From: connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu
Newsgroups: sci.lang
Subject: Re: Esperanto's embedded sexism
Date: 21 Aug 92 12:16:43 -0600
Organization: Memphis State University

In article <10446@scott.ed.ac.uk>, iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski) writes:
> In article <1992Aug19.000459.3066@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu writes:

[much omitted]

>>But not every chunk of meaning surfaces
>>as a morpheme.  In Esperanto, 'male' and 'singular' precisely do not,
>>while 'plural' and 'feminine' do.
> 
> Fine; so far I've been saying "is realised as a zero morpheme" for
> what you call "doesn't surface as a morpheme".  It doesn't make all
> that much difference in the long run.

My principal reason for insisting that there are no "zero morphemes"
is a concern for theoretical neatness.  If a language can be described
without such things -- if I understand you correctly, that is your
position -- then I believe it should be.  Entia non ponenda sine
necessitate.

But there are practical reasons as well.  European grammar has an
unfortunate history of finding grammatical categories in one language
simply because some other language (originally Latin, now more probably
English) has them.  You must have seen the alleged six-case declension
of English _boy_.

	Nom.	the boy
	Gen.	of the boy
	Dat.	to the boy
	Acc.	the boy
	Voc.	o boy!
	Abl.	by the boy

Accurate grammatical description in *any* framework requires that we
posit only those categories which can be verified, or at least, for
which some evidence can be found.  But I know of no evidence for 
such an affix or morpheme in either English or Esperanto, though
obviously the situation is different elsewhere.  So I reject the
'singular' nominal morpheme for these languages, and reject the
concept of zero morphemes in general.

>>Linguistics texts still often make a grave mistake in defining, or 
>>better, in characterizing the morpheme as the minimal unit of a word
>>*capable of bearing meaning*.  While it is true that nothing smaller
>>can bear meaning, it does not follow that all morphemes actually do,
>>or that all meaning is expressed in morphemes.
> 
> It does not follow in a natural language, but in a planned language
> (such as Esperanto) it should be reasonably expected that all
> morphemes bear meaning, 

I don't know Esperanto, but I assume they do.  Zamenhof planned it
that way.

> and it may well be the case that all meaning
> is expressed in morphemes.

I don't see how else meaning could be expressed.  But even in a
planned language it must be true that some possible meaning is not
expressed.  Consider a German example.  The word for 'desk' is
_Schreibtisch_, a transparent compound ("write table").  But very
commonly Germans simply say _Tisch_ 'table'.  By so doing that
fail to add that element of meaning which distinguishes desks from
other four-legged, flat-topped pieces of furniture.  Yet the meaning
is present to both speaker and hearer; it is simply not expressed.
And desks have color, whether we say so or not.  In other words: I
cannot posit a morpheme simply because of *meaning*, but only
because of some non-zero realization found in Esperanto or whatever.

>>English has an obvious past tense morpheme, but not a present tense morpheme.
> 
> But what tells you that the verb is in present tense, if not the
> absence of the past tense morpheme?

The absence of expected morphemes is often significant, of course.
Here's an even nicer example:

	The grass was eaten by sheep.

Here _sheep_ is marked as plural, not by the plural morpheme (which 
here has a zero allomorph), but by the absence of the determiner.
I don't suppose you would want to posit a null determiner morpheme here?
I wouldn't.


--Leo Connolly
Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto