LL-L "Lexicon" 2005.09.24 (07) [E]

Sun Sep 25 06:11:01 UTC 2005

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From: Gary Taylor <gary_taylor_98 at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L Etymology

Hi all

Gabriele questioned (as regards English having the biggest vocabulary):

"Are you sure? I heard that German had the largest vocabulary, due to all
those composite nouns and verbs, while English is a lot more limited in
that respect."

Being brought up in England, I always heard that English has the biggest
vocabulary, but this was due to the huge amount of scientific words and
concepts.
The vast majority of scientific papers are written in English, and so lots
of terms are simply not
translated into other languages. It could probably be argued that if they
were to be translated then the Germans would create a word or simply borrow
the English word, but until the time that ALL the scientific texts and terms
are translated, then I think English probably does have the largest
vocabulary.

And composite words are basically just separate words put together - so in
my book they don't really count.
Whereas English usually has a single word (admittedly often from a Latin or
Greek compound word which has lost its individual meanings), German in the
past and to a certain extent today tends to translate the composite parts
using common words, which if anything restricts the vocabulary. So words
like 'television' cannot be reduced by the layman into 'tele' and
'vision' so 'television' is a new single word in its own right. However
'Fernseher' is still just a 'fern
Seher' (a 'far seer') using two older words. Thus English has the words
'far' 'seer' and 'television' whereas German has the words 'fern' and
'Seher' which happen to be put together.

But then again are words such as 'word' and 'words' two separate words or
just shadings of the same word?
If they're considered separate words then it could probably be argued that a
highly inflecting language like Turkish or Finnish have one of the largest
vocabularies...

Gary

http://hometown.aol.com/taylor16471/myhomepage/index.html

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From: jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "Lexicon" 2005.09.24 (02) [E]

Dear Ron,

where and when did you grow up??? In any provincial awful hole, 'Kaff',
named 'Hamburg', I fear ;-)?!
> I grew up being told the same, also that "German is the most difficult
> language in the world,"
Just two years older than you I was told English to have the greatest
vocabulary, and , yes German to be *a* difficult language, but not as *the*
most difficult one.

Maybe this indeed was worse in the past, when there still had been
'Suetterlin' as script. A wonderful, aesthetical cursive- but though I did
learn it a little bit I have got great difficulties to read it today.

The 'Neue Rechtschreibung' tries to minimize those awful composite words,
though the reformation of the reformation partly swings back in this case.

Greutens/Regards

Johannes "Jonny" Meibohm

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Lexicon

Hi, Gary and Jonny, jy olen nacht-ulen!

(I promise I won't lapse into Viennese this time, though I am tempted to
address you with Viennese "Oida" instead of the usual Missingsch "Alder,"
Jonny, because I like it better, and the two are used in exactly the same
way.)

Gary, you are talking about two different types of morphology:

(1) Lexical morphology:
This is the system of adding lexicalized morphemes to roots and stems, 
thereby creating new lexical items, i.e., composites that are entered into 
the lexicon of the language.  In other words, the speaker is, under normal 
circumstances, not permitted to "play" with these, to make up new formations 
at will (though we sometimes do this in a jocular fashion when creating 
impromtu "silly," "non-existing" words, such as "mind-blowage" or "monster 
shnozz," while for instance "monster truck" *is* already lexicalized).  New 
composites enter the lexicon gradually  in a process of spread and 
acceptance to common usage.  _Fernseher_ falls into this category, as does 
the English equivalent "television set" and the Low Saxon equivalent
_Puuschenkino_ ("slipper cinema").

(2) Grammatical morphology:
This is the system of adding (usually bound) morphemes to roots and stems in 
the process of grammaticalization.  Your example "words" is a case in point. 
You might argue that "words" is *not* lexicalized (but "word" is), because 
/-z/ is the default pluralization suffix, but irregular plural forms like 
"men," "women," "children," "hooves" and "sheep" *are* lexicalized along 
with their respective singular forms "man," "woman," "child," "hoof" and 
"sheep."  In German, *all* plural forms are definitely lexicalized because 
pluralization is unpredictable.  This grammatical morphology system tends to 
be more extensive in "inflecting" languages, especially in agglutinating 
languages, than in "non-inflecting" languages like English.

For instance, Turkish (< Turkic < Altaic, agglutinating):

Lexical morphology:
göz 'eye'
gözlük* 'eye-glass(es)' [* < ancient -lü-k]
gözlükçü 'seller/maker of eye-glasses'
gözlükçü dükkanı 'eye-glass shop'
(dükkan 'shop' < Iranic)

Grammatical morphology:
göz 'an/the eye' ->
gözler '(the) eyes'
gözlerim 'my eyes'
gözlerimde 'in my eyes'
gözlerimdeki 'that which is in my eyes'
gözlerimdekiler 'those which are in my eyes'
gözlerimdekilere 'to those which are in my eyes'

gözlükçü dükkanı 'an/the eye-glass shop' ->
gözlükçü dükkanında 'in an/the eye-glass shop'
gözlükçü dükkanındaki 'that which is in an/the eye-glass shop'
gözlükçü dükkanındakiler 'those which are in an/the eye-glass shop'
gözlükçü dükkanındakilerden 'from those which are in an/the eye-glass shop'

The grammatical suffixes apply regularly, generally and "neatly" in the same 
way that separate words are used in English to express the same meaning.  In 
the lexical category, there isn't much difference from languages of other 
types; e.g.,

German:
Buch 'book'
Bücher 'books'
Bücherei 'liberary'
Volksbücherei 'public library'
Volksbüchereiwesen 'public library system/program'

Hungarian (< Ugric < Uralic, agglutinating)
könyv 'book'
könyvtár 'library'
közkönyvtár 'public library'
közkönyvtárügy 'public library system/program'

But pluralization applies in the grammatical sphere because in agglutinating 
languages it is quite regular (in this case by means of /-k/ with a 
harmonizing connecting vowel):

könyvek 'books'
könyvtárak 'libraries'
közkönyvtárak 'public libraries'

Jonny, Oida:

> where and when did you grow up??? In any provincial awful hole, 'Kaff',
> named 'Hamburg', I fear ;-)?!

If you say so.  Who could compete with the sophistication and educational 
standards of megacosmopolitan Nordkehdingen?

In Hamburg, yes.  But each one of the persons that imparted all that great 
wisdom was an _Unschuld vom Lande_.  (Living in a big city doesn't 
necessarily mean that you are a savvy city slicker.  My parents were the 
first to be born there, raised by immigrated country and small-town folks 
that remained babes in the woods in a big city.)

Kumpelmenten,
Reinhard/Ron

P.S.:
> Just two years older than you ...

'neem Wult Du dat den vun af-weten, olde snüffel-nees'?  Waar Dy!

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