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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=IT link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Dear Colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>thank you very much for this interesting discussion.</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>I would like to add a reference about the European writing and word-division tradition, a paper which deals with measures of spaces in medieval manuscripts:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Bronner, Dagmar, Busch, Nathanael, Fleischer, Jürg and Poppe, Erich. "(Non-)separation of words in early medieval Irish and German manuscripts and the concept “word”". <i>Empirical Approaches to the Phonological Structure of Words</i>, edited by Christiane Ulbrich, Alexander Werth and Richard Wiese, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018, pp. 45-70. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110542899-003">https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110542899-003</a></span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>On a different issue, in order to explain to my students how, broadly speaking, the abjad writing system works, I have tried to write Italian sentences omitting grammatical morphemes (which may be word-final vowels, for example) and the result is in many cases comprehensible to a native speaker (while it would hardly if omitting vowels altogether). This exercise (writing one’s own language using a different writing system or a given convention) could perhaps also a be a useful experiment, albeit not simple to pursue, with speakers, readers and writers of different languages. It would probably tell more about writing and reading than about wordhood, though, as in the case of written borrowings. The issue of the separation of units is also very much relevant to word processors and spell-checkers, I suppose.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>All the Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:14.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'>Elisa <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Elisa Roma<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Associate professor of Linguistics<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Università di Pavia<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>elisa.roma@unipv.it<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;mso-fareast-language:EN-US'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Da:</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt'> Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org> <b>Per conto di </b>David Gil<br><b>Inviato:</b> lunedì 29 novembre 2021 12.29<br><b>A:</b> lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org<br><b>Oggetto:</b> Re: [Lingtyp] Folk definition of “word”<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p>Dear all,<span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p></o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>On 29/11/2021 12:11, Guillaume Jacques wrote:<o:p></o:p></p></div><blockquote style='margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><div><p class=MsoNormal>[...] <o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>On a related topic, some ancient languages such as Ugaritic and Old Persian had word separators other than space.<o:p></o:p></p></div></div></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>And some very modern languages too. Here are some texts from my Indonesian SMS corpus, dating from the early 2000s, when semi-literate speakers began writing their colloquial varieties of Indonesian for the very first time, and were inventing orthographic conventions on the fly (Gil 2004,2020). <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>In (1) the speaker uses a full stop for word boundaries, and a question mark for sentence boundaries. In (2) the speaker uses a full stop for word boundaries and upper case for the beginning of the next word (though I suspect the latter was produced automatically by the mobile phone's texting software). in (3) the speaker uses a comma for word boundaries. And in (4) the speaker uses a plus sign. What these examples show is that in spite of numerous deviations from the orthographic conventions of Standard Indonesian (many of which reflect particular phonological properties of the respective dialects), the speakers experienced a strong drive to represent word boundaries in one way or another.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span dir=RTL></span><span dir=RTL></span><span lang=AR-SA dir=RTL style='color:black'><span dir=RTL></span><span dir=RTL></span> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='color:black'>(1) </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='color:black'>Dapit?ini.no.mama.adi?klu.mau.kirim.pls.no.ini.ya.pit?</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span dir=RTL></span><span dir=RTL></span><span lang=AR-SA dir=RTL><span dir=RTL></span><span dir=RTL></span> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='color:black'>(2) Pit.Sori.Yah.Pian.Antar.Teman.Nyjum.Dulu.Kasian.Ama.Dia.Yah.Pian.Kaga.Bawa.Hape.Takut.Ada.Jambret.Hp.Di.Taro.Di.Rumah.Pian.Kaga.Aptipin.Dulu.Yah.Jangan.Marah.Soalnya.Kalaw.Pian.Idupin.Kasian.Ama.Sodara.Pian.Dia.Udah.Tidur.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span dir=RTL></span><span dir=RTL></span><span lang=AR-SA dir=RTL><span dir=RTL></span><span dir=RTL></span> </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='color:black'>(3)</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='color:black'>Terus,gimana,aku,disining,tak,mungkin,bang,rudi,menanggung,makanku,disini,sampai,kamu,sampai,dipakan,vid.bls.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'>(4)<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'><span lang=EN-US style='color:black'>Pit+kalao+udah+siyam+kerja+tlp+aku+ya+pit+</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=referencest><span lang=EN-US>Gil, David (2004) "Learning About Language from Your Handphone; <i>dan, and </i>and <i>&</i> in SMSs from the Siak River Basin", in Katharina Endriati Sukatmo ed., <i>Kolita 2, Konferensi Linguistik Tahunan Atma Jaya, </i>Pusat Kajian Bahasa dan Budaya, Unika Atma Jaya, Jakarta, 57-61.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;margin-left:27.0pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:-27.0pt'>Gil, David (2020) "What Does It Mean to Be an Isolating Language? The Case of Riau Indonesian", in D. Gil and A. Schapper eds., <i>Austronesian Undressed: How and Why Languages Become Isolating</i>, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 9-96.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto'> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><br><br><o:p></o:p></span></p><pre>-- <o:p></o:p></pre><pre>David Gil<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>Senior Scientist (Associate)<o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution<o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology<o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre><pre>Email: <a href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a><o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713<o:p></o:p></pre><pre>Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091<o:p></o:p></pre><pre><o:p> </o:p></pre></div></body></html>