Clitics, anti‐clitics, and weak words: Towards a typology of prosodic and syntagmatic dependence

Zingler, Tim

doi:10.1111/lnc3.12453

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 66 publications

(100 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The notion underlying this term has traditionally been used to distinguish words and clitics on the one hand from affixes on the other (see Haspelmath 2011: 45-7). Specifically, the idea is that affixes are bound to words from a single word class (selective), whereas clitics and words can occur with words from multiple categories (non-selective); see also Spencer & Luís (2012: 1); Zingler (2022a). As shown, the expletives are clearly not limited to co-occurrences with a specific word class and thus violate one of the central criteria used to define affixes.…”

Section: Expletive Insertionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expletive insertion: a morphological approach

Zingler¹

2023

English Language and Linguistics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

English words containing inserted expletives, like absobloodylutely or unbefuckinglievable, are often said to be created by ‘infixation’. One goal of this work is to argue that such claims are self-contradictory. Infixes are affixes, but the expletives are not. Rather, they are themselves morphologically complex, are not bound, and can occur with words from different syntactic categories. Hence, the expletives are full words, and the only property they share with infixes is their phonologically determined insertion point. Due to these factors, I suggest that words like absobloodylutely are discontinuous compounds instead, in which the expletive forms a new word with the word it interrupts. I further argue that discontinuous compounding is even rarer than actual infixation cross-linguistically, which makes English a typological outlier. On the other hand, I try to show that the apparently idiosyncratic properties of expletive compounds are compatible with English compounding at a more abstract level. In addition, the article seeks to establish some tentative diachronic and cognitive mechanisms that may have led to the emergence and retention of expletive insertion. The overall conclusion is that, once morphological phenomena are analyzed in sufficient detail, novel structural patterns and parallels may emerge.

show abstract

Section: Expletive Insertionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expletive insertion: a morphological approach

Zingler¹

2023

English Language and Linguistics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The grammaticalization of noun affixes: a cross-linguistic study

Zingler

2024

STUF - Language Typology and Universals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper investigates a type of empty morph that attaches to noun forms and that will be called “noun affix” here. Based on six case studies from unrelated African and American genera, I arrive at a diachronic typology of noun affixes that in many ways confirms and in other ways expands on the findings of Joseph Greenberg, whose work on the topic remains the yardstick. One claim is that noun affixes may emerge directly from gender markers and that this is reflected in the paradigm size of noun affixes. Furthermore, there is evidence for the idea that old noun affixes may be repurposed for the creation of phonologically minimal word forms. The main interest of this study is in what the development of noun affixes reveals about processes of grammaticalization. The current literature mostly focuses on the fact that grammaticalization is initiated by semantic changes (mostly semantic reduction) rather than by formal changes. This raises the question of whether semantic reduction is also completed before formal reduction. The noun affixes provide compelling evidence for this idea and thus suggest that empty morphs may arise via grammaticalization. This runs counter to approaches on which form and function erode in parallel.

show abstract

A functional approach to the formal mismatches of indexation markers

Zingler

2023

Zeitschrift Für Sprachwissenschaft

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper argues that indexation markers (i.e., argument-indexing agreement markers and/or pronouns) show a wider range of formal mismatches across languages than the exponents of other inflectional categories. These mismatches are defined in terms of mixed behavior with respect to different criteria of wordhood. The mismatches that the indexation markers (or “indexes”) show include extrametricality with respect to reduplication and “mobility” in that they can occur in different slots of otherwise identical word forms. Other indexes can freely occur on either member of a phrase-level construction or behave like full-fledged affixes in one context but like full-fledged words in another. The claim that the range of these traits is extraordinary is based on a larger project, (Zingler, Tim. 2020. Wordhood issues: Typology and grammaticalization. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico PhD dissertation), which in addition to indexes investigates mismatches among case, definiteness, and tense markers. The explanations offered for this behavior primarily rely on the manner in which reference is established in discourse and on the different diachronic pathways for which these usage patterns pave the way. Another major conclusion is that the indexes described here constitute a formally heterogeneous set that cannot be easily subsumed under the label of “clitics.”

show abstract

Clitics, anti‐clitics, and weak words: Towards a typology of prosodic and syntagmatic dependence

Cited by 4 publications

References 66 publications

Expletive insertion: a morphological approach

Expletive insertion: a morphological approach

The grammaticalization of noun affixes: a cross-linguistic study

A functional approach to the formal mismatches of indexation markers

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About