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> the characters where chosen at least partly because of their actual meaning Sure, didn't I say they were in my post? The point was, in a discussion of how w
by fenomas 7y ago
> the characters where chosen at least partly because of their actual meaning
Sure, didn't I say they were in my post?
The point was, in a discussion of how well X predicts Y, it's not very useful to examine a test case where Y came first and X was chosen post-hoc to match it.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago> Sure, didn't I say they were in my post? No, quite the opposite actually ;)
- fenomas 7y ago> the characters got arbitrarily attached to an existing word because they were similar in sound and meaning
- mytailorisrich 7y agoIt does not seem arbitrary in this case because the meaning does match. I do take your point that using that word in the discussion above, which is about Japanese was not the best example. On the other hand, it is a good example in chinese.
- fenomas 7y ago(A) In Japanese the meanings don't match that closely. The word didn't originally mean cute, but rather pathetic or pitiable, and evolved over time. More info: http://gogen-allguide.com/ka/kawaii.html http://gogen-allguide.com/ka/kawaii.html (B) By arbitrary here I mean that there is no linguistic connection. "Arbitrarily chosen because they are similar" => "chosen for no reason other than their similarity".