Re: Eliding repeated morphemes: synthesis vs analysis

From:    "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
> Are there clear instances in natlangs when morphological inflections can be
> applied only to one of a series of repeated words while being understood
> to apply to the whole list?
We had a discussion about this some months back about the
technical distinction between case affixes and clitic postpositions.
The most widely accepted criteria are those set forth by Zwicky and
Pullum:

(1) Clitics have “freedom of movement”, affixes do not.
    (where 'movement' need not necessarily imply Movement
    with a capital-M.)
(2) Clitics can attach to material already containing clitics; affixes
    (since they are morphological entities) are pre-syntactic and cannot
    attach to material containing clitics.
(3) Clitics have freedom of host selection, affixes have no freedom of
    stem selection.
(4) Clitic-host combinations may not have idiosyncratic meanings;
    stem-affix combinations may.
(5) Clitics may neither trigger nor undergo morphophonological or
    suppletive alternations, affixes may.
(6) Clitic-host combinations may not have arbitrary gaps;
    stem-affix combinations may.

By these criteria, your proposed inflections would resemble clitics
more than affixes.  (In reality, clitics constitute a heterogeneous class
themselves.)

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Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
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Chicago, IL 60637

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