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Cliticization vs. Inflection: English N'T

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

Arnold M. Zwicky  and
Geoffrey K. Pullum
Arnold M. Zwicky
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Geoffrey K. Pullum
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Cruz
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Abstract

Two types of bound morphemes—clitics and inflectional affixes—are found attached to (free) words in many languages. At least six lines of evidence separate the clear cases on each side: the degree of selection between the dependent morpheme and the word to which it is attached; arbitrary lexical gaps; phonological idiosyncrasies; semantic idiosyncrasies; syntactic operations affecting the combinations; and restrictions on the combinability of clitics with inflectional affixes. These criteria all indicate that English contracted auxiliaries (She's gone) are clitics, but that the English contracted negative (She hasn't gone) is an inflectional affix—a rather surprising conclusion that turns out to have satisfying consequences.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , September 1983 , pp. 502 - 513
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by Linguistic Society of America

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