21.4248, Disc: Morphemes in Polysynthetic Languages

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LINGUIST List: Vol-21-4248. Tue Oct 26 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.4248, Disc: Morphemes in Polysynthetic Languages

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1)
Date: 20-Oct-2010
From: Kela Ruuskanen [kela at kolumbus.fi]
Subject: Morphemes in Polysynthetic Languages
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:17:40
From: Kela Ruuskanen [kela at kolumbus.fi]
Subject: Morphemes in Polysynthetic Languages

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In a polysynthetic language, can a morpheme have a meaning in and of itself
without being used in an utterance? Can you please provide an example of
such a morpheme, and the name of the language? I have been told that such a
morpheme does not exist, that an 'utterance' in a polysynthetic language
must consist of a complete sentence. Is this the case? 

This leads to a further question: how can you have morpheme to morpheme
translating dictionaries for a polysynthetic language, if no morpheme has
meaning alone? Are translating 'glosses' of phrases the only reference
possible for translators?

Thanks very much for your input.

Kela 


Linguistic Field(s): Morphology
                     Typology




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