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Re: [edict-jmdict] Verb Compounds

Hi Jim,

Please understand that in this suggestion as well as in others I was in no
way trying to disenfranchise Edict or your efforts accordingly. Quite to the
contrary, Edict is a project I deem most worthy and to which I hope to
contribute in the very near future, again as per another email to Paul. You,
Jime, Paul, Stu and yes even Jim Rose (with whom I have had some righteous
disagreements), Ben Bullick et. al. are for me a worthy inspiration to be
even better. I hope that I'm am not being too terribly maudlin here.

Regarding: "Another good source of representative ones is the section on
compound verbs in McClure's "Using Japanese" (which I think is an excellent
book.) He lists a mass of them, categorized by common ending verbs (過ぎる, 直す,
始める, etc.) and starting verb roots (打ち, 売り, 追い, etc.) He also comments: "As
a rule students of Japanese do not use verbal compounds enough."

McClure's sentiments echo mine. In all fairness to students of Japanese,
verbal compounds are difficult to get a handle on. They take time before
they become intuitive.

"One of my must-do items is to go through McClure's list and check they are
all covered."

I would be more than happy to go through this list, if you think it would
benefit Edict in some way.

My email to Paul regarding lessons learned from organic chemistry in
application to language acquisition will be forwarded to you. Please be
advised it is terribly nebulous, only the concrete being in the materials I
have developed over the years. No intent to be secretive here. What I have I
shall more than be happy to share. Unfortunately all that I can share is
mere theory.

All the best,

Dennis

On 1/29/07, Jim Breen <Jim.Breen@infotech.monash.edu.au> wrote:


  [Dennis Schrader (Re: [edict-jmdict] Verb Compounds) writes:]
>> Yes, Jim, you are indeed correct. Edict does have more verb compounds
than
>> ALC, Google or Yahoo on-line dictionaries.

Well, I'm not sure about that. Paul's comment was to do with the ratio.
Certainly Eijiro (ALC) seems to have quite a lot, especially if you just
look at the roots.

>> And, yes, the number of possible
>> verb compounds is virtually infinite and would quickly bloat Edict,
hence my
>> allusion to the early days of my Japanese study when I "swallowed them
>> whole" (memorizing many very compounds). What I guess I was hoping for
was a
>> representative inclusion of verb compounds, from which one could
extrapolate
>> a "feeling" for how to compose them "on the fly".

Indeed. One thing I did some years ago was to go through the book
"Handbook of Japanese compound verbs" by Yoshiko Tagashira (1986,
Hokuseido Press), and make sure I had all the verbs listed there

Another good source of representative ones is the section on compound
verbs in McClure's "Using Japanese" (which I think is an excellent book.)
He lists a mass of them, categorized by common ending verbs (過ぎる,
直す, 始める, etc.) and starting verb roots (打ち, 売り, 追い, etc.) He
also comments: "As a rule students of Japanese do not use verbal
compounds enough."

One of my must-do items is to go through McClure's list and check they
are all covered.

>> Tangentially, what might also be helpful and what I proposed to Paul is
the
>> replacement of sentences with phrases. Phrases are far easier to
collect
>> than example sentences, most of which in Edict are simple morphs of one

>> another.

That sounds like another whole project. If there were a set of worked
phrases that could be indexed it could be linked at the server level
to dictionary entries, as we do now with the Tanakas. Something like a
[Use] or [Phr] link.

>> If you wish, I could send you a copy of my email to Paul about how the
>> learning of grammatically intact phrases, connected like rail cars,
yield a
>> grammatically correct whole, i.e. the entire freight train, if you
will. In
>> short and somewhat disparagingly, parrots memorize and spit out
sentences on
>> cue.

I'd like a copy, thanks. Is it something that could go in a WWW page?

Jim

--
Jim Breen http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Clayton School of Information Technology, Tel: +61 3 9905 9554
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia Fax: +61 3 9905 5146
(Monash Provider No. 00008C) ジム・ブリーン@モナシュ大学