Re: The reform of linguistics

Anonymous — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 13:11:48 GMT

That is not the point of the example. You seem to be reading far too much into my words.

To tell you the truth, I have great difficulty figuring out what your point is. Mainly because you keep taunting other people but refuse to take a position yourself.

In my experience with this word, and many more like it, Japanese people tend to believe that the English word animal is an extremely good equivalent, which it is not for most people. In fact, it is typically a very poor equivalent. Perhaps the fact that it is better than any other simple word is sufficient for you. That is fine with me. I do not consider this ideal, from my perspective. You are free to feel however you do.

Let me take this paragraph apart:

1. Japanese people tend to believe 'animal' is an extremely good equivalent for åç©. (OK, I'll agree with this).
2. For most people, 'animal' is not a good equivalent of åç©. (Er, presumably 'most people' are not Japanese).
3. Fact: 'animal' is typically a very poor equivalent for åç©. (I can see that it's not the only equivalent. As for whether it's a 'very poor equivalent', I find this a rather strong claim that needs a little more to back it up than Anon1's say-so).
4. Fact: 'animal' is a better equivalent for åç© than any other simple word. (Er, this seems to contradict what you said in point 3...unless you feel that a circumlocution would be better.)

In the rest of the paragraph there is (1) one sentence in which you suggest that you do not regard the situation as ideal, and (2) three whole sentences telling me how I "perhaps" think and that you regard yourself as quite aloof to what I think, anyway.

As usual, you do not suggest what your point is in citing this kind of example. If you are referring to the propensity for the Japanese to adhere to "fixed" or "set" translations when translating into (or from) English, I totally agree with you. However, you are far from the first person to notice this, and in any case, I can't see what it has to do with your point about nouns made earlier on.

Or, are you under the impression that Japanese words are monosyllabic?...Do you know the characters for doubutsu, or did you find them on the Internet?

Why do you persist in talking to other people as though you regard them as ignoramuses? Do you realise that you come across as a complete and utter snob?

Incidentally, the Chinese meaning for these characters is a much closer equivalent to the English.

In what way is the Chinese meaning for these characters a closer equivalent to English? The characters are the same and meanings are the same. The "word" is also the same (dongwu å¨ç©).

As far as I can see, the difference does not lie, as you say, in the "meaning" of the characters. It lies in the place of åç© in the larger picture of each language's vocabulary. 'Dong' and 'wu' ('move' and 'thing' in a rough translation) are everyday morphemes/words in Chinese; putting them together creates a relatively transparent, easily apprehended, 'living' combination, whereas in Japanese exactly the same characters in exactly the same combination belong to the non-everyday, less homely stratum of the Japanese vocabulary formed of borrowed vocabulary elements and is a more 'ossified' combination as a result.

I am perfectly happy to accept all of this. It is common knowledge. I am also quite happy to accept that this results in a greater awareness in Chinese of the 'individual life of morphemes', as it were. Words are not set in stone; people are aware of their constituent meanings and there is more freedom to combine them in new or novel ways.

This does not alter the fact that 'dongwu' functions as a single lexical and grammatical unit in Chinese. It is a noun that can act as a subject or an object of a sentence, or modify other nouns. It is quite possible for the characters åç© to accidentally come together in a sentence without actually forming the unit 'dongwu' (animal). For instance, a rather unnatural example (sorry, I can't think of anything better at the moment) might be: å°æåï¼å¥æªåç©åï¼å¥½å 'Xiao pengyou, bie nuodong wupin, hao ma?' ('Little friend, don't move the goods, OK?'), where æªå 'nuodong' means 'move, shift' and ç©å 'wupin' means 'goods'. As far as I can see, there is no reference to animals in this sentence, and no Chinese would for a moment think that there was.

What I have been asking Anon1 to do -- in fact, very persistently asking Anon1 to do -- is tell us how he/she would deal with this kind of phenomenon. If he/she does not want to recognise "words", how does he/she plan to deal with combinations like 'dongwu', 'nuodong', and 'wupin', not to mention many more difficult and abstruse examples? I am waiting for him/her to come up with a new linguistic analysis of Chinese that answers these questions without resorting to "words" (or something effectively similar).

If Anon1 is unable to come up with anything better than a vague and contemptuous dismissal, then I suggest we should forget it. Anon1 keeps telling us we are all wrong; I, for one, would be happier than anyone if he/she could prove it.

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Re: The reform of linguistics