> I have been rather to quick with the d key - I've read and deleted a
> message by John Cowan the split second before I thought of something
> apposite...
>
> Anyway, on the subject of storing versus computing language utterances,
> it has long before been clear to me that a lot of people speak entirely
> in stored, ready-made sentences, sometimes being able to construct a
> whole conversation with phrases out of a kind of stock.
>
> That is, in a lot of contexts, a lot of people use phrases they have
> hear before, as a sort of - larger - minimal unit. I know I do myself in
> English to a large extent - but I've seen the same thing with people's
> native language. And Classical Chinese, of course, consists largely of
> pre-built phrases, like famous quotations. Those are used in modern-day
> Chinese, too, but I've forgotten the Chinese name.
>
> To bring this on-topic again - I've once tried to compile a dictionary of
> standard phrases for the Charyan languages, but I never came further than
> a paraphrase of similar dictionaries that exist for classical Chinese.
>
> Boudewijn Rempt |
http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt
>