Upper limits to morpheme length

Angus B. Grieve-Smith grvsmth at panix.com
Sat Dec 21 19:02:49 UTC 2013


Doesn't every morpheme have to fit in short-term memory?

"Everett, Daniel" <DEVERETT at bentley.edu> wrote:
>Marianne,
>
>Thanks. I certainly agree with what you say.
>
>So, let us just say, any morpheme, though I bound morphemes are what I
>had in mind originally.
>
>To reiterate, what I am asking is not if people have an opinion on the
>matter (which is not what you said at all, Marianne, but what some have
>said off-line) but whether anyone knows of a theory that proposes to
>derive an upper bound on morpheme length.
>
>"Tend to be small" I certainly agree with. And I think that cognitive -
>whether learnability or processing -  reasons are implicated. But that
>is not my theory. Just my hunch. I was interested in identifying a
>theory, should one exist, that derives the length limits and says what
>"small" is and why.
>
>I suspect that none exists. And I doubt that one should. But, again,
>that's just me thinking overtly in electrons at my computer.
>
>Dan
>
> Dec 21, 2013, at 1:37 PM, Marianne Mithun wrote:
>
>> Dan, you haven't said what kind of morphemes. For a start, there's
>probably going to be a difference between roots and affixes. And
>affixes tend to be small because of all of the processes involved in
>their development.
>> 
>> Marianne
>> 
>> --On Saturday, December 21, 2013 4:10 PM +0000 "Everett, Daniel"
><DEVERETT at bentley.edu> wrote:
>> 
>>> Please excuse the double-posting.
>>> 
>>> I haven't worked on this stuff for a while, so I will undoubtedly
>show my
>>> ignorance of some large body of research, but I was wondering (due
>to a
>>> question from a colleague) whether there is any work that tries to
>derive
>>> a maximum morpheme length (I wouldn't think this would be the way to
>>> address the issue, frankly, but I could be quite wrong).
>>> 
>>> As the question was put to me: "It seems to me that almost all
>morphemes
>>> are quite short?probably not easy to find one with e.g. 12 phoneme
>>> segments.  The question is is there anything in known phonological
>>> theories which predict this?or is it just assumed that morphemes can
>be
>>> of any length and that the reason there are none of length e.g. 624,
>578
>>> is simply that they would be unlearnable?  The latter would be my
>ideal
>>> view, just as the reason that no one uses a sentence of length
>624,578
>>> words has to do with practical performance limitations."
>>> 
>>> I know that there is work on "resizing theory" (Pycha 2008) and
>various
>>> other approaches linking morphology and metrical structure. But
>those
>>> approaches so far as I know offer no principled upper bound to
>morpheme
>>> length.
>>> 
>>> Any help would be appreciated.
>>> 
>>> Happy holidays to all,
>>> 
>>> Dan Everett
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 

-- 
Angus. B. Grieve-Smith
grvsmth at panix.com



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