Chinese morphology (2)

Chinese morphology (2)

An open letter to linguists.

Respected Linguists,

Chinese is my first language. I'm writing to you about an issue regarding Chinese morphology.  A few days ago, in my emails to a prominent Sinologist, I pointed out an erroneous statement in his article that regards the formation of a Chinese word by two Chinese characters. In his response to my opinion, he advised that since 1930s reputable linguists all over the world have consented that a Chinese word is composed by two or multiple Chinese characters. However, I believe this is a serious mistake. 

Here are my reasons. In a sentence word is the basic, or the smallest, unit. Two and multiple words should form a phrase. Thus, in the case of Chinese where a sentence is composed by individual characters, a Chinese character should be the basic unit. And hence, each Chinese character functions as a single word. In my opinion, this is an evident logic problem. Further, if we accept the fact that a Chinese character is actually a word, then two or multiple Chinese characters should form a phrase. In light of the above analysis, it is incredible that all the "reputable" linguists have agreed to determine the formation of a Chinese word as two or multiple characters. 

After all, due to my strong belief that precise determination is a serious matter for any science, I'm anxiously appealing to professionals in the hope to right a wrong technical term. I implore that you and your colleagues, being responsible linguistic specialists, review my blog titled "what is a Chinese word?" which I'm attaching with this mail. Any of your feedback will be greatly appreciated. Should you find my view false, please kindly let me know what and why. Otherwise, your valuable support will doubtlessly help to spread the word wide and further. 

Thank you for your time and look forward to your reply. 

Sincerely,
Wang Yujiang



给语言学家们的公开信

尊敬的语言学教授们： 

我的母语是汉语，我写信给你们请教一个关于中文问题。前些日子，我给一位著名的汉学家写信，指出他在文章里把两个汉字当作一个word是错误的。他告诉我，从上个世纪三十年代起，全世界所有知名的语言学家都是把两个或者多个汉字叫做一个word。我认为这是一个严重的错误。 

下面我的理由。 word是句子里最小的单位，或者说，基本单位。 两个和多个word就组成一个phrase。 中文的句子由汉字组成，那么汉字就是基本单位。 因此，每一个汉字就是一个word。 在我看来，这是一个明显的逻辑问题。 此外，如果我们接受一个汉字实际上是一个word的事实，那么两个或多个汉字就是组成一个phrase。 根据以上分析，所有“著名的”语言学家都同意两个或多个汉字是一个中文word，不可思议。

总之，我相信概念准确对于任何科学都至关重要，我迫切希望专家学者改正这个语言学术语。 我恳请你和你的同事，负责任的语言学家，审查附在这个邮件后面的我的博客“什么是一个中文word？” 我感谢你们的任何反馈。 如果你们认为我的理论错误，请告诉我错在哪里和为什么错。如果你们认为我正确，让更多的人知道是你们的最有力的支持。

感谢你们的时间，期待你们的回复。
王玉江

Chinese morphology (1)

Chinese morphology (1)

What is a Chinese word? -- One Chinese character or two Chinese (multiple) characters?

You may have been very well familiar with Chinese language. However, I'm afraid that you probably don't know what a Chinese word is even you are a reputable linguist. Everyone knows what a word is in English. It is formed by a letter or multiple letters separated by spaces or punctuation marks in a sentence. Therefore, even though you don't speak English, you can easily recognize an English word as a single composition of letter(s) in between spaces. A word, also known as the smallest unit, is the basic part in a sentence. Other than punctuation marks, a sentence is built by one or multiple words.

In China, everyone knows that a Chinese sentence is formed by one or Chinese characters. To put it in another way, characters are the smallest units for a Chinese sentence. Hence, a Chinese character functions exactly as a word in a Chinese sentence. From the above logic then, I have concluded that two or multiple characters should not have been regarded as a "word". Instead, "phrase" is perhaps a much more appropriate identity in this case. Nevertheless, over the years, linguists along with Sinologists have been labeling "two Chinese characters" as a "word".

If you are one of them and insist this is a fact, I assume you're also saying that a Chinese character is not a word. Then, what on earth is a Chinese character? From a linguistic perspective, a word is the smallest unit in a sentence. According to this, both a character and a letter in a sentence shall be called a "word". For instance, when letter "I" and "a" appears in an English sentence, they are "words" instead of "letters". The same argument should be applied to a Chinese sentence, where a character functions as a "word" as opposed to a "character".  Therefore, I confidently believe that the habitual identification of two Chinese characters as a "word" doesn't make sense, that it is a mistake in fact.

Such erroneous view may have been caused by the numerous existence of meaningful phrases that are shaped by "double characters" in Chinese, as "have to" in English. Whereas "have to" means the same as "must", it is evidently a "two-word" phrase, instead of a single word. Further, linguistically speaking, morphology is the study of the forms of words, not the meanings of words. In the case of English, we can tell the form of a word by the spaces which separate either one or multiple letters. For Chinese, a character is structured by one or multiple strokes in a square shape.

Thus, if you accept that a Chinese character forms a word, then two characters should be regarded as a phrase. Otherwise, if you still believe two characters make a Chinese word, then you must deny that a Chinese character can be a word. If you regard both one and two Chinese characters as a word, it is a self-contradiction. In addition, because of word's property being a unit in writing, computer is capable of word-count while it is lame in terms of counting phrases. As a matter of fact, because two or multiple characters do not present themselves as a single unit, computers to this day can only count the number of Chinese characters only.

Finally, I'm firmly convinced that a character in a Chinese sentence is a unit, or a word. Therefore, two or multiple characters form a phrase. Space is not used for Chinese scripts in the same way as for English, so Chinese "compound word" simply doesn't exist.  

Chinese translation

Chinese morphology (1)

什么是中文word？一个汉字，还是两个（多个）汉字？

可能你已经非常熟悉中文。 但是你不一定知道什么是中文的word，哪怕你是一个著名的语言学家。每个人都知道什么是英文的word。 它是句子里，由空格或者标点符号隔开的，一个字母或多个字母组成。因此即使你不懂英语，你也能很容易看出，空格之间，由字母组成的一个单位。word是句子的基本单位，也叫最小单位。 除了标点符号之外，一个句子由一个或多个word组成。

在中国，大家都知道中文的句子由一个或者多个汉字组成。 也就是说，汉字就是中文句子的最小单位。因此，汉字就是中文句子中的word。根据以上逻辑推理，我得出结论，两个或多个汉字不能被当作一个word。这种情况叫phrase应该更准确。然而多年来，语言学家和汉学家都把“两个汉字”叫做一个word。

如果你和他们一样，坚持（两个汉字是一个word）这个观点，我认为你只能不承认一个汉字是一个word。 那么，一个汉字究竟是什么？从语言学的角度来看，句子里最小的单位是word。 根据这一点，句子里的一个汉字或者一个字母都应该叫做word。例如，当字母“I”和“a” 出现在英语句子中时，它们是word而不是“字母”。同样的道理，中文句子中的一个汉字也是word，而不是character字符。因此，我坚信，习惯性地把两个汉字叫做一个word不能自圆其说，实际上是一个错误。

这种错误的观点可能是因为中文里有很多两个汉字组成代表一个意义的phrase词引起的。就像英文里的have to。虽然have to和must意思差不多，但是，have to是一个（两个word的）phrase，不是一个word。此外，语言学里，morphology是研究word的形式，不是word的意义。 以英文为例，英文word的形式是空格之间的字母组成。中文word的形式是方形当中的笔划组成。

因此，如果你认为一个汉字是一个word，那么两个汉字就是一个phrase。反之，如果你认为两个汉字是一个word，那么你就必须否认一个汉字是一个word。 如果你把一个汉字和两个汉字都看成一个word，这是自相矛盾的。此外，由于word是文字的单位，计算机能够统计word的数量，（phrase不是一个单位）计算机不能统计phrase的数量。

最后，我坚信，中文句子里的一个汉字是一个单位，也就是一个word。 因此，两个或多个汉字就是一个phrase。 中文没有英文里的空格，所以中文没有复合word。

The basic units of language

The basic units of language 

What are the basic units of language? This is the wrong question, since there are different kinds languages which have different basic units. For example,  

The basic units of body language are body movements.  

The basic units of spoken language are speaking sounds. 

The basic units of hieroglyphics are pictographs. 

The basic units of modern written language are words. 

  

The basic units of language in General Linguistics is the study of units in written language, neither spoken nor body language. Most linguists are not hearing impaired people. They all speak and write so they have tended to conflate or confuse the speaking sound and the pronouncing of a letter and a word. 

A phone is one of sounds in speaking. Phonemes are not the smallest units of sound in speaking, but the pronouncing of letters, precisely, letters of IPA.  

Syllables are not the single units of speaking, but parts of a word.  

Without writing, there are neither phonemes nor syllables in speaking. Therefore, the basic units of language usually refer the basic units of written language.

语言的基本单位 

语言的基本单位是什么？这是一个错误的问题。因为不同的语言有不同的基本单位，例如： 

肢体语言的基本单位是身体的动作。 

口头语言的基本单位是说话的声音。 

象形文字的基本单位是象形文字。 

现代书面语言的基本单位是word。 

普通语言学里面的基本单位是指书面语言的单位，不是口语和肢体语言的单位。大多数语言学家都不是聋哑人和盲人，他们能说会写，因此他们常常把说话的声音和读字母的声音混为一谈。 

phone 是说话的声音， phoneme 是一个读字母的声音，严格地说，是读国际音标的声音。 

音节不是一个说话声音的单位，而是划分word读音的单位。 

如果没有文字，口头语言里不可能有 phoneme 和 syllable 这两个概念。所以说所谓语言的基本单位就是书面语言的基本单位，也就是文字的基本单位。 

Is there a common language in the world?

Is there a common language in the world? 

Is there a common language, lingua franca, in the world? No. If it is a spoken language, hearing impaired people cannot use it. If it is a written language, visually impaired people cannot read it. So it is impossible that there is a common language in the world. 

If taking hearing and visually impaired people aside, is there a common language in the world? Yes, it is. After age of discovery, people in the world need a common language to communicate. 

The basic building blocks of a common language is convenient communication and easily accessible. Now English is practically common language, especially on the internet. However it is not the only one language in the world. The reason is that the world is so large, and the population is so big. In addition, language are changing all time.  

Chinese translation

世界上有通用语言吗？ 

世界上有通用语言吗？没有。因为如果这种语言是口语，聋哑人肯定听不见。如果这种语言是书面语，也就是文字，盲人肯定看不见。所以世界上不可能有通用语言。 

如果不考虑聋哑人和盲人，世界上有没有通用语言？肯定有。大航海以后，全世界人民需要一种通用语言来交流。交流和接触是通用语言的基石。 

现在英语就是实际上的通用语言，尤其是在因特网上。然而世界上不可能只有一种语言，因为世界这么大，人口这么多。还有语言是不断变化的。