Re: [tlug] radicals and graphemes

["Michael Engel" <mkengel@example.com>]

On 4/21/06, Jake Morrison <jake@example.com> wrote:
> It seems like by the linguistics definition of grapheme, they
> mean the whole character. But the character can be composed of
> differnent common pieces, one of which is the radical, which
> has been "blessed".

No, they don't mean the whole character. They mean the smallest
functional unity.
But as usual, there are three positions for every two people so you
certainly find different oppinions what the smallest functional units
are.

Some people consider each of the different strokes as smallest units,
other people consider some combinations of them as smallest units.

There are investigations underway what a person not knowing Kanji
would recognize as an unit and use these as graphems.

So, every access tool would need to address the different needs of
beginners and not-beginners and Japanese/Chinese, i.e., being mostly
mixtures of radicals and smaller units.

And the two tools of Professor Tanaka-Ishii and Hans-Joerg Bibiko are
tools which should facilitate the access to the character which is
searched.

Cheers

Someone