Hello:
I have been discussing the issue of implicit information with a person who
holds the code model of communication as a sole reliable source for utterance
interpretation. I have already pointed out to him some problems with this
model when it involves implicit information.
However, the issue now is whether an isolated linguistic item (such as an
inflected word) that is extracted from a context can on its own, convey
implicit information (i.e., the word on its own placed in total vacuum). This
person presented an English example such as "can't." He then states that
this, "has implicit in it the missing 'n' and 'o' to make the linguistically
valid expression "cannot." While this is true, I pointed out that these
phonemes in this instance do not convey implicit information, as morphemes
would seem to possibly do in a very restricted case. While many linguists
differ on the exact definition of a morpheme, they all generally agree and
consider it to be the minimal unit of speech conveying a specific meaning in
a language.
Here is my question: Is there such a thing as an elliptical morpheme in
grammatical ellipses in an entirely isolated word? If there is, then it would
seem that this person can form an argument that implicit information (however
restricted it may be) can be recovered from purely linguistic decoding. I
will consider any example of an elliptical prefix, infix, or suffix to an
isolated word whether it be a contraction or inflected linguistic item.
Hope I have explained myself clearly
Luis
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