A word about classifiers. I looked up "classifier" in my dictionary (a very good one) and it does not define it! I turned to dictionary.com and found the following definition: A word or morpheme used in some languages in certain

Are all morphemes in Chinese free morphemes? I'm not a linguist, but I'd say they mostly are. A linguist may be able to find exceptions, perhaps, but... My English-Chinese dictionaries only contain free morphemes (perhaps not to confuse ESl

Well in my dictionary I can look up prefixes like pre- and suffixes like -ing and it explains their meaning, or at least their effect. Linguists call such forms as "bound morphemes" as they cannot exist on their own, unlike "free morphemes" like

I have got to the stage where I am not sure excatly what it is that we are argiung about, other than whether or not Chinese is monsyllabic. Perhaps you could explain again waht the basic points are that you wish to make. My basic point is that

I have got to the stage where I am not sure exactly what it is that we are arguing about, other than whether or not Chinese is monosyllabic. Perhaps you could explain again what the basic points are that you wish to make. On whether Chinese is

Again I had a long response and this software suddently erased it all. There must be something about how to use this site that I do not understand. Forbes wrote: All the books I read years ago insisted that Chinese was monosyllabic. It

Have you encountered no sites that you respect that consider Chinese to be monosyllabic? Googled for Chinese and polysyllabic! I think that the idea that Chinese is polysyllabic is motivated by an attempt to impose English grammar on

Forbes wrote: As I have said, I do not know Chinese and am therefore not in a position to take the argument much further forward. However, the following six websites insist that Modern Chinese is not monosyllabic: You certainly seem to have

As I have said, I do not know Chinese and am therefore not in a position to take the argument much further forward. However, the following six websites insist that Modern Chinese is not monosyllabic:

Forbes wrote: I am at something of a disadvantage as I do not know Chinese, only what I have read about it. I always used to read that Chinese was monosyllabic, but apparently this is a misconception. The misconception here is in what is