Forward slashes //

Hi All,

What does it mean in Pleco when there are two // between a pair of words?
遇到 yu4 // dao4
出口 chu1 // kou3

Thank you,
Melissa.
 

Shun

状元
Hi Melissa,

this indicates, only for the PLC Pleco dictionary, either that a verb is of a verb – object structure (as in 出口), or just that a verb isn’t an old verb in which multiple characters belong together, but consists of two etymologically unrelated words commonly used together to almost form a new word (as in 遇到). (The second kind is just a guess of mine, surely @mikelove knows more.)

Hope this helps,

Shun
 
Hi Shun,

Thank you for your thorough explanations. Your second explanation is going over my head. What is two etymologically unrelated words?

Melissa. 靜雯。
 

Shun

状元
Hi Melissa,

you're welcome & thanks!

By "etymologically unrelated words" I mean two or more characters that haven‘t occurred together until quite recently. They occur together solely because of a grammatical connection (like the 到, which is used as a kind of suffix of completion/success with many other words such as 看到、得到), but not because they share a longer history of combined meaning together/have an etymology as a word.

Cheers,

Shun
 
Last edited:
Hi Shun,

Thank you. Yes, I always consider the components of each word and as a whole. You can tell a lot about the word's original meaning.

謝謝你! 你解釋的很清楚。
 
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