Author: Buncic, Daniel

Source: Written Language & Literacy, Volume 7, Number 2, 2004 , pp. 185-204(20)

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Abstract:

The paper provides a new analysis of the apostrophe in various languages which is less redundant and complies better with linguistic intuition than traditional definitions. <br /> The apostrophe does not mark the omission of letters, as traditionally assumed (English it's, German auf'm `on the', French l'ami `the friend'), but indicates important morpheme boundaries wherever this is necessary for certain reasons. Such an indication of a morpheme boundary can be necessitated by several factors, e.g. the omission of letters (English it's, German auf'm, French l'ami), proper names (Turkish Ankara'da `in Ankara', English John's), or graphical code-switching (English two l's, Russian laptop'ов `laptop, gen. pl.'). <br /> This explanation covers even most violations of current orthographic norms, e.g. German Häus'chen `small house', and it has no exceptions whatsoever in formal texts. (English isn't, German 'nauf `up', French p'tit `small' are mere `transcripts' of colloquial speech.)

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/wll.7.2.04bun

Affiliations: 1: University of Bonn

Publication date: 2004-01-01

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