LINGUIST List 22.2346

Fri Jun 03 2011

Qs: Early Sense of the Word 'Morpheme'

Editor for this issue: Danielle St. Jean <daniellelinguistlist.org>

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        1.     Stephen Anderson , Early Sense of the Word 'Morpheme'

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Message 1: Early Sense of the Word 'Morpheme'
Date: 01-Jun-2011
From: Stephen Anderson <srayale.edu>
Subject: Early Sense of the Word 'Morpheme'
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Wells (1947:8) says that "the term morphème was current inSaussure's day, but with a specialized significance: the 'formative'elements of a word (affixes, endings, etc.) as opposed to the root." Onthe other hand, there is consensus that the word was invented byBaudouin de Courtenay, and his 1895 definition is "that part of a wordwhich is endowed with psychological autonomy and is for the verysame reason not further divisible. It consequently subsumes suchconcepts as the root (radix), all possible affixes, (suffixes, prefixes),endings which are exponents of syntactic relationships, and thelike" (translation from Stankiewicz's Anthology).

I vaguely recall something like the usage Wells reports, but I can't find asource. In particular, everything in Baudouin, Kruszewsky, and otherwork of that vintage seems to use Baudouin's general sense ratherthan the limited one. Can anyone enlighten me about some earlylinguist who used 'morpheme' in a way that excluded roots?--Steve Anderson

Linguistic Field(s): Discipline of Linguistics                             History of Linguistics                             Morphology

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