Re: Counting words in a language

From: LEE Sau Dan (danlee_at_informatik.uni-freiburg.de)
Date: 06/14/04 

Date: 14 Jun 2004 11:33:11 +0200

>>>>> "juuitchan" == juuitchan <juuitchan@hotmail.com> writes:

    juuitchan> Here is why the "word count" of a language is probably
    juuitchan> meaningless: 1) What constitutes a word? Are "apple"
    juuitchan> and "apples" separate words? What about compound
    juuitchan> words?

I've heard something more ridiculous from some Westerners: A _word_ in
Chinese changes its meaning radically depending on the intonation
(i.e. tone) in which you pronounce it. Well... why do they call those
phonemically distinct things "the same word"? I can't understand. 

-- 
Lee Sau Dan                     +Z05biGVm-                          ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: danlee@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee

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