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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!zehntel!vlsvax1!qantel!dual!ptsfa!rob
From: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: On "orphaned" words.
Message-ID: <547@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Apr-85 10:32:46 EST
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.547
Posted: Tue Apr  9 10:32:46 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Apr-85 05:55:23 EST
References: <7169@watdaisy.UUCP>
Reply-To: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Distribution: net
Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco
Lines: 27
Summary: 

In article <7169@watdaisy.UUCP> gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins) writes:
>... we noticed that the word "fro" in the phrase "to and fro" has
>no independent meaning in English. i.e. fro has no meaning
>outside of the phrase to and fro.
>	Questions : Why is this? Are there any other such orphaned words?

There is a term linguists use "cran morpheme" for basically the same
phenomenon. A morpheme is the atomic language unit that bears meaning,
e.g. a word root, a prefix, a suffix, which cannot be decomposed into
any smaller units that have meaning. The term "cran morpheme" is based
on  the compound "cranberry", where "berry" has a meaning,
but the remainder "cran" is not used elsewhere in English. Actually,
Ocean Spray has changed this with their Crangrape and Cranapple drinks.
-- 


Rob Bernardo, Pacific Bell, San Francisco, California
{ihnp4,ucbvax,cbosgd,decwrl,amd70,fortune,zehntel}!dual!ptsfa!rob

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