Categoriality and Clustering

The essential meaning of a clause is typically conveyed by a small subset of the-morphemes in that clause, sometimes by only one or two; the information conveyed by the other morphemes is supplementary or already known. Clauses consist of one or more clusters; a cluster is made up of a nucleus (a single morpheme conveying information of central importance to the clause) and any number of satellites (bound morphemes or independent words conveying more peripheral information). Positing such a pragmatic structure for clauses makes it possible to give a unified explanation for apparently diverse morphological and syntactic phenomena in a number of languages.