Re: PTD was the most-respected of the AUE regulars ...

On 2024-07-26, Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

On Thu, 25 Jul 2024 12:41:13 -0700, HenHanna <HenHanna@devnull.tb>

      The instance I remember most was when he (PTD) opined that Most
Chinese words consisted of 2 Chinese characters.

It's not wrong just because PTD said it.  Over on Language Log, the
eminent sinologist Victor Mair also keeps pointing out that the
Chinese thinking that a Chinese character/syllable equals a word
is just not true and that most of the Chinese lexicon is made from
a combinations of two morphemes and rendered in two characters.

In his own field he had some useful information, but outside his field
he could be very dogmatic about things that he simply got wrong.

But what _is_ PTD's area of actual expertise?  Writing systems, I
guess, supported by the fact that he co-edited a book on the topic?
Semitic languages, maybe--or am I already misled by my own total
ignorance there?

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber                          naddy@mips.inka.de