Can “ish” be used as a free word? Well… ish…

I have just read a really interesting discussion about the degrammaticalization of the morpheme -ish (as in red >> reddish).

The question is whether ish can be considered as a “liberated word form” or if it can only be used on its own when the word it should be attached to can be easily recovered in the context as in:

• Is he rich?
• Ish.

In the example above, of course, it means “richish”. But what about this example:

• Can I punch anyone on earth?
• Yes, ish.

Is ish referring to anyone or to the entire speech act? You can read the entire discussion here. I agree with those who claim that in this case ish has scope over the entire speech act. It should be interpreted to mean “sort of” and therefore it is used as a free word form to mitigate the illocutionary effect. Any other examples?