Re: Related languages (Re: A China-Sumer connection)

ranjit_mathews_at_yahoo.com
Date: 03/24/05 

Date: 24 Mar 2005 06:06:03 -0800

Neeraj Mathur wrote:
> <phippsmartin@hotmail.com> wrote ...

> > people are classifying Chinese languages as a
> > group for political reasons whereas, in reality, Cantonese differs
from
> > Mandarin to the same extent that Vietnamese differs from Cantonese.
> > Who is right?
>
> You're talking about one set of words only. What about the other
ones? There
> are two types of words (or morphemes) in a language: we can
generalize them
> to 'content' words and 'function' words. In English, content words
include
> most nouns and many verbs: 'sing', 'song', 'computer', 'desklamp' etc
-
> these are the things the language talks about. On the other hand, the

> prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, little bits that you add to
content
> words for grammar (morphemes) like -s, -ing, -ed are all 'function
words':

Good point. In linguistics, do grammar and syntax have different
meanings? Does syntax include function words; i.e., if one adds a new
preposition or conjunction, is one changing syntax without changing
grammar? If not, is there a technical word for "grammar plus function
words"?

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