Re: Theory about the evolution of languages

Joe wrote:
> J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 15:18:35 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> A clitic of what word?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> ? I do not understand this question.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Clitics are words that are phonetically melted with others, e.g. the
>> present third person singular of to be's often cliticized. The 'Saxon
>> genitive'-s is not a word phonetically melted with others; therefore,
>> it's
>> not a clitic, but rather an ending.
>>
>>
>
> I don't think so.  I think it's a suffix that is attached to a phrase
> rather than a word.  Which ''s' is.
I think of clitics as a type of morpheme that is something between an
affix and a word: attached to a word, like an affix, but placed relative
to a phrase, like a word.