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Free morpheme constraint revisited
Author(s) -
AZUMA SHOJI
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-971x.1996.tb00122.x
Subject(s) - morpheme , constraint (computer aided design) , linguistics , computer science , natural language processing , mathematics , artificial intelligence , philosophy , geometry
As one of the best‐known linguistic constraints on code‐switching, Poplack (1980) has proposed the ‘free morpheme constraint’ which predicts no switching between a free morpheme and a bound morpheme. Although the free morpheme constraint is attractive due to its simplicity, cross‐linguistic data do not support the constraint. The present study argues that semantic content of an item should be considered rather than its morphological form. As an alternative to the free morpheme constraint, a constraint based on the notion of semantic content is proposed.