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Good. I think I agree all along. I too get to expressing myself so
compactly that it sounds like I'm making assumptions which I am in fact
not making.<br>
<br>
--David T<br>
<br>
Sebastian Drude wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid454357F5.6010407@zedat.fu-berlin.de" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear David, Rudy,
I find it very ENriching that we, starting from a jocuous form, get into
a debate on analyses and methodologial issues.
To the points of David:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">1. en-/em- (or any other morpheme) has only one meaning. (I.e. it is not
polysemous.)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I would not agree. There are several meanings that are not in the topic
of this discussion -- _empower_, _ensign_, _ensure_ etc. These are
other senses, so _en-_ is polysemous anyway. (It seems indeed to be
polysemy, not homonomy, as all these uses share a common core -- that of
verbalizing and possibly transitivizing).
But every new use or sense proposed for a given entity has to be
carefully demonstrated. If not, we run the risk to propagate many
unnecessary meanings. One thing to check if a postulated meaning
component can in fact be the effect of some other element (such as the
suffix _-en_).
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">2. There is only one path from pieces (morphemes) to overall meaning
that can be correct.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
No, there may be several, especial in situations of language change this
HAS to be the case. I even would not agree with a methodological
principle that holds that any description has to come up with the
minimal possible sets of rules -- existing rules are an empirical
question and not a question of descriptive economy (which can be applied
everything else being equal, in order to take into account the economy
of usage of our mind's storing and processing capacities).
But again, every "extra"-path has to be made plausible and not
postulated ad hoc.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">3. There is a principled distinction between "basic" and "non-basic"
meanings which always obtains. (Of course we may not always be able to
discern or demonstrate it.)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I would not say that this is a principle question -- it is an empirical
question, and there may be elements that idiosyncrationally have several
unconnected meanings.
However, experience say that several meanings usually have devoleped one
from another historically, and that there may still be some common core
(or basic meaning).
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">4. Once a basic sense, always the basic sense.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
No, there is language change and things may get detached and develop
autonomously from a certain point in time.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">5. If a meaning component (e.g. “make”) can be shown to come from one
morpheme in a word, it cannot come from another.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
I would agree in the sense that in one analysis this is usually the case
-- but there may be cases of structural ambiguity i.e. parallel valid
analyses (see #1).
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">6. If a meaning component (e.g. “make”) can be shown to be absent in one
use of a morpheme, it is absent from all. (This may be #1 above in
another form.)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
No, not necessarily, but I would hold that when a meaning component C
(here: 'make') is absent in one use of element X (_en-_), and there is
another use of X co-occurring with an element Y (here: conversion) which
is a plausible candidate for being responsible for that meaning
component C, than there must be solid arguments to ascribe C to X, and
not, or simultaneously, to Y, in the second use.
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">7. If a it can be shown that a given meaning component (e.g. “make”)
*needn't* be present in a given morpheme, that proves that it *cannot*
be present. (Perhaps this is just a stronger form of #6.)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
If I was to be undersdood like this, than I expressed myself not clear
enough and apologize.
To the points of John:
> Do you have a reference on the Michael Hammond article?
I would also be interested.
> Why is EN-___-EN a circumfix? ...
> With EN-___-EN you have a prefix with a Latinate origin and a suffix
> with an OE origin that presumably have come into the English language
> at different times.
That does not preclude them from synchronously being two parts of one
discontinuous morpheme.
> You also have examples of the prefix EN- without -EN and -EN without
> EN-, which indicates they can function independently of each other.
The question is whether they have some meaning component that ONLY shows
up if the two are co-occurring. If this is the case, it is possible
that you have a circumfix in these cases, but it still may be that you
have another possible analysis that avoids the circumfix analysis.
In this case, I would also doubt that we have a circumfix here as I do
not see anything that is characteristic only to the combination of _en-_
and _-en_ and would not be encountered with only one of those (in
particular, only with _-en_ or by conversion into a tranritive verb, why
I even questioned that 'make' should be ascribed to _en-_ at all). But
maybe I am not aware of some arguments, and the Hammond article could
ENlight me...
> You said EN-___-EN is a favorite problem example that has been around
> in linguistics workbooks for 50 years.
I understood that it was the allomorphy /en/+/em/ of morpheme {em-}, not
the postulated circumfix.
Cheers, Sebastian
</pre>
</blockquote>
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