Re: USAGE: Circumfixes

Hi!

vehke <vaksje@...> writes:
> Personally I use 'clitic' for a morpheme not limited to a grammatical
> category, i.e. can be added to any word, regardless of the language's
> usual phonological constraints. Clitics thus don't convey any
> grammatical information, AFAIK.
>
> I haven't ever considered them on the clause level, since, par exemple
> in Finnish, the semantics change depending on which word the clitic is
> added to.
Ok, that would be an argument against.  As for English "'s" and Latin
"-que" (and Greenlandic "-lu"), it is the case that they attach to
some selected word although the modify the whole phrase or coordinate
two of them.  I don't know Finnish clitics, but a less restrictive
analysis saying it is 'between a word and an affix', would perhaps be
better.  Although vagueness is not generally a good goal.

**Henrik