Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary

"Richard" == Richard Herring <junk@[127.0.0.1]> writes:

>> You could treat such a character as a whole unit, and ignore
>> the phonetic hints. Then, it's an ideograph, right?

>> (The meaning usually has nothing to do with the
>> phonetically-hinting part, anyway.)

Richard> If that were so, why do you need to write the phonetic as
Richard> well as the radical?

Because it's then an integral part of the character. The same reason
that you need to write the horizontal stroke of number "2".


>> What about the case in which Japanese borrows such a
>> character, and use it to write Japanese-native words bearing
>> the same meaning? The phonetic hint is not applicable in that
>> case.

Richard> By that argument, all written loanwords, regardless of
Richard> writing system, must be ideographs if they come from a
Richard> language sufficiently different that either the etymology
Richard> or the phonology is opaque.

That alone is not sufficient. In Japanese, they use those characters
to write **native** words with the same meanings.



--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
.

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