[Lingtyp] the King of England’s daughter

[bingfu Lu]

Dear Martin,

Thanks for you reply and very helpful web dlc.hypotheses.org.
 
Why not just treat possessive –’s as a welded postposition? 
   
Yes, this is possible – I don't know any serious arguments against it.
【the problem is many adpositions can attach to constructions of different levels. Chinese 'de' can attach both NP, VP and clause. It is not a big problem since clauses are also kind of phrase. More problematic is Japanese 'no', it can attach to a determiner, a numeral (both normally treated as words), and an NP, but not a VP/clause.  In the literature, Japanese 'no' is conventionally taken as a postposition. Any suggestion?  I would like to give 'de' and 'no' a functional term 'modification marker'. Such kind markers are widespread in Asian languages.】
BestBingfu 
   
My proposal is to distinguish word-attached affixes, phrase-attached adpositions and clause/sentence-attached particles. 
   
 
Yes, this is what people often do, but it's usually very difficult to say whether something attaches to a word or to a phrase – semantically, even tense suffixes attach to the whole clauuse, but we still treat them as affixes.
 
   
It seems all the three functional forms are much more welded when they follow their host than their counterparts which precede. Compare English possessive markers of and –’s.
   
 
Yes – this relates to the "suffixing preference" (https://dlc.hypotheses.org/782). But note that "welded", as I defined it, is not a gradable concept.
 
 
   
BTW, I agree with you on the term ‘welded’ replacing the awkward and vague ‘prosodically bounded’. 
 
For whatever reason, I cannot send my email to lingtyp group. So I have to send my mail directly to you.
   
 
Your message of 25 January did go to LINGTYP (see http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/2019-January/006953.html).
 
But I replied to you separately, because it seemed a minor point.
 
Best wishes,
Martin
 
 
 
  
   On Monday, January 28, 2019, 12:05:40 PM PST, Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at shh.mpg.de> wrote: 
  
    On 25.01.19 23:24, bingfu Lu wrote:
 
 
      
Dear Martin,
 
I just wonder is there a term for bounded forms that attach to phrases instead of words. For example, English plural marker –(e)s attaches to nominal words. English third person singular marker –(e)s attaches to verbal words. But English possessive marker –’s attaches to nominal phrases, such as in the King of England’s daughter. I think the difference is very important in typology.
 
Best
 
Bingfu
 
   
 Yes, so I would say that all three are welded (because they have different shapes depending on their hosts), but only the first two are affixes (see https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1664). The third marker is usually called a "clitic", but in my terminological system, I don't have a term for it.
 
 Best wishes, 
 Martin
 
 -- 
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10	
D-07745 Jena  
&
Leipzig University
Institut fuer Anglistik 
IPF 141199
D-04081 Leipzig    





       
 
 -- 
Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at shh.mpg.de)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10	
D-07745 Jena  
&
Leipzig University
Institut fuer Anglistik 
IPF 141199
D-04081 Leipzig    





   
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