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From: deb5@woodlawn.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: How bilingual people choose a language
Message-ID: <1994Dec10.012805.8163@midway.uchicago.edu>
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References: <3a9ddd$895@netnews.upenn.edu> <3bfv3e$9vk@agate.berkeley.edu> <3bmaag$scl@panix3.panix.com>
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 01:28:05 GMT
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In article <3bmaag$scl@panix3.panix.com> tsai@panix.com (Kevin Tsai) writes:

>Maybe. Chinese languages are not inflected, so it doesn't really make
>sense to inflect words.

Well, to be picky, it "doesn't really make sense" to drop random words
from one language into another.  Among English-speaking friends in
Germany, we would sometimes do this for comic effect or because we
couldn't remember the proper word, but many bilingual speakers do it
literally without noticing.

And as far as Chinese goes, I had Cantonese-speaking friends who would
sometimes use English language inflections *while speaking Chinese*!
For example, they would sometimes tack "-ing" onto a Chinese verb in
a Chinese sentence.

I must admit, I thought this was totally bizarre when they first told
me about this.

Leung Daai-man
-- 
	Daniel "Da" von Brighoff (deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /\
	5242 S. Hyde Park Blvd., Apt. 303		    /__\
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