What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
characters is a word? The reason I am asking is because it is often said
that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
meaning in isolation. This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where one
can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the suffixes
having no meaning in isolation.

Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same
class when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?

On Monday, October 10, 2022 at 2:10:48 PM UTC-4, John Smith wrote:

> What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> characters is a word? The reason I am asking is because it is often said
> that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
> that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
> meaning in isolation. This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where one
> can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the suffixes
> having no meaning in isolation.
>
> Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same
> class when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?

"Word" is not a particularly useful concept in linguistics. For some
languages, you can draw up criteria, which will be agreed upon. For
some, it's not so easy.

The linguist Jerry Sadock, who studied the Greenlandic language, put it
informally as "A word is what when you make a mistake in the middle of
it, you have to go back to the start to say the corrected version.
There's a more formal version in an article on the language in the journal
*Language*.

On Mon, 10 Oct 2022 13:02:09 -0700 (PDT), Peter T. Daniels wrote:

> On Monday, October 10, 2022 at 2:10:48 PM UTC-4, John Smith wrote:
>
>> What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
>> characters is a word? The reason I am asking is because it is often
>> said that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the
>> case that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
>> meaning in isolation. This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where
>> one can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the
>> suffixes having no meaning in isolation.
>>
>> Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same class
>> when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?
>
> "Word" is not a particularly useful concept in linguistics. For some
> languages, you can draw up criteria, which will be agreed upon. For
> some, it's not so easy.
>
> The linguist Jerry Sadock, who studied the Greenlandic language, put it
> informally as "A word is what when you make a mistake in the middle of
> it, you have to go back to the start to say the corrected version.
> There's a more formal version in an article on the language in the
> journal *Language*.

OK, thanks for the explanation. It does make sense that a "word"
is a concept that will be strongly language-dependent - I imagine it
might even be difficult to define at all for some languages. Which I
guess renders the notion of "long word" valid within a specific language
alone, not across languages.

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 18:10:41 -0000 (UTC): John Smith
<12345@whatismyemailaddress.xyz> scribeva:

> What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
>characters is a word?

None. It is a spelling convention, different in every language.

>The reason I am asking is because it is often said
>that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
>that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
>meaning in isolation.

Yes, writing composite words as one word. Dutch and German do, English
usually doesn't.

>This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where one
>can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the suffixes
>having no meaning in isolation.
>
> Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same
>class when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?

German etc. also have suffixes, like in Machbarkeiten,
Mach-bar-keit-en, feasabilities.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

Op 10/10/2022 om 20:10 schreef John Smith:
> What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> characters is a word? The reason I am asking is because it is often said
> that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
> that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
> meaning in isolation. This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where one
> can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the suffixes
> having no meaning in isolation.
>
> Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same
> class when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?

Dutch and occasionally German do complicate those compounds by inserting
adverbial or case particles/suffixes:

kind, kinderen + school: kinderschool
rund, runderen (cow bull ox) + vlees (meat): rundervlees/rundsvlees
hond,-en + dag, dagen: hondsdagen (dog days)
vrouw,-en (women) + persoon: vrouwspersoon
etc.

--
guido wugi

Op 11/10/2022 om 11:18 schreef wugi:
> Op 10/10/2022 om 20:10 schreef John Smith:
>>     What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
>> characters is a word? The reason I am asking is because it is often said
>> that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
>> that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
>> meaning in isolation. This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where one
>> can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the suffixes
>> having no meaning in isolation.
>>
>>     Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same
>> class when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?
>
> Dutch and occasionally German do complicate those compounds by inserting
> adverbial or case particles/suffixes:
>
> kind, kinderen + school: kinderschool
> rund, runderen (cow bull ox) + vlees (meat): rundervlees/rundsvlees
> hond,-en + dag, dagen: hondsdagen (dog days)
> vrouw,-en (women) + persoon: vrouwspersoon
> etc.

I forgot the (in)famous "tussen-n"
rug, ruggen (back) + graat ([fish]bone) : ruggegraat, now ruggengraat
(backbone)
hart,-en + beest,en: hartebeest, now presumably hartenbeest
I'm even not sure with harte()leed, harte()wens etc.

Personally I distinguish between
hartedief: sweetheart; and
hartendief: womaniser, ladykiller

--
guido wugi

On Tuesday, October 11, 2022 at 3:52:25 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> Mon, 10 Oct 2022 18:10:41 -0000 (UTC): John Smith
> <12...@whatismyemailaddress.xyz> scribeva:

> > What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> >characters is a word?
>
> None. It is a spelling convention, different in every language.

Well, that's not correct, either.

In Hungarian (I believe you've been discussing that language recently)
each stressed syllable begins a new word; in Polish, a new word begins
with the second syllable after a stress, etc. In French, word spaces
clearly do not correspond with the spoken language, with both prefixed
and suffixed clitics and pronouns and such.

In Latin and Turkish, almost every word has desinences added to its
end. In Greek, only a limited number of phonemes could end a word.

It's when you get to the polysynthetic languages that finding criteria
other than Sadock's for demarcating words is difficult.

On Monday, October 10, 2022 at 2:10:48 PM UTC-4, John Smith wrote:
> What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> characters is a word? The reason I am asking is because it is often said
> that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
> that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
> meaning in isolation. This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where one
> can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the suffixes
> having no meaning in isolation.
>
> Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same
> class when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?

A word is merely an utterance with meaning, in Paleo-etymology, from before the era of written character symbols.
Although today suffixes might have no meaning, they probably did have in the past.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:34:03 AM UTC-4, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Monday, October 10, 2022 at 2:10:48 PM UTC-4, John Smith wrote:

> > What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> > characters is a word? The reason I am asking is because it is often said
> > that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
> > that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
> > meaning in isolation. This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where one
> > can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the suffixes
> > having no meaning in isolation.
> >
> > Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same
> > class when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?
>
> A word is merely an utterance with meaning, in Paleo-etymology, from before the era of written character symbols.
> Although today suffixes might have no meaning, they probably did have in the past.

What is a suffix that "has no meaning"?

Do you know *any* language other than English?

NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:34:03 AM UTC-4, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Monday, October 10, 2022 at 2:10:48 PM UTC-4, John Smith wrote:
>
> > > What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> > > characters is a word? The reason I am asking is because it is often said
> > > that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
> > > that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
> > > meaning in isolation. This is not the same thing as in Finnish, where one
> > > can also have very long words by adding suffixes to a root, the suffixes
> > > having no meaning in isolation.
> > >
> > > Are the German and Finnish instances described above in the same
> > > class when it comes to the linguistic concept of a word?
> >
> > A word is merely an utterance with meaning, in Paleo-etymology, from before the era of written character symbols.
> > Although today suffixes might have no meaning, they probably did have in the past.
> What is a suffix that "has no meaning"?

"... the suffixes having no meaning in isolation".

> Do you know *any* language other than English?

What 'language' is *"English"*? A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?

> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.

Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.

>On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:34:03 AM UTC-4, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
>> A word is merely an utterance with meaning, in Paleo-etymology, from before the era of written character symbols.
>> Although today suffixes might have no meaning, they probably did have in the past.

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 08:00:55 -0700 (PDT): "Peter T. Daniels"
<grammatim@verizon.net> scribeva:
>What is a suffix that "has no meaning"?
>
>Do you know *any* language other than English?

Malay.

https://rudhar.com/lingtics/intrlnga/toentcqu.htm
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

>On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> Do you know *any* language other than English?

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
<daud.deden@gmail.com> scribeva:
>What 'language' is *"English"*?

Quote of the year.

>A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?

No.

>> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
>> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
>
>Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.

No.

>Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.

No.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:17:36 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >> Do you know *any* language other than English?
> Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
> <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
> >What 'language' is *"English"*?
> Quote of the year.
> >A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?
> No.
> >> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
> >> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
> >
> >Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
> No.
> >Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.
> No.
> --
> Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

Ruud, you no everything and know nothing about Paleo-etymology, since it is not mentioned in your bible, wikipedia.
Now just try to answer this question: "What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
characters is a word?"

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 12:47:20 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:17:36 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > >On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > >> Do you know *any* language other than English?
> > Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
> > <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
> > >What 'language' is *"English"*?
> > Quote of the year.
> > >A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?
> > No.
> > >> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
> > >> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
> > >
> > >Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
> > No.
> > >Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.
> > No.
> > --
> > Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
> Ruud, you no everything and know nothing about Paleo-etymology, since it is not mentioned in your bible, wikipedia.
> Now just try to answer this question: "What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> characters is a word?"
>
Bad question. You need to first announce your definition of "character". That is,
your assumed universal phonology. Then you can define "word" within that
phonology. I see no reason for assuming a one-to-one correspondence between
phonological words and semantic objects.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 6:43:11 PM UTC-4, DKleinecke wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 12:47:20 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:17:36 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > >On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > >> Do you know *any* language other than English?
> > > Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
> > > <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
> > > >What 'language' is *"English"*?
> > > Quote of the year.
> > > >A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?
> > > No.
> > > >> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
> > > >> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
> > > >
> > > >Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
> > > No.
> > > >Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.
> > > No.
> > > --
> > > Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
> > Ruud, you no everything and know nothing about Paleo-etymology, since it is not mentioned in your bible, wikipedia.
> > Now just try to answer this question: "What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> > characters is a word?"
> >
> Bad question. You need to first announce your definition of "character". That is,
> your assumed universal phonology. Then you can define "word" within that
> phonology. I see no reason for assuming a one-to-one correspondence between
> phonological words and semantic objects.

The question was first posted/posed by John Smith, I pasted it for Ruud's benefit, to prevent him from going too far off track.

My earlier response seems adequate:
"A word is merely an utterance with meaning, in Paleo-etymology, from before the era of written character symbols."

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 7:38:56 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 6:43:11 PM UTC-4, DKleinecke wrote:
> > On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 12:47:20 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:17:36 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > > >On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > > >> Do you know *any* language other than English?
> > > > Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
> > > > <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
> > > > >What 'language' is *"English"*?
> > > > Quote of the year.
> > > > >A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?
> > > > No.
> > > > >> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
> > > > >> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
> > > > >
> > > > >Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
> > > > No.
> > > > >Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.
> > > > No.
> > > > --
> > > > Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
> > > Ruud, you no everything and know nothing about Paleo-etymology, since it is not mentioned in your bible, wikipedia.
> > > Now just try to answer this question: "What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> > > characters is a word?"
> > >
> > Bad question. You need to first announce your definition of "character". That is,
> > your assumed universal phonology. Then you can define "word" within that
> > phonology. I see no reason for assuming a one-to-one correspondence between
> > phonological words and semantic objects.
> The question was first posted/posed by John Smith, I pasted it for Ruud's benefit, to prevent him from going too far off track.
>
> My earlier response seems adequate:
> "A word is merely an utterance with meaning, in Paleo-etymology, from before the era of written character symbols."
>
I am beginning to suspect you don't know what phonology means. The
fact that you refer to characters rather than phonemes makes that
more likely. You can't discuss words without discussing phonemes and
the rest of the machinery of phonology. PTD suggests you don't know
any language except English - somebody adds Malay. You need to learn
some linguistics to avoid speaking silly things. Isn't all like English.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:36:50 PM UTC-4, DKleinecke wrote:
> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 7:38:56 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 6:43:11 PM UTC-4, DKleinecke wrote:
> > > On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 12:47:20 PM UTC-7, daud....@gmail.com wrote:
> > > > On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:17:36 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> > > > > >On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > > > >> Do you know *any* language other than English?
> > > > > Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
> > > > > <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
> > > > > >What 'language' is *"English"*?
> > > > > Quote of the year.
> > > > > >A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?
> > > > > No.
> > > > > >> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
> > > > > >> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
> > > > > >
> > > > > >Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
> > > > > No.
> > > > > >Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.
> > > > > No.
> > > > > --
> > > > > Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
> > > > Ruud, you no everything and know nothing about Paleo-etymology, since it is not mentioned in your bible, wikipedia.
> > > > Now just try to answer this question: "What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> > > > characters is a word?"
> > > >
> > > Bad question. You need to first announce your definition of "character". That is,
> > > your assumed universal phonology. Then you can define "word" within that
> > > phonology. I see no reason for assuming a one-to-one correspondence between
> > > phonological words and semantic objects.
> > The question was first posted/posed by John Smith, I pasted it for Ruud's benefit, to prevent him from going too far off track.
> >
> > My earlier response seems adequate:
> > "A word is merely an utterance with meaning, in Paleo-etymology, from before the era of written character symbols."
> >
> I am beginning to suspect you don't know what phonology means. The
> fact that you refer to characters rather than phonemes makes that
> more likely. You can't discuss words without discussing phonemes and
> the rest of the machinery of phonology. PTD suggests you don't know
> any language except English - somebody adds Malay. You need to learn
> some linguistics to avoid speaking silly things. Isn't all like English.

https://biologydictionary.net/ 'phoneme' term not found.
https://www.biologyonline.com/search/phoneme term not found.
Oxford Medical Dictionary phoneme term not found.

I have no problem discussing words (in a bio- evolutionary context) without discussing phonemes.
Once again, my interest is in primate communication, which includes the human language, which includes "long words".
PTD is not a biologist, nor are you & Ruud.
I speak a local variant of the human language. Most everybody does.

So, then, back to 'long words'.

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 12:47:18 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
<daud.deden@gmail.com> scribeva:

>On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:17:36 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>> >On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> >> Do you know *any* language other than English?
>> Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
>> <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
>> >What 'language' is *"English"*?
>> Quote of the year.
>> >A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?
>> No.
>> >> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
>> >> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
>> >
>> >Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
>> No.
>> >Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.
>> No.
>> --
>> Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
>
>Ruud, you no everything and know nothing about Paleo-etymology, since it is not mentioned in your bible, wikipedia.
>Now just try to answer this question: "What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
>characters is a word?"

See previous contributions by Peter T. Daniels, who pointed out some
possible approaches and some difficulties.

My own practical definition is here:
https://rudhar.com/sfreview/siworin/siworin05.htm
Quote:
"A word is a sequence of alphabetic UTF-8 characters. Dashes (-) and
apostrophes (' or ’) may occur, except at the start and the end, for
English words like ‘don’t’ and ‘isn’t’. "
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

Op 13/10/2022 om 9:57 schreef Ruud Harmsen:
> Wed, 12 Oct 2022 12:47:18 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
> <daud.deden@gmail.com> scribeva:
>
>> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:17:36 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
>>>> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>>>>> Do you know *any* language other than English?
>>> Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
>>> <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
>>>> What 'language' is *"English"*?
>>> Quote of the year.
>>>> A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?
>>> No.
>>>>> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
>>>>> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
>>>>
>>>> Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
>>> No.
>>>> Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.
>>> No.
>>> --
>>> Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
>>
>> Ruud, you no everything and know nothing about Paleo-etymology, since it is not mentioned in your bible, wikipedia.
>> Now just try to answer this question: "What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
>> characters is a word?"
>
> See previous contributions by Peter T. Daniels, who pointed out some
> possible approaches and some difficulties.
>
> My own practical definition is here:
> https://rudhar.com/sfreview/siworin/siworin05.htm
> Quote:
> "A word is a sequence of alphabetic UTF-8 characters. Dashes (-) and
> apostrophes (' or ’) may occur, except at the start and the end, for
> English words like ‘don’t’ and ‘isn’t’. "

Funny you now define a word in writing terms, I thought it ought to be a
semantic thing in the first place?

Anyway, written and spoken words are not per se congruent.

Are methinks, meseems single words?
Are E. lady killer two words and Nl. ladykiller one?
Is F. j' "sh" in j'sais pas a word?
And j't'ai dit: one or three words in one syllable?
And the (in)famous F. liaisons, after a pause or hesitation, what words
have we here:
Le- z'autres. Dan- z'un instant. Tou- t'à fait.
Are Sp. dale, dalo, dáselo single words, and E. give him, give it, give
it to him not? And F. donne-lui, donne-le, donne-le-lui?
Is Nl. inderdaad a single word and D. In der Tat not?
.....

--
guido wugi

Op 13/10/2022 om 11:36 schreef wugi:

> And j't'ai dit: one or three words in one syllable?

J't'l'avais bien dit :)

--
guido wugi

>Op 13/10/2022 om 9:57 schreef Ruud Harmsen:
>> My own practical definition is here:
>> https://rudhar.com/sfreview/siworin/siworin05.htm
>> Quote:
>> "A word is a sequence of alphabetic UTF-8 characters. Dashes (-) and
>> apostrophes (' or ’) may occur, except at the start and the end, for
>> English words like ‘don’t’ and ‘isn’t’. "

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 11:36:34 +0200: wugi <wugi@scrlt.com> scribeva:
>Funny you now define a word in writing terms, I thought it ought to be a
>semantic thing in the first place?

Not for my practical purpose of extracting words from the HTML of a
website.

>Anyway, written and spoken words are not per se congruent.
>
>Are methinks, meseems single words?

I'd say yes.

>Are E. lady killer two words and Nl. ladykiller one?

Yes.

>Is F. j' "sh" in j'sais pas a word?

According to my algorithm, yes.

>And j't'ai dit: one or three words in one syllable?
>And the (in)famous F. liaisons, after a pause or hesitation, what words
>have we here:
>Le- z'autres. Dan- z'un instant. Tou- t'à fait.
>Are Sp. dale, dalo, dáselo single words, and E. give him, give it, give
>it to him not? And F. donne-lui, donne-le, donne-le-lui?
>Is Nl. inderdaad a single word and D. In der Tat not?
>....

Quite.

My definition, by the way, requires spaces or other punctuation
between words, so it doesn't work for Japanese or Chinese. Before
writing my own search engine, I used Hyper Estraier, written by a
Japanese, and supporting Asian languages by using n-grams. (Whatever
that is, I still don't quite understand.) But it wasn't faultless, and
moreover the software was uncompilable and and unrunnable, and the
developer had been silent for many tears.

Mine does work, without special effort, for languages like Greek,
Arabic, Yiddish, Georgian and Javanese.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com

On Thursday, October 13, 2022 at 5:36:38 AM UTC-4, wugi wrote:
> Op 13/10/2022 om 9:57 schreef Ruud Harmsen:
> > Wed, 12 Oct 2022 12:47:18 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
> > <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
> >
> >> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 3:17:36 PM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >>>> On Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 11:00:56 AM UTC-4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> >>>>> Do you know *any* language other than English?
> >>> Wed, 12 Oct 2022 10:01:36 -0700 (PDT): Daud Deden
> >>> <daud....@gmail.com> scribeva:
> >>>> What 'language' is *"English"*?
> >>> Quote of the year.
> >>>> A tempero-geopolitical dialect of the human language, no?
> >>> No.
> >>>>> NB for John Smith: "Paleo-etymology" is DD's own personal hobbyhorse,
> >>>>> which has nothing to do with linguistics or with facts about language.
> >>>>
> >>>> Rather, it is the study of word evolution, from the perspective of primate communication.
> >>> No.
> >>>> Whereas (many) "linguists" appear to prefer to remain focused upon armies & navies and other neo-political shenanigans.
> >>> No.
> >>> --
> >>> Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com
> >>
> >> Ruud, you no everything and know nothing about Paleo-etymology, since it is not mentioned in your bible, wikipedia.
> >> Now just try to answer this question: "What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> >> characters is a word?"
> >
> > See previous contributions by Peter T. Daniels, who pointed out some
> > possible approaches and some difficulties.
> >
> > My own practical definition is here:
> > https://rudhar.com/sfreview/siworin/siworin05.htm
> > Quote:
> > "A word is a sequence of alphabetic UTF-8 characters. Dashes (-) and
> > apostrophes (' or ’) may occur, except at the start and the end, for
> > English words like ‘don’t’ and ‘isn’t’. "
> Funny you now define a word in writing terms, I thought it ought to be a
> semantic thing in the first place?
>
> Anyway, written and spoken words are not per se congruent.
>
> Are methinks, meseems single words?
> Are E. lady killer two words and Nl. ladykiller one?
> Is F. j' "sh" in j'sais pas a word?
> And j't'ai dit: one or three words in one syllable?
> And the (in)famous F. liaisons, after a pause or hesitation, what words
> have we here:
> Le- z'autres. Dan- z'un instant. Tou- t'à fait.
> Are Sp. dale, dalo, dáselo single words, and E. give him, give it, give
> it to him not? And F. donne-lui, donne-le, donne-le-lui?
> Is Nl. inderdaad a single word and D. In der Tat not?

In 1948, Robert A. Hall Jr. (who was a teacher of mine later on)
caused a firestorm. among Gallicists at least, when in his *French:
A Structural Sketch* (a supplement to the journal *Language*) he
did away with orthography entirely and with the notion of "word"
and treated the sort of thing wugi mentions as "breath groups" --
rather like Sadock's definition of "word" that I gave earlier.

He didn't do a similar sketch of Spanish, but I think you'll find
that sort of thing about English in C. C. Fries's two books from
the 1930s. At that time there were no oral databases, of course,
so he used as his data the next best thing: letters written to
President FDR from the marginally literate, whose expressions
could be assumed to have barely been tainted by prescriptivism.

On Thursday, October 13, 2022 at 9:17:36 AM UTC-4, Ruud Harmsen wrote:
> >Op 13/10/2022 om 9:57 schreef Ruud Harmsen:

> My definition, by the way, requires spaces or other punctuation
> between words, so it doesn't work for Japanese or Chinese. Before

Virtually every word in Japanese is written with one or two kanji
followed by several hiragana for the inflections (or else entirely
in katakana), so it should be childsplay [the squggler doesn't like
that -- isn't it the name of the first Chucky movie?] to write a
program to chop up a Japanese text into words. Because Japanese
is rigorously suffixing, it's a language where defining "word" is easy.
(Deciding whether some affixes are "suffixes" or "clitics" is a different
question.)

On 2022-10-10, John Smith <12345@whatismyemailaddress.xyz> wrote:

> What are the linguistic criteria to determine when a string of
> characters is a word?

As others have already mentioned, there is no good linguistic
definition for what constitutes a word. Problems arise when trying
to apply criteria across languages, but even within one language,
criteria for syntactical words, morphological words, phonological
words, etc. may be incompatible.

In fact, the notion of a "phonological word" frequently comes up
in opposition to words defined otherwise, e.g. by orthography.
Take a simple English sentence:

I gave her the book.

For a language like English, it makes sense to require that a
phonological word incorporates a stressed syllable. But in normal,
casual pronunciation, people don't pronounce "gave her" as two
syllables; instead the "her" is unstressed and attached to "gave",
"gave'er" /ˈgeɪvər/. So is "gave her" one word?

> The reason I am asking is because it is often said
> that German has very long words, when in fact what seems to be the case
> that it is several separate words run together, each word having a
> meaning in isolation.

Stop.

Indeed, those long German words are typically noun-based compounds,
frequently (noun-...-)noun-noun compounds. All Germanic languages
form such compounds, including English. The salient difference is
purely orthographic: English separates the components with spaces,
German doesn't. So when discussing this phenomenon, you don't need
to exoticize it by invoking German. English itself shows the same.

My favorite example, because it actually occurs in the wild, is

Abu Dhabi Combat Club Submission Wrestling World Championships
gold medalist

It's so long I had to break the line. Syntactically, that monster
behaves like a single noun. And it's just a fluke of orthography
that English doesn't spell it as

abudhabicombatclubsubmissionwrestlingworldchampionshipsgoldmedalist

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de

On 2022-10-11, Peter T. Daniels <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote:

> In French, word spaces clearly do not correspond with the spoken
> language, with both prefixed and suffixed clitics and pronouns and
> such.

It's even worse: syllabification will happily cross "word" boundaries
so that the final consonant of one word and the initial vowel of
the next word form a single syllable ("enchaînement").

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de