Semantic content (was: Ural-Altaic. A fly)

Peter T. Daniels:

> Joachim Pense wrote:
>>
>> Peter T. Daniels:
>>
>> > Joachim Pense wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Peter T. Daniels:
>> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > A grammatical morpheme is a morpheme that has no semantic content of
>> >> > its own -- in English the complete list of bound grammatical
>> >> > morphemes is:
>> >> > {s} plural, {s} possessive, {s} 3sg., {ing} pres.part., {ed} past,
>> >> > {{en}
>> >> > past part., {er} comparative, {est} superlative. The free
>> >> > grammatical morphemes include conjunctions and prepositions (though
>> >> > some of them have specific semantics as well).
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> Please kindly confirm to me, in order to clarify my understanding:
>> >>
>> >> You state that e.g., plural, past, comparative, and superlative are
>> >> semantical contents, but they are not properties of the morphemes
>> >> themselves - the morpheme "s" itself has no meaning unless it occurs
>> >> in the context of a preceding noun or verb.
>> >
>> > The morphemes {s} are _bound morphemes_ -- they _cannot occur_ without
>> > the context of a preceding noun or verb, so the question is
>> > meaningless.
>>
>> Then you should explain what your "a morpheme that has no semantic
>> content of its own" should mean for bound grammatical morphemes.
>
> You've never encountered the concepts "content word" and "function word"
> before??
>
> What is the meaning of "the"?

But I was relating to your sentence, where you claimed that the grammatical
morpheme denoting plural has "no semantic content of its own", and used it
as a definition of "grammatical morpheme". Why is plurality not a semantic
content?

"The" of course is different, that has pragmatical content, not semantical.
Also I accept that the "s" denoting third person has no semantical content.
But plural, past or comparative?

Additional question: According to the definition you gave, why are the "pre"
in "preload" and the "un" and "able" in "undo" or "unbeatable" no
grammatical morphemes? What is the difference to the plural "s"?

Joachim
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Semantic content (was: Ural-Altaic. A fly)
    ... > Joachim Pense wrote: ... >> Peter T. Daniels: ... > the grammatical morphemes don't bear meaning in themselves; ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Semantic content (was: Ural-Altaic. A fly)
    ... >> Joachim Pense wrote: ... Notions of plurality -- or ... the grammatical morphemes don't bear meaning in themselves; ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Semantic content
    ... Why is plurality not a semantic content? ... tense, or comparison, etc. -- are marked by grammatical morphemes, but the grammatical morphemes don't bear meaning in themselves; ... verbs form their past tense and past participle with "-ed"; that's paradigmatic: the nouns and verbs that do not take this endings are considered exceptions. ...
    (sci.lang)