For next Thursday, please read the following paper, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website:<\/p>\n
Zwicky, Arnold M. & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 1983. Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t<\/em>. Language<\/em> 59: 502-513.<\/p>\n In the paper, Zwicky and Pullum ask whether n’t<\/em> should really be considered a contracted form of not<\/em> (as ‘ve<\/em> in we’ve<\/em> is considered a contracted form of the verb have<\/em>). \u00c2\u00a0So-called ‘contracted’ forms are one example of what linguistics refer to as a ‘clitic’. \u00c2\u00a0Roughly speaking, a clitic is a morpheme that has an independent morphological\/syntactic existence, but is phonologically dependent on an immediately adjacent word. \u00c2\u00a0(Note, for instance, that we’ve<\/em> is pronounced as a single word.)<\/p>\n The other possibility is that n’t<\/em> is not a contracted form\/clitic, but is in fact an (inflectional) verbal suffix (as -s<\/em> in eats<\/em> is considered an inflectional suffix). \u00c2\u00a0Suffixes are one example of what linguists refer to as a ‘bound morpheme’. \u00c2\u00a0Unlike a clitic, a bound morpheme is complete dependent (morphologically\/syntactically\/phonologically) on some other word or (more generally) morpheme. \u00c2\u00a0Put another way, a clitic is a “semi-word”, while a bound morpheme can never stand alone as its own word.<\/p>\n Zwicky and Pullum review the evidence for these two views of n’t<\/em>, with some (perhaps) suprising results!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For next Thursday, please read the following paper, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website: Zwicky, Arnold M. & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 1983. Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t. Language 59: 502-513. In the paper, Zwicky and Pullum ask whether n’t should really be considered a contracted form of not (as ‘ve …<\/p>\n