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From: Christian Weisgerber <naddy@mips.inka.de>
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,sci.lang
Subject: Re: PTD was the most-respected of the AUE regulars ...
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2024 17:29:10 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <slrnva7n76.2tl6.naddy@lorvorc.mips.inka.de>
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On 2024-07-26, Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 25 Jul 2024 12:41:13 -0700, HenHanna <HenHanna@devnull.tb>
>>       The instance I remember most was when he (PTD) opined that Most 
>>Chinese words consisted of 2 Chinese characters.

It's not wrong just because PTD said it.  Over on Language Log, the
eminent sinologist Victor Mair also keeps pointing out that the
Chinese thinking that a Chinese character/syllable equals a word
is just not true and that most of the Chinese lexicon is made from
a combinations of two morphemes and rendered in two characters.

> In his own field he had some useful information, but outside his field
> he could be very dogmatic about things that he simply got wrong. 

But what _is_ PTD's area of actual expertise?  Writing systems, I
guess, supported by the fact that he co-edited a book on the topic?
Semitic languages, maybe--or am I already misled by my own total
ignorance there?

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