Re: VMs: Chinese thoughts [ was: languages etc]

[steve ekwall <ekwall2@xxxxxxxx>]

hi all :-)

i still stand by _ALL Characters_ are FREE STANDING! 

no matter how 'embelished/weirdo' the scribe draws them. 

best to you & yours
-=se=-
steve (TTT) ekwall :-) 

-----------------------------
 Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 08:14:40 -0500
 From: Bruce Grant <bgrant@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 Reply-To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
 To: vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx
 Subject: Re: VMs: Chinese thoughts [ was: languages etc]
 
 Dennis wrote:
 
 >	Here's something I still wonder about.  One always
 >hears that each Chinese syllable constitutes many
 >homophones, and apparently the Chinese themselves think
 >of it this way.  However, Jacques once told me here
 >that Chinese syllables in fact combine into groups that
 >we Indo-Europeans would consider "words" - despite the
 >fact that in Chinese all morphemes are free.  So
 >meaning in fact must be determined by context.  You
 >might as well say that 'un' , 'like' , and 'ly' are
 >separate words, and that in 'unlikely' their individual
 >meanings are only determined by context.  
 >
 I think you can say that a character maps to a syllable (actually, many 
 characters map to the same syllable), but that some words are written 
 with a single character and some with two (or maybe more). Also, not 
 every character can be a free-standing word. (I remember reading that 
 there are at least a few characters which appear only as part of a 
 two-character word, never alone.)
 
 Regards,
 
 Bruce
 
 
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