Incorporation (was: Re: animate _wa-_)

[Koontz John E]

On Wed, 7 Jan 2004, Heike Bödeker wrote:
> Well, how the orthography reform came into being was a very dubious
> process which had a lot to do with politics, but less so with linguistic
> insights, not to speak of a concern for folk linguistics. Ironically,
> these rules have been criticized exactly because they completely ignore
> that German does have incorporation.

So does English, though to a different extent.  One of the most difficult
spelling problems in English is determining how to write given compound
properly, as a single, a hyphenated form, or as two words.  It doesn't
make any difference at all what the intonation pattern (or your instincts)
might be, you have to follow the dictionary or some equally arbitrary
organization or profession-specific set of rules.