Re: CHAT: Umberto Eco and Esperanto
| From: | Raymond A. Brown <raybrown@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, June 15, 1999, 5:12 |
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At 2:48 pm -0400 14/6/99, John Cowan wrote:
>Brian Betty wrote:
>
>> Umm ... no, it doesn't.
>
>English has -s (noun), -s (verb), -ed, -en (participle ending,
>various surface forms), -er, -est, plus restricted affixes like -th.
>
>Chinese has -men, -le, -guo, -zhe, -de (possessive), reduplication
>(noun), reduplication (verb), reduplication plus -de (adverb),
>-bu- infix, -de- infix, plus restricted affixes like di-.
Yes, it's been pointed out at least twice before on this list, to my
knowledge, that modern Mandarin Chinese does have more (inflexional)
morphology than modern 20th cent. English.
Why do we have to keep arguing over the same old hoary chestnuts? And IMHO
"no, it doesn't" does not exactly helped when backed by no evidence. If
one is contradicting what several people on this list have said before,
surely some evidence would be helpful.
Else why make the remark?
Ray.