bound roots

[Madalena Cruz-Ferreira]

Barbara wrote:

> (I hope someone
> will send you the reference for the New Yorker
> essay of probably 12 or more years ago which is
> built entirely around the positives of them--
> as in "she was very kempt" and probably also
> "couth" but I don't remember.)

There's one version available at
http://www.pacificovertures.com/Couthtips.html
Cheers

Madalena

======================================
Madalena Cruz-Ferreira
Dept. English Language and Literature
National University of Singapore
ellmcf at nus.edu.sg
http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/ellmcf/ 
======================================


> -----Original Message-----
> From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org
> [mailto:info-childes at mail.talkbank.org]On Behalf Of Barbara Zurer
> Pearson
> Sent: Friday, 12 November, 2004 10:26 PM
> To: Carolyn Chaney
> Cc: info-childes
> Subject: Re: bound roots
> 
> 
> Dear Carolyn (and Carson),
> 
> For me, the operative phrase in your question is
> "Language for Teachers."  I am quite content when
> the teachers in such a class can use exactly the
> test you apply here:  "a 'mother' is not one who
> moths" --whereas "a 'batter' can be one who bats."
> 
> I don't expect them to know (as I don't without
> looking) whether "batter" also has something to
> do with being beaten (as in for a cake).  I would
> expect them to recognize "un" and its allomorphs,
> even for this whole stock of words that are only
> used in their negative version. (I hope someone
> will send you the reference for the New Yorker
> essay of probably 12 or more years ago which is
> built entirely around the positives of them--
> as in "she was very kempt" and probably also
> "couth" but I don't remember.)
> 
> I also expect the teacher-students to be aware
> of stem changes like what I presume (but don't
> know for sure) takes "apt" to "ept."
> Of course, your students won't know those
> unless they actually know the meanings of some
> words.  When they don't know the meanings, (and
> I don't expect them to know all meanings), I
> expect them to be willing to use a dictionary
> and be able to show their students where such
> information is to be had in the dictionary, if
> it is relevant to know the compositional status of
> the word.
> 
> Btw, this topic also brings you into the territory
> of that other vexed question of what is a single word.
> You will probably have to break it to them that
> there is yet another gray area.  This list is probably
> one of the few groups where I could reveal that I
> wrote a research paper on the hyphen in my History
> of the English Language course without being
> deemed entirely weird.  I didn't find a hard and
> fast rule for that either, as you transcribers
> well know.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Barbara
> 
> 
> 
> On Nov 11, 2004, at 6:49 PM, Carolyn Chaney wrote:
> 
> > In my Language for Teachers class we were discussing 
> various kinds of
> > morphemes, and we discovered that we had difficulty knowing 
> if certain
> > words were free morphemes or a combo of an affix plus a 
> bound root.  
> > This
> > was particularly difficult when the word has a syllable that looks 
> > like am
> > affix, such as mothER or DEcide.  Cases where there are 
> several like 
> > words
> > (receive, deceive, conceive) look like bound roots.  Mother seems 
> > clearly
> > to be a free morpheme, as a mother is not one who moths.  But what 
> > about
> > decide?  inept?  nonchalant?  uncouth?  refine?  Uncouth, 
> for example, 
> > is
> > given in texts as an affix plus bound root, but surely it 
> doesn't mean
> > not-couth.  Does anyone have a clear explanation of how to 
> distinguish
> > words with affix-looking parts from words that really have 
> affixes + 
> > bound
> > roots, preferably an explanation that does not require looking up
> > derivations in the dictionary?
> >
> > Thanks for the help!
> >
> > Carolyn Chaney
> > Just call me stumped
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> *****************************************
> Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph.D
> Research Associate, Project Manager
> Dept. of Communication Disorders
> University of Massachusetts
> Amherst MA 01003
> 
> Tel: 413.545.5023
> Fax: 413.545.0803
> 
> http://www.umass.edu/aae/
> 
> 
>