Patrick Chew wrote:

>
> At 02:56 PM 12/13/2003, Peter Daniels wrote:
> >Bill Bright claims that the famous three-syllable character for
> >'library' (transcribed tushuguan in Hockett 2003 and Mair, WWS) exists
> >almost exclusively to demonstrate that at least one three-syllable
> >character exists. Can you confirm or deny?
>
> Three-character/morpheme/grapheme/syllable word...
>
> If broken down to constituent parts by individual characters (let
> numbers = tone marks):
>
> tu2 = illustration/drawing/map
> shu1 = writing/book
> guan3 = building/hall
>
> However, tu2shu1 is a compound comprising 'printed materials' (of
> which the majority were books and illustrations. Constituent compounding
> would be as follows:
>
> [[[tu][shu]]guan]
>
> This singular *lexical item* is not written with a single
> character/logogram/morphogram/etc.

So what is the character illustrated by Hockett and Mair, chopped liver?

Or are you actually confirming Bill's statement, by implying that you've
never seen it used in text?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...