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