Re: THEORY: Question: Bound Morphemes

Charles wrote:
-----<snip>-----
>then, Kristian Jensen wrote:
>
>> Wow! That's interesting! You mean to say that in your dialect you
>> still consider "the" a demonstrative, and you still consider "a/an"
>> a numeral? So say I ask you a question like "Which one is yours?",
>> you could answer "The!"? That sounds really weird to me.
>
>I would say "This!" or "That!" or "One!", very carefully henceforth.
>Now that the water is muddy and I am thoroughly confused about
>the most common words in my native language, I surrender the field.
Ah! I think I see what you were saying all along! You were saying=20
that the articles correspond to free words (i.e., "this/that" for=20
"the", and "one" for "a/an"). That's true. BUT just because they=20
correspond to free words, that does not mean they are free themselves.=20
Articles _are_ bound, and cannot be used alone - which is why you=20
can't answer a question with "The!", but must use "This!" or "That!".=20
In fact, this is what makes them clitics. To use Dirk Elzinga's=20
explanation, they occupy a position in the phrase but are bound in=20
the sense that they cannot be used alone. For instance, "the" (as a=20
clitic) is used in place of "this/that", but "the" cannot be used by=20
itself and is bound phonologically to a word while "this/that" can be=20
used by itself and is not phonologically bound to a word.

>Would you use "bound" for anything other than determiners?
Of course. Affixes are bound morphemes, for instance.

>A verb like "is" certainly does not stand alone, but isn't bound.
Sure it is! What about expressions like "He's hungry" "She's pretty"=20
"Charle's confused" ;-). The apostrophe-s shows how "is" is bound to=20
the subject in colloquial speech.

>Terminology not only confuses, it mutates too quickly to remember.
>I would never get through a modern linguistics course.
I don't know about terminology mutating quickly, but they are indeed=20
confusing.

-kristian- 8)