cid:272)h (cid:271)ut did(cid:374)(cid:859)t really (cid:374)eed it u(cid:374)til a (cid:449)ord used the sou(cid:374)d (cid:858)(cid:448)(cid:859) (cid:894)used (cid:858)f(cid:448)(cid:859) sou(cid:374)d (cid:271)efore(cid:895) 2 x 3 x is an operator (analogous to verbs in spoken language); has two arguments (2 and 3) Arguments (stands in relation to something); something operators have. Is an operator but only has 1 argument (3)
