I don't think you could claim that cran- is
synchronically related to crane, since (1) there is no regular
morphophonological process producing such "composition forms" (e.g. name + sake
--> *namsake), (2) it is not *self-evident* -- even to a linguist, without
investigating the history of the word and ruling out folk etymology -- that
cran- has anything to do with crane diachronically (the semantic connection
between cranes and cranberries is certainly obscure). By contrast, we are aware
that -berry derives from berry even if there is a good deal of phonetic erosion
(as in British English). Take mulberry or whorthleberry as still obscurer
formations. I'd say that in such cases X- simply means 'X-berry' and -berry is
semantically redundant. Bound morphemes may be recognisable as morphemes *only*
because they are combined with a familiar element, e.g. overwhelm or unkempt. We
know that unkempt means 'untidy, neglected' and that un- is a negative prefix,
so we can associate -kempt with 'tidy', even if we don't use it on its
own.
If both elements of a historical compound
are obscured both formally and semantically, it is no longer analysable as a
compound, even one containing bound morphemes, cf. gospel or gossamer. The
latter derives from two familiar elements (goose + summer), but their form is
distorted beyond recognition and semantically gossamer <-- goose-summer no
longer makes sense.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 12:06 AM
Subject: [phoNet] Re: greater language units
Hi.
{BE} and {CRAN} are morphemes for they do have
meaning.
'be-' is a prefix and it has a variety of meanings; 'cran-' is
related to 'crane' and is one of the roots in a compound noun.
What
might have made you assume they "aren't meaning-carrying" is the
fact that
they are BOUND morphemes (as opposed to free morphemes),
i.e. they cannot be
used on their own.
Mitko