Clitic vs. Affix Diagnostics

@cite{zwicky-pullum-1983}

Six criteria for distinguishing clitics from inflectional affixes, formalized as a diagnostic profile.

The six criteria

Criterion	Clitic-like	Affix-like
A. Selection	low (any category)	high (specific stems)
B. Paradigm gaps	none	present
C. Morphophonological idiosyncrasies	none	present
D. Semantic idiosyncrasies	none	present
E. Syntactic rules affect combination	no	yes
F. Attaches to cliticized material	yes	no

A morpheme that scores affix-like on all six criteria is an inflectional affix. A morpheme that scores clitic-like on all six is a simple clitic. The surprising result of @cite{zwicky-pullum-1983} is that English -n't scores affix-like on all six, despite the traditional clitic analysis.

structure Morphology.Diagnostics.CliticAffixProfile : Type

A diagnostic profile scoring a bound morpheme on Zwicky & Pullum's six criteria. Each field records the empirical observation for one criterion; the classification into clitic vs. affix is derived from the profile, not stipulated.

• morpheme : String

  Name of the morpheme being diagnosed.

• selection : Core.Morphology.SelectionDegree

  A. Degree of selection: how restrictive is the morpheme about what it attaches to? Clitics: low. Affixes: singleCategory or closedClass.

• hasArbitraryGaps : Bool

  B. Are there arbitrary gaps in the paradigm? Characteristic of affixes (e.g., *strided, *amn't).

• hasMorphophonIdiosyncrasies : Bool

  C. Does the combination show morphophonological idiosyncrasies (irregular allomorphy, suppletion)? Characteristic of affixes (e.g., won't ← will + n't).

• hasSemanticIdiosyncrasies : Bool

  D. Does the combination show semantic idiosyncrasies (meaning not derivable from parts)? Characteristic of affixes (e.g., mustn't = MUST(NOT(P)), not NOT(MUST(P))).

• syntacticRulesApply : Bool

  E. Do syntactic rules (e.g., Subject–Auxiliary Inversion) treat the combination as a unit? If yes, the morpheme behaves like part of the word (affix-like), not a separate clitic.

• attachesToCliticizedMaterial : Bool

  F. Can the morpheme attach to material that already contains a (simple) clitic? Clitics can stack (I'd've); affixes cannot (*I'd'ven't).

instance Morphology.Diagnostics.instReprCliticAffixProfile : Repr CliticAffixProfile

Equations

• Morphology.Diagnostics.instReprCliticAffixProfile = { reprPrec := Morphology.Diagnostics.instReprCliticAffixProfile.repr }

def Morphology.Diagnostics.instReprCliticAffixProfile.repr : CliticAffixProfile → Nat → Std.Format

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

instance Morphology.Diagnostics.instBEqCliticAffixProfile : BEq CliticAffixProfile

Equations

• Morphology.Diagnostics.instBEqCliticAffixProfile = { beq := Morphology.Diagnostics.instBEqCliticAffixProfile.beq }

def Morphology.Diagnostics.instBEqCliticAffixProfile.beq : CliticAffixProfile → CliticAffixProfile → Bool

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.
• Morphology.Diagnostics.instBEqCliticAffixProfile.beq x✝¹ x✝ = false

def Morphology.Diagnostics.CliticAffixProfile.affixLikeSelection (p : CliticAffixProfile) : Bool

Does this profile indicate affix-like behavior on criterion A?

Equations

• p.affixLikeSelection = p.selection.isHighSelection

def Morphology.Diagnostics.CliticAffixProfile.affixScore (p : CliticAffixProfile) : Nat

Count how many criteria score affix-like.

Equations

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def Morphology.Diagnostics.CliticAffixProfile.cliticScore (p : CliticAffixProfile) : Nat

Count how many criteria score clitic-like.

Equations

• p.cliticScore = 6 - p.affixScore

def Morphology.Diagnostics.CliticAffixProfile.classify (p : CliticAffixProfile) : Core.Morphology.MorphStatus

Classify a morpheme based on its diagnostic profile.

A morpheme that scores affix-like on all six criteria is classified as an inflectional affix. A morpheme scoring clitic-like on all six is a simple clitic. Mixed profiles are classified as special clitics (following @cite{zwicky-pullum-1983}'s taxonomy).

Equations

• One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.

def Morphology.Diagnostics.CliticAffixProfile.isUnambiguousAffix (p : CliticAffixProfile) : Bool

Does this morpheme satisfy all six criteria for inflectional affix?

Equations

• p.isUnambiguousAffix = (p.affixScore == 6)

def Morphology.Diagnostics.CliticAffixProfile.isUnambiguousClitic (p : CliticAffixProfile) : Bool

Does this morpheme satisfy all six criteria for simple clitic?

Equations

• p.isUnambiguousClitic = (p.cliticScore == 6)

theorem Morphology.Diagnostics.classify_all_affix (p : CliticAffixProfile) (h : p.affixScore = 6) : p.classify = Core.Morphology.MorphStatus.inflAffix

A morpheme scoring 6/6 affix-like classifies as inflAffix.

theorem Morphology.Diagnostics.classify_all_clitic (p : CliticAffixProfile) (h : p.affixScore = 0) : p.classify = Core.Morphology.MorphStatus.simpleClitic

A morpheme scoring 0/6 affix-like classifies as simpleClitic.

theorem Morphology.Diagnostics.classify_total (p : CliticAffixProfile) : p.classify = Core.Morphology.MorphStatus.inflAffix ∨ p.classify = Core.Morphology.MorphStatus.simpleClitic ∨ p.classify = Core.Morphology.MorphStatus.specialClitic

Classification is exhaustive: every profile maps to a MorphStatus.