Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary

In message <e954rr$5p6$02$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes


Richard Herring wrote:

Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes

Richard Herring wrote:

Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes

Compounding, as such, is of course one mechanism. I
illustrated that in English one could distinguish, if one
likes, three different types of compounding in writing. If
I don't err, there are certain grammatical conventions

Can you cite them?


Sorry, no. But in an analogous case, namely German, I
could give a reference, namely the well-known "Duden".
(There is a section there entitled "Zusammen- und
Getrenntschreibung").
-schreibung. It's about orthography.

I am sorry to say that you evidently get the general
convention (call it rule or whatever) for German writing
wrong in the present case.

Eh? I wasn't writing German. I extracted part of a word to make a point in English. The rules of German orthography don't apply.

[...]


Isn't what you said above about the hypen a grammatical
convention?
It's an orthographic convention. Is orthography part of grammar?

As a layman I used to think that orthography belongs to the
realm of study of scholars that I call "grammarians".

That's a species of pedantic pedagogue, so it probably does :-(

If
that's wrong, is it very critical

It's imprecise and suggests that you aren't maintaining a clear distinction between language and writing system.

to the point that I original
brought out concerning compounding (in English and Chinese)?

What _was_ the point? You seem to have lost it.


Maybe it should instead be called style
convention or something else, I don't know. But that's
not essential to my point, I suppose.

Whether there is something to drive certain aspects of
the evolution of English doesn't concern the fact that
one can formally distinguish three different types of
compounding in English.
In _written_ English. And your "three types" are no more than different historical stages in the acceptance of a new compound. (Or even historical fashions - did you know that at one time "London Road" written "London-road" ?)

O.k. Languages evovle as we all know. But the fact remains
that in the written form of English one can formally
distinguish three different types of compounding (and that
in Chinese there is only one type). This is currently so
and is likely to stay in my conviction.

In that case, what are you trying to argue from the existence of your "three types"? How does it add to whatever you were trying to say about the relative ability of English, German and Chinese to form new compounds? Why is it significant, and not just a pointless distinction?

[snip]

I am a layman and know very little about the science of
phonetics. But the currect debate is about writing systems

Is it? I thought you were trying to make some point about the relative ability of the English, German and Chinese languages to form new compounds.

and so one could anyway restrict oneself to the written
forms of the two languages in my view (in particular,
comparing the English orthographic word with the "tze"
in Chinese).


--
Richard Herring
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary
    ... three different types of compounding in writing. ... I extracted part of a word to make a point in English. ... brought out concerning compounding (in English and Chinese)? ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary
    ... three different types of compounding in writing. ... I extracted part of a word to make a point in English. ... What makes you think that there's a precise one-to-one translation between French "grammaire" and "orthographe" and English "grammar" and "orthography"? ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary
    ... three different types of compounding in writing. ... I extracted part of a word to make a point in English. ... brought out concerning compounding (in English and Chinese)? ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary
    ... three different types of compounding in writing. ... If compounding is a linguistic phenomenon, ... brought out concerning compounding (in English and Chinese)? ...
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  • Re: Word count of minimum vocabulary
    ... I think you'll find it's more down to the passage of time than grammatical convention. ... It takes time for people to feel sufficiently comfortable with a new English compound to write it with no separators. ... brought out concerning compounding? ... So the orthography reflects the prosody. ...
    (sci.lang)
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