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NL-KR Digest Volume 04 No. 57
NL-KR Digest (6/03/88 17:15:36) Volume 4 Number 57
Today's Topics:
Re: Language and Science
Re: hope vs. wish (was Re: Language and Science)
Submissions: NL-KR@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
Requests, policy: NL-KR-REQUEST@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 May 88 08:53 EDT
From: Bing Liu <bing@edai.ed.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <1976@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> matloff@iris.UUCP (Norm Matloff) writes:
>In article <2089@ur-tut.UUCP> wcsh@ur-tut (W. Sheng) writes:
>
>> Since the English are more particular at the single word
>>level, the meaning of single English words is more certain than
>>the Chinese words at the single word level. In other words, in
>>order to get the same degree of certainty, the Chinese word
>>requires to be put at a higher level of linguistic context, the
>>sentence or the discourse. This means when people communicate in
>>Chinese, they are required to share a comparatively broader
>>linguistic context. This may cause an English speaker to feel the
>>Chinese language ambiguous, or not precise.
>> Is this trait of Chinese "scientific" or not? Any comment?
>
>Let me use the following as an example: The words "maybe" and
>"probably". Chinese does allow one to distinguish between these
>two concepts if one is anxious to do so, but in most Chinese
>conversation this distinction is not made. In fact, if anyone
I (from Mainland China) do know the difference between the word "maybe"
and the word "probably". What should I say ?????????? I don't know.
>"Is it true that parents usually think their kids are not as smart
>as the kids themselves think they are?"
> .......
>translated it as "Fu4 mu3 yi3 wei4 xiao3 hai2 hen3 ben4", i.e.
>"Parents mistakenly think their kids are stupid", which is of course
>quite different.
Personally, I don't think this is a convincing example that Chinese is
less precise. If you had asked me, I would not have translate your friend's
question that way. Everyone can see those two sentences are quite different.
>I'm sure that many netters will respond to this by giving examples
>of things in Chinese that are imprecisely translated in English.
>I agree that there are many of these. E.g. I think the word "li4 hai"
This (li4 hai) is a nice one. You do need "border linguistic context"
to understand it because it is very much context dependent. Even Chinese
people in Taiwan cannot understand what we (from Mainland) mean by "li4 Hai4"
since its meaning has been greatly expanded since they left. It expresses
something that is far from ordinary. It can have both possitive meaning and
negetive meaning. It also depends on the way you say it (I mean the tone).
Again, personally, I do feel that big ambiguous does exist in the old
Chinese language (Wen Yan Wen). That is perhaps also why the poetries and
essayes from those old days are so bueatiful because they open up your
mind and then leave you with so much space to imagine.
Modern Chinese is quite different and I have not noticed that it is less
procise than English, although I cannot say there is no inheritance.
My conclusion is that I have not made a conlusion.
Bing Liu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 May 88 21:32 EDT
From: "Yu Wang, who goes by Wang" <wang@hpscad.dec.com>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
Norm Matloff writes:
> Let me use the following as an example: The words "maybe" and
> "probably". ... in most Chinese
> conversation [no] distinction is ... made.
A similar example is the words "possibility" and "probability".
In everyday Chinese (not technical literature), both are translated
as "Ke Neng Xing". However, there is fine distinction between
these two English words that, apparently, is not lost on native
English speakers, who would say, "Is there any possibility?" but
not, "Is there any probability?"
Another example that came to mind is the two words "hope" and "wish".
Most Chinese understand these words by the Chinese "Xi Wang." There
is a difference between "This is my hope" and "This is my wish" in
English. But a Chinese reader would usually fail to notice it.
>Here's one for you (one of my favorites): The phrase "li2 pu3".
>How would you translate that? I would roughly translate it as
>meaning "far beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior".
Well, a perfect translation here may be an improbable (impossible?)
task. But let me try. How about "out of line" or "way out of line"?
I hope (wish?), in most contexts, this translation is not too "li pu"
or "out of line".
:-)
Yu Wang
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 May 88 12:41 EDT
From: Ed Lai <lai@Apple.COM>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <98@edai.ed.ac.uk> bing@edai (Bing Liu) writes:
>>In article <2089@ur-tut.UUCP> wcsh@ur-tut (W. Sheng) writes:
>>
>>> Since the English are more particular at the single word
>>>level, the meaning of single English words is more certain than
>>>the Chinese words at the single word level. In other words, in
>
>
> Again, personally, I do feel that big ambiguous does exist in the old
>Chinese language (Wen Yan Wen). That is perhaps also why the poetries and
>essayes from those old days are so bueatiful because they open up your
>mind and then leave you with so much space to imagine.
> Modern Chinese is quite different and I have not noticed that it is less
>procise than English, although I cannot say there is no inheritance.
>
I think the above paragraph by Mr Liu hits the target at the perfect spot. It
is hard to argue with the statement that at a single word level, the meaning
of English words is more specific. However in modern Chinese, we very seldom use
single Chinese word. Most of the times, we use phrases that are usually
combination of two characters. The Chinese word is just not the equivalent of
an English word, the Chinese word is the equivalent of the root of an English
word.
It make sense to consider two Chinese character to be the equivalent of one
English word. If we consider an English word to average 6 characters, then
half an English words with 3 letters can have 26x26x26=17576 combinations
(of course not all of them actually exists), that would be in the same ball
park of the few thousand Chinese characters that we generally use.
Another interesting piece of indirect evidence is from the paper "Using Zipf's
law to analyse the rank frequency distribution of elements in Chinese Text" by
J.L.Clark, K.T.Lua, J.McCallum in Proceedings of 1986 Intl. Conf. on Chinese
Computing. Zipf's rank frequency law is supposed to hold for a variety of
phenomenon and in particluar in most of the natural languages. In this paper it
was reported that single Chinese characters does not conform to Zipf's law,
however the regression analysuis implies a good degree of conformity if
compound words (phrases) are used.
/* Disclaimer: All statments and opinions expressed are my own */
/* Edmund K. Lai */
/* Apple Computer, MS22-C */
/* 20525 Mariani Ave, */
/* Cupertino, CA 95014 */
/* (408)973-6272 */
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 May 88 15:35 EDT
From: Norm Matloff <matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <8805270132.AA19753@decwrl.dec.com> wang@hpscad.dec.com (Yu Wang, who goes by Wang) writes:
>Another example that came to mind is the two words "hope" and "wish".
>Most Chinese understand these words by the Chinese "Xi Wang." There
>is a difference between "This is my hope" and "This is my wish" in
>English.
Yes, I forgot about this one; an excellent example. By the way, I
think in the Latin languages (French, Spanish, etc.), "hope" and "expect"
are identical, which can cause some real conversational problems. :-)
>>Here's one for you (one of my favorites): The phrase "li2 pu3".
>>How would you translate that? I would roughly translate it as
>>meaning "far beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior".
> How about "out of line" or "way out of line"?
Yes, I think "way out of line" is a near-perfect translation.
Norm
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 May 88 17:52 EDT
From: Norm Matloff <matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <11132@apple.Apple.Com> lai@apple.UUCP (Ed Lai) writes:
>is hard to argue with the statement that at a single word level, the meaning
>of English words is more specific. However in modern Chinese, we very seldom use
>single Chinese word. Most of the times, we use phrases that are usually
>combination of two characters.
At least in my articles, I was certainly not making a restriction
to single characters. For example, I mentioned multicharacter
"words" such as "li4 hai", "li2 pu3", "da4 gai4", "ke3 neng2", etc.
In fact, I was not making a restriction even to single sentences.
What I was referring to more in the direction of the degree of
precision which speakers (of the various languages) feel is necessary
in conversation, unrelated to the number of characters needed to
express something.
In fact, in terms of number of characters needed to express oneself,
I did say that Chinese was highly efficient, at least relative to
English. In fact, one of the reasons is related to something Ed
pointed out too, namely the highly extensive use of compound "words".
I think that Chinese translations of English books tend to be much
thinner, supporting this hypothesis of compactness of Chinese.
Norm
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 May 88 19:26 EDT
From: Phil Windley <windley@iris.ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <8805270132.AA19753@decwrl.dec.com> wang@hpscad.dec.com (Yu Wang, who goes by Wang) writes:
>A similar example is the words "possibility" and "probability".
>In everyday Chinese (not technical literature), both are translated
>as "Ke Neng Xing". However, there is fine distinction between
>these two English words that, apparently, is not lost on native
>English speakers, who would say, "Is there any possibility?" but
>not, "Is there any probability?"
There is more than a "fine" distinction here; there is a LARGE distinction.
If you know anything about statistical thermodynamics, there is a
possibility that all the oxygen in the air in a room will be in one corner
and the nitrogen in the other, but the probability is VERY close to zero.
If something is possible, then we can say that the probability of the event
is not 0, but we can say nothing else about it.
Phil Windley | windley@iris.ucdavis.edu
Robotics Research Lab | ucbvax!ucdavis!iris!windley
University of California, Davis |
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 May 88 23:32 EDT
From: Scott Horne <shorne@citron>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
From article <2097@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>, by matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff):
> In article <8805270132.AA19753@decwrl.dec.com> wang@hpscad.dec.com (Yu Wang, who goes by Wang) writes:
>
>>Another example that came to mind is the two words "hope" and "wish".
>>Most Chinese understand these words by the Chinese "Xi Wang." There
>>is a difference between "This is my hope" and "This is my wish" in
>>English.
>
> Yes, I forgot about this one; an excellent example. By the way, I
> think in the Latin languages (French, Spanish, etc.), "hope" and "expect"
> are identical, which can cause some real conversational problems. :-)
I'll speak for Spanish: you're partially right. If I say, "Espero que
usted venga," it's unclear whether I mean "I hope you will come" or "I'm
expecting you to come." (In fact, the verb "esperar" means both `to hope'
and `to wait [for]'. "I'm waiting for you to come" would indicate that
the speaker is absolutely convinced that the listener will come and that
he wants the listener to come.)
However, the subjunctive mood is very much alive in Spanish, as in
other Romance languages. To express emotion in Spanish, one uses the
subjunctive. "I expect" does not imply any emotion: the speaker merely
states that he believes that something will occur. "I hope" shows emotion,
of course. A common construction meaning "I hope that ...." is
!Ojala' que ....!
Lit., "May Allah want/cause .... to occur." (This is a good example of the
influence of Arabic culture on the Spanish language.) "I hope you will come"
would usually be translated "!Ojala' que usted venga!" in Spanish, thereby
removing the ambiguity.
I'd be interested in hearing from speakers of other Romance languages about
the translations of "I hope" / "I wish" in their languages. Particularly
interesting to me would be to hear from a speaker of Portuguese (I can
understand Portuguese, but I can't speak it), who could tell me whether or
not something similar to "!Ojala' que ....!" exists in Portuguese.
--Scott Horne
BITNET: PHORNE@CLEMSON
uucp: ....!gatech!hubcap!scarle!{hazel,citron,amber}!shorne
(If that doesn't work, send to cchang@hubcap.clemson.edu)
SnailMail: Scott Horne
812 Eleanor Dr.
Florence, SC 29501
VoiceNet: 803 667-9848
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 28 May 88 01:59 EDT
From: Edward C. Kwok <ekwok@cadev4.intel.com>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <8805270132.AA19753@decwrl.dec.com> wang@hpscad.dec.com (Yu Wang, who goes by Wang) writes:
>
>A similar example is the words "possibility" and "probability".
>In everyday Chinese (not technical literature), both are translated
>as "Ke Neng Xing". However, there is fine distinction between
>these two English words that, apparently, is not lost on native
>English speakers, who would say, "Is there any possibility?" but
>not, "Is there any probability?"
I don't agree. To translate anything effectively, you need not only
a syntax translation, you need also the semantics. If you know that
a distinction in meaning is required (a semantic issue), you'll
keep it in the translation. In your example, I will use 'Ke neng' and
'Shum yao ke neng' to make the distinction.
>
>Another example that came to mind is the two words "hope" and "wish".
>Most Chinese understand these words by the Chinese "Xi Wang." There
>is a difference between "This is my hope" and "This is my wish" in
>English. But a Chinese reader would usually fail to notice it.
>
Again, it will be 'Xi Wang' and 'Muong Xiang' (kind of a dream, literally).
>>Here's one for you (one of my favorites): The phrase "li2 pu3".
>>How would you translate that? I would roughly translate it as
>>meaning "far beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior".
>
In this particular situation, I find the literal translation actually
the best - 'off beat' (actually, literally it is 'not going by the
score' - not bad in itself). And it will a classic understatement!
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 28 May 88 11:47 EDT
From: Alex Colvin <mac3n@babbage.acc.virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
Didn't Leibnitz have a similar argument that German was better for
scientific discourse than Latin? Maybe it was because Principia was
published in Latin
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 28 May 88 17:54 EDT
From: Rich Wales <wales@valeria.cs.ucla.edu>
Subject: Re: hope vs. wish (was Re: Language and Science)
In article <2097@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> matloff@iris.UUCP (Norm Matloff)
writes:
In article <8805270132.AA19753@decwrl.dec.com> wang@hpscad.dec.com
(Yu Wang, who goes by Wang) writes:
Another example that came to mind is the two words "hope" and
"wish". Most Chinese understand these words by the Chinese
"Xi Wang." There is a difference between "This is my hope" and
"This is my wish" in English.
Yes, I forgot about this one; an excellent example. By the way, I
think in the Latin languages (French, Spanish, etc.), "hope" and
"expect" are identical, which can cause some real conversational
problems. :-)
Lots of non-native English speakers get tripped up with "I wish", as in
"I wish I were a millionaire". "I wish" indicates a desire for a
contrary-to-fact situation that the speaker considers unlikely to become
real. Contrast this with "I hope I become a millionaire"; in this case,
the speaker views the idea as something that realistically could happen.
Note also that "I wish" requires, in the subordinate clause, a subjunc-
tive/conditional verb form (here, "I were") which for almost all verbs
is identical to the past tense form. "I hope", on the other hand, usu-
ally takes a verb form in the simple present tense (here, "I become") --
the meaning of which is actually in the future (compare with "It is my
hope that I will one day become a millionaire"). For that matter, "I
hope" can sometimes take a regular future form (e.g., "I hope I'll see
you again", meaning the same as "I hope I see you again"). Given the
difficulties Chinese speakers seem to have with English verb forms in
general, I'd expect most of them to be utterly bewildered by the forms
we require with "I wish" and "I hope".
In Romanian (a Romance language), there is no direct translation for the
English "I wish". The two circumlocutions for "I wish" which I've heard
are "ar fi bun daca~ . . ." ("it would be good if . . .") and "regret
ca~ nu . . ." ("I'm sorry that" followed by a negative clause; "nu"
means "no" or "not"). For example, "I wish he thought I was beautiful"
could be either of the following:
Ar fi bun daca~ ar crede ca~ si^nt frumoasa~.
("It would be good if he would believe that I am beautiful.")
Regret ca~ nu crede ca~ si^nt frumoasa~.
("I'm sorry that he does not believe that I am beautiful.")
"I hope", on the other hand, is straightforward: "sper ca~" (with the
second clause generally in the future tense).
The "a~" in the above fragments represents a special Romanian letter
which looks like an A with a breve (U-like "short sign") on top and
sounds roughly like the English "short U" as in "cut". The "i^"
represents an I with a circumflex accent on top, which sounds like the
Russian "bI" ("yeri") letter -- lips spread, tongue held back.
Around the time of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, I saw a brief in-
terview with the legendary Romanian gymnast Nadia Coma~neci (and, no
matter what you may have heard from a zillion and one sportscasters, her
last name is pronounced "koh-muh-NETCH", *not* "koh-muh-NEECH"). The
interview was in English; Nadia's English was passable, though by no
means effortless or fluent. Replying to the interviewer's question of
whether watching the gymnasts performing made her think about maybe
coming out of retirement and competing herself once again, Nadia replied
"I hope"; it was obvious from the context, though, that she really meant
"I wish".
My Romanian is rather rusty, by the way. If there's anyone out there
who feels he/she can improve on my examples above, please go ahead.
-- Rich Wales // UCLA CS Dept // wales@CS.UCLA.EDU // +1 (213) 825-5683
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024-1596 // USA
...!(ucbvax,rutgers)!ucla-cs!wales ...!uunet!cs.ucla.edu!wales
"Zounds! A Gorkon death station appears! Evasive action!"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 May 88 13:23 EDT
From: Norm Matloff <matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <2294@mipos3.intel.com> ekwok@cadev4.UUCP (Edward C. Kwok) writes:
>In article <8805270132.AA19753@decwrl.dec.com> wang@hpscad.dec.com (Yu Wang, who goes by Wang) writes:
>>
>>Another example that came to mind is the two words "hope" and "wish".
>>Most Chinese understand these words by the Chinese "Xi Wang." There
>>is a difference between "This is my hope" and "This is my wish" in
>>English. But a Chinese reader would usually fail to notice it.
>>
>
>Again, it will be 'Xi Wang' and 'Muong Xiang' (kind of a dream, literally).
At least in my experience, people speaking Chinese do not make such
a distinction, so I have to agree with Yu Wang. Also, again the
question is not whether it is *possible* to make a distinction, but
whether people think it is important to do so.
>>>Here's one for you (one of my favorites): The phrase "li2 pu3".
>>>How would you translate that? I would roughly translate it as
>>>meaning "far beyond the bounds of reasonable behavior".
>In this particular situation, I find the literal translation actually
>the best - 'off beat' (actually, literally it is 'not going by the
>score' - not bad in itself). And it will a classic understatement!
I don't think "off beat" is very accurate. Actually, your literal
translation captures the spirit better, although as you say, it
doesn't have nearly as strong an impact as it should. :-)
BTW, in a conversation over the weekend, my wife and another Chinese
person got into a debate as to which -- if any -- of "da4 gai4"
and "ke3 neng2" meant "maybe", and they finally decided that Chinese
really doesn't distinguish between them. Certainly that is consistent
with most Chinese dictionaries I've seen.
Norm
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 88 04:20 EDT
From: Celso Alvarez <sp202-ad@garnet.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <1769@hubcap.UUCP> shorne@citron writes:
>To express emotion in Spanish, one uses the subjunctive.
Clarification: the subjunctive is required in subordinate
clauses after a class of verbs of volition and belief
("querer", "dudar", "esperar"...). The subjunctive does not
express emotion by itself (e.g. *"yo te quiera" neither
is grammatical nor it means 'I love you').
>"I expect" does not imply any emotion: the speaker merely
>states that he believes that something will occur.
>"I hope" shows emotion, of course.
Contradiction here. "I expect" ("Espero que...") doesn't imply
any emotion BUT it takes subjunctive. So?
>A common construction meaning "I hope that..." is "Ojala' que..."
>(...) a speaker of Portuguese who could tell me whether or
>not something similar to "!Ojala' que ....!" exists in Portuguese.
It does: " Oxala'..." Port. "x" here is pronounced like Eng. "sh".
C.A. ( sp202-ad@garnet.berkeley.edu.UUCP )
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 88 16:10 EDT
From: Chris Redmond <credmond@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Subject: Re: Language and Science
In article <2097@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> matloff@iris.UUCP (Norm Matloff) writes:
>think in the Latin languages (French, Spanish, etc.), "hope" and "expect"
>are identical, which can cause some real conversational problems. :-)
>
This synonymy is made more complicated by the two subtly different
meanings of "expect". The word is quite different in these two
sentences:
I expect you to be here by eight o'clock.
I expect him to be here by eight o'clock.
Enthusiasts of history will remember Nelson's famous flag signal
before Trafalgar: "England expects that every man will do his duty."
It is said that he originally composed the message as "England confides
that . . . ", using "confide" in the now obsolete sense "is confident",
and was asked to switch to "expect" because there was an easy flag
symbol for it, whereas "confide" had to be spelled out.
------------------------------
End of NL-KR Digest
*******************
