Linguistic Miscellany Thread

[linguistcat]

If we REALLY wanted to get into headline-ese, that "and" after "seized" could be replaced with a comma instead as well as the other changes.

[Zaarin]

If we REALLY wanted to get into headline-ese, that "and" after "seized" could be replaced with a comma instead as well as the other changes.

Or for modern headlines it should probably read like this: "Italian authorities order the ship be seized AND YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!"

[linguistcat]

If we REALLY wanted to get into headline-ese, that "and" after "seized" could be replaced with a comma instead as well as the other changes.

Or for modern headlines it should probably read like this: "Italian authorities order the ship be seized AND YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!"

Clickbait is a dialect of headline-ese but most older speakers view it as extremely improper.

[Linguoboy]

"Ordered that the ship be seized"

Or, perhaps better,

"Ordered the ship seized"

This last one sounds best to me, too. But then I'm also a living fossil.

[Salmoneus]

Headlinese would be "Italian authorities order ship seized, launch investigation into illegal immigration allegations". Or, for the breaking-news line, "Italian authorities order ship seized, illegal immigration allegations investigation launched"

[Zaarin]

If we REALLY wanted to get into headline-ese, that "and" after "seized" could be replaced with a comma instead as well as the other changes.

Or for modern headlines it should probably read like this: "Italian authorities order the ship be seized AND YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!"

Clickbait is a dialect of headline-ese but most older speakers view it as extremely improper.

I'm in my upper 20s, and I've hated clickbait headlines since I was a teenager. Clickbait-y headlines have even found their way into mainstream news' headlines these days, even if they're not as over-the-top as Buzzfeed's.

[Moose-tache]

Here's my favorite :p
"Italian Authorities: Ship Seized Revealing Illegal Immigrants"

[Pabappa]

Is there a good term for free morphemes such as Japanese ka in karateka, which means "expert, practitioner" but only when preceded by an appropriate word such as karate? Or would the fact that the meaning is contextual make ka a bound morpheme?

It s eems to function like English -ist, but unlike -ist, ka is historically a separate morpheme but because its homophonous with a dozen other things it cant be used alone and be understood.

[Linguoboy]

It seems to function like English -ist, but unlike -ist, ka is historically a separate morpheme but because its homophonous with a dozen other things it cant be used alone and be understood.

Is it, though? What is the historical evidence for ka being used as a free morpheme with this meaning in Japanese texts (as opposed to kanbun)?

[Pabappa]

I don't know the history...I'm just curious what to call that morpheme as it is used today. Unlike a tradl bound morpheme such as -ist, it has a separate etymological history as a free morpheme.

[Linguoboy]

I don't know the history...I'm just curious what to call that morpheme as it is used today. Unlike a tradl bound morpheme such as -ist, it has a separate etymological history as a free morpheme.

Not in Japanese, it doesn't. (Honestly, I can't even find any evidence it was used independently in this meaning in Chinese either, but Literary Chinese is a vast corpus so I don't ever generalise about it if I can avoid it.)

I'm not sure why the history even matters to be honest. "Bound morpheme" is a synchronically-defined category.

[Pabappa]

So there's no special term? I'd think there would be a way to describe terms that only appear in compounds... sort of the inverse of a cranberry morpheme. But I'll let it go unless someone else has heard of such a term, thanks for replying .

[Linguoboy]

So there's no special term? I'd think there would be a way to describe terms that only appear in compounds... sort of the inverse of a cranberry morpheme. But I'll let it go unless someone else has heard of such a term, thanks for replying.

Now you've moved the goalposts! The term I would use for a bound morpheme which only appears in compounds is a combining form. (This is also used for variants of free morphemes which are found only in compounds, but not exclusively for those morphs.)

[KathTheDragon]

There is, it's "bound morpheme".

[Pabappa]

i dont see any reason to consider ka a bound morpheme, since it is etymologically derived from a freestanding morpheme, and it's even still written with a kanji, unlike inflections. (the word means "house" apparently. Odd, but senses can evolve, i guess.) It seems that it simply changes its meaning when it's used after a term for an art or other skilled practice like karate. karateka is the only word that made it into English that Im aware of, but certainly not the only such word used in Japanese. If there's no general lingustic word for this phenomenon, it may just be because it doesn't occur in any language besides Japanese and we haven't needed one.

Ive not heard of "combining form" used to describe free morphemes that behave this way ... to me a combining form means something has changed. e.g. English "blackbird" is just a trad'l compound, nobody would call "black" a combining form.

[Travis B.]

Just because a morpheme was free historically does not mean it is not a bound morpheme synchronically; I really do not see how these two things are not incompatible with one another.

[Salmoneus]

i dont see any reason to consider ka a bound morpheme, since it is etymologically derived from a freestanding morpheme, and it's even still written with a kanji, unlike inflections.

These two facts have absolutely zero to do with whether it's a bound morpheme or not.

(the word means "house" apparently. Odd, but senses can evolve, i guess.) It seems that it simply changes its meaning when it's used after a term for an art or other skilled practice like karate. karateka is the only word that made it into English that Im aware of, but certainly not the only such word used in Japanese. If there's no general lingustic word for this phenomenon, it may just be because it doesn't occur in any language besides Japanese and we haven't needed one.

"Derivational inflection".

Ive not heard of "combining form" used to describe free morphemes that behave this way ... to me a combining form means something has changed. e.g. English "blackbird" is just a trad'l compound, nobody would call "black" a combining form.

"Black" is not a bound morpheme, so it's not really analogous.

[Pabappa]

Thanks for the replies but IM still not convinced. THis is for a conlang so its not of great importance, but i figured there would at least be a name for what Im seeing.

i dont see any reason to consider ka a bound morpheme, since it is etymologically derived from a freestanding morpheme, and it's even still written with a kanji, unlike inflections.

These two facts have absolutely zero to do with whether it's a bound morpheme or not.

in english maybe, but in Japanese the fact that its written with a kanji means the speakers make a conscious connection to the corresponding free morpheme. imagine if the -ess suffix that denotes female agents was pronounbced /əs/ but spelt house. i'd think that would then be taught to English learners as a variant of the word for house, evne if it made little syntactic sense.

If there's no general lingustic word for this phenomenon, it may just be because it doesn't occur in any language besides Japanese and we haven't needed one.

"Derivational inflection".

i dont really think its inflection either since all the infelctions that go onto a normal word can go onto -ka.

"Black" is not a bound morpheme, so it's not really analogous.

so we agree. "black"is a free morpheme, yes.

[Salmoneus]

Thanks for the replies but IM still not convinced. THis is for a conlang so its not of great importance, but i figured there would at least be a name for what Im seeing.

But you're not saying what "you're seeing". We're trying to tell you what's there, but you just insist you "see something" different but for which there are no words...

i dont see any reason to consider ka a bound morpheme, since it is etymologically derived from a freestanding morpheme, and it's even still written with a kanji, unlike inflections.

These two facts have absolutely zero to do with whether it's a bound morpheme or not.

in english maybe,

In any language. Etymology is not meaning. It certainly is not function!

but in Japanese the fact that its written with a kanji means the speakers make a conscious connection to the corresponding free morpheme.

Which is neither true, nor relevant.

imagine if the -ess suffix that denotes female agents was pronounbced /əs/ but spelt house. i'd think that would then be taught to English learners as a variant of the word for house, evne if it made little syntactic sense.

First, it wouldn't matter what would be taught to English learners, because the author of English As She Is Spoke does not define English grammar.
Second - right, so when you see the suffix pronounced /t@/, but spelled "tor", you treat it as a variant of the word for a hill? Imagine if the -stress suffix that denotes female occupations were spelled the same way as 'stress' - wait, it is! So clearly "seamstress" is just the word "seam" with a "variant" of the word "stress" added onto it that changes its meaning and pronunciation due to following another noun? And "palmate" is from "palm" and the past tense verb form "ate", I presume?

Note: even if one of these false etymologies happened to be true, it wouldn't be syntactically important.

If there's no general lingustic word for this phenomenon, it may just be because it doesn't occur in any language besides Japanese and we haven't needed one.

"Derivational inflection".

i dont really think its inflection either since all the infelctions that go onto a normal word can go onto -ka.

Yes, that's true of derivation. But yeah, sure, if we're being pedantic 'derivational inflection' is strictly an oxymoron... derivational morphology then, or derivational suffix or whatever.

[zompist]

in english maybe, but in Japanese the fact that its written with a kanji means the speakers make a conscious connection to the corresponding free morpheme.

This is the crux of the issue, I think. You assume that Japanese speakers will consider any uses of 家 to be related. Some obvious questions, though:

1. Do they really?
2. Should linguists care if they do?

FWIW, I've run into Chinese speakers who do assign primary importance to the characters. It's awfully tempting with a millennia-old system where the characters seem far more durable than the spoken words. Even in Chinese it's kind of a naive view, because characters can change, and graphic etymology doesn't always match the spoken one. It's not a very good way of looking at (say) modern Mandarin, where so many words are now two- or three-syllable compounds. E.g. I'm not sure 家 is free in Mandarin any more; it's not used for 'house', and the word for 'family' is 家庭. (But things also get complicated because so much wenhua is incorporated into Mandarin in set phrases, proverbs, etc. where bound morphemes are temporarily liberated...)

With Japanese it's even trickier, since the same kanji is used for what (to a linguist) are completely unrelated words. I mean, do you really think Japanese consider the -ka morpheme to be the "same morpheme" as ie or uchi 'house', though it means something completely different, just because they're both written with 家? I mean, maybe they do, but maybe they just shrug and treat them as a graphic pun, like the fact that X means both "multiply" and "Christ".

Anyway, the issue is a reminder that in most Western languages, 'word' is an everyday concept, but this doesn't correspond to an everyday concept in Chinese. (I don't know how it goes in Japanese.) Neither 字 zi (as in kanji) nor 词 ci quite corresponds to 'word' or to any linguistic concept.

For a conlang, note that your conpeople need not care a whit about Western linguistic terms. If you have a parallel to -ka, you can certainly say what they consider it to be!