what does conditionally mean? and what does morphologically conditioned mean? what is the difference? exampls!

Answer 1

We're going to have to get into some technical linguistics terms here, so hold on.

In a general sense, something is conditional if it might or might not happen. What causes it to happen or not would be the condition. So, for example, I could say that meeting with you next tuesday is conditional on having some time free. If I'm getting back to you later about it, you might say that we are conditionally meeting.

Similarly, you can say that something is conditioned. In this sense again an effect has been produced which otherwise might not have happened. In common parlance, this is done through training and is sometimes considered to be synonymous with training. The quality of being conditioned would be conditioning. So you might say that Pavlov's dog was conditioned to drool whenever a bell rang. Here again we see that the condition is stated - the rnging bell is the cause.

You might also say that an athelete is in good condition because he has been conditioned to recieve conditioning. But that's just getting silly.

Logically enough, something is morphologically conditioned if morphology caused it to be.

Morphology is the set of rules that are involved in a language. Like the whole 'i before e...', except that many morphological rules are far more subtle, and some are far more binding. Like pretty much everything in a living language, the rules can sometimes change through time, and the rules themselves can affect other aspects of the language, such as the sound of words (the phonology).

So a good example of morphological conditioning involves adopting words into other languages. One good story I heard involves an American tourist trying to get to his hotel in Japan. He keeps asking for the 'Hilton' hotel, but the cab driver has no idea what he's talking about. Finally a merciful passerby help out. He leans in and says to the driver, "This man is looking for the Hiruton." And with that the driver nods and takes off.

You see, in Japanese pretty much all consonant sounds are followed by a vowel. You can't have an 'l' sound and a 't' sound next to each other. So when a Hilton hotel was built, morphological conditioning caused it to be pronounced 'Hiruton'. It's the same word - a name, really - but the rules in Japanese prevent the sounds from being the same. It's morphologically conditioned.

Hope that helps.