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Question:
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I've asked this question to a linguist friend, and it seems a rather difficult question. Is there a unique definition for what a word is? In written language, the answer could be apparently simple, but, is 'sewing machine' a word or two? In spoken language things seem to be more complicated. For example, I was surprised when I heard a French baby asking for milk, and she said 'du lait'. A Portuguese baby would say simply 'leite'. So, it seems that in French the 'du' is somewhat 'attached' to uncountable nouns like 'milk', and I wonder if the French translation for the Portuguese word 'leite' ('milk' in English) should be 'lait' or 'du lait'. In other words, would an illiterate French person identify the word 'lait' as a word, or would would he think of 'du lait' as a word?
Thank you.
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