Re: USAGE: Circumfixes

On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, at 01:49 AM, Trebor Jung wrote:

> Mark L. wrote:
>
> "Latin -que is called an enclitic because it's attached to the end of
> another word, like a suffix. It would be called a proclitic if it were
> attached to the beginning of another word, like a prefix."
>
> So why not just call it 'prefix' or 'suffix'?
I would call it a prefix, because it ain't ever prefixed to anything - it'
s always attached at the end.

It's not suffix, in the sense 'suffix' is normally understood. A
particular suffix attaches itself to an indentifiable group of words such
as, e.g. nouns, adjectives, or whatever, and has either a grammatical
function (like Latin case ending) or a formative function, like -ize in
'formalize' (forming a verb from an adjective). But Latin -que:
- doesn't have a grammatical function
- is not a formative suffix
- can attach itself to _any_ type of word, even prepositions (despite what
some Latin grammars claim).

>
> Or do clitics work like Henrik described?:
>
> "[C]litics work on clause level, not on word level, although,
> phonetically,
> they attach to words and cannot be used as an isolated word. In this
> sense,
> both English 'the' and Latin '-que' work on clause level, but need another
> word to attach to phonetically."
If you substitute 'phrase' for 'clause', then I guess it'd be about right.
================================================================
> On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, at 01:34 AM, Mark P. Line wrote:
>
> Mark J. Reed said:
[snip]
>> Okay.  What about Latin -que?  It's referred to as a[n en]clitic, but it
>> not to be a whole word even morphosyntactically.  At least, it's written
>> as a suffix.
That's merely comparatively modern convention in where we put the white
spaces when we print & write Latin. The Romans didn't use 'white spaces'
but wrote scripta_continua, i.e. letter after letter without spaces. It
was, apparently, the Irish monks of the 7th century who first wrote Latin
consistently with interpuncts; probably because unlike southern europe,
Latin was a 100% foreign language to them and the use of regular
interpuncts made reading easier. The habit sort of caught on in Britain &
continental Europe, but it was not till the 12th century that white space
interpuncts became the norm everywhere. That the Romans, at least,
intuitively regarded -que as a 'word' is surely put beyond doubt by the
well-known common abbreviation: SPQR = Senatus Populus-Que Romanus = the
Roman Senate and People.

Whether we write a clitic without any space between it and the word it is
attached to, or separate the two with a hyphen or use white space is _pure
convention_. It is worth noting the the ancient Greek encltic 'te' (<--
PIE *k^we = 'and', i.e. cognate with Latin -que) is always by convention
written with white space between it and the word to which it is appended,
and our modern practice is write the Latin -que with such a space. 'tis
merely convention, and nothing else.

I have shown above that -que is not a suffix (any more than Greek 'te' is
a suffix). It is also not a phonological word in that (a) it cannot bear
stress, and (b) it can change the stress of the word to which it is
attached, e.g. (stress shown with acute accent, unless your mailer mangles
it):
púeri: et puéllae = boys & girls (nom.)
púeri: puelláeque = boys & girls

Similarly, in ancient Greek an enclitic, where possible, threw it's pitch
accent back onto the final syllable of the previous word, e.g. to ónomá
sou (your name - where the enclitic _sou_ causes the final -a of _ónomá_
to be raised in pitch. _sou_ still behaves similarly in Modern Greek, tho
in the modern language it is a case of two stressed vowels. Yep - modern
Greek still has enclitics and they are written with white space between
themselves and the word to which they are appended.

> Orthographic words are yet another kind of word, and they also don't match
> up perfectly with phonological and morphosyntactic words in natlangs.
Precisely so.



Ray
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