Melbourne Papers In Linguistics, Volume 18, (1999). pp. 19-34.
Language:
English
Abstract:
Hmong is currently in the process of establishment as a written language. Following directly from large-scale refugee immigration from Laos to western countries, Hmong people are working on standardization issues such as choice of standard dialect & script, details of orthography including spelling, & the identification of word boundaries. Hmong being an isolating language, this last is primarily a question of the recognition & lexicalisation of compounds. My thesis in this paper is that a study of word boundaries as found in casual writing provides a useful contribution to assessing which compounds are recognised as such by speakers. I present a dataset of words found written as compounds & compare them with a theoretical analysis of compound types by Ratliff, towards an assessment of which theoretical categories have psychological validity for speakers. This work could be useful in establishing a basis for decisions about this aspect of written Hmong. 3 Tables, 2 Appendixes, 7 References. Adapted from the source document