Re: How to minimize "words" (was "Re: isolating conlangs")

On 2/26/07, MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com <MorphemeAddict@...> wrote:
> In a message dated 2/26/2007 12:11:36 AM Central Standard Time,
> philip.newton@GMAIL.COM writes:
>
> > As I remember what I'd read, the individual characters
> > have no real meaning in themselves; they merely represent one syllable
> > each of the multi-syllable word. (Character dictionary makers have
> > "defined" the individual characters to each mean "butterfly",
> > "spider", etc.; however, as they're only used in those words and never
> > alone, they're more like bound morphemes if anything, and probably not
> > even morphemes of their own at all.)
>
> Individual characters do have their own meanings.
> You're right that there are some characters that only occur in specific
> words, acting like bound morphemes, but they may have had wider use in the past.
While that's possible, what I read indicated that there are words in
Chinese that, as far as one can tell, have always been disyllabic, and
which are not analysable as compounds of two syllables, each of which
has meaning on its own. (I don't know how big that list is, though;
perhaps there are no more than a couple of dozen examples which have
survived.)

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>