Re: Optimum number of symbols

From: "And Rosta" <a-rosta@...>
> Formerly a requirement of characters in the Livagian script was that
> they could be written in a single stroke from top left to bottom
> right (or top right to bottom left when switching direction in
> boustrophedon mode). There was no trouble in generating scores of
> characters as simple as the roman miniscules, though clearly there
> is a loss of redundancy/distinctiveness. As the character inventory
> grew and grew, though, I decided to admit diacritical marks placed
> above and below characters, for they multiply the inventory of
> characters without greatly adding to the average graphical or
> scriptoral complexity.
Might a good practical test of efficiency be to compare a syllabary's
hand to Roman cursive?

At first it seemed clear to me that an alphabet, by containing
fewer characters, would naturally be more efficient as a writing
system, insofar as each character could be made maximally simple.
Mulling it over and actually conceiving an optimizing procedure
for creating a script that uses a syllabary, I now believe that
it is possible, if not likely, that the syllabary approach might
generally be expected to be more efficient strictly as a writing
system, notwithstanding any other disadvantages such a script
might present.

Oddly enough, it just struck me now that my own loglang lends itself
well to the syllabary approach.  My language is riddled with
consonant clusters and diphthongs alike;  however, I have contrived
a "deep morphology" in which all syllables are CV; consonant clusters
and diphthongs occur when a schwa is elided.  This is the theoretical
justification by which schwa-buffering is legal; in theory, schwa
buffering merely reverses an underlying elision.  But it just
dawned on me that it would equally justify a syllabic script.
Implementation would require 18 x 6 = 108 characters.  How strange
it seems to contemplate.


> > If syllables are more intuitive to learn and use, then there should
> > be no temptation to encode any phoneme-level information into
> > a syllabic script.  Explicitly encoding phoneme-level information
> > into a syllabic script is analogous to encoding phonetic data such
> > as +/- voice, +/- velar into a phonemic symbols.
>
> Indeed. And in what way does using a featural alphabet undermine
> its alphabethood? For example, if characters with ascenders were
> voiceless consonants, with descenders were voiced consonants, and
> without either were vowels, would this prove to you that alphabets
> were not the optimal system and that pure featural scripts were?
I perceive two questions here.  First, to what degree does the use
of features change a script's status?  Second, what does that use
suggest about the efficacy of the script's nominal level of analysis?

The short answer to these questions is that it depends on the
nature of the use.  If features are employed by the script's inventer
merely as a device to achieve basic visual contrastiveness among
the characters, in the same manner that random markings would achieve
the same purpose, then the answers are clearly 'not at all', and
'nothing'.  On the other hand, insofar as the features are added
as an aid to sound out the characters, I think the answers are less
obvious.  In other words, the issue is not to what degree features
are *used*, but rather *depended upon*.  I don't think this is hair
splitting either.  I frame the question as, are you reading the
characters, or are you reading the features?   If you are consistently
reading the features, then how do you justify the efficacy of the
script's nominal level of analysis?

Wherever such featural dependence indeed occurs, it is proportional
to the productivity of the features over the entire script.
The more productive a feature is, the more likely you are dependent
on it.  The more you are dependent on it, the more doubt is cast upon
the efficacy of the system's nominal level of analysis.

Now, it can be seen that the potential productivity of features in
the two types systems differ by an order of magnitude.  In an alphabet
of 30 symbols, any particular phonological feature, such as voice,
is not likely to distinguish more than 20 symbols.  But even 20 doesn't
matter because all letters will appear so frequently that their
memorization ease is improved little by such featural regularizations.
Finally, I doubt it would be fruitful to bother actually trying explain
phonetic distinctions such as voice, which are even more subtle than
overall phonemic values, to children.

In contrast, in a syllabary, it's easy to conceive of a system
in which a hundred characters are distinguished by a feature, which
in practice if not in theory, is simply marking some phoneme
such as a final nasal.  With scores of uncommon syllabic characters
lurking ready to appear at any given time, it would be very much
in a learner's advantage to understand the phonemic significance
of a character's features.  So, justified or not, I have wonder
whether the syllable is truly the optimal level of analysis.

Lastly, let me note that on the subject of features I don't really
have a horse in this race.  Using features, or even depending on
them, never throws alphabets into doubt in the same way it throws
syllabaries into doubt. This is because a phonetic script could
never be a viable substitute for an alphabet.  In contrast,
a syllabary can always be closely approximated, if not outperformed,
by an alphabet, with an order of magnitude fewer characters to boot.


> > To do so is to demolish the entire argument that syllable-characters
> > are easier to teach.
>
> Hardly. The independent pronounceability of a character is an
> important aid to first learning it. (And note how children learning
> to spell in English go through a phase of treating letters as
> syllables -- e.g. <lat> for <later>.) Once some symbols were
> learnt, the learner could then recognize the featural/phonemic
> element to their construction, and use knowledge of this pattern
> as an aid to learning the rest of the symbols.
The independent pronounceability of a character may well be
an important aid to *first* learning it, but from this it doesn't
necessarily follow that it is an important aid towards mastering
the whole system, which of course, is the important goal.
Since you have pointed out that featural scripts lend themselves
to phonemic analysis, I feel compelled to point out that alphabets
equally lend themselves to being learned as the combinations of
letters in syllables or words.  Educators commonly debate the
pros and cons of both learning styles, with some siding with
the "phonetic" approach and some advocating the "whole word"
approach.  It is only the essential flexibility of the alphabet
--or the careful encoding of features into a syllabary--which
would allow this debate to even occur.

I notice that you attempt no defense of nonfeatural scripts.
Given that featural syllabics lend themselves to phonemic analysis,
and letters lend themselves to being learned in combinations,
perhaps we could come to the agreement that neither featural
scripts nor alphabets have a clear advantage over the other.

I must continue to maintain however, that except perhaps in the
rarest of cases, that nonfeatural scripts are simply not as easy
to learn as alphabets.  While alphabets have every functional
advantage that nonfeatural syllabaries have, syllabaries have
one clear disadvantage that alphabets don't: the number of characters.
A properly designed alphabet will contain C + V characters while
a best-case minimum for syllabaries is C x V.  In order to justify
this handicap, there would have to be a much more obvious advantage
to adopting a nonfeatural syllabary than I have seen this far.

I have to say I find it puzzling that syllabaries in general--
not referring to the featural sorts you have described--have
been so consistently vaunted for their learnability, particularly
by westerners.  If I want to learn a new language, I'd much rather
have it use an alphabet, or a script that has phonemelike features.
And I would suspect most informed people, regardless of their L1,
would agree.  Any system that lends itself to phonemic analysis,
even a foreign one, will let any adult who already grasps the
phonemic concept read the language in a very short time, regardless
of the phonology; the same simply can't be true to the same degree
about a nonfeatural syllabary, especially one tailored to a language
with a nontrivial syllable structure.

> > If understanding phonemic distinctions are needed, or
> > at least helpful, in learning or using a syllabic script, then I
> > can't see any reason not to use a phonemic script in the first place.
>
> Learnability and economy, as already stated.
>
> --And.
I do find syllabaries attractive in three areas.  First, is
the combinatorial freedom you mentioned in an earlier post.
This appeals to me not so much for any immediately obvious
boost to efficiency or some other practicality but rather for what
it offers in the way of a thought experiment.  I am not at all
sure what fruit such a project might yield, but implementation
would certainly justify adopting a syllabic script if undertaken.

Second is the possibility of a more efficient writing system.
Having very briefly looked at the question from the standpoint
of communication theory, I quite inadvertantly convinced myself
in this area;  however, I have a very strong feeling that
obtaining the full benefits would require a strong commitment
to a non featural script.  Probably features could be maintained
in the less common characters.  I really think writing efficiency
trumps learnability anyway; you only have to learn once,
but you will write countless times.  If you're attracted
to the syllabary idea, why not exploit this to the hilt?

Third is an area I have heard none of the syllabary advocates
mention so I'll mention it myself: reading.  This is not to
be confused with learnability, where I continue to feel that
alphabets have the unassailable highground.  What I have not
seen explored in these posts is whether a script might be
designed in order to maximally benefit reading speed and
comprehension.  I don't know what the answer is, nor do
I know how this might interfere with writing efficiency.
But I do think these latter two areas, reading and writing,
are ultimately the only places to look for a true claim
of the efficacy of syllabaries.

Regards,

---   Mike

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