Re: [Lingo] What's up with online Japanese<->Japanese dictionaries?

["David J Iannucci" <jlinux@example.com>]

>  > > So what I'm wondering is would the Japanese define 補佐官  as one
>  > > word or two.
>  > Two I think, whereas in English many of the XX官 equivalents are one
>  > word. The good JEs such as GG5 have 補佐官, etc.
>
> I'm not sure about that. [....]
>
> I suspect that in Japanese the concept "word" is actually rather
> different from in English; that is the grammar is factored
> differently.

Indeed.... theoretical linguists have been trying to define "word" in a
technical sense forever and have yet to succeed.  Even restricted to a
given language, it can be very difficult, as this discussion shows. But
Steve has expressed it well: the grammar is "factored" differently than
English, and so English-speaking intutions don't necessarily hold.

補佐官 is certainly a compound, and it's the sort that I strongly suspect
works intuitively as a single word for native speakers.

Dave