"syllables" in Chinese [was Re: Phooey Bun Mui]
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
>> Does anyone claim Holo to be a monosyllabic language?
Mike> When Lee Sau Dan said that the Southern dialects are mostly
Mike> monosyllabic, I assumed that he was including Holo, that
Mike> being one of the major Southern dialects.
Yes. I consider the Minnan dialects (which include Holo) to be
southern dialects, because they have retained many many features of
Middle Chinese.
>> I use XCDX more like a word, a proper name. But I don't know
>> why a casual speaker would want to analyze his speech. If he
>> can convey what he is trying to say, that's good enough. Just
>> imagine how slow a conversation would be if both parties have
>> to analyze each sentence (down to each syllable) they are
>> uttering. I don't believe I have ever consciously analyzed my
>> speech while speaking (I guess this would have to boil down to
>> the definition of analyze).
Mike> I agree. In fact, that is basically what I've been saying,
Mike> but not being a native speaker of any Chinese language, I
Mike> can't provide a first person perspective, as you have just
Mike> done.
I've just thought of some examples in English. How do you understand
these words: "unhappy", "dislike", "disobey", "uglification" (a word
perhaps only used in a novel), "photosynthesis", "polymorphism",
"socialism", "realistic", "Kindergarten" (actually a German word),
"gardener", "talkative", "worker", "employee", "trainee", ...?
Do you interpret and use these words as one individual concept? When
you learn these words, do you use (either intentionally or
unconsciously) the method of destructing them into morphemes to *AID*
memorization?
You know, our mind is more intelligent than we think they are!
Sometimes, we do many smart things subconsciously without realizing
it. (e.g. recognition of someone's voice, "feeling" that somebody is
happy or sad from his facial expression, ...)
Mike> Precisely. I think that the well-educated tend to
Mike> overestimate the role of such analysis in everyday speech,
Mike> which biases them toward the monosyllabic hypothesis. The
Mike> illiterate (and pre-literate children) are unlikely to be
Mike> able to perform such analysis.
Well... "unlikely" is a good word here---it reflects the vagueness or
fuzziness of what you're claiming! Zi4 is a vague concept WHEN you
analyze it using the morpheme-word-phrase-sentence model. (However,
when you analyze it with the zi4-ci2 model, it's a very concrete
idea.)
Yes, you're right that an illiterate usually has a smaller tendency or
interest in analyzing the ci2's. Why? I think the reason is not that
they don't have the skill, but that they don't have to do it! It is
often the case that when the situation is necessary, they can analyze
the ci2's they use or hear. (e.g. when naming a new born baby or a
new shop, they will apply their knowledge of the destruction of ci2's
into zi4's.) They do have the concept of zi4's, but they do not have
that much chances to use this concept. (Even the illiterates know
that one written character represents one syllable. So, if they are
interested, they would as the literates "What zi4 is this? What does
it mean?" and the respond would likely relate the word to several
ci2's using that zi4.)
Mike> Since those people can speak
Mike> Chinese, it follows that there are versions of the spoken
Mike> language that do not rely on any understanding of the role
Mike> of every zi4 in every ci2.
It's hard to say. Most Chinese speakers are immersed in the Chinese
culture, in which zi4 is a very important concept. Even the
illiterates have the concept of zi4.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦(Big5) ~{@nJX6X~}(HZ)
.----------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| http://www.cs.hku.hk/~sdlee e-mail: sd...@cs.hku.hk |
`----------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <7frab0s...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote:
>I've just thought of some examples in English. How do you understand
>these words: "unhappy", "dislike", "disobey", "uglification" (a word
>perhaps only used in a novel), "photosynthesis", "polymorphism",
>"socialism", "realistic", "Kindergarten" (actually a German word),
>"gardener", "talkative", "worker", "employee", "trainee", ...?
>
>Do you interpret and use these words as one individual concept? When
>you learn these words, do you use (either intentionally or
>unconsciously) the method of destructing them into morphemes to *AID*
>memorization?
There's no single answer, because each person learns these words in
different contexts, at different ages. Sometimes they're learned as a
gestalt and never analyzed; sometimes learned as a gestalt but later
broken down; sometimes puzzled out based on the morphemes involved.
Children try from an early age to analyze what they hear, as shown from
these samples (from Eve Clark's acquisition studies):
Father: And this is a wood-duck.
Child: So he's made of wood?
Child: That a motor-car. It got a motor.
Child: Egg-nog comes from egg!
Child (in a Safeway store): Is this where you get safe? 'Cause
this is Safeway and you get safe from the cold.
And on the other hand, some things that are 'obviously' analyzable can
escape people for years. A friend of mine for years misread 'misled'
(= mis- + led) as [maisld], as if it were the past participle of a verb
'misle'.
>Yes, you're right that an illiterate usually has a smaller tendency or
>interest in analyzing the ci2's. Why? I think the reason is not that
>they don't have the skill, but that they don't have to do it! It is
>often the case that when the situation is necessary, they can analyze
>the ci2's they use or hear.
But do they always do so correctly? The problem with such passive
knowledge is that it can be very faulty-- in English, for instance, many
people are exposed to archaic verb patterns from the King James Bible, but
few can use them correctly. Or, in Spanish: a friend relates receiving a
letter asking for a "fosto". He racked his brains trying to think what
this might be, before realizing that it was a hypercorrection for 'foto'.
The letter-writer, from a region where s's are routinely aspirated or
dropped, was trying to supply the missing s's, and added one too many.
To a writing-oriented person, the substitution 'fosto' for 'foto' is
unthinkable, and many of the English words you mention are "obviously"
composed of smaller parts; but that isn't necessarily how the majority
of people actually learn or think about words.
I'm also reminded of a misguided (IMHO) attempt in the heyday of
transformational grammar to derive compound words dynamically, out of
their component morphemes, at the time of speaking, by transformations--
not only things like work + -er = worker or photograph + -y = photography,
but cause + die = kill. To me such theories fail to square with how
language is acquired: we encounter words, not morphemes. We obviously
analyze words into morphemes, but this process isn't necessarily complete,
nor does it have to replace the mental entry for the word, so to speak.
H Andrew Chuang
>culture, in which zi4 is a very important concept. Even the
>illiterates have the concept of zi4.
>
Mr Wright has put you and me in the same camp. Thus, I have the moral
obligation to support of what you say. 8-)
Anyway, the people in the multisyllabic camp has yet to dispute my
assertion that zi4 is the basis of Chinese vocabulary. When one
talks about Chinese vocabulary, one talks about number of zi4 exists
in the Chinese language. No one talks about number of ci2 exists in
the Chinese language. (I doubt if anyone has that kind of statistics.)
Just because the set of zi4 in Chinese language is a smaller basis
than, say, the basis of English language does not make ci2 the basis
of Chinese language. After all, there are more than 10,000 Chinese
zi4 with over 3,000 commonly used ones, IIRC. Obviously, it's a
functional and sizable set.
Furthermore, I'm not sure if Mr Wright's assumption that the illiterate
don't have the concept of zi4. After all, everyone is given a name
(ming2 *ZI0* [an example of neutral tone]) right after one is born.
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <5v0rs5$o...@examiner.concentric.net>,
H Andrew Chuang <Chu...@cris.com> wrote:
>Anyway, the people in the multisyllabic camp has yet to dispute my
>assertion that zi4 is the basis of Chinese vocabulary. [...]
No need, because it's more or less true-- about 90% true, to be precise,
since about 10% of zi4 are in fact part of a multisyllabic morpheme.
> When one
>talks about Chinese vocabulary, one talks about number of zi4 exists
>in the Chinese language. No one talks about number of ci2 exists in
>the Chinese language. (I doubt if anyone has that kind of statistics.)
>Just because the set of zi4 in Chinese language is a smaller basis
>than, say, the basis of English language does not make ci2 the basis
>of Chinese language. After all, there are more than 10,000 Chinese
>zi4 with over 3,000 commonly used ones, IIRC. Obviously, it's a
>functional and sizable set.
A good English dictionary may have 100,000 to 400,000 words listed.
That should tell you something. Do you really think English has
forty times as many words as Chinese?
The difference isn't in the languages, but in the lexicography. Chinese,
just like English, has a huge number of (mostly polysyllabic!) words
(roughly, ci2), built out of a smaller number of morphemes (roughly, zi4).
The "basis" of the vocabulary in both languages is the morpheme (that is,
the smallest meaning-bearing unit). The difference is that English
dictionaries are organized by words and count the number of words, and
Chinese dictionaries are organized by morpheme and count the number of
morpheme.
(To be precise they list zi4, of course. As has been pointed out several
times, including by Lee Sau Dan, there are a fair number of zi4 which
are not morphemes, but only part of a multisyllable morpheme. So a
list of Chinese zi4 is just a bit longer than a list of Chinese
morphemes.)
y...@emn.com
Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> wrote in article
<5v1fkb$j...@huitzilo.tezcat.com>...
>
> A good English dictionary may have 100,000 to 400,000 words listed.
> That should tell you something. Do you really think English has
> forty times as many words as Chinese?
>
> The difference isn't in the languages, but in the lexicography.
Chinese,
> just like English, has a huge number of (mostly polysyllabic!)
words
> (roughly, ci2), built out of a smaller number of morphemes
(roughly, zi4).
> The "basis" of the vocabulary in both languages is the morpheme
(that is,
> the smallest meaning-bearing unit). The difference is that English
> dictionaries are organized by words and count the number of words,
and
> Chinese dictionaries are organized by morpheme and count the number
of
> morpheme.
>
No. Not forty times. But there are words that, though found in every
English dictionaries, will never appear in Chinese dictionaries, be
they ZiDian or CiDian. Words like insignificant, indistinguishable,
in-xxxx, un-xxxx, non-xxxx, etc are most likely not found in Chinese
dictionaries. Would anyone expect to find "not significant" in a
dictionary? Hope not. If this is not attributed to the difference in
languages, what should it be attributed to?
Mike Wright
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
>
> >> Does anyone claim Holo to be a monosyllabic language?
>
> Mike> When Lee Sau Dan said that the Southern dialects are mostly
> Mike> monosyllabic, I assumed that he was including Holo, that
> Mike> being one of the major Southern dialects.
>
> Yes. I consider the Minnan dialects (which include Holo) to be
> southern dialects, because they have retained many many features of
> Middle Chinese.
>
> >> I use XCDX more like a word, a proper name. But I don't know
> >> why a casual speaker would want to analyze his speech. If he
> >> can convey what he is trying to say, that's good enough. Just
> >> imagine how slow a conversation would be if both parties have
> >> to analyze each sentence (down to each syllable) they are
> >> uttering. I don't believe I have ever consciously analyzed my
> >> speech while speaking (I guess this would have to boil down to
> >> the definition of analyze).
>
> Mike> I agree. In fact, that is basically what I've been saying,
> Mike> but not being a native speaker of any Chinese language, I
> Mike> can't provide a first person perspective, as you have just
> Mike> done.
>
> these words: "unhappy", "dislike", "disobey", "uglification" (a word
> perhaps only used in a novel), "photosynthesis", "polymorphism",
> "socialism", "realistic", "Kindergarten" (actually a German word),
> "gardener", "talkative", "worker", "employee", "trainee", ...?
>
> Do you interpret and use these words as one individual concept?
In normal conversation, yes, I do. I doubt that I ever think of the
parts of words occurring in conversation--unless something goes wrong
and I don't understand what someone has said.
> When
> you learn these words, do you use (either intentionally or
> unconsciously) the method of destructing them into morphemes to *AID*
> memorization?
[...]
I can actually remember when I first learned about the parts of
"kindergarten", so I know that I didn't know about them when I was
attending one.
I learned "photosynthesis" and "polymorphism" in school, and they were
probably analyzed at the same time by either the teacher or the text
book.
The rest of your examples seem to involve some very common prefixes and
postfixes. Analyzing these is not much of a challenge--like the
negatives "bu4" and "wu2" in Mandarin. Here are some more challenging
examples: "understand", "companion", "profound", "redundant", "obverse",
"orthogonal", "newfangled", "hidebound", "prognosis", "implore",
"concentrate", "incur", "manufacture", "expression", "recognition",
"yesterday", "remind".
Any bets on whether or not the average English speaker analyzes any of
these words into their respective parts?
For some reason, I'm reminded of the old question, "Why is 'undergo' not
the opposite of 'overcome'? (Ditto for "confound" and "profound", though
there are those who say that "Congress" *is* the opposite of
"progress".)
> Mike> Precisely. I think that the well-educated tend to
> Mike> overestimate the role of such analysis in everyday speech,
> Mike> which biases them toward the monosyllabic hypothesis. The
> Mike> illiterate (and pre-literate children) are unlikely to be
> Mike> able to perform such analysis.
>
> Well... "unlikely" is a good word here---it reflects the vagueness or
> fuzziness of what you're claiming! Zi4 is a vague concept WHEN you
> analyze it using the morpheme-word-phrase-sentence model. (However,
> when you analyze it with the zi4-ci2 model, it's a very concrete
> idea.)
Well, there's nothing fuzzy about my wife's inability to analyze Holo
ci2 into zi4. Of course, she knows that each syllable is likely to be a
zi4--she just doesn't know what the individual syllables mean, except
where she can guess because she knows the Mandarin cognate.
> Yes, you're right that an illiterate usually has a smaller tendency or
> interest in analyzing the ci2's. Why? I think the reason is not that
> they don't have the skill, but that they don't have to do it!
It's not a question of skill, but of knowledge. The most brilliant
person cannot work without data. My wife is very intelligent--certainly
more intelligent than I am. She is self-taught in Japanese, Mandarin,
and English, but she doesn't know any details about her native language
(not that she would have been able to learn such a thing in a Taiwanese
school, anyway).
> It is
> often the case that when the situation is necessary, they can analyze
> the ci2's they use or hear. (e.g. when naming a new born baby
[...]
I wish you'd been with me just now when I went in and asked my wife why
she named her sons "Gen1de2" ("root" and "virtue") and "De2wen2"
("virtue" and "literature", or "the German language"). I'm not going to
try to detail the conversation here, but suffice it to say, your faith
would have been shattered.
> Mike> Since those people can speak
> Mike> Chinese, it follows that there are versions of the spoken
> Mike> language that do not rely on any understanding of the role
> Mike> of every zi4 in every ci2.
>
> It's hard to say. Most Chinese speakers are immersed in the Chinese
> culture, in which zi4 is a very important concept. Even the
> illiterates have the concept of zi4.
Yes, they just don't know the details--which is key to the question of
whether or not it makes sense to say that any of the Chinese languages
are monosyllabic.
My wife is leaving for a visit to Taiwan tomorrow. I wish I could go
with her, now that I have some ideas for some experiments.
--
Mike Wright
http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/language.html
______________________________
"When it comes to etymology, the standard of proof too many
people use is 'Doesn't violate any known laws of physics.'"
--Mark Rosenfelder
H Andrew Chuang
In article <5v1fkb$j...@huitzilo.tezcat.com>,
Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> wrote:
>In article <5v0rs5$o...@examiner.concentric.net>,
>H Andrew Chuang <Chu...@cris.com> wrote:
>>Anyway, the people in the multisyllabic camp has yet to dispute my
>>assertion that zi4 is the basis of Chinese vocabulary. [...]
>
>No need, because it's more or less true-- about 90% true, to be precise,
>since about 10% of zi4 are in fact part of a multisyllabic morpheme.
Well, care to cite how many "zi4" out of that 10% are due to "imports"
from other foreign languages?
>
>> When one
>>talks about Chinese vocabulary, one talks about number of zi4 exists
>>in the Chinese language. No one talks about number of ci2 exists in
>>the Chinese language. (I doubt if anyone has that kind of statistics.)
>>Just because the set of zi4 in Chinese language is a smaller basis
>>than, say, the basis of English language does not make ci2 the basis
>>of Chinese language. After all, there are more than 10,000 Chinese
>>zi4 with over 3,000 commonly used ones, IIRC. Obviously, it's a
>>functional and sizable set.
>
>A good English dictionary may have 100,000 to 400,000 words listed.
>That should tell you something. Do you really think English has
>forty times as many words as Chinese?
As I said, a smaller set does not make it not the basis of Chinese
vocabulary. In fact, "zi4 hui4," rather than "ci2 hui4," is the much
more common translation for "vocabulary." Chinese and English belong
to two distinctly different language families. Why should everything
used in classifying English and its related language be applied to
Chinese? Why should there always be a one-to-one correspondence?
If you really insist on a one-to-one mapping, then "zi4" is probably
closer to prefixes and suffixes in English. (Nevertheless, some
prefixes and suffixes in English are equivalent to radicals of
Chinese "zi4.") And just a reminder, most prefixes and suffixes in
English have multisyllables. The set of "ci2" encompasses a much larger
set than English words. You arbitrarily chose a set that you think it
fits closer to your experience of classifying a language. However, many
of you simply fail to see "zi4" is the more natural entity in the Chinese
language.
>
>The difference isn't in the languages, but in the lexicography. Chinese,
>just like English, has a huge number of (mostly polysyllabic!) words
>(roughly, ci2), built out of a smaller number of morphemes (roughly, zi4).
>The "basis" of the vocabulary in both languages is the morpheme (that is,
>the smallest meaning-bearing unit). The difference is that English
>dictionaries are organized by words and count the number of words, and
>Chinese dictionaries are organized by morpheme and count the number of
>morpheme.
>
>(To be precise they list zi4, of course. As has been pointed out several
>times, including by Lee Sau Dan, there are a fair number of zi4 which
>are not morphemes, but only part of a multisyllable morpheme. So a
>list of Chinese zi4 is just a bit longer than a list of Chinese
>morphemes.)
Well, do ordinary English speakers talk about morphemes? All Chinese
talk about "zi4!" The Chinese words for names (ming2 zi0), written
language (wen2 zi4), dictionary (zi4 dian3 [and ci2 dian3, too]), and
vocabulary (zi4 hui4) all have "zi4" in them. It just happens that
some "zi4" do not have the properties of a morpheme do not make "zi4" not
the basis of Chinese vocabulary.
For many of you who learn Chinese using Pinyin may think "wai4guo2ren2"
as one "word" for the English word "foreigner," both having three
"syllables." However, in my mind, the Chinese "word" has three
distinct characters each having its own meaning and it's quite different
from the three English syllables, for-reign-ner, in which each syllable
on its own conveys no meaning at all.
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> ">" == <y...@emn.com> writes:
>> No. Not forty times. But there are words that, though found in
>> every English dictionaries, will never appear in Chinese
>> dictionaries, be they ZiDian or CiDian. Words like
>> insignificant, indistinguishable, in-xxxx, un-xxxx, non-xxxx,
>> etc are most likely not found in Chinese dictionaries. Would
>> anyone expect to find "not significant" in a dictionary? Hope
>> not. If this is not attributed to the difference in languages,
>> what should it be attributed to?
And don't forget "beef", "pork", "puppy", "kitten", "doh", ...
These words present a large barrier for those who learn English by
starting with memorizing vocabularies.
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
Mark> A good English dictionary may have 100,000 to 400,000 words
Mark> listed. That should tell you something. Do you really
Mark> think English has forty times as many words as Chinese?
That depends on how you define "word".
Obviously, an English dictionary has separate entries for "cow",
"beef", "pig", "pork", "dog", "puppy", "cat", "kitten", "meat" and
"little". In a Chinese dictionary (ci2dian4), you'll only find only
<niu2> (for 'cow"), <zhu1> (which means "pig"), <ruo4> (which means
"meat", and combines with <niu2> and <zhu1> to give "pork" and
"beef"), <gou3> (for "dog"), <mao1> (for "cat") and <xiao3>
(diminutive prefix, combined with <gou3> to give "puppy" and <mao1> to
give "kitten"). Seldom do Chinese dictionaries have separate entries
for "beef", "pork", "kitten" and "puppy". The corresponding terms in
Chinese obvious in meaning and hence do not deserve separate
dictionary entries.
So, for these 10 English words, only 6 corresponding Chinese "words"
are found in dictionaries.
Mark> The difference isn't in the languages, but in the
Mark> lexicography. Chinese, just like English, has a huge number
Mark> of (mostly polysyllabic!) words (roughly, ci2), built out
Mark> of a smaller number of morphemes (roughly, zi4). The
Mark> "basis" of the vocabulary in both languages is the morpheme
Mark> (that is, the smallest meaning-bearing unit).
And English has much much more morphemes than Chinese does. In the
above examples, I have made use of the fact that English has separate
morphemes for "beef", "pork", "kitten", "puppy" (and also "ox",
"cattle", etc.). Chinese, on the other hand, compose those words from
more fundamental morphemes.
Mark> The
Mark> difference is that English dictionaries are organized by
Mark> words and count the number of words, and Chinese
Mark> dictionaries are organized by morpheme and count the number
Mark> of morpheme.
That's not the sole difference. Many ci2dian4's also give the number
of ci2's included in those ci2dian4's.
Mark> (To be precise they list zi4, of course. As has been
Mark> pointed out several times, including by Lee Sau Dan, there
Mark> are a fair number of zi4 which are not morphemes, but only
Mark> part of a multisyllable morpheme. So a list of Chinese zi4
Mark> is just a bit longer than a list of Chinese morphemes.)
Not necessarily. There are some zi4's that are overloaded. For
example, <xing2> in <bu1xing2> and <hang2> in <yin2hang2> share the
same zi4. <chang2> (long) and <chang3> (grow) share the same zi4.
So, these 4 morphemes map to only 2 zi4's. How can you claim that the
number of zi4's is always larger than that of morphemes?
Wei-Hwa Huang
<y...@emn.com> writes:
>No. Not forty times. But there are words that, though found in every
>English dictionaries, will never appear in Chinese dictionaries, be
>they ZiDian or CiDian. Words like insignificant, indistinguishable,
>in-xxxx, un-xxxx, non-xxxx, etc are most likely not found in Chinese
>dictionaries. Would anyone expect to find "not significant" in a
>dictionary? Hope not. If this is not attributed to the difference in
>languages, what should it be attributed to?
Prefixes, suffixes, conjugation, etc.?
My English dictionary has different entries for repute, reputable,
reputation, reputably, reputed, and reputedly.
To say nothing of disrepute.
--
Wei-Hwa Huang, whu...@ugcs.caltech.edu, http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~whuang/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Member of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Clubs Spades Diamonds Rubber Band
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
Mike> For some reason, I'm reminded of the old question, "Why is
Mike> 'undergo' not the opposite of 'overcome'?
Hey, double negative --> positive! Shouldn't "undergo" be synonymous
with "overcome"? Shouldn't "give in" be the same as "take out"?
<grin>
Mike> It's not a question of skill, but of knowledge. The most
Mike> brilliant person cannot work without data. My wife is very
Mike> intelligent--certainly more intelligent than I am.
Even non-brilliant people have to work with *ideas*. Maybe they are
not as overloaded as brilliant ones, who have to compress their
knowledge to accommodate more knowledge.
Mike> She is
Mike> self-taught in Japanese, Mandarin, and English, but she
Mike> doesn't know any details about her native language (not that
Mike> she would have been able to learn such a thing in a
Mike> Taiwanese school, anyway).
It's normal that a person does not know much about his native tongue,
even if he has learnt a couple of foreign languages to a competent
level. The reason is that he doesn't *study* his mother tongue. He
learns it gradually by immersion and extensive trial-and-error. For
foreign languages, people usually learn them by studying--studying the
vocabularies, grammar, idioms, etc. So, they are more *aware* of the
features and structure of the foreign language.
If you ask me to analyze Chinese or Cantonese grammatical, I'll
scream. That's difficult for me. If, however, you ask me to break
down an English sentence into its structural components (nouns,
adjectives, noun phrases, adjectival phrases, relative clauses, etc.),
that'd be a piece of cake!
Mike> I wish you'd been with me just now when I went in and asked
Mike> my wife why she named her sons "Gen1de2" ("root" and
Mike> "virtue") and "De2wen2" ("virtue" and "literature", or "the
Mike> German language"). I'm not going to try to detail the
Mike> conversation here, but suffice it to say, your faith would
Mike> have been shattered.
I'm interested in knowing the meanings of these names, in particular
the latter one. It's interesting to hear a name that is the name of a
language.
>> It's hard to say. Most Chinese speakers are immersed in the
>> Chinese culture, in which zi4 is a very important concept.
>> Even the illiterates have the concept of zi4.
Mike> Yes, they just don't know the details--which is key to the
Mike> question of whether or not it makes sense to say that any of
Mike> the Chinese languages are monosyllabic.
But why bother with this mono- vs. poly- syllabic distinction? Is it
really useful? Is the distinction well-defined with a clear-cut
dividing line? I think there is a large grey area between these 2
extremes, and most languages lie in this grey area. Some are closer
to one extreme and some to the other. But it's hard to find a
language to is at either extreme.
Mike> My wife is leaving for a visit to Taiwan tomorrow. I wish I
Mike> could go with her, now that I have some ideas for some
Mike> experiments.
Ha... Ask the illiterates if they know what is a zi4. It's normal to
hear questions like "what do those 4 zi4's (a blessing statement on a
poster with red background, posted during the Chinese new year period)
mean?" or "what does this zi4 (in a brand name) mean?" from the
illiterates.
BTW, how do you define "illiterate"? It's hard to find absolute
illiterates. Many people has managed to write their names, even if
they don't write or read anything else. My grandmum used to claimed
that she's illiterate. However, through exposure, she had learnt some
basic zi4's, including her own name and the numbers. (She also read
Chinese numerals (a skill that many children nowadays do not possess)
which is essential for a house-wife to buy food and make bargains.)
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <5v22j8$8...@examiner.concentric.net>,
>>H Andrew Chuang <Chu...@cris.com> wrote:
>>>Anyway, the people in the multisyllabic camp has yet to dispute my
>>>assertion that zi4 is the basis of Chinese vocabulary. [...]
>>
>>No need, because it's more or less true-- about 90% true, to be precise,
>>since about 10% of zi4 are in fact part of a multisyllabic morpheme.
>
>Well, care to cite how many "zi4" out of that 10% are due to "imports"
>from other foreign languages?
Most of them, according to Kratochvil, but so what? These "imports" have
been in the language for two thousand years or so, and only scholars are
likely to suspect their "foreign" origin. (Does pu2tao 'grape', a
borrowing from an Iranian language, really seem foreign to you?)
>>>Just because the set of zi4 in Chinese language is a smaller basis
>>>than, say, the basis of English language does not make ci2 the basis
>>>of Chinese language. After all, there are more than 10,000 Chinese
>>>zi4 with over 3,000 commonly used ones, IIRC. Obviously, it's a
>>>functional and sizable set.
>>
>>A good English dictionary may have 100,000 to 400,000 words listed.
>>That should tell you something. Do you really think English has
>>forty times as many words as Chinese?
>
>As I said, a smaller set does not make it not the basis of Chinese
>vocabulary.
Sometimes I get the impression that you're really arguing with another
person, someone who isn't here. I said myself, above, that calling zi4
the "basis of Chinese vocabulary" was more or less true. You seem to be
intently arguing with an imaginary being who is instead denying it
entirely.
You're also missing the point about English: the English vocabulary is not
based on words either, but on morphemes. More on this below.
>In fact, "zi4 hui4," rather than "ci2 hui4," is the much
>more common translation for "vocabulary." Chinese and English belong
>to two distinctly different language families. Why should everything
>used in classifying English and its related language be applied to
>Chinese? Why should there always be a one-to-one correspondence?
Who says there is?
You're on sci.lang; you may be used to arguing with a quite different set
of people, who do perhaps insist on applying English categories to
Chinese. Linguists are in fact entirely aware that Chinese and English
are in different language families. Linguists study several dozen
language families. A word like "morpheme" is not something from English
grammar we are insisting on misapplying to Chinese. It's a linguistic
term which can be applied to any language-- English, Chinese, Quechua,
Swahili, Dyirbal, Japanese, !Kung, whatever.
>The set of "ci2" encompasses a much larger
>set than English words. You arbitrarily chose a set that you think it
>fits closer to your experience of classifying a language.
Really? What's a "word" in English? Again, remember that you're in a
linguistics newsgroup, and linguists aren't very interested in definitions
that depend on writing systems (and thus are of no help in analyzing the
vast majority of the world's languages). Perhaps you missed the discussion
of whether expressions like "je le lui ai donne", in French, are single
words or not. Or if you don't want to listen to non-Chinese, at least pay
attention to Lee Sau Dan, who is very good at asking good linguistic
questions about English, such as whether "give up" is a word or not, or
whether "employee" is understood as a whole or broken down into morphemes.
>>The difference isn't in the languages, but in the lexicography. Chinese,
>>just like English, has a huge number of (mostly polysyllabic!) words
>>(roughly, ci2), built out of a smaller number of morphemes (roughly, zi4).
>>The "basis" of the vocabulary in both languages is the morpheme (that is,
>>the smallest meaning-bearing unit). The difference is that English
>>dictionaries are organized by words and count the number of words, and
>>Chinese dictionaries are organized by morpheme and count the number of
>>morpheme.
>>
>>(To be precise they list zi4, of course. As has been pointed out several
>>times, including by Lee Sau Dan, there are a fair number of zi4 which
>>are not morphemes, but only part of a multisyllable morpheme. So a
>>list of Chinese zi4 is just a bit longer than a list of Chinese
>>morphemes.)
>>
>Well, do ordinary English speakers talk about morphemes? All Chinese
>talk about "zi4!"
I'm not sure what this is supposed to show. Ordinary English speakers
don't talk about alveolar fricatives, either, and yet they say them.
>The Chinese words for names (ming2 zi0), written
>language (wen2 zi4), dictionary (zi4 dian3 [and ci2 dian3, too]), and
>vocabulary (zi4 hui4) all have "zi4" in them. It just happens that
>some "zi4" do not have the properties of a morpheme do not make "zi4" not
>the basis of Chinese vocabulary.
Well, where zi4 and morphemes match-- which is most of the time-- we are
not in disagreement. When they don't match, you need to provide some
argument (besides just repeating your assertion) that zi4 provide a better
analysis than morphemes. Take pu2tao, for instance: in what way are the
two zi4 pu2 and tao2 the "basis" for this word? It's not built up out of
two independent elements; it's borrowed from early Iranian *badaga.
Of course it's *written* with two zi4, but that's just how the writing
system works.
>For many of you who learn Chinese using Pinyin may think "wai4guo2ren2"
>as one "word" for the English word "foreigner," both having three
>"syllables." However, in my mind, the Chinese "word" has three
>distinct characters each having its own meaning and it's quite different
>from the three English syllables, for-reign-ner, in which each syllable
>on its own conveys no meaning at all.
The difference, again, isn't in the languages; in this case it's in your
own understanding of the two languages. You know Chinese well, so the
meaning of the three morphemes leaps out at you. (And to me as well, in
fact; but you could certainly find many Chinese words you can analyze and
I can't.) But the English word seems "quite different".
In fact "foreigner" is a transparent compound of two morphemes, 'foreign'
and '-er'. Not so different from Chinese after all, except of course that
'foreign' is two syllables. Consider 'outsider' instead, then. Exactly
like wai4guo2ren2, it's a compound constructed of three monosyllabic
morphemes.
I'm happy to recognize where Chinese and English diverge greatly. But
let's also recognize the many areas where they are not so far apart,
or even do things just the same way.
H Andrew Chuang
In article <5v36l4$h...@huitzilo.tezcat.com>,
Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> wrote:
>In article <5v22j8$8...@examiner.concentric.net>,
>H Andrew Chuang <Chu...@cris.com> wrote:
>>
>>Well, care to cite how many "zi4" out of that 10% are due to "imports"
>>from other foreign languages?
>
>Most of them, according to Kratochvil, but so what? These "imports" have
>been in the language for two thousand years or so, and only scholars are
>likely to suspect their "foreign" origin. (Does pu2tao 'grape', a
>borrowing from an Iranian language, really seem foreign to you?)
When I was a kid, it didn't appear foreign to me. However, as I learned
that grapes are of Mediterranean origin, I'm pretty sure pu2tao2 is of
foreign origin, just like ka1fei1 (coffee), jia1li3/ga1li3 (curry),
ning2meng2 (lemon), etc. (Also, as I kid, I was taught (almost) anything
with "fan1" in front of it is of foreign origin, such as fan1qie2
(tomato), fan1shu3 (yam).)
[snip]
>
>I'm happy to recognize where Chinese and English diverge greatly. But
>let's also recognize the many areas where they are not so far apart,
>or even do things just the same way.
This I agree.
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <7fafhnn...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote:
>>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
> Mark> A good English dictionary may have 100,000 to 400,000 words
> Mark> listed. That should tell you something. Do you really
> Mark> think English has forty times as many words as Chinese?
>
>That depends on how you define "word".
>
>Obviously, an English dictionary has separate entries for "cow",
>"beef", "pig", "pork", "dog", "puppy", "cat", "kitten", "meat" and
>"little". In a Chinese dictionary (ci2dian4), you'll only find only
><niu2> (for 'cow"), <zhu1> (which means "pig"), <ruo4> (which means
>"meat", and combines with <niu2> and <zhu1> to give "pork" and
>"beef"), <gou3> (for "dog"), <mao1> (for "cat") and <xiao3>
>(diminutive prefix, combined with <gou3> to give "puppy" and <mao1> to
>give "kitten"). Seldom do Chinese dictionaries have separate entries
>for "beef", "pork", "kitten" and "puppy". The corresponding terms in
>Chinese obvious in meaning and hence do not deserve separate
>dictionary entries.
>
>So, for these 10 English words, only 6 corresponding Chinese "words"
>are found in dictionaries.
'Kitten' is derived from 'cat' (though not in a productive way), so
it may be 9 vs. 6. But in any case I can well believe that English
has twice the morpheme count of Mandarin. Not 40 times, though.
> Mark> (To be precise they list zi4, of course. As has been
> Mark> pointed out several times, including by Lee Sau Dan, there
> Mark> are a fair number of zi4 which are not morphemes, but only
> Mark> part of a multisyllable morpheme. So a list of Chinese zi4
> Mark> is just a bit longer than a list of Chinese morphemes.)
>
>Not necessarily. There are some zi4's that are overloaded. For
>example, <xing2> in <bu1xing2> and <hang2> in <yin2hang2> share the
>same zi4. <chang2> (long) and <chang3> (grow) share the same zi4.
>So, these 4 morphemes map to only 2 zi4's. How can you claim that the
>number of zi4's is always larger than that of morphemes?
Perhaps I'm too used to a Chinese-English dictionary-- these four
morphemes *are* four entries in my dictionary, since it's ordered by
pin1yin1 reading! But you're right, that would reduce the zi4 count.
On the other hand, scholars consider many zi4 to be etymologically
the same word (Karlgren lists many cases of this sort, and the PRC
simplified characters make use of some of them). That would inflate
the zi4 count again. I'm not sure how it would end up!
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
Mark> In fact "foreigner" is a transparent compound of two
Mark> morphemes, 'foreign' and '-er'. Not so different from
Mark> Chinese after all, except of course that 'foreign' is two
Mark> syllables.
There's at least one difference: the Chinese term <wai4guo2> is not
only 2 syllables, but also destructible into 2 morphemes (which are
fortunately single zi4's in this case): <wai4> means outside and
<guo2> means country. So, <wai4guo2> obviously means "outside (our
own) country", i.e. "foreign". On the other hand, I cannot break down
"foreign" into smaller parts (or should it be "for" + "reign"?).
Mark> Consider 'outsider' instead, then.
The Chinese term for "outside" is <wai4ren2>, where <wai4> means
"out/outside" (depending on whether you consider it as an adjective or
preposition [ "postposition" indeed" ]) and <ren2> means "person".
Mark> Exactly like
Mark> wai4guo2ren2, it's a compound constructed of three
Mark> monosyllabic morphemes.
It's a good example, except that it doesn't mean the same thing as
<wai4guo2ren2>. An "outsider" need not be a "foreigner".
Mark> I'm happy to recognize where Chinese and English diverge
Mark> greatly. But let's also recognize the many areas where they
Mark> are not so far apart, or even do things just the same way.
Yes. That's true.
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <7fsoves...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote:
>>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
> Mark> In fact "foreigner" is a transparent compound of two
> Mark> morphemes, 'foreign' and '-er'. Not so different from
> Mark> Chinese after all, except of course that 'foreign' is two
> Mark> syllables.
>
>There's at least one difference: the Chinese term <wai4guo2> is not
>only 2 syllables, but also destructible into 2 morphemes (which are
>fortunately single zi4's in this case): <wai4> means outside and
><guo2> means country. So, <wai4guo2> obviously means "outside (our
>own) country", i.e. "foreign". On the other hand, I cannot break down
>"foreign" into smaller parts (or should it be "for" + "reign"?).
You're virtually restating what I said above. To say that you cannot
break down 'foreign' further is exactly the same as saying that it's a
morpheme. (It isn't related to for or reign; it ultimately derives from
Latin _foranus_ 'on the outside'.) And the "one difference" you point
out is the same one I noted with "except...".
> Mark> Consider 'outsider' instead, then.
> Mark> Exactly like
> Mark> wai4guo2ren2, it's a compound constructed of three
> Mark> monosyllabic morphemes.
>
>It's a good example, except that it doesn't mean the same thing as
><wai4guo2ren2>. An "outsider" need not be a "foreigner".
I wasn't saying it meant exactly the same as wai4guo2ren2, but showing
that English words, like Chinese words, can often be broken down into
monosyllabic morphemes. Andrew's "for-reign-ner" example, far from
showing that English and Chinese are completely different, show that
both work in similar ways, building words out of smaller pieces.
(Of course, you could use the example to point out other differences,
such as English's greater reliance on loanwords.)
Hung J Lu
In article <5v40em$4...@huitzilo.tezcat.com>,
Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> wrote:
>>There's at least one difference: the Chinese term <wai4guo2> is not
>>only 2 syllables, but also destructible into 2 morphemes (which are
>>fortunately single zi4's in this case): <wai4> means outside and
>><guo2> means country. So, <wai4guo2> obviously means "outside (our
>>own) country", i.e. "foreign". On the other hand, I cannot break down
>>"foreign" into smaller parts (or should it be "for" + "reign"?).
>> Mark> Consider 'outsider' instead, then.
>> Mark> Exactly like
>> Mark> wai4guo2ren2, it's a compound constructed of three
>> Mark> monosyllabic morphemes.
>>It's a good example, except that it doesn't mean the same thing as
>><wai4guo2ren2>. An "outsider" need not be a "foreigner".
Arrgghh... Mark, why are you wasting time on this topic?
There are always people that have nothing better to do than
picking bones in an egg or looking for the fifth leg in a cat.
Give 'em German <Auslaender>. Could we all go home, now?
-- Ekki
Wei-Hwa Huang
sd...@cs.hku.hk (Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}) writes:
>>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
> Mike> For some reason, I'm reminded of the old question, "Why is
> Mike> 'undergo' not the opposite of 'overcome'?
>Hey, double negative --> positive! Shouldn't "undergo" be synonymous
>with "overcome"? Shouldn't "give in" be the same as "take out"?
><grin>
And when I turn on a computer, am I "shutting it up"? :-)
Gerald B Mathias
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} (sd...@cs.hku.hk) wrote:
: >>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
: Mike> For some reason, I'm reminded of the old question, "Why is
: Mike> 'undergo' not the opposite of 'overcome'?
: Hey, double negative --> positive! Shouldn't "undergo" be synonymous
: with "overcome"? Shouldn't "give in" be the same as "take out"?
: <grin>
I had just been toying with the idea of using my .sig space to
suggest that the fact that "What's going on?" is about the same as
"What's coming off?" was due to the double negative. Mr. Lee has
saved my face by showing me the error of that idea before I got
around to stating it.
But it wouldn't quite work with "give in/take out" anyway; "-give"
doesn't define "take," or vice-versa.
By the way, shouldn't the "Syllables in Chinese" thread be getting
its own newsgroup?
Bart
----
Please ignore extra or missing letters, such as "d" on "an" and
"y" on "ever" and no "k" in "know" and "knew." Buck keeps
messing with the keyboard!
Mike Wright
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} wrote:
>
> It's normal that a person does not know much about his native tongue,
> even if he has learnt a couple of foreign languages to a competent
> level. The reason is that he doesn't *study* his mother tongue. He
> learns it gradually by immersion and extensive trial-and-error. For
> foreign languages, people usually learn them by studying--studying the
> vocabularies, grammar, idioms, etc. So, they are more *aware* of the
> features and structure of the foreign language.
I think that one of the problems with the teaching of Mandarin in Taiwan
is that it is not treated as a foreign language. The attitude seems to
be that "Chinese is Chinese".
> If you ask me to analyze Chinese or Cantonese grammatical, I'll
> scream. That's difficult for me. If, however, you ask me to break
> down an English sentence into its structural components (nouns,
> adjectives, noun phrases, adjectival phrases, relative clauses, etc.),
> that'd be a piece of cake!
True. I actually learned some English spelling rules from a Chinese
coworker. I hadn't even known that there were any spelling rules at all.
> Mike> I wish you'd been with me just now when I went in and asked
> Mike> my wife why she named her sons "Gen1de2" ("root" and
> Mike> "virtue") and "De2wen2" ("virtue" and "literature", or "the
> Mike> German language"). I'm not going to try to detail the
> Mike> conversation here, but suffice it to say, your faith would
> Mike> have been shattered.
>
> I'm interested in knowing the meanings of these names, in particular
> the latter one. It's interesting to hear a name that is the name of a
> language.
Yes. I was horrified. She says that she thought that it sounded
"iu55/33-siu11" (Mand. "you1xiu4", "excellent, superior, delicate).
"Gen1de2" is "kun55/33-tek32" in Holo. I woke her from her nap to ask
her about it, and she was still a little dopey. Her first response was
that "kun55" means "root", and "tek32" means "bamboo". The latter was
obviously a homonym error, which I wouldn't expect to have occurred if
she really thought about the individual zi4 when speaking his name. Of
course, she was still half asleep. Also, he is known in Holo as "A-Tek",
and in English as "Ken", and we use the English name almost exclusively
at home.
Ken just dropped by as I was typing this. I mentioned it to him, and he
said that his relatives often call him "A-sun", where "sun51" means
"bamboo shoot". It seems like a kind of pun.
I understand from a Mandarin-speaking friend that the names violate some
rule whereby brothers should all have the same first(?) zi4 in their
given names.
> >> It's hard to say. Most Chinese speakers are immersed in the
> >> Chinese culture, in which zi4 is a very important concept.
> >> Even the illiterates have the concept of zi4.
>
> Mike> Yes, they just don't know the details--which is key to the
> Mike> question of whether or not it makes sense to say that any of
> Mike> the Chinese languages are monosyllabic.
>
> But why bother with this mono- vs. poly- syllabic distinction? Is it
> really useful?
How can linguistic science ignore any facet of a language? How could
linguists look for the mechanisms and reasons behind the change from
what appears to have been the almost fully monosyllabic language of
Ancient Chinese and the not-particularly-monosyllabic modern languages
if we don't even recognize that such a change has taken place?
Since when can science ignore facts?
> Is the distinction well-defined with a clear-cut
> dividing line? I think there is a large grey area between these 2
> extremes, and most languages lie in this grey area. Some are closer
> to one extreme and some to the other. But it's hard to find a
> language to is at either extreme.
That is probably true of all generalizations about languages. That
doesn't make generalizations useless. It just means that you have to
know when you are generalizing and when you are not.
> Mike> My wife is leaving for a visit to Taiwan tomorrow. I wish I
> Mike> could go with her, now that I have some ideas for some
> Mike> experiments.
>
> Ha... Ask the illiterates if they know what is a zi4. It's normal to
> hear questions like "what do those 4 zi4's (a blessing statement on a
> poster with red background, posted during the Chinese new year period)
> mean?" or "what does this zi4 (in a brand name) mean?" from the
> illiterates.
>
> BTW, how do you define "illiterate"? It's hard to find absolute
> illiterates. Many people has managed to write their names, even if
> they don't write or read anything else. My grandmum used to claimed
> that she's illiterate. However, through exposure, she had learnt some
> basic zi4's, including her own name and the numbers. (She also read
> Chinese numerals (a skill that many children nowadays do not possess)
> which is essential for a house-wife to buy food and make bargains.)
I suspect that my late mother-in-law qualified. Like my wife, she never
attended school, but unlike her, she spoke only Holo and seldom left the
house, except to go to the market. I'm not sure whether or not she knew
about as many zi4 as your grandmum. (I once learned the Chinese
numerals, but the only place I've ever seen them written is at vegetable
stands in Chinatown in San Francisco, so I've forgotten them.)
Obviously there are degrees of illiteracy. I'd say that someone who
can't read or write a simple personal letter is illiterate. Also,
perhaps, someone who can't use a dictionary to look up unknown words.
As you've seen from the discussion about the punishment of children for
speaking Holo in school, the situation of Holo in Taiwan is quite
different from that of Cantonese in HK. The only place one sees written
Holo is in song lyrics, and these use a hodge-podge of methods to render
the uniquely Holo zi4, and they are not consistent from one writer to
the next. The most common methods are:
(1) to use a zi4 that has the same meaning but is obviously not cognate,
such as Mand. "rou4" (Holo "liok5") for "bah32" ("meat"), and
(2) to use a zi4 that has the same sound but does not match the meaning,
such as Mand. "yuan3" ("the name of a mountain, the name of a small
feudal state, a surname") for Holo "gun51/goan51" (exclusive "we",
"my").
These methods may even be used when there are appropriate zi4 which
appear in classical Chinese, but not in spoken Mandarin. I assume that
this is because the writers do not know enough to figure out these
words, and because most students never learn such things in school. An
example is "ko?32" (Mand. "fu5", "again"), which might be written with
"zai4". Holo dictionary writers usually know these zi4, but the people
who write song lyrics often don't know them.
Unlike Cantonese, there are few cases of brand new zi4 being created
where none exist. In one dictionary, I did find the zi4 for "chhit-tho"
that yky mentioned:
: They are written as radical Cuo4 (walking) plus Ri (sun) and Cuo plus
: Yue (moon). Take a Yuan3 (far) and replace the Yuan2 by sun and
: another by moon. I think they are newly invented characters. Can't
: find them in Shuo Wen.
In this case, the dictionary showed the pronunciation as "thit-tho",
rather than "chhit-tho".
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
Mike> True. I actually learned some English spelling rules from a
Mike> Chinese coworker. I hadn't even known that there were any
Mike> spelling rules at all.
Ha! That's interesting. I thought that English speakers knew those
rules *subconciously*. I learnt "'I' before 'E' except after 'C'"
from a native speaker of English. (But I later found a few exceptions
such as "vein".) Now, I know this pretty assumption isn't always
correct.
Perhaps, because we Chinese have to struggle through a long way in
order to become fluent in English, we have to make many good
observations and save efforts by recognizing the patterning and making
generalizations. Another possible reason is that Chinese languages
are analytical and hence its speakers (esp. the literates) have higher
tendencies to analyze things they learn.
Mike> Yes. I was horrified. She says that she thought that it
Mike> sounded "iu55/33-siu11" (Mand. "you1xiu4", "excellent,
Mike> superior, delicate).
Which of "gen1", "de2" and "wen2" sound like "siu11"?
Mike> Ken just dropped by as I was typing this. I mentioned it to
Mike> him, and he said that his relatives often call him "A-sun",
Mike> where "sun51" means "bamboo shoot". It seems like a kind of
Mike> pun.
Oh! It's interesting that even the parents would forget about the
meanings of the names of their children. I have never imagined this
to happen even to a half-sleeping parent.
For the other relatives, that's also suprising to me. Do they know
the meaning of the name of Ken? Did they ever ask about it? Or is
"sun51" a nickname, chosen for some reasons related to pronunciations?
(Among friends and schoolmates, we are used to create nicknames which
have funny meanings and sound close to the real names. )
Mike> I understand from a Mandarin-speaking friend that the names
Mike> violate some rule whereby brothers should all have the same
Mike> first(?) zi4 in their given names.
Not necessarily the first zi4. Some parents prefer to have a common
second character for the names of their children. It's up to them.
It is also common that brothers have a common character different from
the sisters. Some parents would choose completely different
characters for the names, but the characters are choosen so that the
names of the siblings are related (perhaps relating to some classics).
However, it is rare that the common character is the first one in one
child's name, but the second one in the another's.
>> But why bother with this mono- vs. poly- syllabic
>> distinction? Is it really useful?
Mike> How can linguistic science ignore any facet of a language?
It can be ignored if this is not important. Then what is important?
I don't know. Very often, this is subjective and affected by the
culture.
I've read a book which describes the Malay-Indonesia language in
Chinese. I don't know why the author insists on spending chapters and
sections on topics such as "grammatical number", "verb conjugation".
The section on "verb conjugation", for instance, only says that "Verb
is not conjugated in Malay-Indonesian." and then gives many many
examples on this. Well... for English speaking readers, this section
would be useful and helpful. However, that book is written in
Chinese! Why does the author have to mention something called "verb
conjugation" and then state that this 'strange' (w.r.t. Chinese
grammar) thing doesn't exist in the target language? If I were a
Chinese who don't speak a European language, I would be totally
confused by this section!
Mike> Since when can science ignore facts?
Science have been ignoring facts that are irrelevant. Newton's
classical model of mechanics ignored the relativistic effects, which
are almost unobservable unless at speeds near the speed of light.
That model also ignores the quantum effects that become dominant when
we reduce our scope to the microscopic or submicroscopic world.
Theories of lever systems focuses on the effects of the moments of the
forces, and often ignore the effects of these forces on the lever
itself (a real lever bends when it is balancing weights on its ends).
Many chemical equations are ignoring the effects of isotopes. ......
Mike> I suspect that my late mother-in-law qualified. Like my
Mike> wife, she never attended school, but unlike her, she spoke
Mike> only Holo and seldom left the house, except to go to the
Mike> market. I'm not sure whether or not she knew about as many
Mike> zi4 as your grandmum. (I once learned the Chinese numerals,
Mike> but the only place I've ever seen them written is at
Mike> vegetable stands in Chinatown in San Francisco, so I've
Mike> forgotten them.)
So, you see... Even the definition of "illiterate" is fuzzy!
BTW, the Chinese numerals are as easy as the Arabic numerals.
Moreover, the former, though having a very long history, resembles the
"scientific notation" used by modern scientists.
Mike> Obviously there are degrees of illiteracy. I'd say that
Mike> someone who can't read or write a simple personal letter is
Mike> illiterate.
OK. That's reasonable.
Mike> Also, perhaps, someone who can't use a
Mike> dictionary to look up unknown words.
I don't think this is necessary for being a "literate". The literates
in ancient China didn't use dictionaries until the invention of the
first dictionary -- Shuo1wen2jie3zi4. (Did Confucius die before the
completion of Shuo1wen2? If so, Confucius would be illiterate
according to your standard.)
Mike> As you've seen from the discussion about the punishment of
Mike> children for speaking Holo in school, the situation of Holo
Mike> in Taiwan is quite different from that of Cantonese in
Mike> HK. The only place one sees written Holo is in song lyrics,
Mike> and these use a hodge-podge of methods to render the
Mike> uniquely Holo zi4, and they are not consistent from one
Mike> writer to the next.
I have to point out one important thing here. Although classes are
conducted in Cantonese in most primary schools and some secondary
schools in Hong Kong, we aren't taught to write in Cantonese. We get
marks deducted if we write in Cantonese. At school, we are taught to
write standard written Chinese, and we have to use this "literary"
language for learning and doing homework. (Most HKers learn the
Cantonese writing by reading comics and some magazines. Even the
lyrics are too literary that seldom can one learn the Cantonese
characters from them.)
Mike> The most common methods are:
Mike> (1) to use a zi4 that has the same meaning but is obviously
Mike> not cognate, such as Mand. "rou4" (Holo "liok5") for "bah32"
Mike> ("meat"), and
Mike> (2) to use a zi4 that has the same sound but does not match
Mike> the meaning, such as Mand. "yuan3" ("the name of a mountain,
Mike> the name of a small feudal state, a surname") for Holo
Mike> "gun51/goan51" (exclusive "we", "my").
There's one more method. Many colloquial words in Holo and Cantonese
originates from Middle/Old Chinese. So, it is possible to find the
characters for these words. (For example, the character for Cantonese
<gui22> ("tired") is the "illness" radical plus the character for
<PY:hui4> <Cantonese:wui44> (meaning "can" or "will"). This character
is no longer used in modern Mandarin. However, it DID mean "tired" in
Middle Chinese.) Such characters really represent what the Holo
speakers speak nowadays. However, these characters look strange to
Mandarin speakers, because they are no longer used in modern written
Chinese.
Mike> These methods may even be used when there are appropriate
Mike> zi4 which appear in classical Chinese, but not in spoken
Mike> Mandarin. I assume that this is because the writers do not
Mike> know enough to figure out these words, and because most
Mike> students never learn such things in school. An example is
Mike> "ko?32" (Mand. "fu5", "again"), which might be written with
Mike> "zai4". Holo dictionary writers usually know these zi4, but
Mike> the people who write song lyrics often don't know them.
Why not promote their use? Those are genuine characters representing
what they speak!
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
Mike> (Actually, I'm not sure if all these qualify as
Mike> "Mandarin". Shenyang and Chengdu don't have the retroflex
Mike> initials (zh, ch, sh, r), but they do have "er". Hefei, in
Mike> addition to having ru4sheng1 words ending in a glottal stop,
Mike> also has several nasalized vowels.)
My impression is that Mandarin generally has less rigid requirements
on the tone correctness. Often, utterances with the wrong tones can
be understood. The lyrics of Mandarin songs do not always have tones
matching the melody.
Mike> On the other hand, tones appear to be extremely important in
Mike> Holo. When I ask my wife about a word, if I don't get the
Mike> tones right, she doesn't understand me.
It's also important in Cantonese: A friend of mine, who is a German,
can remember many Cantonese words with reasonably accurate
pronunciations. However, he doesn't make the tones correctly. So, I
cannot comprehend the Cantonese words spoken by him without enough
context. If he has learn and memorized the tones properly, I would
understand his Cantonese words without any problem.
Mike> Perhaps Mandarin speakers just tend to get more practice
Mike> dealing with divergent tones.
I agree. They can comprehend Dengxiaoping's speech without problem.
I myself cannot. I rely too much on the tones.
However, Cantonese subdialects other than the Guangzhou and HK ones
also have divergent tones. The Zhong1shan1 dialect, for example, have
tone contours different from the Guangzhou vernacular. Even the
Guangzhou dialect and HK dialect have very tiny difference in tone
contours (for the <yin1ping2> tone), though it usually goes unnoticed.
But they're still mutually intelligible.
As for Holo, I think you can think of Minnanese in general. Different
Minnanese dialects have different tone contours, too! Yet, they are
mutually intelligible.
>> I always pronounce BaBa as Ba4Ba0. But I have heard people
>> pronounce it as Ba1Ba1, Ba1Ba0 or even Ba3Ba2. I guess Ba2Ba0
>> isn't beyond my imagination.
Mike> My Matthews' Chinese-English dictionary claims that it is "a
Mike> Mohammedan term". I'm not sure what that is supposed to
Mike> mean, but I doubt it.
Mohammed is a very common Arabic name. So, is "a Mohammedan term"
something invented by an Arab?
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
Mark> 'Kitten' is derived from 'cat' (though not in a productive
Mark> way), so it may be 9 vs. 6. But in any case I can well
Mark> believe that English has twice the morpheme count of
Mark> Mandarin. Not 40 times, though.
I agree that a number of 2--9 looks more reasonable than 40.
>> Not necessarily. There are some zi4's that are overloaded.
>> For example, <xing2> in <bu1xing2> and <hang2> in <yin2hang2>
>> share the same zi4. <chang2> (long) and <chang3> (grow) share
>> the same zi4. So, these 4 morphemes map to only 2 zi4's. How
>> can you claim that the number of zi4's is always larger than
>> that of morphemes?
Mark> Perhaps I'm too used to a Chinese-English dictionary-- these
Mark> four morphemes *are* four entries in my dictionary, since
Mark> it's ordered by pin1yin1 reading!
Most dictionaries published in HK and TW use the traditional method of
arranging the characters by chief-radical and then stroke count. So,
the same character appears only once in the dictionaries.
Mark> But you're right, that
Mark> would reduce the zi4 count. On the other hand, scholars
Mark> consider many zi4 to be etymologically the same word
Mark> (Karlgren lists many cases of this sort, and the PRC
Mark> simplified characters make use of some of them). That would
Mark> inflate the zi4 count again. I'm not sure how it would end
Mark> up!
Is that effect significant to the zi4 count?
Yes, those zi4's are considered "equivalent" in the sense that they
can be used interchangbly. They are often variants of one another.
The ROC has made use of this to simplify the characters, too. So, I
think the simplifications made by ROC are reasonable.
However, the PRC's simplifications are too aggressive. How can the
characters for "back/after" and "queen" become the same character?
How can "hair" and "invent/initiate" become the same thing?
Jens S. Larsen
It puzzles me that they apparently don't learn anything about the
grammar of their own language in the Chinese schools. In Danish
elementary schools we learn at least how to identify the verb, the
subject and an object of a sentence. Danish language teachers
usually also gets to learn about Diderichsen's sentence template.
How's that in other languages in other parts of the world?
Skribis Mike Wright skrev / wrote / schrieb:
> Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} wrote:
> > It's normal that a person does not know much about his
> > native tongue, even if he has learnt a couple of
> > foreign languages to a competent level. The reason is
> > that he doesn't *study* his mother tongue. He learns
> > it gradually by immersion and extensive
> > trial-and-error. For foreign languages, people
> > usually learn them by studying--studying the
> > vocabularies, grammar, idioms, etc. So, they are more
> > *aware* of the features and structure of the foreign
> > language.
> I think that one of the problems with the teaching of Mandarin
> in Taiwan is that it is not treated as a foreign language. The
> attitude seems to be that "Chinese is Chinese".
> > If you ask me to analyze Chinese or Cantonese
> > grammatical, I'll scream. That's difficult for me.
> > If, however, you ask me to break down an English
> > sentence into its structural components (nouns,
> > adjectives, noun phrases, adjectival phrases, relative
> > clauses, etc.), that'd be a piece of cake!
> True. I actually learned some English spelling rules from a
> Chinese coworker. I hadn't even known that there were any
> spelling rules at all.
--
Jens Stengård Larsen <http://dorit.ihi.ku.dk/~steng>
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Mark Rosenfelder
In article <7fvi0av...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote:
>>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@huitzilo.tezcat.com> writes:
> Mark> consider many zi4 to be etymologically the same word
> Mark> (Karlgren lists many cases of this sort, and the PRC
> Mark> simplified characters make use of some of them). That would
> Mark> inflate the zi4 count again. I'm not sure how it would end
> Mark> up!
>
>Is that effect significant to the zi4 count?
It depends on your dictionary and what it considers alternates. As a
rough test I looked at the L's in Karlgren: of 402 zi4, 34 are marked
as etymologically the same as another character, about 8%. Many of
these would probably be considered variants, but some might not.
Here's a sampling of the latter:
lan2 'bar'; lan2 'railing, enclosure'
lao2 'toil'; lao2 'tuberculosis'
li3 'village', li3 'rustic'
li3 'rite', li3 'sweet wine'
li4 'undergo', li4 'whetstone'
li4 'beautiful', li4 'pair'
liang3 'pair', liang3 'carriage'
lin3 'fear', lin3 'cold'
lin1 'shower', lin1 'rain'
lu3 'capture', lu3 'plunder'
Lu2 surname, lu2 'stove'
long2 'screen', long2 'cage, window'
>Yes, those zi4's are considered "equivalent" in the sense that they
>can be used interchangbly. They are often variants of one another.
>The ROC has made use of this to simplify the characters, too. So, I
>think the simplifications made by ROC are reasonable.
I hadn't heard about the ROC's simplification of characters... when was
this? how many characters were affected?
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Mark" == Mark Rosenfelder <mark...@xochi.tezcat.com> writes:
Mark> I hadn't heard about the ROC's simplification of
Mark> characters... when was this? how many characters were
Mark> affected?
Few. Few people are aware of those simplifications, because the
number of affected character is very small (esp. when compared to the
simplifications of PRC). Moreover, the use of those simplified
characters has a long continued history. One example is <cai2> (an
adverb approximately meaning "just" (not "justice", but as in "He's
just 2 years old then".)). The original character of <cai2> is very
complicated. It has more than 20 strokes. This is character is used
very very frequently, it is replaced by another character of the same
pronunciation, which as only 3 strokes! It's the character resulted
from "wood" minus the final stroke.
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Wei-Hwa" == Wei-Hwa Huang <whu...@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes:
>> Hey, double negative --> positive! Shouldn't "undergo" be
>> synonymous with "overcome"? Shouldn't "give in" be the same as
>> "take out"? <grin>
Wei-Hwa> And when I turn on a computer, am I "shutting it up"?
Wei-Hwa> :-)
Do you mean that you think "shut" is the opposite of "turn" and "up"
is the opposite of "on"? Oh! That's strange to me.
The following are a few jokes based on the above discussion:
When a plane "takes off", it's "dropping on"! :)
When you "give up", your're "receiving down".
When you're "upset", you're indeed "downunset".
To "raise out" your opinion, "lower it in".
If someone "takes after" you, "drop before" him.
"Take away" whatever you want to "give into".
"Open down!" (=="Shut up!")
:X
Philip Anderson
Jens S. Larsen <je...@cphling.dk> wrote:
>It puzzles me that they apparently don't learn anything about the
>grammar of their own language in the Chinese schools. In Danish
>elementary schools we learn at least how to identify the verb, the
>subject and an object of a sentence. Danish language teachers
>usually also gets to learn about Diderichsen's sentence template.
>How's that in other languages in other parts of the world?
In Britain, I would say that I learnt most of my grammar in Latin classes,
and I think this is not an uncommon idea (taking any foreign language, not
just Latin). Looking back I think grammar was taught in my English classes,
but because it was not particularly useful went out the other ear; whereas
with foreign languages, the patterning and rules made learning easier, and
matching those patterns with English rules amde me understand English
better.
When I learnt Welsh, the emphasis was (much more than with French in school)
on learning pattern sentances and phrases as such, speaking and listening,
and only meeting sufficient grammar to tie patterns together; formal grammar
came very much later, and I think many fluent learners (non-exam students)
know little more than the average native speaker.
For me, the grammar of a language is useful, because of the way I personally
learn, and interesting, as part of its structure; it's this interest whihc
brings me here. But I don't think it's essential for knowing one's own
language, or for learning another , but a useful tool for some people. The
problems come if a course assumes too much knowledge on the part of a
learner.
Philip Anderson
Cymru/Wales
y...@emn.com
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote in article
<7fvi0av...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>...
>
> However, the PRC's simplifications are too aggressive. How can
the
> characters for "back/after" and "queen" become the same
character?
This was done before PRC. It's quite common in literatures published
in '30s or even before that.
Wei-Hwa Huang
mat...@Hawaii.Edu (Gerald B Mathias) writes:
>By the way, shouldn't the "Syllables in Chinese" thread be getting
>its own newsgroup?
I'd vote for a sci.lang.sino-tibetian group. :-)
Geoff Waters
Second.
Geoff Waters
Second.
Tak To
Wei-Hwa Huang wrote:
>
> I'd vote for a sci.lang.sino-tibetian group. :-)
I suggest sci.lang.chinese instead. There is not enough traffic on
the other languages of the same group, or on the ST group as
a whole.
This would be parallel to sci.lang.japanese. (See why we do not
have a sci.lang.altaic?)
Tak
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tak To (617) 949-1377
Aspen Technology, Inc Fax: (617) 949-1030
10 Canal Park, Cambridge, Ma 02141. tak...@aspentech.com.-
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer: I do no speak for Aspen Technology. [taode takto ~{LU5B~}]
Neil Coffey
In article <8738864...@dejanews.com>, Jens S. Larsen
<mailto:je...@cphling.dk> wrote:
>
> It puzzles me that they apparently don't learn anything about the
> grammar of their own language in the Chinese schools. In Danish
> elementary schools we learn at least how to identify the verb, the
> subject and an object of a sentence. Danish language teachers
> usually also gets to learn about Diderichsen's sentence template.
> How's that in other languages in other parts of the world?
French schools often make formal grammar tuition part of the
programme for French lessons, both at primary and secondary level.
At primary level, this typically involves writing out verb
conjugations - a particular difficulty since the written code
often makes distinctions (e.g. verb endings) which the spoken
language doesn't. At secondary level, other niceties of written
conventions are taught, including the past historic tense
(and possibly the imperfect subjunctive). Then there are compound
tense agreements, which can differ between written and spoken,
such as "la chanson que j'ai ecrite", where in reading the
last word is pronounced /ekRit/, but in spontaneous speech
is usually pronounced /ekRi/.
It is probably this high discrepancy between spoken and written
conventions, necessitating formal grammar lessons, which has allowed
the prescriptive ethos of the French over their language to remain
where in many other languages this at least beginning to lose
its trend. In English, there is generally no need to recognise
what "person" of the verb etc one is dealing with, since things
are written as they are pronounced.
--
Neil Coffey | e-mail: neil....@st-annes.ox.ac.uk
St Anne's College | UNIX talk: sann...@sable.ox.ac.uk
Oxford | World Wide Web: http://ox.compsoc.org.uk/~neil/
OX2 6HS | (See my French-English dictionary)
Gerald B Mathias
y...@emn.com wrote:
: Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} <sd...@cs.hku.hk> wrote
: > However, the PRC's simplifications are too aggressive. How can
: the
: > characters for "back/after" and "queen" become the same
: character?
: This was done before PRC. It's quite common in literatures published
: in '30s or even before that.
It goes WAY back. Quoting one of my less favorite passages from
_The Complete Guide to Everyday Kanji_: "[the queen character]
combines [person character] (person) and [mouth character] in the
sense of 'opening' to suggest the anus, the hypothesis goes, to
write a word meaning 'rear, backside.' Because the emperor's
consort or queen lived in the rear of the palace, the word was
used to refer to her."
Bart Mathias
Mike Wright
Wei-Hwa Huang wrote:
>
> mat...@Hawaii.Edu (Gerald B Mathias) writes:
> >By the way, shouldn't the "Syllables in Chinese" thread be getting
> >its own newsgroup?
>
Or, even sci.lang.china (like sci.lang.japan). Are hyphens permitted, or
would it be sci.lang.sino.tibetan?
Coby (Jacob) Lubliner
In article <7f4t7tf...@phoenix.cs.hku.hk>,
>adverb approximately meaning "just" (not "justice", but as in "He's
>just 2 years old then".)). The original character of <cai2> is very
>complicated. It has more than 20 strokes. This is character is used
>very very frequently, it is replaced by another character of the same
>pronunciation, which as only 3 strokes! It's the character resulted
>from "wood" minus the final stroke.
My dictionary (Oxford Concise) shows this simplified <cai2>
character as being the same as another <cai2>, meaning (1) `ability,
talent', (2) `people of a certain type', for which no traditional
character is given. Is this then another case of a use of a common
character for seemingly unrelated but homophonous zi4?
Coby
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~}
>>>>> "Coby" == Coby (Jacob) Lubliner <co...@euler.Berkeley.EDU> writes:
Coby> My dictionary (Oxford Concise) shows this simplified <cai2>
Coby> character as being the same as another <cai2>, meaning (1)
Coby> `ability, talent', (2) `people of a certain type', for which
Coby> no traditional character is given. Is this then another
Coby> case of a use of a common character for seemingly unrelated
Coby> but homophonous zi4?
Yes, I think so.
Your dictionary shows that the <cai2> (which resembles <mu4> ("wood")
in shape) is originally a character which means <ren2cai2> or
<cai2hua2>. However, the frequency of occurence of this character in
modern Chinese is very high, and most of the time, it doesn't refer to
that sense of <cai2>. Rather, the character is used adverbially to
mean "just" or "only". The original character for this meaning is
very complex. I've forgotten how it is written. Unfortunately, I
don't have a Chinese dictionary at hand. So, I cannot draw it in
ASCII. :(
Mike Wright
Hmm. Wieger, in _Chinese Characters_, has a completely different
explanation. He says that this character means "prince (by extension, a
princess}". He also says that it consists of two primitives that
represent "the man who notifies [mouth character] his orders, [remainder
of character] bending toward the people". He also mentions that "si1"
("manage, government, administration" [Japanese "shi" - the one used as
the second hentaigana in "sushi" that we've just been discussing in
sci.lang.japan]) is the same character flipped left to right, and the
seal style character for "si1" does bear that out. He also mentions that
use of the mouth character in this case is analogous to its use in
"jun2" ("prince" [Jap. "kun", "kimi"]).
As far as the remaining primitive meaning "a man bending forward", it
occurs alone in a couple of other characters, as well. It is also shown
alone, with the pronunciation "ren2", which is the same as the
pronunciation as the normal character for "person", so I'm not sure if
this means that it actually occurs alone in texts, or if it is just
being used as a way to show the primitive alone.
If Wieger is correct about the character orginally meaning "prince",
that alone would undermine your source's explanation, and the use of the
"queen" character to mean "rear" would probably be simply jia3jie4 (a
phonetic loan character). Perhaps the current character for "rear" is a
more recent construct.
Does your source say how far back the use of "queen" to mean "rear"
goes?
--
Mike Wright
http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/langauge.html
Tak To
Mike Wright wrote:
>
> If Wieger is correct about the character orginally meaning "prince",
> that alone would undermine your source's explanation, and the use
> of the "queen" character to mean "rear" would probably be simply
> jia3jie4 (a phonetic loan character). Perhaps the current
> character for "rear" is a more recent construct.
<Hou4> does have a meaning of "prince". <Yi4>, the mythical
archer who shot down the nine suns, is often called as <hou4yi4>.
Geoff Waters
In Guangyun, for exmaple, there are two readings for hou4 ŚZ : ghu
(shang sheng) means jun1 "the ruler" (junzi de jun); and ghu (qu sheng)
with the same meaning and also "empress" huang2 hou4.
Geoff Waters
For 后 hou4 as back or prince, see Shuo Wen: " 后 繼 體 君 也 象 人 之
形 口 Hou is a hereditary ruler. The image of a man, with the mouth
radical." Duan Yucai's late note says: " 后 之 言 後 也 開 創 之 均 在
先 繼 體 之 君 在 後 As for using hou to say 'rear', the founding ruler
comes first and the hereditary rulers come after."
The substitution for the graph 後 "back" starts up around the Han time
according to the citations in my beat-up 17.000 page dictionary. As for
"queen" it is explained in the Shi Ming 釋 名 : " 天 子 之 妃 曰 后 后
後 也 言 在 後 不 敢 以 副 言 也 The consort of the Son of Heaven is
called hou. "Hou is 'back'. It says one at the rear dares not speak in
aid." Citations for "queen" also start around the Han.
This written language has always been a flexible, fluid thing.
Mike Wright
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} wrote:
>
> >>>>> "Mike" == Mike Wright <dar...@scruznet.com> writes:
>
> Mike> (Actually, I'm not sure if all these qualify as
> Mike> "Mandarin". Shenyang and Chengdu don't have the retroflex
> Mike> initials (zh, ch, sh, r), but they do have "er". Hefei, in
> Mike> addition to having ru4sheng1 words ending in a glottal stop,
> Mike> also has several nasalized vowels.)
>
> My impression is that Mandarin generally has less rigid requirements
> on the tone correctness. Often, utterances with the wrong tones can
> be understood.
I know that my Mandarin tones were atrocious when I first arrived in
Taiwan, but I never had the slightest difficulty making myself
understood. That was in great contrast to what happened when I went to
Japan after studying Japanese.
Of course, tone is not the only thing that varies among the Mandarin
dialects. I find the Shandong dialect particularly difficult to
understand. It sounds like someone growling with a mouthful of sand. My
wedding ceremony was conducted by a Shandongese judge, and he talked on
at some length. The only part I understood was the standard bit about
counterattacking the mainland and defeating the Communist bandits. (Very
appropriate in a wedding ceremony, I'm sure.)
[...]
> However, Cantonese subdialects other than the Guangzhou and HK ones
> also have divergent tones. The Zhong1shan1 dialect, for example, have
> tone contours different from the Guangzhou vernacular. Even the
> Guangzhou dialect and HK dialect have very tiny difference in tone
> contours (for the <yin1ping2> tone), though it usually goes unnoticed.
> But they're still mutually intelligible.
>
> As for Holo, I think you can think of Minnanese in general. Different
> Minnanese dialects have different tone contours, too! Yet, they are
> mutually intelligible.
I suspect that high-speed speech gives a better context, so that
differences in tone are not so critical as they are in the halting
speech of a foreigner. My wife can understand my little conversational
forays into Holo, but can't understand when I ask her about some odd
phrase that I've found in a book.
> >> I always pronounce BaBa as Ba4Ba0. But I have heard people
> >> pronounce it as Ba1Ba1, Ba1Ba0 or even Ba3Ba2. I guess Ba2Ba0
> >> isn't beyond my imagination.
>
> Mike> My Matthews' Chinese-English dictionary claims that it is "a
> Mike> Mohammedan term". I'm not sure what that is supposed to
> Mike> mean, but I doubt it.
>
> Mohammed is a very common Arabic name. So, is "a Mohammedan term"
> something invented by an Arab?
"Mohammedan" is an old English word meaning "Islamic" or "Muslim", from
the name of the Prophet Muhammad. I never see it anymore. (That
dictionary was written back in the early 1930s, and revised in the early
1940s.)
--
Mike Wright
http://www.scruz.net/~darwin/language.html
Mike Wright
Lee Sau Dan ~{@nJX6X~} wrote:
>
> Mike> Yes. I was horrified. She says that she thought that it
> Mike> sounded "iu55/33-siu11" (Mand. "you1xiu4", "excellent,
> Mike> superior, delicate).
>
> Which of "gen1", "de2" and "wen2" sound like "siu11"?
They don't *sound like* "iu55/33-siu11", they *sound* "iu55/33-siu11".
In other words, they sound nice and classy.
> Mike> Ken just dropped by as I was typing this. I mentioned it to
> Mike> him, and he said that his relatives often call him "A-sun",
> Mike> where "sun51" means "bamboo shoot". It seems like a kind of
> Mike> pun.
>
> Oh! It's interesting that even the parents would forget about the
> meanings of the names of their children. I have never imagined this
> to happen even to a half-sleeping parent.
>
> For the other relatives, that's also suprising to me. Do they know
> the meaning of the name of Ken? Did they ever ask about it? Or is
> "sun51" a nickname, chosen for some reasons related to pronunciations?
> (Among friends and schoolmates, we are used to create nicknames which
> have funny meanings and sound close to the real names. )
It's a joke, a pun, because "tek" ("virtue") sounds exactly like "tek"
("bamboo"), and since he was a little squirt, they called him "A-sun"
("bamboo shoot"), instead of "A-tek". They write the correct character
when they refer to him in letters.
A lot of this goes on. My wife's youngest brother is commonly called
"A-chiang", which comes from the Japanese "-chan", the diminutive of
"-san". (This is a bit like my mother's youngest brother. His parents
couldn't decide what to name him when he was born, so they just called
him "Son". I called him "Uncle Son" all his life, and I was a teenager
before I found out that his real name was "Robert".)
Only the youngest sister was born after the Japanese turned Taiwan back
over to China, so the rest were given Japanese names. The females all
had to rid of the typical "-ko" endings and change to more Chinese-style
names after WWII, but the males didn't change their names. Two of the
sisters are still often called by their old Japanese names, "Eiko" and
"Keiko".
[..]
> >> But why bother with this mono- vs. poly- syllabic
> >> distinction? Is it really useful?
>
> Mike> How can linguistic science ignore any facet of a language?
>
> It can be ignored if this is not important. Then what is important?
> I don't know. Very often, this is subjective and affected by the
> culture.
In science, it is not a good idea to prejudge what is and is not
important. All details are potentially critical to full understanding.
> I've read a book which describes the Malay-Indonesia language in
> Chinese. I don't know why the author insists on spending chapters and
> sections on topics such as "grammatical number", "verb conjugation".
> The section on "verb conjugation", for instance, only says that "Verb
> is not conjugated in Malay-Indonesian." and then gives many many
> examples on this. Well... for English speaking readers, this section
> would be useful and helpful. However, that book is written in
> Chinese! Why does the author have to mention something called "verb
> conjugation" and then state that this 'strange' (w.r.t. Chinese
> grammar) thing doesn't exist in the target language? If I were a
> Chinese who don't speak a European language, I would be totally
> confused by this section!
There is a series of books with titles something like _501 Spanish
Verbs_, _501 German Verbs_, etc. The purpose of the series is to show
all the conjugations of the selected verbs. It's funny, because there is
one called _501 Chinese Verbs_, but it's very thin because there is only
one form for each verb. It's pretty silly.
I also remember reading about a book on Chinese that showed a full
Latin-style verb paradigm for the verb "qu4" ("to go"):
Infinitive: qu4
Present Tense:
plural singular
1st person qu4 qu4
2nd person qu4 qu4
3rd person qu4 qu4
Infinitive: qu4
Past Tense:
plural singular
1st person qu4 qu4
2nd person qu4 qu4
3rd person qu4 qu4
And so on.
> Mike> Since when can science ignore facts?
>
> Science have been ignoring facts that are irrelevant. Newton's
> classical model of mechanics ignored the relativistic effects, which
> are almost unobservable unless at speeds near the speed of light.
Newton didn't ignore them, he just didn't know about them.
> That model also ignores the quantum effects that become dominant when
> we reduce our scope to the microscopic or submicroscopic world.
Ditto. Newton didn't know about quantum effects.
Notice that Einstein and crew didn't ignore these things once they had
figured them out, though engineers may ignore them if they have no
practical effect on a desired goal.
> Theories of lever systems focuses on the effects of the moments of the
> forces, and often ignore the effects of these forces on the lever
> itself (a real lever bends when it is balancing weights on its ends).
> Many chemical equations are ignoring the effects of isotopes. ......
Physical processes are often idealized in order to simplify the teaching
process.
It may also be perfectly reasonable to ignore details that don't make
any substantial difference to some particular practical goal, but it is
not reasonable to fail to study such details when learning about the
subject.
You can't decide which details can be safely ignored if you don't know
what those details are. First you learn everything you are capable of
learning, only then can you decide what's important.
[...]
> So, you see... Even the definition of "illiterate" is fuzzy!
The world is fuzzy. (That's what makes it so comfortable.)
[...]
> Mike> Also, perhaps, someone who can't use a
> Mike> dictionary to look up unknown words.
>
> I don't think this is necessary for being a "literate". The literates
> in ancient China didn't use dictionaries until the invention of the
> first dictionary -- Shuo1wen2jie3zi4. (Did Confucius die before the
> completion of Shuo1wen2? If so, Confucius would be illiterate
> according to your standard.)
But he would have been able to learn to use a dictionary, while an
illiterate would not. It's the capability that is important, not the
opportunity.
[...]
> Mike> These methods may even be used when there are appropriate
> Mike> zi4 which appear in classical Chinese, but not in spoken
> Mike> Mandarin. I assume that this is because the writers do not
> Mike> know enough to figure out these words, and because most
> Mike> students never learn such things in school. An example is
> Mike> "ko?32" (Mand. "fu5", "again"), which might be written with
> Mike> "zai4". Holo dictionary writers usually know these zi4, but
> Mike> the people who write song lyrics often don't know them.
>
> Why not promote their use? Those are genuine characters representing
> what they speak!
I agree.
Geoff Waters
1) I think the Hefei accent deserves some mention in this context.
2) Things seemed to have quietened down recently. Is my server getting
everything? Or maybe someone should ask an outrageous question and perk
things up again.
Mike Wright
Geoff Waters wrote:
>
> Mike Wright wrote: [moved this to the top]
> >
> > Of course, tone is not the only thing that varies among the Mandarin
> > dialects. I find the Shandong dialect particularly difficult to
> > understand. It sounds like someone growling with a mouthful of sand.
>
Since that's one that shows up in _Hanyu Fangyan Cihui_, I took a look
at it.
The initials look pretty much like standard Mandarin, except that there
is a [z], and no distinction is made between [n] and [l]. (_Hanyu
Fangyan Cihui_ uses [n] througout.)
It's the finals where everything goes to hell. The Beijing dialect is
shown as having 38 different finals. The listing seems to be phonetic,
since it distinguishes allophones. The Hefei dialect is shown as having
43 finals, but many are quite different from the Beijing finals. Eight
of them are nasalized, and another eight end in glottal stops. Finals
like [iu-], [U~], [ii~], [yi~], [yA.?] and [u&~] are bound to sound
mighty muddy to a poor foreigner trained in standard Mandarin. To me,
the difference is much more extreme than the simple (because systematic)
mispronunciations of Taiwanese Mandarin.
The tones, as previously mentioned, don't match at all:
Beijing Hefei
yinping 55 212
yangping 35 55
shangsheng 214 24
qusheng 51 53
rusheng 4
The only tone that isn't totally scrambled around is the qusheng.
(And how about Kunming, with only 28 finals?)
I'm beginning to wonder just how mutually intelligible the various
Mandarin dialects really are. That is, could you grab some
not-too-sophisticated folks off the street in Beijing, Hefei, Kunming,
and Chengdu, and have them immediately start communicating with no more
problems than would be encountered by a Cockney, a Cajun, a
Philadelphian, and an West Virginian?
> 2) Things seemed to have quietened down recently. Is my server getting
> everything? Or maybe someone should ask an outrageous question and perk
> things up again.
I suppose we could discuss how doing away with all but one dialect of
Chinese would really pave the way for getting rid of characters and
going the romanization route, which seems to have worked just fine for
Vietnamese. In fact, since Mandarin tones seem to be on the way to
becoming inessential, they could be done away with, as well, perhaps
aided by s small increase in the number of vowels, and the return of
final /m/, /p/, /t/, and /k/ (which should make it easier for Cantonese
and Holo speakers to accept). Then we'd be left with a good candidate
for a world language, and all the energy and resources being expended on
conlangs could be directed into something productive. But that's so
obviously the way to go that no one with half a brain could possibly
disagree, so it probably wouldn't generate much of a debate. (Smiley
omitted in the interest of outrageousness.)
Maybe things are quiet because of the slowth with which some posts
arrive. For example, Mr. Waters' post was sent on 17 Sep 1997, and I'm
seeing it for the first time early on the 21st. Something needs to be
done. Revolt? Who's in charge? (And why not?)