What’s in a Word…?
Chapter 2
Whaddya Think?
What do you think are the top ten
printed words in English?
List them…
http://www.wordcount.org/main.php
http://www.world-english.org/english500.htm
A Rose is a Rose…?

What’s the Part of Speech






Bat
Slide
Plate
Home
Throw
Inning
(formal class)
of:
 Prototypically…
 Stretching it a bit…
Nouns

Traditional Definition


Person, place, or thing
Linguistic Definition

Tangible item or intangible concept
Verbs

Traditional Definition


Action & ‘State of Being’ words
Linguistic Definition


Convey action or state of being AND
Carry grammatical information about



tense (pres, past, etc)
person (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
Other… (to be discussed in later chapters)
Adjectives

Traditional Definition


Linguistic Definition


Modify nouns & other adjectives
Modifies a nominal or adjectival
(really close to the traditional definition…)
Modify: To change.
To add information about.
X
Get Some Exercise

Make three sentences using “model”



Sentence 1 ~ “model” as a noun
Sentence 2 ~ “model” as a verb
Sentence 3 ~ “model” as ad adjective
(2.2)
Pronouns

Traditional Definition


Substitute for a noun
Linguistic Definition

Substitute for any Noun Phrase or nominal
Determiners

Traditional Definition


Usually only talk about articles (a, an, the)
Linguistic definition



signals a NOUN is on it’s way
gives grammatical information about the
coming noun
Ø, a, an, the, some, few, much, many,
this, that, these, those, my, Dave’s, etc.
Prepositions

It was Mr. Plum





(& prepositional phrases)
After supper
In the library
With the hammer
For the sweet revenge
Think about it…


How do prepositions appear in sentences?
What purpose(s) do they serve?
Adverbs

Traditional Definition



Modify verbs, adjectives or adverbs
w/ info about Time, Place, or Manner
Answer: Where, When, Why? How?
Linguistic Definition

Modifies non-nominal items

V, Adj, Adv, phrases, clauses, or sentences
Conjunctions

Coordinating


And, but, or, nor, so, yet, for
Join two equal elements




Words
Phrases
Clauses
Subordinating


That, while, because
Make one element weaker…
Get Some Exercise

(2.1)
Identify the category of each word:
Noun, Verb, Adj, Adv, Prep, or Pro
“The market for audiobooks is very large.”
Some More Exercise

Write a sentence containing at least one
of each of these parts of speech:
Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, Preposition,
Pronoun, Determiner, Conjunction

Show us the labeled sentence
Any Questions…
…before we move on?
Words & Morphemes

Word



Smallest ‘free’ unit
AKA: Free morpheme…
Morpheme

Smallest meaningful unit


Bound
Free
Morpheme
Word
(free)
Morpheme
(bound)
Morpheme Types

Monomorphemic


Root / Stem (≈ free)
Polymorphemic
***Affix***
 Prefix
 Suffix
 Infix
 Circumfix
(≈ bound)
(not English)
(not English)
Antidisestablishmentarianism

What are the morphemes?



Which are bound?
Which are free?
What does each morpheme mean?
Derivation

The addition of a morpheme which
causes the original word to change in
meaning &/or grammatical category

(anti-dis-establish-ment-arian-ism)





anti
dis
ment
arian
ism
=
=
=
=
=
meaning change
meaning change
grammatical change (V  N)
meaning change
meaning change
Inflection

A morpheme which causes NO CHANGE in
the original word’s meaning or grammatical
category

Noun


Verb


_________, _________
_________, _________, _________
Adjective/Adverb

_________, _________
Now You Try…
Word
Mothers
Rebounded
Unproductive
# of
Morph’s
Free/
Bound
Deriv. /
Inflect.

Treeing
Word:


Meaning:


Bugetarian
One who eats only bugs
How I know



Bug= “root
-etary= having to do with
-ian= one who does…
(compare “vegetarian)

Tree:
Noun
(Noun)
Bug
(root)
-etary
(N or Adj)
-ian
(N)
Any Questions…
…before we move on?
To Make a New Word…






Derive (using a morpheme)
Create (out of the blue)
Compound (combine)
Shorten
Blend
Shift
Create

Marketing



Echoic


Kleenex
Xerox
Onomatopoeia
Ejaculations

Pee-yuu // Chinese: Pe
Combine

Compound


Beware Stress



Mailman
Greenhouse vs. Green House
Overtime vs. Over Time
Over Time…

Day’s Eye  Daisy
Shorten

Clipping



Omnibus  Bus
Zoological Garden  Zoo
Acronyms



TV
RADAR
SCUBA
Blending

A little of each


Smoke + Fog
 Smog
Ebony + Phonics  Ebonics
Shift

Midlife Crisis  Change Jobs





Wrap
Hand
Chair
Lynch
Sandwich
How They Rate
Type
Compounding
Affixation
Shifting
Shortening
Blending
Borrowing
Creating
1941-1991 (%)
40
28
17
8
5
5
<.05
Word Origin Exercise:
Derive, Compound, Shorten, Blend, Shift
Nicole Gibson, 26, took out six private loans to
finance her education at the Rochester Institute of
Technology in New York. Like thousands of coeds
across the U.S., Gibson was steered to private
loans by her school's financial aid office and is now
struggling to pay them off. Her monthly payments
are $1,300 — almost exactly how much she earns
each month as a graphic designer. With few places
to turn to for help, Gibson contacted a number of
lawyers to explore consolidation and payment-plan
options, only to be told that nothing can be done.
Morphological Systems

Isolating



Agglutinating



Each word is a free morpheme
(Chinese, Vietnamese)
Words take multiple bound morphemes
(Turkish, Quechua, Swahili)
Inflectional


Meaning conveyed largely by inflection
(German, Classical Latin)
More on Morphemes

Rule governed
Have creative potential

Allomorphs


2+ ‘surface representations’ of single UR
For “Tomorrow”

Exercises


1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19
22, 23, 24, 26
Many exercises have multiple repetitions of
the same skill. Do enough of each that you
understand the concept…

Read Chapter 3