sum function words question motivation three weeks ago asked linguist readers help find examples function words unusually specific meanings meant elicit examples could mention paper called formal semantics grammaticalization discuss happens meaning content morpheme develops function morpheme argue developing work semanticists logicians 1 function morphemes meanings contrary widespread assumption consider meanings quantifiers tense aspect modals etc bread butter us working semanticists 2 class logical meanings certain formal properties permutationinvariance high types 3 unfortunately perfect correlation logical meanings functional morphemes lexical content morphemes almost logical meanings adjectives mere alleged verbs deny believe nouns majority etc might functional morphemes nonlogical meanings hence linguist query 4 thus much say happens meaning morpheme becoming grammaticalized although make presumably doomed efforts finished paper based talk gave nels 25 workshop language change appear nels 25 proceedings available glsa umass amherst glsa linguist umass edu paper downloadable anonymous ftp following url ftp broca mit edu pub fintel gramma ps would welcome comments ii responses mark robert hale hale1 alcor concordia ca wrote reference pejorative pronouns shit samuel elbert grammar rennellese bellona echo culture grammar rennell bellona uhawaii press 1988 oceanic linguistics special publication 22 interesting cases grammaticalization somewhat relevant type exist micronesian languages set verbal affixes directionality towards speaker towards hearer towards third party usual deixis system also include toward open ocean toward lagoon whereas course want say toward john house nonce collocation need use pp similar probably similar enough bizarre use cardinal directionals icelandic documented classic paper einar haugen dig reference really want seems like predominantly coastal inhabitants rather uneven fjorded coastline go city north actually involved heading southerly direction time lived north coast going south frequently involved walking north northeast system ended totally screwed recall time since read article hoski thrainsson harvard would probably know relevant facts thrainss fas harvard edu cardinal directions grammaticalized inverse force original semantics verbs motion thing river names case supposed salishan maybe sally thomason respond linguist posting otherwise might write sally pogo isp pitt edu although salish speakers actually working landbound done historical salishan probably knows basic facts case think may relevant either guess kind interesting nonetheless ho min sohn woleaian reference grammar suspect discussion noun incorporation possibly elsewhere states bare n objects obligatorily incorporate eat fish ungrammatical one say fisheat generally true micronesian transitive clauses written history definite np objects incorporate thefish eat n modified anything eat big fish fine spite fact eat fish garbage clearly structural constraint heads incorporate anyway doctor incorporate circumstances ever one doctor woleai inherently specific woleai atoll population ca 250 like said maybe directly relevant kinda cute david gil ellgild nusvm bitnet mitvma mit edu wrote think many examples looking suspect terminological confusion classifiers idiosyncratic contentful like uses clearly functional arguably numeral classifier position clearly functioning nominalizers eg clf john saw meaning one john saw ligatures relativizers eg movie clf john saw meaning movie john saw articles eg clf movie meaning movie presently working syntax semantics constructions se asian languages pronouns nt know shit examples se asian languages pronouns come sorts idiosyncratic culturebound honorific content could go hala z sa ndor halasz kewszeg norden1 com wrote old germanic prepozitions enough benorth beeast believe iceland yet found old english bunch words besides adj also behaved prep one left near hand du pickd honor du tomorrow du sumtimes seems old germanic prep open class rules making one adj words randy j lapolla hslapolla ccvax sinica edu tw wrote qiang languages tibeto burman family sino tibetan stock systems verb prefixes refer geographic landmarks towards river toward mountian aside normal references towards speaker etc interesting prefixes also mark achievement vs state also perfective vs imperfective lee hartman ga5123 siucvmb siu edu wrote following probably exactly looking bear similarity example prepositions refer nearby river indonesian four words north south east west al monomorphemic far know northeast northwest respectively _ timur laut _ _ barat laut _ literally east sea west sea southeast _ tenggara _ monomorphemic nt yet found southwest thank interesting comments kai von fintel dept linguistics philosophy mit cambridge 02139 email fintel mit edu http broca mit edu fintel home html