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Article #2510Re: Infinite alphabets - (Turing via Berke)
From: David Feldman
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1987 15:17
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1987 15:17
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In <8583@shemp.UCLA.EDU>, Peter asks: >By Turing's above remarks, I think by his definition, Chinese cannot >succeed at having an enumerable infinity of symbols. It can only >"attempt" to have them. Unless you "go down a level" and consider >"things that make up" Chinese symbols "the symbols." Then, there >must be a finite number of them. Does anyone know if this is true >about Chinese? It would seem that even in English it does not apply to > >Peter Berke Chinese characters are by and large composed of 'radicals' which have base meanings. These meanings are not necessarily related to the meanings of the characters that are composed of the radicals, but they sometimes do. For instance, the question particle 'ma' has the 'ko' radical which is associated with the mouth. And indeed, there is a finite number of radicals. I have a couple of sheets describing them. Anything component of a character that is not a radical can be classified as a stroke, and there are specific kinds of strokes also. Dave Feldman david@linc.cis.upenn.edu
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!rutgers!super.upenn.edu!linc.cis.upenn.edu!david From: david@linc.cis.upenn.edu (David Feldman) Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.ai,comp.ai.neural-nets Subject: Re: Infinite alphabets - (Turing via Berke) Message-ID: <2177@super.upenn.edu> Date: Wed, 14-Oct-87 11:17:47 EDT Article-I.D.: super.2177 Posted: Wed Oct 14 11:17:47 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 16-Oct-87 00:48:26 EDT References: <154@Aragorn.UUCP> <114400001@exunido.UUCP> <364@su-russell.ARPA> <17@krafla.UUCP> <8583@shemp.UCLA.EDU> Sender: news@super.upenn.edu Reply-To: david@linc.cis.upenn.edu.UUCP (David Feldman) Distribution: na Organization: University of Pennsylvania Lines: 22 Summary: Chinese written language (Zhong wen)