Re: [Lingo] 黒犬 vs. 黒い犬

[steve <sjs@example.com>]

On 09/01/2017 01:44 AM, Jim Breen wrote:
> On 1 September 2017 at 14:28, Stephen J. Turnbull
> <turnbull.stephen.fw@example.com> wrote:
> > My guess is that translate has a rule based on phonology.  (For those
> > who don't know much technical linguistics, phonetics is stuff like
> > "English doesn't have the glottal stop 'small tsu', Japanese does, but
> > it doesn't have 'l'."  Phonology explains how sounds combine.  For
> > example, in pluralization in English you "add s" in spelling, but in
> > speech you say pigS, but foxeZ.  It's possible to say foxeS, consider
> > exceSS, but you don't.)  In Japanese, ○くk- has a phonological rule
> > that changes it to ○っk- (where "k-" indicates any of かきくけこ).
> > So here こくけん -> こっけん.
> >
> > Why does translate apply this rule?  Well, I can't find 黒犬 in the
> > dictionary (and in my IME くろいぬ -> 黒 + 犬, not 黒犬, of course an
> > immediate confirmation enters the jukugo).  So it's probably not in
> > Google's dictionary either.  Without the dictionary entry or the gobi
> > い (ie, 黒い犬), translate appears to guess that it's an on-yomi word,
> > reads the characters as こくけん, and then applies the phonological
> > rule to get こっけん.
>
> I agree with Steve's analysis.
>
> > Well, Japanese do love their contractions, and here probably 黒犬 is a
> > descriptive name for the dog, rather than just a description.  I would
> > imagine that it would be read kun-yomi, as くろいぬ, and 白犬 as
> > しろいぬ.  If it were supposed to be read くろいいぬ, I would think it
> > would be written 黒い犬.
>
> 黒犬/くろいぬ can be found various places, including the Unidic morpheme
> lexicon and Halpern's Japanese linguistics database. Googling for it
> and looking at the images shows a squillion black dogs.
> 白犬 is in the same places, and is even in 広辞苑 meaning:
> "毛色の白い犬。"
>
> Jim

Thanks for the replies.
I also asked her what she would say if reading aloud to her son.  Her reply:
>> In that case I pronounce it くろいぬ.　I'd never say こっけん
>> and can't read it as くろいいぬ.
Which echoes what Steve said about 語尾.

I think maybe one shortcoming of Google Translate -- which is now using 
extensive AI -- is that it's trained with text only.

As always, I appreciate the insight into the language when nothing quite 
makes sense.

Steve Smith