Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Word: a typological framework
- 2 Typological parameters for the study of clitics, with special reference to Tariana
- 3 The word in Cup'ik
- 4 The word in Eastern/Central Arrernte
- 5 The eclectic morphology of Jarawara, and the status of word
- 6 Towards a notion of ‘word’ in sign languages
- 7 Synchronic and diachronic perspective on ‘word’ in Siouan
- 8 What is a word in Dagbani?
- 9 The word in Georgian
- 10 The word in Modern Greek
- 11 What can we conclude?
- Index of authors
- Index of languages and language families
- Index of subjects
- References
2 - Typological parameters for the study of clitics, with special reference to Tariana
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Word: a typological framework
- 2 Typological parameters for the study of clitics, with special reference to Tariana
- 3 The word in Cup'ik
- 4 The word in Eastern/Central Arrernte
- 5 The eclectic morphology of Jarawara, and the status of word
- 6 Towards a notion of ‘word’ in sign languages
- 7 Synchronic and diachronic perspective on ‘word’ in Siouan
- 8 What is a word in Dagbani?
- 9 The word in Georgian
- 10 The word in Modern Greek
- 11 What can we conclude?
- Index of authors
- Index of languages and language families
- Index of subjects
- References
Summary
The term ‘clitic’ typically refers to a morphological element which does not have the full set of properties of an independent (phonological) word, and which forms ‘a phonological unit with the word that precedes it or follows it’ (Matthews 1997: 56) for the purposes of accent or prominence assignment (see Nevis, Joseph, Wanner and Zwicky 1994: xii–xx). And they behave differently from affixes. Sapir (1930: 70) remarked that ‘enclisis is … neither true suffixation nor juxtaposition of independent elements. It has the external characteristics of the former (including strict adherence to certain principles of order), the inner feeling of the latter’.
The consensus appears to be that clitics are morphemes which are prosodically deficient or unusual in certain ways. Criterial properties of clitics found in the literature invariably include that they are ‘loosely phonologically bound to a word’, or ‘occur in second position’ in a clause (Klavans 1985: 117), or ‘are phonologically deficient’.
This chapter has two distinct parts. In § 1, I propose parameters which help distinguish clitics from affixes, determine the nature of their similarity to other morpheme types and define their independent properties in a given language. These criteria suggest a scalar, or continuum-type, approach – that is, some morphemes turn out to be more affix-like and others to be more word-like. (In the Appendix, these parameters are compared to those which have been proposed in the literature.)
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- WordA Cross-linguistic Typology, pp. 42 - 78Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
References
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