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Ah, I see. I was confused because you linked to a LanguageLog article specifically about polysyllabic characters. Yes, indeed, "compound words" as mentioned by

Ah, I see. I was confused because you linked to a LanguageLog article specifically about polysyllabic characters. Yes, indeed, "compound words" as mentioned by the GP post are just plain words that are composed of multiple characters.

foldr 10y ago
Yes, I should have explained that I was just referring to the examples of multisyllabic words at the beginning of the post, sorry.
- david-given 10y ago
  I don't really follow here. One of the examples of a multisyllabic word given is fēijī, 飛機, 'aeroplane'. But this breaks down into 'fly machine', which is a classic example of a compound word. Later on it talks about 'library', túshūguǎn, or 'picture book museum' (according to the dictionary I just found). Again a compound word, and one which raises fascinating questions about whether they had museums before they had libraries. The article says that it can be written as a single character, 圕, or as multiple characters, 图书馆, but surely that's just an artifact of the writing scheme?
  - foldr 10y ago
    The meaning of the compound words isn't predictable in general -- a library is not in fact a picture book museum. And remember that many multisyllabic words in English are composed of morphemes with a distinct meaning, with varying levels of compositionality. E.g. we would not say that "airport" is two words just because its meaning has something vaguely to do with the meanings of "air" and "port", or that "return" is two words because it can be split into "re" and "turn" (again with each component contributing some element of its usual meaning). But of course, you can imagine a parallel universe where the orthographic conventions of English are such that we write "air-port" and "re-turn", and such combinations are referred to as "compound words". As far as I can see I'm not saying anything controversial here. As the article I liked to earlier points out, there are at most a few thousand distinct syllables in Mandarin Chinese, and it would be absurd to suggest that Chinese is limited to a vocabulary of a few thousand words.
    - david-given 10y ago
      Do you have any examples of multisyllable words in Mandarin which don't break down like this? I have yet to find one. Note that just because a word is a compound word doesn't mean it's not a word. A compound word has a meaning which is distinct from the sum of its parts; otherwise it wouldn't be used. But the meaning of a picture book museum, or fly machine, or language law, though, is still quite clear. But a library has nothing to do with lies or bras, and the last syllable isn't even a valid word. ('Airport's not a good example in English because it actually is a compound word. Contrast with 'sea port'.)
      - foldr 10y ago
        >A compound word has a meaning which is distinct from the sum of its parts Right. That's the point. This clearly shows that Chinese has multisyllabic words. And yes, there are plenty of examples of compounds with meanings that have nothing to do with their components, e.g.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E7%94%9F https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E7%94%9F But of course, if you already have the preconception that the parts of a compound word are independently meaningful, it's easy to tell yourself some kind of story about how they actually do contribute something to the meaning of the whole. Similarly, there are cranks who insist that particular non-morphemic sound sequences in English carry an independent meaning. It really is amazing how confused people can get by orthography. Chinese has words composed of multiple syllables whose parts are not independently meaningful. Period. Again, this is information that's available all over the place, e.g.: http://www.101languages.net/chinese/morphology.html http://www.101languages.net/chinese/morphology.html Or from Wikipedia: >The number of sounds in the different spoken dialects varies, but in general there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more multisyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which is only about an eighth as many as English.[b] Or here: http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-details1.cfm?asklingid=200365409 http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-details1.cfm?asklin...
        10y ago

foldr 10y ago

Yes, I should have explained that I was just referring to the examples of multisyllabic words at the beginning of the post, sorry.

david-given 10y ago
I don't really follow here. One of the examples of a multisyllabic word given is fēijī, 飛機, 'aeroplane'. But this breaks down into 'fly machine', which is a classic example of a compound word. Later on it talks about 'library', túshūguǎn, or 'picture book museum' (according to the dictionary I just found). Again a compound word, and one which raises fascinating questions about whether they had museums before they had libraries. The article says that it can be written as a single character, 圕, or as multiple characters, 图书馆, but surely that's just an artifact of the writing scheme?
- foldr 10y ago
  The meaning of the compound words isn't predictable in general -- a library is not in fact a picture book museum. And remember that many multisyllabic words in English are composed of morphemes with a distinct meaning, with varying levels of compositionality. E.g. we would not say that "airport" is two words just because its meaning has something vaguely to do with the meanings of "air" and "port", or that "return" is two words because it can be split into "re" and "turn" (again with each component contributing some element of its usual meaning). But of course, you can imagine a parallel universe where the orthographic conventions of English are such that we write "air-port" and "re-turn", and such combinations are referred to as "compound words". As far as I can see I'm not saying anything controversial here. As the article I liked to earlier points out, there are at most a few thousand distinct syllables in Mandarin Chinese, and it would be absurd to suggest that Chinese is limited to a vocabulary of a few thousand words.
  - david-given 10y ago
    Do you have any examples of multisyllable words in Mandarin which don't break down like this? I have yet to find one. Note that just because a word is a compound word doesn't mean it's not a word. A compound word has a meaning which is distinct from the sum of its parts; otherwise it wouldn't be used. But the meaning of a picture book museum, or fly machine, or language law, though, is still quite clear. But a library has nothing to do with lies or bras, and the last syllable isn't even a valid word. ('Airport's not a good example in English because it actually is a compound word. Contrast with 'sea port'.)
    - foldr 10y ago
      >A compound word has a meaning which is distinct from the sum of its parts Right. That's the point. This clearly shows that Chinese has multisyllabic words. And yes, there are plenty of examples of compounds with meanings that have nothing to do with their components, e.g.: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E7%94%9F https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E7%94%9F But of course, if you already have the preconception that the parts of a compound word are independently meaningful, it's easy to tell yourself some kind of story about how they actually do contribute something to the meaning of the whole. Similarly, there are cranks who insist that particular non-morphemic sound sequences in English carry an independent meaning. It really is amazing how confused people can get by orthography. Chinese has words composed of multiple syllables whose parts are not independently meaningful. Period. Again, this is information that's available all over the place, e.g.: http://www.101languages.net/chinese/morphology.html http://www.101languages.net/chinese/morphology.html Or from Wikipedia: >The number of sounds in the different spoken dialects varies, but in general there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds and so have far more multisyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a thousand, including tonal variation, which is only about an eighth as many as English.[b] Or here: http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-details1.cfm?asklingid=200365409 http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-details1.cfm?asklin...
      - 10y ago