Chinese morphology (5)

Chinese morphology (5)

What is a Chinese word?

 

In linguistics, a word is the smallest unit of a written language. For example, apart from punctuation marks, an English sentence comprises a word or many words. A Chinese sentence contains a Chinese grapheme or many Chinese graphemes, which we usually call Chinese characters. A Chinese grapheme is the smallest unit of written Chinese. Therefore, a Chinese grapheme is a Chinese word linguistically. By this, it is meant that, a Chinese grapheme, or a Chinese character, is a Chinese word. 

Linguistically, morphology is the study of the forms of words, not the meanings of words. The form of an English word is the spaces, which separate either one or multiple letters, while the form of a Chinese word is a grapheme, which is structured by one or multiple strokes in a rectangle shape. 

We should not regard two Chinese characters as a word because two Chinese characters can represent one word concept such as 苹果 meaning “apple”. In addition, we should not regard one Chinese character as a phrase because one Chinese character can represent a phrase concept such as 姓 meaning “family name”. 

In an English sentence, a group of words is a phrase, so a group of Chinese characters is a Chinese phrase. However, many linguists regard a Chinese grapheme as a Chinese character, and a group of Chinese graphemes as a Chinese word. I believe this is a mistake.

Here's my argument:

If you regard a Chinese grapheme as a Chinese character, a group of Chinese graphemes is a group of Chinese characters, instead of a Chinese word. The reason is that “word” is not a plural noun form of “character”.

If you regard a group of Chinese characters as a word, a Chinese character is a part of a Chinese word. However, a word is the smallest unit in a sentence, which cannot be divided into parts. For example, an English word cannot be divided into letters because even a single letter is still a word in a sentence like I and a. Please note that apart from punctuation marks, an English sentence is made up of a word or words only. That is to say, letters cannot stand alone in a sentence. If it stands alone, it is a word. Therefore, there is not any letter in a sentence.

A group of Chinese characters is not a unit. They are several units in a sentence. If you regard a group of Chinese characters as a word, which means you do not acknowledge a Chinese character a word, you cannot answer the question: what is a unit in a Chinese sentence? The reason is that a Chinese character is a word, and a word is a unit. Some linguists regard both a Chinese character and a group of Chinese characters as the smallest unit in a Chinese sentence, which is self-contradictory.

In a logical discourse, to have an identity means to have a single identity. Therefore, an object cannot have two identities. Some linguists make a Chinese grapheme have two identities, character and word, which violates the law of identity. Accordingly, I believe this is an error.

Finally, a Chinese grapheme, or a Chinese character is a word, and a group of Chinese characters is a phrase.

Chinese translation: 

什么是中文word？ 

语言学里，word是书面语言的最小单位。例如，除了标点符号，英语句子是由一个或者多个word组成。中文句子是由一个或者多个汉字组成，汉字我们通常简称为字，所以字是中文的最小单位。因此，语言学里一个汉字就是一个中文word。这意味着，一个汉字，或者一个字，就是一个中文word。 

语言学上，morphology就是研究word的形式，而不是word的意义。 英文word的形式就是分隔一个或多个字母的空格，而中文word的形式就是方块形状的，由笔画写成的汉字。

我们不能因为两个汉字可以表示一个英文word代表的概念，如apple的意思是“苹果”。就把两个汉字看成一个word。同样，我们也不能因为一个汉字可以表示一个英文phrase代表的概念，如family name的意思是“姓”，就说一个汉字就是一个phrase。

在英文句子里，几个（一组）word是一个phrase，因此几个汉字就是一个中文phrase。然而，许多语言学家把一个汉字叫做character，把几个汉字叫做一个word。我认为他们的说法是错误的。 

下面是我的论点： 

如果你把汉字叫做character，那么几个汉字就是几个character，而不是一个word。因为word不是character的复数形式。 

如果你把几个汉字看成一个word，那么一个汉字就是部分word。然而，word是句子里的最小单位，它不能被分成几个部分。例如，英文的word不能被分成几个字母，因为句子里的一个字母仍然是一个word，如I和a。请注意，除了标点符号之外，句子只有word，没有字母。字母不能在句子里独立存在，如果一个字母独立存在句子里，这个字母就是一个word。所以句子里面没有字母。 

几个汉字不是一个单位，它们是句子里的几个单位。如果你把几个汉字看成一个word，你就回答不了这个问题：什么是中文句子里的单位？原因是汉字是中文句子里的word，也就是单位。有些语言学家把一个汉字，和几个汉字，都看成一个单位，这是自相矛盾的。 

在一个逻辑过程中，具有身份identity意味着只能有一个身份；一个对象object不能有两个身份。这些语言学家在一个逻辑过程中，让一个汉字有了两个身份，character和word，这违反了同一律law of identity。所以我日文他们是错误的。 

总而言之，一个汉字，或者一个Chinese character，就是一个word。几个汉字就是一个phrase。 

Chinese morphology (3)

Chinese morphology (3)
Question

Question 1: Is one Chinese character a word?
If your answer is yes, then, logically, two Chinese characters are two words.
If your answer is no, please answer question 2: What is a Chinese word?

If you insist that two Chinese characters is a word, then you are also saying one Chinese character is not a word. Accordingly, please answer question 3: Is the Chinese character 我 (I) in a Chinese sentence a word or not?

If you regard both one Chinese character and two Chinese characters are a word, then, unfortunately, you are not making any logical sense.


Chinese translation
问题

问题1：一个汉字是一个word吗？
如果你的答案是yes，那么两个汉字就是两个word，而不是一个word。
如果你的答案是no，那么请回答问题2：什么是一个中文word？

如果你非要认为两个汉字是一个word，言下之意就是，一个汉字就不是一个word。那么请回答问题3：中文句子里的“我”是不是一个word？

如果你认为一个汉字和两个汉字都是一个word，这显然逻辑不通，自相矛盾。

How Many Words Are There In Modern Written Chinese?

How Many Words Are There In Modern Written Chinese?

 Now that we know a Chinese word is a Chinese character, so the question is easy and simple. Just count the number of Chinese characters in a dictionary. That is it.

According to Xinhua Dictionary, the most authoritative standard modern Chinese dictionary, there are about ten thousand Chinese characters in it. Then there are about ten thousand Chinese words in modern written Chinese.

Chinese translation：

现代中文有多少个word字？

现在我们已经知道中文的word就是汉字，所以这个问题就简单了。只要数一数字典里有多少个汉字，就这么简单。

根据最权威的现代中文字典，新华字典收录了大约一万个汉字，那么现代中文使用大约一万个word。

The Structure Of Written Language

The Structure Of Written Language

The basic units, or the smallest units of written language are words. Words compose a sentence. Sentences compose a paragraph. Paragraphs compose an article. That is the structure of written language.

There are no letters and morphemes in written language because they are not stand-alone in a sentence. If they stand alone they are a word.

In the same way, the basic units, or the smallest units of written Chinese are Chinese characters. So Chinese characters are Chinese words. Chinese characters, Chinese words, compose a sentence.  The following are the same as English.

There are no strokes and radicals in written Chinese because they are not stand-alone in a sentence. If they stand alone they are a Chinese characters.

Linguistic terms:

一个字 a word

一个词 a phrase

一个句子 a sentence

一个段落 a paragraph

一篇文章 an article

一个偏旁部首 a radical, which is equivalent to a English morpheme

一个笔画 a stroke, which is equivalent to an English letter

中文和英文的结构 

英文的基本单位，也叫最小单位是word。word组成句子。句子组成段落。段落组成文章。这就是文字的结构。

英文文章里没有letters （字母） 和 morphemes （语素），因为它们不是句子中的独立单位。如果它们是独立的单位，它们就是一个word。 

同样，中文的基本单位，也叫最小单位是“字”，所以汉“字”就是中文的word。汉字组成中文句子，结构的其余部分和英文一样。

中文文章里没有笔画和偏旁部首，因为它们不是句子中的独立单位。如果它们是独立的单位，它们就是一个汉“字”。

The Secret about Chinese Language You Might Not Know

The Secret about Chinese Language You Might Not Know

-- My comment on "Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard? " 

By: Wang Yujiang

I recently read an essay on “Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard” by David Moser of the University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies. As a native Chinese speaker, I would like to clarify and correct some information about the Chinese language noted in this essay. I will also share with you some secrets about the Chinese language you might not know.

Firstly, is Chinese hard to learn? It depends on what you want to learn. If you learn spoken Chinese only, it is as easy or as hard as every other language including English. Written Chinese is certainly hard. As we all know that there are thousands of Chinese characters instead of 26 alphabet letters as in English.

The Chinese characters are so numerous that most native speakers do not know how to write most of them unless they check a dictionary. In China, everybody has had an experience of writing or saying the wrong characters.

Secondly, David Moser wrote, “the writing system just ain't very phonetic.” He may say that the classical written Chinese is not phonetic; however, the contemporary written Chinese (Baihuawen) is phonetic. A Chinese character now stands for a sound, or a syllable. The Baihuawen in Chinese means the writing is like speaking.

Thirdly, David Moser wrote, “tonal languages are weird.” David Moser and many linguists regard Chinese as a tonal language. Actually, it is not. They do not distinguish the name of characters and the sounds they represent. English letters have both names and the sounds they represent. Chinese characters also have names and sounds they present.

Since we produce around four hundred sounds for thousands of Chinese characters, we have to use different tones to distinguish them when we talk about a single character. That is a tonal character not a tonal language. When we speak, we do not follow the tones marked in the dictionary that linguists call change of tone. Chinese intonation is the same as people speaking English.

Fourthly, David Moser wrote, “there's classical Chinese.” Now nobody uses classical Chinese because it is a clipped way of writing, which is similar to writing a telegram message. Sending a telegram was generally charged by the word. To save money, people typically wrote their telegrams in a very compressed style. Ancient Chinese people used knife-pen or brush-pen to write characters on bamboo slips, which are very slow. To save time, they had to pack as much information into the smallest possible number of characters. This is classical Chinese.

Classical Chinese is a style of writing without spaces and other marks between words and sentences. When reading classical Chinese, readers must put in the punctuation themselves to extract meaning from the writing. About a century ago fountain pens and pencils were introduced into China. Consequently the New Culture movement developed contemporary Chinese writing that replacing classical Chinese.

Now Chinese writers punctuate articles so the readers only have to space (multi-syllable) words by themselves. However, spacing words is still hard work for readers, because it is mostly trial and error. I guess it is especially hard work for a foreigner. If the writer spaces the words, Chinese is as easy as English.

Fifthly, David Moser wrote, “there are too many Romanization methods and they all suck.” There is only one scheme for the Chinese phonetic alphabet (pinyin) passed by the Chinese Congress and it works. Unfortunately it sucks because some conservative intellectuals resist it.

Conservatives believe that alphabets are not suitable for Chinese. If they know arbitrariness theory in linguistics, they will realize that any symbol is good for any language. In fact, the Chinese alphabet is a Roman alphabet that has been used by many languages in the world for long time.

Sixthly, I agree with what David Moser wrote, “the (Chinese) writing system is ridiculous.” However, my support is a little bit different. The progress of a language is based on the growth of the smallest units in writing, which is a simple metric to quantify languages. The Chinese characters are the smallest units of the Chinese writing. No matter how many Chinese characters there are, the quantity of them is limited, because the growth of characters in writing is unsustainable. Even though we treat Chinese characters as phonetic letters, we do not group them into a multi-syllable smallest unit, because they were the smallest units.

Since a Chinese character is the smallest unit, now ten thousand Chinese characters build up only then thousand smallest units. That is it, no more. Meanwhile twenty-six English characters (letters) build up hundreds thousands the smallest units (words), and they are still continually increasing. Needless to say, letters are more efficient than Chinese characters. Using thousands of Chinese characters instead of dozens letters is the reason why the Chinese writing system is ridiculous.

Lastly, if you ask me why written Chinese is so hard. As far as I am concerned, there are two causes. You have to space (multi-syllable) words by yourselves when you read contemporary Chinese writing, and there are numerous Chinese characters.

References:

New Concept Linguistics

《Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard》 by David Moser from University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies, http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/1991Moser.pdf