Eastern vs Western Philosophy

[subsymbolic]

I disagree twice.

1 portmanteau

2 when I can’t think of a word, I merely describe it. Swedish may be more compact, but both have infinite generative grammars.

Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream?

[plebian]

[quote=""subsymbolic""]I disagree twice.

1 portmanteau

2 when I can’t think of a word, I merely describe it. Swedish may be more compact, but both have infinite generative grammars.

Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream?[/quote]

can you just remind me of swedish strawberries and cream? Mmm num num

[Roo St. Gallus]

Tealdeer!

It's a nonsense composite contraction transformation of an acronym that just everybody knows. In English, at least.

[Copernicus]

Sorry that I've missed this thread before. As a professional linguist, I find it hard where to know to start to correct some of the misinformation in above posts. English, like other Germanic languages, loves to form compound words, and they can be composed of very long chains of words. However, most literate speakers view them as phrases, because they are conventionally spelled as separate words--with a lot of white space between each component of the compound. Hence, most non-linguists who talk about compound words in English miss the vast majority of compounds that actually exist.

Anyway, the old saw about Eskimo (or "Aleut") words for "snow" was raised. So I'll just leave you with this reference: The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.

[DrZoidberg]

[quote=""subsymbolic""]I disagree twice.

1 portmanteau

2 when I can’t think of a word, I merely describe it. Swedish may be more compact, but both have infinite generative grammars.[/quote]

Ok, then... A big part of Sweden is an arctic. So we should therefore also have 50 words for snow. Do we? Nope. We have one "Snö". Same goes for Iceland that lies completely within the arctic circle. They call it "snjór". All the varieties are just variants where other words are stuck on top of the base word. There's just one base word in the dictionary. So where are all our words for snow?

I looked it up, and we have one more word for snow. "Skare". It comes from the word "shelf" in a local Swedish dialect. Värmländska. It's the hard top layer that forms on snow that has been lying for a while. Skiing exploits this formation. That's the whole point of having long wood planks with metal edges. The top layer of snow forms a glidy hard shelf making it easier to go over them with skis than just walking. But that is arguably a loan word from a different language, and also arguably not a word for snow at all, but for a shelf. So metaphor.

[DrZoidberg]

[quote=""Copernicus""]Sorry that I've missed this thread before. As a professional linguist, I find it hard where to know to start to correct some of the misinformation in above posts. English, like other Germanic languages, loves to form compound words, and they can be composed of very long chains of words. However, most literate speakers view them as phrases, because they are conventionally spelled as separate words--with a lot of white space between each component of the compound. Hence, most non-linguists who talk about compound words in English miss the vast majority of compounds that actually exist.

Anyway, the old saw about Eskimo (or "Aleut") words for "snow" was raised. So I'll just leave you with this reference: The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.[/quote]

In Germanic languages, I thought the white spaces defined the border between words. You're saying it's not? That makes me question what a word is

[Politesse]

[quote=""DrZoidberg""]

Sorry that I've missed this thread before. As a professional linguist, I find it hard where to know to start to correct some of the misinformation in above posts. English, like other Germanic languages, loves to form compound words, and they can be composed of very long chains of words. However, most literate speakers view them as phrases, because they are conventionally spelled as separate words--with a lot of white space between each component of the compound. Hence, most non-linguists who talk about compound words in English miss the vast majority of compounds that actually exist.

Anyway, the old saw about Eskimo (or "Aleut") words for "snow" was raised. So I'll just leave you with this reference: The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.

In Germanic languages, I thought the white spaces defined the border between words. You're saying it's not? That makes me question what a word is[/QUOTE]

As well you ought to, if you've been confusing orthography for syntax!

[DrZoidberg]

[quote=""Politesse""]

Sorry that I've missed this thread before. As a professional linguist, I find it hard where to know to start to correct some of the misinformation in above posts. English, like other Germanic languages, loves to form compound words, and they can be composed of very long chains of words. However, most literate speakers view them as phrases, because they are conventionally spelled as separate words--with a lot of white space between each component of the compound. Hence, most non-linguists who talk about compound words in English miss the vast majority of compounds that actually exist.

Anyway, the old saw about Eskimo (or "Aleut") words for "snow" was raised. So I'll just leave you with this reference: The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.

In Germanic languages, I thought the white spaces defined the border between words. You're saying it's not? That makes me question what a word is

As well you ought to, if you've been confusing orthography for syntax![/QUOTE]

So a "hat pin" is a composite word? Or a "stain remover?"

[ruby sparks]

[quote=""DrZoidberg""]So a "hat pin" is a composite word? Or a "stain remover?"[/quote]

Hatpin

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dicti ... ish/hatpin

[Copernicus]

[quote=""DrZoidberg""]

Sorry that I've missed this thread before. As a professional linguist, I find it hard where to know to start to correct some of the misinformation in above posts. English, like other Germanic languages, loves to form compound words, and they can be composed of very long chains of words. However, most literate speakers view them as phrases, because they are conventionally spelled as separate words--with a lot of white space between each component of the compound. Hence, most non-linguists who talk about compound words in English miss the vast majority of compounds that actually exist.

Anyway, the old saw about Eskimo (or "Aleut") words for "snow" was raised. So I'll just leave you with this reference: The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax.

In Germanic languages, I thought the white spaces defined the border between words. You're saying it's not? That makes me question what a word is

As well you ought to, if you've been confusing orthography for syntax!

So a "hat pin" is a composite word? Or a "stain remover?"[/QUOTE]

Yes to both. The syntax of compound words can be tricky, but there is a general compound stress rule for English nouns. It is that the first word of a compound noun usually carries the primary stress. Under normal circumstances, the primary stress in a full noun phrase is on the final noun of the phrase. So, a phrase like "the large case" has primary stress on "case", not "the" or "large". However, "the large bookcase" has primary stress on "book", because the word "bookcase" is the last noun in the phrase. It is a compound noun that follows the compound stress rule in English, but spelling also makes it look like a compound noun.

Spelling conventions do not always follow the rules of a spoken language, because writing represents a conventional, or standardized, method of representing a spoken language. So, because it is a compound noun, "safety pin", has primary stress on "saftey", but it could be spelled as a single word--"safetypin"--in principle. It's just that English formed the compound after English spelling became relatively fixed. Spelling conventions do change, but much more slowly than spoken language.

Let's take an example of pure ambiguity to drive home the point. What is the difference between the following?

"She is a Spanish teacher"
"She is a Spanish teacher"

In the first sentence, "Spanish teacher" is an adjective-noun sequence that means roughly "teacher who is Spanish". That is, she is from Spain. In the second sentence, "Spanish teacher" is a noun-noun sequence that means roughly "teacher of Spanish". That is, she teaches the Spanish language. In a language like German, spelling conventions would reflect the compound noun status by spelling "Spanish teacher" as a single word: roughly "Spanishteacher". English is just a Germanic language that does not follow German spelling conventions.

[Hermit]

[quote=""Copernicus""]In a language like German, spelling conventions would reflect the compound noun status by spelling "Spanish teacher" as a single word: roughly "Spanishteacher". English is just a Germanic language that does not follow German spelling conventions.[/quote]
Not that it matters in the context of this discussion, but I want to mention this anyway: In German the difference between "Spanish teacher" and "Spanish teacher" is also reflected by declension of the adjective. So, it's "Spanischlehrer" in the former and "spanischer Lehrer" in the latter instance. To complicate the matter (simply because we can ), it's "Spanischlehrerin" and "spanische Lehrerin" respectively if the teacher is female. I don't know if provisions have been made yet for transexuals, but if they have not, it's only a matter of time. That's just how Germans roll.

Now, would you be interested in going through the declensions in all four cases - masculine and feminine - singular and plural - preceded by a definite, indefinite or no article? Could be worse. Latin has six.

[DrZoidberg]

[quote=""Copernicus""]

In Germanic languages, I thought the white spaces defined the border between words. You're saying it's not? That makes me question what a word is

As well you ought to, if you've been confusing orthography for syntax!

So a "hat pin" is a composite word? Or a "stain remover?"

Yes to both. The syntax of compound words can be tricky, but there is a general compound stress rule for English nouns. It is that the first word of a compound noun usually carries the primary stress. Under normal circumstances, the primary stress in a full noun phrase is on the final noun of the phrase. So, a phrase like "the large case" has primary stress on "case", not "the" or "large". However, "the large bookcase" has primary stress on "book", because the word "bookcase" is the last noun in the phrase. It is a compound noun that follows the compound stress rule in English, but spelling also makes it look like a compound noun.

Spelling conventions do not always follow the rules of a spoken language, because writing represents a conventional, or standardized, method of representing a spoken language. So, because it is a compound noun, "safety pin", has primary stress on "saftey", but it could be spelled as a single word--"safetypin"--in principle. It's just that English formed the compound after English spelling became relatively fixed. Spelling conventions do change, but much more slowly than spoken language.

Let's take an example of pure ambiguity to drive home the point. What is the difference between the following?

"She is a Spanish teacher"
"She is a Spanish teacher"

In the first sentence, "Spanish teacher" is an adjective-noun sequence that means roughly "teacher who is Spanish". That is, she is from Spain. In the second sentence, "Spanish teacher" is a noun-noun sequence that means roughly "teacher of Spanish". That is, she teaches the Spanish language. In a language like German, spelling conventions would reflect the compound noun status by spelling "Spanish teacher" as a single word: roughly "Spanishteacher". English is just a Germanic language that does not follow German spelling conventions.[/QUOTE]

Hmmm.. interesting. I have never thought of it that way before

[Aupmanyav]

I don't think Sanskrit has a short-cut for it. It will be "teacher of the language of the country Spain". I do not know enough Sanskrit to translate it. Something like: 'Spain deshasya bhāshāyām adhyāpakah'

[Copernicus]

[quote=""Aupmanyav""]I don't think Sanskrit has a short-cut for it. It will be "teacher of the language of the country Spain". I do not know enough Sanskrit to translate it. Something like: 'Spain deshasya bhāshāyām adhyāpakah'[/quote]
The science of linguistics began in India and even predates Panini. However, Panini's incredible grammar of Sanskrit (the Ashtadhyayi Sutrapatha, which means roughly "a book with eight chapters") gave us the world's first exhaustive classification of types of compound nouns. It has also served as the historical basis for modern linguistic studies of compound nouns, but Panini concentrated mainly on compounding in the Sanskrit language.

All linguists studied Sanskrit in the 19th century, but this is another example of how Eastern scholarship profoundly informed and influenced scholarship in Europe. British and other Western scholars tended to dismiss the importance of Hindu philosophers and scientists, so they barely mentioned the origin of so much of their work. The most influential grammar of Sanskrit in the West, William Dwight Whitney's A Sanskrit Grammar, barely mentioned that it was basically an English remix of Panini's seminal work.

All of this may sound overly pedantic (which it is), but it underscores a point I would make--that the gap between Eastern and Western scholarship is somewhat exaggerated. It is more that Eastern and Western scholars tend to be ignorant of the tremendous amount of overlap and even common historical basis for their traditions.

[Politesse]

That school harbored the foundations of dialectology also, even more directly. Fascinating stuff!

[ruby sparks]

[quote=""subsymbolic""]Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream?[/quote]

Borgwilanderedberg?

[Copernicus]

[quote=""Politesse""]That school harbored the foundations of dialectology also, even more directly. Fascinating stuff![/quote]

I took several courses on Panini in graduate school and had a chance to interact with some of the world's best scholars on the subject. This book harbored the foundation of so many branches of linguistics--phonetics, phonology, morphology, dialectology. It even had a few references to the Greek language. Hindu scholars before Panini essentially invented articulatory phonetics. Panini had advanced theories of phonology and morphology that have continued to amaze modern linguists, as they are rediscovered.

The Greeks were said to have discovered alphabetic (essentially phoneme-based) writing, but they were truly primitives compared to their contemporaries in India, who actually discovered phonemes. One of my professors once remarked that modern linguists look back on Greek theories of grammar as naive and simplistic, but they consider Panini to have been advanced even for modern theory. It took Charles Fillmore a while to understand Panini's "karaka" theory of case roles, because it looked so similar to his own Case Grammar. I used Panini extensively in my doctoral dissertation to propose a different approach to case role analysis.

[Politesse]

[quote=""Copernicus""]

That school harbored the foundations of dialectology also, even more directly. Fascinating stuff!

I took several courses on Panini in graduate school and had a chance to interact with some of the world's best scholars on the subject. This book harbored the foundation of so many branches of linguistics--phonetics, phonology, morphology, dialectology. It even had a few references to the Greek language. Hindu scholars before Panini essentially invented articulatory phonetics. Panini had advanced theories of phonology and morphology that have continued to amaze modern linguists, as they are rediscovered.

The Greeks were said to have discovered alphabetic (essentially phoneme-based) writing, but they were truly primitives compared to their contemporaries in India, who actually discovered phonemes. One of my professors once remarked that modern linguists look back on Greek theories of grammar as naive and simplistic, but they consider Panini to have been advanced even for modern theory. It took Charles Fillmore a while to understand Panini's "karaka" theory of case roles, because it looked so similar to his own Case Grammar. I used Panini extensively in my doctoral dissertation to propose a different approach to case role analysis.[/QUOTE]
That must have been a fantastic ride! I learned very little about Panini until I started teaching; I've been trying to catch up.

[Aupmanyav]

Cop, I studied 'Ashtadhyayi' when I was 40. It took me about 3 or 4 months. What I remember of Sanskrit is from that time. But what I did not do (though my teacher had asked me to do so) is to talk in Sanskrit. I should have ignored my initial hesitation.

[subsymbolic]

[quote=""ruby sparks""]

Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream?

Borgwilanderedberg?[/QUOTE]

Not what I had in mind. It must be finnish then, One of the nordic languages is rewardingly silly

[DrZoidberg]

[quote=""ruby sparks""]

Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream?

Borgwilanderedberg?[/QUOTE]

"Gräddjordgubbar".

But you can't say "strawberries with cream", and keep it just a word. The above is more "creamy strawberries" or perhaps "strawberries for use with cream".

[ruby sparks]

[subsymbolic]

[quote=""DrZoidberg""]

Oh, and can you remind me of the Swedish word for strawberries and cream?

Borgwilanderedberg?

"Gräddjordgubbar".

But you can't say "strawberries with cream", and keep it just a word. The above is more "creamy strawberries" or perhaps "strawberries for use with cream".[/QUOTE]

The one I have in mind has a lot of fs in it. I just can't remember the language. One of my linguistics tutors used to delight in saying it at parties.

[Rie]

Oh it's sooo boring. It's the same old love of something different to go mystic and Eastern
Nothing to do with there being a godhead or not.
Anyway all religions still extant drew on Virgin Mothers Inc.

[dancer_rnb]

[quote=""Rie""]Oh it's sooo boring. It's the same old love of something different to go mystic and Eastern
Nothing to do with there being a godhead or not.
Anyway all religions still extant drew on Virgin Mothers Inc.[/quote]

Judaism?