Language Overflow

7:04 PM

Recently, there is an ad using a maxim, which is linguistically innovative in my opinion: ฝรั่งหลงไทย.

ฝรั่ง = foreigner(s), หลง, ไทย = Thailand.

They seem to try to use หลง in two meanings at the same time.

หลง could mean either หลงไหล (be infatuated, fascinated, enchanted) or หลงทาง (being lost).

It's innovative to me because the complement(?) of หลง in the meaning of "lost" is usually a generic place (e.g., หลงป่า (lost in the woods), หลงทาง (lost on the road), etc.)

So it's weird when it's being used with a specific place (i.e., Thailand).

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

"Foreigner lost on the road of Thailand"?

Damkerng T.

They try to imply that.

But that would normally be phrased as ฝรั่งหลงทางในไทย [foreigner-lost-road-in-Thailand].

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Thai is weird.

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. All languages probably are! :-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. I like the former version better.

Damkerng T.

7:15 PM

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. That's one thing in my "to check" list.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Well, check.

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. A quick check (by browsing through examples in a dictionary) reveals that Probably is never at the beginning of a sentence, whereas it's common for Maybe.

(This revealing is only based on those small number of examples, so it's inconclusive.)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. Probably no.

Damkerng T.

Except for the phrase "Probably." and "Probably not."

And apart from the pattern "It's probably <something>".

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

Probably, no.

Damkerng T.

7:19 PM

Doesn't that sound a little weird?

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. If I were you, I'd first compare the frequencies of 'maybe' and 'prolly' in GNgram. Then compare with COCA frequency of sentence starting with 'prolly' and 'maybe', with patterns maybe/prolly before pron. etc. Then if the result of the comparison is weird, ask something on ELL/ElU/Halloween.SE.

Damkerng T.

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. That's what I'd do too, when I'm ready.

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

@DamkerngT. Your suitcase isn't packed yet? Hurry, the plane will fly soon!

Damkerng T.

Comparing the frequencies of 'maybe' and 'prolly' on Google Ngram could be misleading, though. We need something better than that.

Anonymous

I'm trying to pronounce that [gŋɻæ̃m] and it's making my nose feel funny.

Damkerng T.

7:25 PM

COCA is a better tool. We can browse through . probably.

Anonymous

GNgram, I mean.

Damkerng T.

Like, GNU!

Anonymous

Ever since Fantasier brought up pronouncing Ngram with initial [ŋ], I've been pronouncing it that way ;-)

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

GunGram?

Anonymous

I'm trying to pronounce it as one syllable, but it's a hard cluster to pronounce.

Damkerng T.

7:27 PM

@snailboat I think there is no cluster [ŋr] in Thai, but I bet that virtually all Thais can say it. :D

Anonymous

We don't have an English [r]

Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ.

You heard wrong. Or you heard only one viewpoint. This subject has been argued for decades if not longer. Instead of posing it on a website full of amateur linguists, you should do some reading in linguistics. You will find that you can only go so far until you realize that there is no answer to this question that satisfies every linguistic theory. In sum, this question is better put on ELU or Linguistics (something I know you don't want to hear). — User1 1 min ago

Anonymous

My /r/ is usually [ɻ]

Anonymous

I can pronounce [ŋɻ] fine. It's the sequence in walking rapidly.

Damkerng T.

Hmm... if you can say "groom", "ngroom" is probably possible.

Anonymous

7:29 PM

And I can say it in syllable onset position, although I expect very few English speakers can without being taught, since it's prohibited by English phonotactics.

Brandin

starting words with an ng sound is a vietnamese thing. Not natural in English. It's why people mispronounce "Nguyen"

Anonymous

Native speakers generally have trouble pronouncing any sequence that isn't allowed by the phonotactics of their language unless they've explicitly learned to do so.

Damkerng T.

I remember that I thought "Nguyen" is a two-syllable word when I first saw it. -- Then I realized that it's actually เหงียน in Thai.

Anonymous

Yeah, I can pronounce word-initial "ng" (that's the thingy I'm writing [ŋ] in IPA) because of other languages, not English.

Brandin

Never thought of making "Ngram" that sort of word. For these sorts you can pick a pronounciation as long as your colleagues will understand.

Anonymous

7:31 PM

@Brandin It would never have occurred to me, but Fantasier is creative :-)

Anonymous

In Japanese, 接続詞「が」 is pronounced [ŋa] by some speakers.

Anonymous

[ŋ] is an allophone of /g/ in Japanese for some speakers. It usually only appears medially, but that が is an exception where it appears initially.

Anonymous

It's not phonemic like it is in Vietnamese.

Brandin

Yes, but notice no words begin with that sound. It is more of a sound in the middle or at the end. "ga" is attached to what comes before, so it does not appear initially.

Anonymous

Well, that's why I brought up the exception where it does appear initially.

Anonymous

7:36 PM

As a particle, が attaches to what comes before. As a conjunction, it does not.

Damkerng T.

> youtube.com/…

Hattori-kun ga. :-)

Anonymous

> 藤太は東海道を何度も旅しており、鎌倉のあたりにも土地勘ある。が、実際にやってきてみると眼を見張った。

Damkerng T.

Ah, it's a different Ga.

Anonymous

That's why I specified the 接続詞 :-)

Anonymous

It was originally a 格助詞 (case particle) and then a 接続助詞 (conjunctive particle), but then it was reanalyzed as a 接続詞 (conjunction).

Anonymous

7:40 PM

When it was reanalyzed, it retained its pronunciation, which is why it exceptionally has utterance-initial [ŋ].

Brandin

I guess it depends on what you count as "initial". Like in grade school we were taught not to begin a sentence with "And" or "But" even though this is obviously possible. It really is a matter of where you parse things.

Anonymous

Well, yes, but the people who taught you that were wrong.

Anonymous

Anyway, there's no prescription against using が as a conjunction in Japanese. It's acknowledged by Japanese grammarians and listed as such in Japanese dictionaries.

Anonymous

Say something abrupt, get a star . . . :-)

Damkerng T.

BTW, I heard "ninja de gozaru" (0:40) as "ninja do gotoru". :-)

Anonymous

7:43 PM

Oh, I forgot to click your link!

Damkerng T.

It was a funny opening theme song of Ninja Hattori, the TV anime. :D

Anonymous

Haha, that's kind of cute :-)

Anonymous

I've never seen that cartoon.

Anonymous

I do think the line between 接続助詞 and 接続詞 can be kind of fuzzy.

Anonymous

Also, very few native words have initial /g/ to begin with.

Anonymous

7:51 PM

Well, there are very few examples to be examined outside of compounds.

Anonymous

And [ŋ] is dying off, anyway!

Anonymous

Wow, the section in Vance 2008 on ŋ is really long.

Damkerng T.

This makes me want to check how they pronounce his name in the anime: naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Gaara

Anonymous

Interesting, utterance-initial ぐらい is another example.

Anonymous

Like utterance-initial が, utterance-initial ぐらい can occur in response to something another speaker said.

Anonymous

7:54 PM

@DamkerngT. Oh, most likely with [g]!

Anonymous

In general you won't hear [ŋ] at the beginning of an accent phrase.

Brandin

Hate to spoil the mood but such small minutiae won't help one much in learning the Japanese language. At the end of the day whether you say ng or g won't matter that much if you can't form a sentence or understand everyday vocabulary.

Anonymous

そうですね、確かに

Damkerng T.

Very true, that.

Anonymous

Apparently some linguists actually do think the evidence supports a phonemic contrast due to pairs like 蛾 [gɑ] 'moth' and が [ŋɑ] 'but', although as Vance points out this isn't really necessary in the vast majority of cases, and it doesn't really reflect the intuition of native speakers.

Anonymous

7:59 PM

After writing about it for ten pages, he ends with "I don't have a satisfactory solution to offer for this problem" :-)

Anonymous

Anyway, if there is a contrast, it only exists for a shrinking minority of speakers.

Damkerng T.

On the other side of the coin, succeeding at communication in a second language too soon could lead to a frozen target language. (I'm talking about myself, btw.)

Brandin

What do you mean "frozen target language"??

Anonymous

When you practice your mistakes, you get really good at making those mistakes over and over.

Damkerng T.

Ah, snailboat just answered the question for me. Yes, it is that.

I think it's quite common in adult language learners.

And by adult, I don't really mean very old.

Brandin

8:06 PM

If you don't communicate at all then you'll just give up, and that's the most common mistake. Not learning to speak French because you don't want to communicate to soon is just going to make you give up. I say it's better to go ahead and make some mistakes. You'll fix them if you want to.

Also it's a misconception that mistakes are forbidden. Native speakers also make mistakes 'ya know. Just own the mistakes, fix the ones you want to. Ignore the ones you don't care about.

Anonymous

Yeah, mistakes are necessary. A good thing, even. You have to make mistakes to learn.

Anonymous

But repeating them is bad.

Damkerng T.

I think it may be easier to fix if the first and the second languages are close.

It's much harder when the two are very different, which is why Asian learners have more problems than learners from Europe. In learning English as a second language, I mean.

Anonymous

I think teaching methods might also have something to do with that.

Brandin

Practice by different means - e.g. practice by speaking, and also writing. When I write and then reread what I just wrote, I notice all sorts of mistakes like missing punctuation, using the wrong vowels, etc. But when I'm going at it, I don't want to have to slow down and second guess every word thinking "Oh no, I don't want to make a mistake on this word!". Just say it, and then have a period where you try to improve yourself.

Anonymous

8:15 PM

I didn't really bother studying grammar for the first ten or so years I was learning Japanese.

Damkerng T.

I was forced to learn mainly English grammar in the first ten years or so, and I can say that I learned almost nothing. Maybe I learned something, but nothing made sense to me back then.

Brandin

No, grammar seems to me all about giving names for observations of language. Interesting, but in the end we care about speaking language. It's important that you know how to use a definite article, an indefinite article, a null article, etc. But being able to precisely name those things is useless on its own.

Anonymous

It's true that the names are secondary.

Anonymous

They're ways to communicate when talking about these topics.

Damkerng T.

Indeed. I think they taught us the grammar in school because they wanted us to avoid making these mistakes, not to know their technical names. I learned to speak English because I wasn't afraid to interact with my colleges in my work (though almost all of them were non-native speakers, albeit some were from Europe). It's obvious that my English is somewhat frozen.

Anonymous

8:22 PM

Without the names, it's hard to say anything useful about language.

Brandin

All you really need is enough to understand the dictionary. For example, suppose you don't know what nouns or verbs are. They are an arbitrary distinction anyway. So all you need to do is look up some words and you'll see some are categorized as "n" some as "v" some as "a" and that's good enough. We just do this for convenience. Some people even get into pointless debates over it. Like if I "host" a party is that a noun or a verb??

Anonymous

There's no debate there.

Anonymous

Anyone who knows what a verb is knows that's a verb.

Damkerng T.

I was virtually blind to articles, virtually didn't know how to use tenses and modal verbs correctly.

I could communicate just fine, though, in my work.

E.g., if my colleague said "They're ways to communicate when talking about these topics", I would hear: they way communicate when talk about these topics

Which would be perfectly understandable.

(with some guesswork)

Anonymous

Do you think your time on ELL has been helpful?

Anonymous

8:27 PM

From where I'm sitting, your English is a lot more natural than it was in 2013.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Very much!

Anonymous

Parts of speech aren't particularly important in English grammar.

Brandin

Some names are just not that helpful. An example is transitive and intransitive verbs. Everybody knows what they are, but no one knows the right names for these. Just forget those names and leave them for the linguists and grammarians. You don't need 'em.

Anonymous

@Brandin Hahaha!

Anonymous

Wow.

Anonymous

8:29 PM

I thought that was at least one of the few things I could expect non-linguists to understand :-)

Anonymous

Time to mark another one off the list . . .

Anonymous

Just what is a verb? No one knows.

Damkerng T.

And the search continues. :P

Anonymous

I agree that some names are not that helpful.

Anonymous

I don't really like the labels unaccusative and unergative.

Anonymous

8:32 PM

They strike me as particularly hard to remember.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I can see what you typed, but I don't know what they are. :P

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. How unergative of you!

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

Unergative is the new smurf.

Damkerng T.

Eh? (It's a Japanese Eh?)

Anonymous

8:34 PM

えーーーっ！？

Anonymous

そんなバカな！

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

Geoffrey Pullum actually coined both of those words.

Damkerng T.

バカ me!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. そんなバカな is kind of like "Oh, there's no way!"

Brandin

8:35 PM

I remember in Japanese there seemed to be two sorts of verb pronunciation patterns, ichidangoushi and godangoushi. Whatever happened to 2-dan, 3-dan and 4-dan? I never quite understood or could be bothered to look up.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah, I was trying to use バカ as "Silly". :-)

Anonymous

Yeah, that's close.

Anonymous

Just remember that 動詞 is どうし, not ごうし.

Anonymous

The answer is quite simple, of course.

Anonymous

First you have to know what a 段 is.

Anonymous

8:36 PM

It's a column in the kana chart.

Damkerng T.

Weird, I knew dan from go.

Anonymous

> 食べない
> 食べます
> 食べる
> 食べれば
> 食べよう

Anonymous

Here we have a one-column verb (いちだんどうし).

Anonymous

The kana there, べ, is always from the エ段.

Anonymous

> 行かない
> 行きます
> 行く
> 行けば
> 行こう

Anonymous

8:38 PM

Here we have a five-column verb (ごだんどうし).

Anonymous

The kana there, か・き・く・け・こ, can be from any of the five 段.

Anonymous

See, it changes. But in the other kind of verb, it doesn't.

Anonymous

You can see the kana chart here: ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Literally 'step'.

Damkerng T.

A-ha! That makes sense. -- I can't remember who's better now, a 4-dan player or a 6-dan player.

Anonymous

8:41 PM

Think of 段 as positive and 級 as negative.

Damkerng T.

Ahh... so the more dan we have the better we are.

Anonymous

Yes, like, you might start out at 10級 and work your way up to 1級, then you go to 初段 (which is lit. 'first step'), and on to 2段 etc.

Anonymous

That's my understanding anyway, although I don't really know much about Go.

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. I just noticed you snuck into Copper Kettle's search results page! chat.stackexchange.com/search?q=0&room=24938

Damkerng T.

@snailboat An interesting search!

Anonymous

8:45 PM

I made a typo on my phone earlier. I was trying to find it so I could fix it :-)

Damkerng T.

:( I misspelled colleague up there myself. :-)

Hmm... maybe we should make :( longer. It's supposed to be a long face, right? :P

Like, :---(

Hee

Anonymous

Wait, you did? Where?

Damkerng T.

> chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/25218557#25218557. I spelled it colleges. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I associate noses in smileys with Usenet.

Anonymous

:-( already has plenty of nose.

Anonymous

8:49 PM

:---( is a particularly nosey smiley.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

:-----( is getting to Pinnochio-level.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

I actually hardly know anyone else who puts noses in smileys.

Anonymous

But they seem like a personal thing.

Anonymous

8:51 PM

Like Copper Kettle has his cute little upside-down (0: smiley with the big red nose

Anonymous

A lot of my friends type xD

Anonymous

Japanese speakers have a bewildering array of kaomoji.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat They're kinda cute.

Anonymous

I know, right? :-)

Damkerng T.

I don't know if it's just because the Japanese character set allows that, or it's simply because Japanese people are creative. Perhaps both. :D

Anonymous

8:55 PM

One of my friends has really cute ones: ヽ(*´▽)ノ♪

Anonymous

♪(´ω｀*)

Anonymous

ヽ(´▽｀)ノﾜｰｲ

Anonymous

(´ ･ω･｀)

Damkerng T.

LOL -- This is the first time I've ever seen * on a cheek in one of these. :-)

Anonymous

Isn't it cute?? :-)

Damkerng T.

8:56 PM

I used to use ヽ(´▽｀)ノ myself, though.

Anonymous

Aww, I love that one!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat It went through the roof!

(of the cuteness scale)

Anonymous

(´大｀*)

Anonymous

I don't know what that one means!

Anonymous

It looks kind of like a puppy.

Damkerng T.

8:59 PM

Looks like a walrus.

Oh, right. Perhaps a puppy. :-)

Anonymous

Haha, that's even closer!

Anonymous

A walpuppy.

Damkerng T.

LOL

Anonymous

@Ϻ.Λ.Ʀ. Can you access this chapter through your school? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470753002.ch10/summary

Anonymous

9:22 PM

To be honest, I was already aware some people have trouble with terms like transitive and intransitive. I think they tend to be native speakers, though. You have to learn terms like those to use dictionaries.

Anonymous

Same thing in Japanese. If you want to be able to use a dictionary, you have to recognize 自 and 他.

Anonymous

I know a lot of native speakers who don't see the point of dictionaries, by the way.

Anonymous

Me, I love dictionaries :-)

Anonymous

Sometimes I wish we had a richer vocabulary for describing the basic range of complementation for English (or Japanese!) verbs.

Anonymous

There's a lot you need to know besides just "Does this verb take an object?"

Anonymous

9:28 PM

But people object on various grounds to the terms we already have.

Anonymous

Ideally, a dictionary would be a list of unpredictable things.

Anonymous

That includes complementation.

Anonymous

Ideally with frequency information, too.

Damkerng T.

10:19 PM

@snailboat It's a bit different in Thai. Not knowing those terms in Thai grammar is a sign that you might'ven't been in your classes at school.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. might not have is the basic order. You negate the first auxiliary, which is might rather than 've

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I don't know what I was thinking! :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Most native speakers of English receive next to no grammar education. Even at my school, though, we learned about transitivity.

Anonymous

I mean, in junior high.

Damkerng T.

It was the first thing I typed while my browser was restarting.

@snailboat A funny thing is, I think our grammar doesn't describe our language well.

Anonymous

10:22 PM

That's unfortunately quite believable!

Damkerng T.

Because it's basically English grammar, or a grammar that English grammar is based on. (Like, Latin, perhaps.)

So we have lots of "undocumented features" lying around.

Anonymous

Grammar is taught to everyone in Japan in high school, but the grammar they teach isn't terribly useful.

Damkerng T.

(Like that extra short /a/ sound.)

Anonymous

The Japanese traditional grammar is also influenced by Western grammar.

Anonymous

Some of the terminological choices are rather unfortunate . . .

Anonymous

10:25 PM

Like, okay. You know the verb たべる 'eat'?

Damkerng T.

Yes.

Anonymous

In Japanese, this verb changes to たべない for the negative form 'not eat'.

Anonymous

So what is this 〜ない thingy?

Anonymous

In Japanese grammar, it's called a 助動詞（じょどうし）, lit. 'auxiliary verb'.

Damkerng T.

Some kind of suffix?

Hehe!

Anonymous

10:26 PM

Never mind that it's not a verb, let alone an independent word.

Anonymous

It is some kind of suffix.

Anonymous

Just like you said.

Anonymous

So why call it an auxiliary verb? I dunno.

Anonymous

It's kind of confusing, because there are a bunch of things that would be better called auxiliary verbs: たべてみる 'try eating (something new)'

Anonymous

The みる here is a grammaticalized verb, not used with its literal meaning of "try", but to give a different meaning to the preceding verb.

Anonymous

10:29 PM

It doesn't form a separate predicate.

Anonymous

So it's actually a lot like an English auxiliary verb.

Anonymous

When we add auxiliaries in English, we aren't making a separate predicate. They all form one big thingy.

Anonymous

Like "I would have been dead if it weren't for you".

Anonymous

It would have been better to call 〜てみる an auxiliary construction, but no . . . :-(

Damkerng T.

What is it called?

Anonymous

10:31 PM

Well, it's called a 補助動詞

Anonymous

I translate this to 'subsidiary verb' to keep the two distinct, but it's really a crummy label.

Damkerng T.

Interesting that Google Translate translates 補助動詞 to "auxiliary verb".

Anonymous

Yeah! Now ask it what 助動詞 is.

Anonymous

They're completely different parts of speech.

Anonymous

But it translates them both to "auxiliary verb". How terrible is that?

Damkerng T.

10:34 PM

:-)

Anonymous

To Japanese speakers, 助動詞 has to be 'auxiliary verb', though.

Anonymous

Why? Not because it makes sense for Japanese, but because it's the term they learn when they're studying English.

Anonymous

So everyone knows 助動詞〜 'auxiliary verb'

Anonymous

So the least confusing thing to do is to come up with a different label for 補助動詞.

Anonymous

But it's a mess!

Damkerng T.

10:37 PM

Oh, by the way. I just recall that Thai schools have abandoned teaching That grammar explicitly for quite some time.

Anonymous

Oh really? That's news to me!

Anonymous

Of course, all I ever knew about Thai grammar instruction is what you told me in chat. :-)

Damkerng T.

Perhaps that's why I can see more and more unacceptable utterances (to me) in the public.

Anonymous

Hmm!

Anonymous

I'm not sure teaching grammar explicitly in the US ever had a really strong effect on the way people talk.

Anonymous

10:38 PM

Language changes with or without instruction.

Anonymous

There are some definite influences, but they're fairly minor in the scheme of things.

Anonymous

One of them is the X and I constraint.

Anonymous

People are taught to say "Bob and I went to the store", not "Me and Bob went to the store".

Damkerng T.

Oh, I see!

Anonymous

I meant to type X and I. Let me edit that.

Anonymous

10:40 PM

In naturally acquired English, me is the basic form used in coordinate NPs.

Anonymous

So people say "me and Bob" or sometimes "Bob and me".

Anonymous

People are taught, though, that this is not right; that they must ① put themselves last and ② use I rather than me.

Anonymous

Of course, that's rather exceptional, given that the default case is accusative in English.

Anonymous

If you put a pronoun in subject position, we expect it to be I.

Anonymous

But when you have a coordination like me and Bob, you no longer have a pronoun in subject position. The subject is the entire coordination me and Bob.

tchrist

10:42 PM

Little old me expects better nominations.

Anonymous

Now, owing to rules like this that have been proliferated fairly successfully in schools, the X and I form has become pretty well established.

Anonymous

And people have learned to avoid me and go for I in other positions as well—a hypercorrection, at least originally.

Anonymous

Some descriptive linguists want to acknowledge the choice between me and I in various positions as a matter of register these days rather than dismissing it as a hypercorrection.

Anonymous

So we've got kind of a complicated system . . .

Damkerng T.

When I was younger, it was quite clear to me and to some people I had talked with, that less elegant prose in Thai is related to education. (Just education, not intelligence whatsoever, btw.) Because they wouldn't've written it the way they did if they were taught. (The problem is usually more complex than "X and I" though.)

But now everyone in the younger generations are more prone to less elegant writing (perhaps except people like Fantasier :-), because they had removed this from the classrooms.

Anonymous

10:44 PM

And I think that it's largely a result of our school systems.

Anonymous

@tchrist I like your example :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I don't know about Thai speakers, but I'm certainly prone to less elegant writing.

Damkerng T.

I think grammar is a little different in Thai. Imagine that you have a language that it's even less clear to tell where the word boundaries are.

Anonymous

Less than what? Take your pick, really . . .

Anonymous

Oh, I know lots of languages like that! :-)

Damkerng T.

10:47 PM

So, things are quite fuzzy.

Anonymous

I mean know of, not know know.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I think Japanese could be one such language, perhaps. I remember that it's not that clear in Chinese as well, when it comes to compound nouns.

Anonymous

Well, when you say "word", you could be referring to lots of different sorts of units.

Anonymous

In English, we've got the orthographic word.

Anonymous

We know what an orthographic word is 'cause we've got spaces in between them. :-)

Anonymous

10:50 PM

But there are lots of other kinds of things you could call "words".

Damkerng T.

nods -- So it's easier to spot words, though it could be tricky in some cases as well.

Anonymous

I think the most natural unit, in a language with significant morphology and syntax both, is the level at which we can divide grammatical phenomena into those categories.

Anonymous

Some languages have barely any syntax or barely any morphology.

Anonymous

Then this definition becomes rather useless :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, what is an orthographic word might not be a word by another definition!

Anonymous

10:51 PM

Linguists tend not to focus too much on how words are written.

Anonymous

Well, most linguists.

Anonymous

Of course you can study writing systems and such, too. :-)

Anonymous

But I mean, if you want to talk about whether something is a lexical item, you don't have to do so with reference to the writing system.

Damkerng T.

For example, would you consider "TV3 Fanclub Award 2015", which is a name, a single word?

Anonymous

You can figure that out even for a language that doesn't have a writing system.

Anonymous

10:53 PM

@DamkerngT. No!

Damkerng T.

Phew!

Anonymous

But we haven't really defined what sort of "word" we're talking about. I have a default meaning in my mind.

Anonymous

Which are things that (typically) have morphological or syntactic traits that we can associate with an individual word class.

Anonymous

Semantic traits too, but those are less reliable.

Damkerng T.

An example from my news feed: 'เมย์' จูง 'น้องมายู' ออกงานครั้งแรก โต้ข่าวเม้าท์นอนแยกห้อง 'หนุ่ม กรรชัย' -- I expected นอนแยกห้องกับ 'หนุ่ม กรรชัย'

Anonymous

10:55 PM

Another thing you might want to take into account is whether you can pronounce them as separate words with pauses in between.

Anonymous

Or whether the individual components can appear in other phrases the same way they do in the example you're looking at.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Oh, that's too hard for me to read still. I'm not going to get around to trying to learn the Thai writing system until 2016!

Anonymous

Can you explain for me?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat The word in question is นอนแยกห้อง, meaning "sleep in a separate room".

Normally, the pattern would be "X นอนแยกห้องกับ Y" (กับ ~ "and/with"). In the news, they wrote "X นอนแยกห้อง Y". I think it's like when you expected a preposition in an English sentence but it wasn't there.

Anonymous

By the criteria I just listed, I think each other is probably one word, even though orthographically it's two. (But lots of people write it as one word these days!)

Anonymous

10:59 PM

@DamkerngT. Oh, I see!

Damkerng T.

Imagine "X sleeps in a separate room Y". :P

Anonymous

Do they ever omit function words like that to save space in the news?

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