Morphology
5.1, 5.3 (Ex. p 154 #0, 1)
Homework: 5.2 (due 3/19)
Morphology
• Up to this point we have studied the
sounds of English and how they interact in
systematic ways
• The next step:
Strings of language sounds form units
of meaning
Morphology
• Morphology is the study of how units of
meaning are formed
Morphology
• How many units of meaning are present in
the following sentence:
my shoes are untied
Morphology
Or in this sentence:
I waited for her all morning
Morphology
Or in this sentence:
those socks are smelly
Morphology
• *Morpheme — the smallest unit of
meaning in a language
– i.e., it cannot be subdivided into smaller units
of meaning
Morphology
• We usually think of morphemes as
bases/stems
affixes
Stem
• *Base / stem — the meaning unit that
affixes attach to
This is the core of the word, which has the
lexical meaning that is added to in some
way by an affix
Morphology
• *Affixes – attach to bases/stems
Affixes
• Prefixes attach to the front of a stems or
words
(in-)sight
(dis-)arm
(un-)aware
Affixes
• Suffixes — attach to the end of stems or
words
try(-ing)
examin(-ation)
navig(-ate)
rect(-ify)
Affixes
• Infixes – attach in the middle of a word
•
Karl (-the mailman-) Malone, etc.
fan(-f…-)tastic
a(-whole-)nother thing
Morphology
• Through the systematic interaction of
morphemes, the units of meaning of a
language are formed
• Part of what we know when we know a
language is how morphemes interact
Morphology
Some morphemes show variation in use
• Colder
More beautiful
Morphology
Adjectives / Adverbs
• (-er) ‘more’
• (-est) ‘most’
slower
slowest
Can we make a descriptive rule for this
variation?
Morphology
• *Allomorph: Variants of morphemes
That is, variations in the form of the
morpheme, with each form having the
same meaning
Allomorphs
• Plural (-s) morpheme
/z/
/əz/
/s/
beds sashes hats
• Question: Which is basic plural in English?
Allomorphs
•
•
•
•
Possessive (-s)
/z/
Bill’s
/əz /
Marcus’s
/s/
Clark’s
Allomorphs
•
•
•
•
3Person Singular
/z/
reads
/əz/
watches
/s/
hits
Allomorphs
*RULE:
• after voiced sounds, /z/
• after sibilants, /əz/
• after other voiceless sounds /s/
[sound familiar?]
More Allomorphs
• Past tense (–ed):
/d/
/t/
feared, burned, cried
wished, kissed [for some, burnt,
learnt]
/əd/ heated, mended
More Allomorphs
RULE:
after voiced sounds, /d/
after voiceless sounds, /t/
after alveolar stops, /ed/
Allomorphs
• We can see that many allomorphs in
English are phonologically conditioned —
Their form is determined by neighboring
sounds
•
Cf. Spanish: amigos
(in Spanish, no such conditioning)
Allomorphs
Other allomorphs in English:
• pres. part. (-ing) [ən], [iŋ] ‘playing’
free variation (only stylistic variation)
Allomorphs
•
•
•
•
•
Unlike
Inactive
Impossible
Illogical
Irreversible
• What rule produced these allomorphs?
Morphology
• Lexical categories:
I. Content words: have lexical meaning
II. Grammar words: provide primarily
grammatical information
Lexical categories
• I. *Content words (form class words)
Content (form class) words change
form to fit into the grammar —
pitch (V.) → pitcher (n.)
Content words
1. Constitute most of vocabulary —
by far the greatest number of words
Content words (form class words)
2. Have lexical meaning —
that is, they mean something —
table, floor, eat
(Nouns, Verbs, Ajs., Avs.)
Content words (form class words)
3. Open category: New ones can come into
the language at any time —
CDRom; mouse; blog; google; mcjob
Lexical categories
•
II. *Grammatical (function class) words
1. Smallest part of vocabulary —
only a small fraction of words
Grammatical (function class) words
2. Primarily grammatical meaning —
and, but, on, under, who, etc.
These not so much mean things as signify
grammatical relationships
Grammatical (function class) words
3. Closed class — unchanging grammatical
structure words
No new ones
Morphology
• Content (Form Class) words in English
may take inflectional morphemes or
derivational morphemes
*Inflectional morphemes
1. Contain grammatical information
2. Do not change word class
3. Suffixes only
Inflectional morphemes
Inflectional morphemes of English:
N — pl. (-s) two shoes
– p possessive (-s) a dog’s breakfast
Inflectional morphemes
V—
3 person sing. –s
She
eats at noon.
–pres. participle –ing
are eating
–past tense (-ed)
earned $20
–past participle (–en)
has eaten
[includes (-ed), vowel change]
Inflectional morphemes
Adj / Adv— (-er) slower
(-est) slowest
English has these 8 exactly
Derivational morphemes
•
*Derivational morphemes of English
participate in deriving new words
1. Change word meaning —
(im-) port
(un-) do
Derivational morphemes
2. Can change word class
•
•
•
•
•
(-er) driv-er, can open-er
noun making
(-ation) inform-ation
noun making
(-ize) real-ize
verb making
(-al) individu-al
adjective making
(-ious) delic-ious
adj. making
Derivational morphemes
3. May be suffix or prefix
(un-)like(-ly)
(im-)practic(-al)
Morphology
*Word Formation —
• Note sequence in which morphemes are
attached to stems and words:
Smell-y
Tie →
un-tie →
un-tie-d
form →
re-form →
re-form-ation
Veri-fy →
veri-fi-able → un-veri-fi-able
Word formation
Native speakers of a language know which
combinations are possible and which are
actual
?saltish crackers
?sugary cookies
?three-years-old girl
Inflection vs. Suppletion
Contrast Spanish and English verb patterns:
• Spanish ser conjugation
Yo soy
nosotros somos
Tu eres
(vosotros sois) ustedes son
El es
ellos son
Suppletion
• The English be verb paradigm:
– I am
– You are
– He / she / it is
we are
you are
they are
demonstrates suppletion —
separate items used to produce forms in a
grammatical pattern
Suppletion
More examples in English:
go / went
person / people
good / better
bad / worse
Word formation
• These elements of word formation are an
important component of the fundamental,
complex knowledge we have of our
language