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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hi, I fully agree with Regina's position:
linguistics has already too many technical terms (not always used in the same
sense: think of phonology/phonematics, etc.) If a transparent term is not at
hand (and 'flag' does not seem to be the case) let's use a more transparent
periphrasis: 'case role marker' is fine. We can also write CRM which is shorter
than 'flag', 'functeme' et al.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Best.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Paolo</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^</FONT></DIV>
<DIV>prof.Paolo Ramat<BR>Università di Pavia<BR>Dipartimento di Linguistica
Teorica e Applicata<BR>tel. ##39 0382 984 484<BR>fax ##39 0382 984 487<BR></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=pustetrm@YAHOO.COM href="mailto:pustetrm@YAHOO.COM">REGINA PUSTET</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
href="mailto:LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG">LINGTYP@LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, July 13, 2006 8:21
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: FUNCTEME instead of relator,
case, adposition, flag, etc.</DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Hi</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>I’d like to approach this issue from a slightly different perspective.
I suggest suggesting *no term*. Terminology has a life of its own, and
scholarly interference of the kind we are engaging in will probably turn out
to be futile. The ‘best’ term will, sooner or later, end up being used more
frequently than the less appropriate ones. It’s almost like natural selection
in biology, I guess.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman"> <o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>For my own purposes, and explicitly non-prescriptively, I’ll keep on
using the term ‘case role marker’ and if necessary, I’ll specify, at the
structural level, whether I’m talking about affixes (i.e. case) or
adpositions. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3></FONT><FONT size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=3><FONT
face="Times New Roman"><o:p>Best,</o:p></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT face="Times New Roman"
size=3>Regina Pustet</FONT></DIV><BR><BR><B><I>claude-hagege
<claude-hagege@WANADOO.FR></I></B> wrote:
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Dear all,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> <FONT size=3> I have a
proposal. I suggest</FONT> <FONT size=3>a new term, which would be
FUNCTEME. </FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> <FONT size=3><EM>
</EM>Trask's <EM>flag</EM>, used by him with respect to an interesting
phenomenon in Basque morphosyntax, is not bad, but besides the reserves
expressed by Wolfgang and others, and despite the good arguments presented
by Martin, <EM>flag </EM>does not say anything to linguists, for a simple
reason: it is a metaphor. Admittedly, this makes it quite free of any loaden
past in linguistic terminology, but it also makes it somewhat surprising
(let alone that even if it is true that we write as scientists for
scientists, the term <EM>flag</EM>, </FONT></FONT><FONT face=Arial>if a
cultured reader who is not a professional linguist comes across it, might
give a strange idea of what we are doing...).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> <FONT size=3>I
coin FUNCTEME in the following way: the suffix
<EM><STRONG>-</STRONG>eme</EM>, in the terminology of linguistics as well as
in that of other sciences, regularly refers to "a unit (often the smallest
one) of what the root says" (cf. <EM>phoneme, toneme, sememe</EM>, etc.).
The root, in <EM>funct-eme</EM>, says that the unit in question merely
indicates the function of the element (mostly a noun or noun
phrase) that it governs: Engl. <EM>for </EM>in <EM>for my friend
</EM>indicates that <EM>my friend </EM>is the benefactive complement of the
predicate. It is obvious that prepositions like <EM>for</EM> also have
a meaning (and this is the main reason why <EM>case </EM>was originally used
by Fillmore 1968 in a semantic acception), but <EM>functeme</EM> strictly
refers to the syntactic role of relators. Thus, <EM>functeme</EM> precisely
says what relators are actually from the morphological and syntactic
point(s) of view: they are <U>units of function
marking.</U></FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><U><FONT face=Arial></FONT></U> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Best<U>,</U></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><U><FONT face=Arial></FONT></U> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Claude</FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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