Rivista | Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale
Fascicolo | 59 | 2023
Articolo | The Japanese Pithecanthropus: Interpreting Japanese Unfamiliar Compounds
The Japanese Pithecanthropus: Interpreting Japanese Unfamiliar Compounds
Takao Suzuki’s Model of Conceptual Combination Through kun-Glossing
- Simone dalla Chiesa - Università degli Studi di Milano La Statale, Italia - email
Abstract
With ‘kun-glossing’, I refer to the method of interpreting unfamiliar compounds proposed by Takao Suzuki (1926-2021), a well-known Japanese scholar. Readers assign a semantic gloss to each constituent kanji, combine those meanings into a new, complex concept and attempt to validate the result(s) encyclopedically. In this essay I verify kun-glossing’s processing power by applying it to eleven compounds, beginning with enjin 猿人 (Pithecanthropus). I conclude that this method is only effective in interpreting words that are structured as descriptions, as the neoclassical compounds of science often are, and cannot be considered a universal method to infer the meaning of novel compounds.
Presentato: 19 Maggio 2023 | Accettato: 20 Giugno 2023 | Pubblicato 29 Agosto 2023 | Lingua: en
Keywords Neoclassical compounds • Japanese compounds • Kanji • Takao Suzuki • Appositive compounds • Onomasiological approach • Ernst Haeckel • Conceptual combination • Binomens • Compounding
Copyright © 2023 Simone dalla Chiesa. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2023/01/023
Articoli
-
Zaynab al-Ghazālī al-Ǧabīlī, a Female Activist and Writer in Favour of the Islamic Cause
From the Formative Years to Her Imprisonment Under the Regime of ʿAbd al-Nāṣir (1917-65) - Maria Cristina Paciello
- 29 Agosto 2023
- À l’encontre de la collectivité et de la dictature : la révolution de l’individu dans Kuhūf Hāydrāhūdāhūs de Salīm Barakāt
- Greta Sala
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Travelling Across Cultures: Some Aspects of the Safavid Envoys’ Travels to Venice
- Ahmad Guliyev
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Sulla ‘finestra’ osseta
- Paolo Ognibene
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Un’analisi del riutilizzo delle epigrafi urartee in epoca medievale nell’Altopiano Armeno
- Roberto Dan, Onofrio Gasparro, Arthur Petrosyan , Boris Gasparyan
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Colour as a Socio-Cultural Multi-Layered Sign in the ‘Nausicaa’ Episode in J. Joyce’s Ulysses and Its Translation into Armenian
- Diana Hambardzumyan
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Note su ‘Ḏulfaqār dell’Intelletto’ e il manicheismo islamizzante
- Andrea Piras
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Non solo ravī. Le altre lettere della rima nel Muʿǧam fī maʿāyīr ašʿār al-ʿaǧam di Šams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Qays al-Rāzī
- Alessia Dal Bianco
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Le culte l’imām Ḥusayn chez les Khojas d’Asie du Sud dans la deuxième moitié du XIXe siècle
- Zahir Bhalloo
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Presence, Power, and Agency: Donor Portraits in Early Gandharan Art
- Moizza S. Elahi
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Prima della rivoluzione
Tradizione e modernità in due novelle di Bao Tianxiao, «Qie ming bo» 妾命薄 e «Yi lü ma» 一縷麻 - Daniele Beltrame
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
The Dialectics of Hope and Despair
Twisting the Biblical Message in Lu Xun’s “Medicine” - Mario De Grandis
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
«Raccogliendo la veccia» di Lu Xun
Rinarrare la Storia, fra oralità e scrittura - Gaia Perini
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Poetry and Labour(s): Chinese Workers’ Poetry from the Cultural Revolution to the Twenty-First Century
- Matteo Garbelli
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Elena Ferrante in China
Analysis of the Translation of Cultural References in the First Volume of My Brilliant Friend - Francesca Restucci
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Poetics of Propensity in Sinophone Fiction
An Analysis of Lai Hsiang-yin and Lee Wai Yi’s Ghost Narrative - Riccardo Moratto, Di-kai Chao
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Xiaolu Guo’s A Lover’s Discourse: Analysis of the Influence of Roland Barthes
- Elisabetta Giuliano
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Unveiling the Language of Ideology in China’s Environmental Planning
Pilot Ecolinguistic Analysis of an Environmental Impact Assessment - Daniele Brombal, Pui Yiu Szeto, Sergio Conti
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Two Layers’ on New Women in Colonial Korea: The Case of Ch’oe Yŏngsuk (1905‑32)
- Hyojin Lee
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Navigating Through Kofun Imagery
An Analysis of the Boat Depictions Found in Decorated Tombs in Northern Kyūshū - Claudia Zancan
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Japanese Context of the ‘Good Manners’ of the Legates of the Tensho Embassy in Italy (1585): The Buke Kojitsu, the Ise, and Kyūshū
- Takuya Shimada
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Morphosyntactic Changes and Sociolinguistic Variation in the Language of Kyōgen
A Corpus-Based Analysis of Toraakirabon (1642) - Giuseppe Pappalardo
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
The Japanese Pithecanthropus: Interpreting Japanese Unfamiliar Compounds
Takao Suzuki’s Model of Conceptual Combination Through kun-Glossing - Simone dalla Chiesa
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Memories of Extinction and Human Subjectivity
Challenging the Human-Nonhuman Divide Through Technology in Kawakami Hiromi’s Ōkina torini sarawarenaiyō - Giulia Baquè
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Le religioni asiatiche secondo gli adolescenti italiani
Contesto, analisi e riflessioni su una tendenza verso il ‘regime di Mercato Globale’ - Giovanni Lapis
- 29 Agosto 2023
-
Representing Bodies and Identities in Global Exhibitions
The Case of Female Photography in the Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale - Federica Cavazzuti
- 29 Agosto 2023
Recensioni
- Élise Franssen. Authors as Readers in the Mamlūk Period and Beyond
- Ingrid Austveg Evans
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Patrick Olivelle. Vacanamālā. A Sub-Commentary on Viśvarūpa’s Commentary Bālakrīḍā on the Yājñavalkya Dharmaśāstra
- Alessandro Giudice
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Antonella Riem Natale. Coleridge and Hinduism: The Unstruck Sound
- Stefano Beggiora
- 29 Agosto 2023
- Michinori Shimoji. An Introduction to Japonic Languages. Grammatical Sketches of Japanese Dialects and Ryukyuan Languages
- Giuseppe Pappalardo
- 29 Agosto 2023
| DC Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
dc.identifier |
ECF_article_13405 |
|
dc.title |
The Japanese Pithecanthropus: Interpreting Japanese Unfamiliar Compounds. Takao Suzuki’s Model of Conceptual Combination Through kun-Glossing |
|
dc.contributor.author |
dalla Chiesa Simone |
|
dc.publisher |
Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Venice University Press, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari |
|
dc.type |
Articolo |
|
dc.language.iso |
en |
|
dc.identifier.uri |
http://edizionicafoscari.it/it/edizioni4/riviste/annali-di-ca-foscari-serie-orientale/2023/1/the-japanese-pithecanthropus-interpreting-japanese/ |
|
dc.description.abstract |
With ‘kun-glossing’, I refer to the method of interpreting unfamiliar compounds proposed by Takao Suzuki (1926-2021), a well-known Japanese scholar. Readers assign a semantic gloss to each constituent kanji, combine those meanings into a new, complex concept and attempt to validate the result(s) encyclopedically. In this essay I verify kun-glossing’s processing power by applying it to eleven compounds, beginning with enjin 猿人 (Pithecanthropus). I conclude that this method is only effective in interpreting words that are structured as descriptions, as the neoclassical compounds of science often are, and cannot be considered a universal method to infer the meaning of novel compounds. |
|
dc.relation.ispartof |
Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie orientale |
|
dc.relation.ispartof |
Vol. 59 | Giugno 2023 |
|
dc.issued |
2023-08-29 |
|
dc.dateAccepted |
2023-06-20 |
|
dc.dateSubmitted |
2023-05-19 |
|
dc.identifier.issn |
|
|
dc.identifier.eissn |
2385-3042 |
|
dc.rights |
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License |
|
dc.rights.uri |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
|
dc.identifier.doi |
10.30687/AnnOr/2385-3042/2023/01/023 |
|
dc.peer-review |
yes |
|
dc.subject |
Appositive compounds |
|
dc.subject |
Binomens |
|
dc.subject |
Compounding |
|
dc.subject |
Conceptual combination |
|
dc.subject |
Ernst Haeckel |
|
dc.subject |
Japanese compounds |
|
dc.subject |
Kanji |
|
dc.subject |
Neoclassical compounds |
|
dc.subject |
Onomasiological approach |
|
dc.subject |
Takao Suzuki |
| Download data |
-
file_download 29
-
search 189
-
format_quote 0
