Talk:Cranberry morpheme

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A shortened name is "cran morph". AnonMoos 02:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] disputing 'phonetic cran morphs'

I would disagree with the claim that...

Phonetically, the first morphemes of gooseberry and raspberry also count as cranberry morphemes

It is arguably true that phonetically the strings [guz] and [rɑzp] never exist on their own in English, but this fact is irrelevant. Their surface level realisation in their respective compounds only arises because of anticipatory voicing (i.e. assimilation): for both examples the voiced /b/ of 'berry' brings about the voicing /s/ -> /z/ change in the coda of the first syllable (note that the /p/ in raspberry is silent, hence does not block the voicing).

This kind of assimilation is merely an articulatory tendency (if a somewhat entrenched one) and may not even occur in some people's speech. On a cognitive level, therefore, there is no bound morpheme 'gooze' nor 'razp' - whereas there is a bound morpheme 'cran' - and so I think the above claim should be removed.

(I'm not an expert on this though, so I'll leave the decision up to someone else) Barflyuk 15:44, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] cranberry morphemes = a poor choice of name

Just found this over at http://www.languagehat.com/archives/001146.php :

The cranberry is indeed the "craneberry" but not in the sense of a measure of herring. Rather, it's because the tall flower stem of the cranberry with its hooked blossom looks like the long neck and beaky head of the crane. That's why "cranberry morpheme" is a poor choice of terms for the phenomenon. Allowing for spelling, "Cranberry" is a compound just like "blueberry" or "gooseberry," and it's separable in exactly the same way.

So perhaps 'cranberry morpheme' is actually a stupid name. While other cran morph examples have no place whatsoever in PDE (e.g. '-kempt' in unkempt, '-heveled' / '-sheveled' in disheveled, '-gruntled' in disgruntled), the old word 'cran' can very easily and immediately be likened to PDE 'crane'.

On the other hand, the etymological form 'cran' is clearly defunct now, separated from PDE both by spelling and pronunciation, and so I personally would put it on a par with 'kempt', 'gruntled' etc. After all, every cram morph can surely be proven to have existed as a standalone word at one time or another, if you're just willing to trawl through their etymology far enough, e.g. OE kempt = PDE combed.

A curious subject either way. Especially in relation to Cognitive Linguistics (e.g. if you're a Historical Linguist with a vast swathe of etymological knowledge, can there be any cran morphs? wouldn't your lexicon include items such as 'kempt'?) Barflyuk 16:41, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

"Cran morph" (or Cranberry morpheme in full expanded form) is pretty much the standard linguistic term, however. AnonMoos 19:41, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] question

Does '-pute' in 'compute' & 'dispute' count as a cranberry morpheme, or to qualify must it be a bound morpheme which occurs only in a single morphologically complex lexical item?

[edit] Merge with Fossil word

I oppose the merge with the "Fossil word" article, since cran morphs are prosodically and morphologically bound forms, which do not occur as separate words -- which is not the case with fossil words... AnonMoos 19:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spick and span

"Spick and span" seems to belong more at the Fossil word article than in this one. AnonMoos 11:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Circus of speciousness

Can someone please edit/rewrite this article so it makes sense to someone who doesn't have 8,000 years of graduate-school background?

I think my biggest problem with it is the way it's riddled with pimped-up jargon. Is there any reason, for example, to say "the canonical example" instead of "the most well-known example"? For example. Too, there's a fair amount of copyediting needed in the further interest of overall clarity, not to mention correct grammar and effective syntax.

I'm not saying we need to dumb it down. I'm actually saying the opposite: I want it to be more easily understood by people who DON'T already know about morphemes, and not a little showboating venue for the amusement of linguistics fancypants. Yeah, you.

Anyway, I just read the entire article and clicked on just about every internal link, and I must confess I still don't know what a cranberry morpheme is.

Por exemplo[sies]:

A:Phonetically, the first morphemes of gooseberry and raspberry also count as cranberry morphemes, as they don't occur by themselves but the spelling gives a clue to their obscure origins.
1. To what does "phonetically" refer in the above sentence? Structure dictates it refers to "count," but "phonetically to count" (or "to count phonetically,") makes very little sense to me, either literally or figuratively.
2. The "they" in "they don't occur" is also sort of a floater. Restructured: "the [...] morphemes [...] don't occur by themselves." Huh? "By themselves" where? In the...world? In my mind? In your butt?
3. "...the spelling gives a clue to their obscure origins." "The" spelling? The spelling of what? "Gooseberry" or "raspberry"? Or "goose"? Or "berry"? Or "rasp"? What about "spberry" or "ooseb"? And what's "obscure" about a goose or a rasp? Or do you mean the obscure origins of berries? I thought they came from fertilized flowers, but I confess I'm not a pollenologist.
4. I may be wrong, but I think we need a comma somewhere in the vicinity of that "but."

As for "mulberry":

The so-called "cranberry morpheme," "mul," actually comes from "morula," originally, if you go back real, real far. Loosely defined, this describes a single thing that's composed of other, smaller, closely connected things in a specific combination. A good example is a very early embryo that's composed of just a few cells (which is, in fact, called a "morula"). Another is, well, a raspberry -- which is not really a single berry but a cluster of a whole bunch of smaller berries all mushed together. Guess what else is a morula? That's right: a mulberry. This means, literally, a berry that's morular.
Here's what else is morular: http://www.kitchencontraptions.com/archives/pictures/img47l-thumb.jpg It's more commonly known as a "muddle," and it's used to mash fruits and herbs, mostly in the drink-mixing process. Please note the business end.
But guess what else it's called? That's right: a "mull." It's why "mulled wine" is called that, incidentally -- because mulled wine is made of wine that's got mashed spices in it, among other things.
This is all to prove that, according to the information/definition in this article, "mul" can't actually be a "cranberry morpheme" at all, since "mul" is not only phonetically, but literally (since it's in "mulberry," which is "multicelled berry"), a word by itself.

B:Compare these to blackberry, which has two obvious unbound morphemes.

When I click on "unbound morphemes," I read that they are, in fact, "free morphemes," and that to be one, you have to "stand alone." Standing alone isn't given a definition, but the implication is that "blackberry" can be broken up into words that can "stand alone," as words, themselves: "black" and "berry." "Blackberry" is offered as an example of a word that ISN'T composed of "cranberry morphemes," which, I'm now led to believe (based on having been shown what they AREN'T) are groups of letters that can be pronounced, but are not actually words, as such. This seems to make sense with regard to "cranberry," but not with either "gooseberry" or "raspberry," each of which can be split down the middle, giving you "berry," "goose," and "rasp." You don't even have to alter the spelling of the latter two; they're already words. So what, exactly, makes them "cranberry morphs," then?

I'm not saying there isn't a perfectly reasonable explanation; I'm sure there is, and I'm sure I'm able to understand it. I'm just not seeing it anywhere in this article.

Thanking you for your attention to this matter: Sugarbat (talk) 01:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)