Cover not available

Article published In: Understanding Writing Systems
Edited by Merijn Beeksma and Martin Neef
[Written Language & Literacy 21:1] 2018
► pp. 26–51

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Core syllables vs. moraic writing

 | University of Pennsylvania
Published online: 2 November 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00009.buc
Abstract
It is generally accepted that the units of writing systems represent categories found in spoken language; in phonographic writing, these categories traditionally include the syllable and segment, which correspond to syllabic and alphabetic systems. But it has been claimed that some or most “syllabaries” are actually based on moras, well known from phonological theory as units of syllable weight. I argue that apparent moraic systems are in fact built on signs that stand for core CV syllables, and consequently that moras do not appear to play a central role in any writing system.
Article outline
  • 1.The moraic claim
    • 1.1Syllables and moras
    • 1.2Core syllables
  • 2.Syllabic and moraic systems
    • 2.1True syllabaries
    • 2.2Vai syllabary
    • 2.3Ethiopic alphasyllabary
  • 3.Japanese syllabic writing
  • 4.Thaana alphabet
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (56)
References
Bagemihl, Bruce (1991). Syllable Structure in Bella Coola. Linguistic Inquiry 221, 589–646.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bentin, Shlomo (1992). Phonological Awareness, Reading, and Reading Acquisition: A Survey and Appraisal of Current Knowledge. Haskins Laboratories Status Report on Speech Research. SR-111/112, 167–180.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blevins, Juliette (2002). The independent nature of phonotactic constraints: an alternative to syllable-based approaches. In C. Féry & R. v. d. Vijver (eds.) The Syllable in Optimality Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 375–403.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bosch, Anna R. K. (2011). Syllable-internal Structure. In M. v. Oostendorp, C. J. Ewen, E. Hume & K. Rice (eds.) The Blackwell Companion to Phonology. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bright, William (1996). The Devanagari Script. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (eds.) The world ’s writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 384–390.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buckley, Eugene (1997). Against vowel length in Tigrinya. Studies in African Linguistics 261, 63–102.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coulmas, Florian (2003). Writing systems: an introduction to their linguistic analysis. Cambridge, U.K.; New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dalby, David (1967). A survey of the indigenous scripts of Liberia and Sierra Leone: Vai, Mende, Loma, Kpelle and Bassa. African language studies 81, 1–51.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daniels, Peter T. (1990). Fundamentals of Grammatology. Journal of the American Oriental Society 1101, 727–731. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1992). The Syllabic Origin of Writing and the Segmental Origin of the Alphabet. In P. Downing, S. D. Lima & M. Noonan (eds.) The Linguistics of Literacy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 83–110. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2001). Writing systems. In M. Aronoff & J. Rees-Miller (eds.) The handbook of linguistics. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 43–80.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). An exploration of writing. Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DeFrancis, John (1989). Visible speech: the diverse oneness of writing systems. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Everson, Michael (2017). Towards an encoding of the Loma script in the SMP of the UCS. UC Berkeley Script Encoding Initiative, Universal Scripts Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feeling, Durbin, Craig Kopris, Jordan Lachler & Charles van Tuyl (2003). A handbook of the Cherokee verb: a preliminary study. Tahlequah, Okla.: Cherokee Heritage Center.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Féry, Caroline (1996). German Foot and Word Stress in OT. Nordlyd 241, 63–96.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fritz, Sonja (2001). The Dhivehi Language: A Descriptive and Historical Grammar of Maldivian and its Dialects. Heidelberg: Universität Heidelberg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gnanadesikan, Amalia E. (2011). Syllables and syllabaries: what writing systems tell us about syllable structure. In C. E. Cairns & E. Raimy (eds.) Handbook of the Syllable. Leiden: Brill, 397–414. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2012). Maldivian Thaana, Japanese kana, and the representation of moras in writing. Writing Systems Research 41, 91–102. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). Dhivehi: The Language of the Maldives. Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Greenhill, S. J., Blust, R. & R. D. Gray (2008). The Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database: From Bioinformatics to Lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics 41, 271–283. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hasselbach, Rebecca (2005). Sargonic Akkadian : a historical and comparative study of the syllabic texts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hayes, Bruce (1989). Compensatory Lengthening in Moraic Phonology. Linguistic Inquiry 201, 253–306.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Honda, Keisuke (2011). On the moraic nature of hiragana and katakana. Tsukuba Ōyōgengogaku Kenkyū (Tsukuba Journal of Applied Linguistics) 181, 33–46.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hooker, J. T. (1980). Linear B : an introduction. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Houston, Stephen, David Stuart & John Robertson (1998). Disharmony in Maya hieroglyphic writing: linguistic change and continuity in Classic society In A. Ciudad Ruíz (ed.) Anatomía de una civilización : aproximaciones interdisciplinarias a la cultura Maya Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas, 275–296.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2004). Disharmony in Maya hieroglyphic writing: linguistic change and continuity in Classic society In S. Wichmann (ed.) The linguistics of Maya writing. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 83–101.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huehnergard, John (2005). A grammar of Akkadian. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Joffre, Joseph (1943). A New West African Alphabet: Used by the Toma, French Guinea and Liberia. Man 431, 108–112. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1945). Sur un nouvel alphabet ouest-africain: Ie Toma (frontière franco-​libérienne). Bulletin de l’Institut français d’Afrique noire 71, 160–173.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kager, René (1989). A metrical theory of stress and destressing in English and Dutch. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaye, Alan S. (1996). Adaptations of Arabic Script. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (eds.) The world’s writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 743–762.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kubozono, Haruo (1999). Mora and syllable. In N. Tsujimura (ed.) The handbook of Japanese linguistics. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 31–61.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kurzon, Dennis (2013). Diacritics and the Perso-Arabic script. Writing Systems Research 51, 234–243. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lacadena, Alfonso & Søren Wichmann (2004). On the representation of the glottal stop in Maya writing In S. Wichmann (ed.) The linguistics of Maya writing. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 103–162.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCarthy, John J. & Alan S. Prince (1986). Prosodic morphology. University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Brandeis University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nichols, John D. (1996). The Cree Syllabary. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (eds.) The world’s writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 599–611.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nishimura, Yukio (2003). Linguistic innovations and interactional features of casual online communication in Japanese. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 91.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poser, William (1992). The structural typology of phonological writing. Paper presented at the Annual meeting of the Linguistics Society of America. Philadelphia.
(2004). Phonological writing and phonological representation. Paper presented at the Colloquium. Harvard University.
Prince, Alan & Paul Smolensky (2004). Optimality theory: constraint interaction in generative grammar. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rogers, Henry (2005). Writing systems: a linguistic approach. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Salomon, Richard G. (1996). Brahmi and Kharoshthi. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (eds.) The world’s writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 373–383.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sampson, Geoffrey (2015). Writing systems. Sheffield, UK; Bristol, CT: Equinox Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schütz, Albert J. (1981). A Reanalysis of the Hawaiian Vowel System. Oceanic Linguistics 201, 1–43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Singler, John Victor (1996). Scripts of West Africa. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (eds.) The world’s writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 593–598.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Janet S. (1996). Japanese Writing. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (eds.) The world’s writing systems. New York: Oxford University Press, 209–217.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sproat, Richard William (2000). A computational theory of writing systems. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stephens, Laurence & John S. Justeson (1978). Reconstructing “Minoan” Phonology: The Approach from Universals of Language and Universals of Writing Systems. Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-) 1081, 271–284. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steriade, Donca (1982). Greek Prosodies and the Nature of Syllabification. Ph.D. Dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, Isaac (1883). The alphabet: an account of the origin and development of letters. London: K. Paul, Trench & co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woodard, Roger D. (1994). On the interaction of Greek orthography and phonology: Consonant clusters in the syllabic scripts. In W. C. Watt (ed.) Writing Systems and Cognition: Perspectives from psychology, physiology, linguistics, and semiotics. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 311–334. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zec, Draga (1988). Sonority constraints on prosodic structure. Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Gnanadesikan, Amalia E.
2023. Segments and syllables in Hangeul and Thaana. Written Language & Literacy 26:2 ► pp. 238 ff. DOI logo
Osterkamp, Sven & Gordian Schreiber
2023. A proposal for a formalized, expandable approach to the taxonomy of writing systems. Written Language & Literacy 26:1 ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Share, David L.
2021. Is the Science of Reading Just the Science of Reading English?. Reading Research Quarterly 56:S1 DOI logo
Share, David L.
2021. Common Misconceptions about the Phonological Deficit Theory of Dyslexia. Brain Sciences 11:11 ► pp. 1510 ff. DOI logo
Share, David L.
2025. Blueprint for a Universal Theory of Learning to Read: The Combinatorial Model. Reading Research Quarterly 60:2 DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2025. Further Reading. In The Writing Revolution, ► pp. 331 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue