Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!nntp.sei.cmu.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!news.iag.net!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!news-feed-1.peachnet.edu!gatech!ncar!uchinews!ellis!deb5
From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Korean and Japanese (was Scots and English (was: Re: Flemish and Dutch))
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: midway.uchicago.edu
Message-ID: <D9FKJ4.oJ@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator)
Reply-To: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: The University of Chicago
References: <3nqtn1$b7v@bertha.gssec.bt.co.uk> <johna.59.000BD048@tiny.me.su.oz.au> <3q4ush$kp1@agate.berkeley.edu> <3q8ktt$9m@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>
Date: Wed, 31 May 1995 06:54:40 GMT
Lines: 27

In article <3q8ktt$9m@tardis.trl.OZ.AU>,
Jacques Guy <jbm@newsserver.trl.oz.au> wrote:
>patchew@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Patrick Chew) writes:
>
>>Ofttimes, when I do translations between Mongolian, 
>>Manchu, Korean and Japanese, it's morpheme-for-morpheme in most cases.
>
>Yes, their respective word-orders are mostly identical. And further,
>you can even lump Hindi with Japanese, on the grounds that it also uses 
>postpositions and is verb-final, all in all, a word order very similar
>to Japanese, Korean, etc!  Thus syntax is shown to be worthless
>for meaningful classification.
>
For meaningful *genetic* classification.  This is far from the only
useful way to classify languages.

In the future, please try to follow the thread for a bit before posting.
The entire point of the original article was that it is shared lexicon
alone, and not topological or morphological similarities, that proves
genetic relationship between languages.



-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
