Re: NATLANG: Chinese parts of speech (or lack thereof)

--- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

> I repeat again, since it seems to have been ignored,
> what Yuen Ren Chao
> wrote about the character "man":
> "It is making a false dichotomy to say that Chinese
> writing represents
> meaning and that syllabic and alphabetc writing
> represents sound. The
> written symbol MAN* represents as much the spoken
> word _jén_  as the
> meaning 'man', the written form _man_ represents as
> much the meaning
> 'human being' as the sound [mæn]. The important
> difference is that of the
> size and variety of units."
>
I perfectly respect Pr Yuen Ren Chao's opinion and
science and would be very happy if he could teach me
some Chinese, but IMHO, there is a flaw somewhere. I
more or less understand what he says, but I can't help
thinking that there is an essential difference between
Chinese and Westerner ways of writing, though I can't
really explain which one. It just seems obvious, and
it's something about concepts (meaning).

But, enough of that. Peace is the word. Let's rather
read some Chinese poetry, for ex Liu Tsung-Yuan,
translated into literal French by Francois Cheng (he
gives a "good French" translation later, but I think
the literal one is more interesting). I hope I won't
slaughter it by re-translating into English (and sorry
I can't give here the original Chinese-written
version) :

Ch'ien-shan niao fei chüeh
Wan ching jen-tsung mie
Ku-chou suo-li weng
Tu tiao han chiang hsüeh

Thousand moutains / bird flight cease
Ten thousand paths / men's tracks disappear
Lonesome bark / old man with reed cloak
Alone fishing / snow on cold river

And now for the elephants !

- How do you squeeze four elephants into a Mini Cooper
?
- Two in the front, two in the rear.
- Oh.
- How do you squeeze four giraffes into a Mini Cooper
?
- Two in the front, two in the rear.
- Nope. Full of elephants already.

(I swear Liu Tsung-Yuan was never responsible for
that).


=====
Philippe Caquant

"High thoughts must have high language." (Aristophanes, Frogs)


		
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