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From Morphology
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The analysis of words
– and how they are structured
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To Syntax
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The analysis of phrases and sentences
– and how they are structured.

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Words vs morphemes
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Morphemes as smallest units of meaning in a language
– respect+ful; dis+respect+ful
– room+mate; stir+fry
– fire+fight+er
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Manhattan.

• Describing morphemes…
• Analyzing their arrangements….

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Form foundations of words
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Establish basic meanings
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English: fish; talk
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Shinzwani: -lo- (fish); -lagu- (talk)
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Czech: piv- (beer)

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Roots
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Serve as underlying foundation
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Can ’ t be broken down any further
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English: fish
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Shinzwani: -lo- (fish)
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Stems
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Derived from roots
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By means of affixes (see ‘ affix ’ slides)
 English: fish+ing = fishing; talk+er = talker
 Shinzwani: lo+a = -loa (fishing)
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Can have additional affixes attached
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English: talker+s = talkers
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Shinzwani: ni+ku+loa = nikuloa (I am fishing).

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Attach to bases
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Add grammatical information
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English: -er; -ing
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= fisher, fishing, talker, talking
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Shinzwani: hu- (to) ; niku- (I am)
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= huloa (to fish), hulagua (to talk)
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= nikuloa (I am fishing), nikulagua (I am talking)
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Czech: -o; -a; -Ø
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= pivo (beer), piva ((2, 3, 4) beers), piv ((5+) beers).

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Prefixes
– im+possible
– un+likely
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Suffixes
– walk+ing
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Infixes
– fan+bloody+tastic
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Circumfixes
– m+loz+i (fisherman)
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Reduplication
– mpole+mpole (very slow)
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Interweaving
– k+i+t+aa+b (book)
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Portmanteau
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Blog
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Brunch

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Derivation
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Changing one kind of word into another
• verbs into nouns: read -- reader; -lo- -- mlozi
• adjectives into verbs: modern -- modernize
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Inflection
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Showing relationships among words in a group
• tenses: hunted -- hunting
• comparisons: big -- bigger -- biggest
• persons: I fish -- she fishes
• number: cat -- cats; mpaha – zimpaha (cat/cats).

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The dogs chased the cats into the bushes.

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The dog-z chas-t the cat-s in-to the bush-ez.
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What is the difference between –z and –s?
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And what about –ez?

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Free morphemes are like bases
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Can stand alone
• e.g., words: speak; respect; Manhattan
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Bound morphemes are like affixes
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Must be attached to other morphemes
• e.g., affixes: -er; -ing; dis-; -ful
– speak-er; speak-ing; dis-respect-ful
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But note: roots can also be BOUND MORPHEMES
– e.g., Shinzwani -lo‘ fish ’ , Czech piv‘ beer ’
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Hierarchy among affixes
– English: derive first, then inflect…
• help+er+s (not help+s+er).

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Variant forms of a single morpheme
– e.g., Shinzwani (see page 90 in textbook):
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{singular-}
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/shi-/ with -ri, -sahani, -kombe
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/mu-/ with -hono, -ndru
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{plural-}
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/zi-/ with -ri, -sahani, -kombe
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/mi-/ with –hono, -ndru
– e.g., English: cats, dogs, & horses
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{-plural}
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/-s/ following voiceless stops
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/-z/ following voiced stops and vowels
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/-
I z/ following fricatives.

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Adjusting to neighboring sounds
– called “ morphophonemic conditioning ”
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English: cats, dogs, horses; improbable, illogical
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KiSwahili: W/R 4.11 (pages 74-75)
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Reflecting semantic categories
– called “ semantic conditioning ”
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KiSwahili: W/R 4.12 (pages 76-77)

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How words combine into phrases & sentences
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Note fuzzy boundary between morphology and syntax
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Shinzwani: ni+tso+hu+venza
‘ I+will+you+like ’
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All one word
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English: I will like you
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Four different words.

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Finding and testing substitution frames
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Also called ‘ slots and fillers ’
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The cat in the hat
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The cat in the basket
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The cat in the tree
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M+paha i+send+a mji+ni – The cat is going to town
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M+wana a+send+a mji+ni – The child is going to town
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Gari li+send+a mji+ni – The car is going to town
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M+tu m+zuri m+moja u+le -- that one good person
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Ki+kapu ki+zuri ki+moja ki+le -- that one good basket
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Gari zuri moja li+le -- that one good car.

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Let the language be your guide
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Be prepared for different categories
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Grammatical gender
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Czech: masculine, feminine, neuter
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Shinzwani: human, animal, body part, useful, abstract,
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Case
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Czech: subject, object, possession, location,
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The effect of obligatory categories
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Grammatical categories that must be expressed.

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Restrictions
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Which words can go together?
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The hat in the cat?
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The cat exploded on the rug?
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Roasting a pot of coffee?
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Which orders are permitted?
• the black cat vs le chat noir
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(the) good person vs mtu mzuri
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Anymore I don
’ t eat pizza?
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SVO languages and prepositions?
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The cat in the tree vs Mpaha mwirijuu.
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Let the language be your guide.

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Indicate alternative substitution frames
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Cow kills farmer with ax
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(newspaper headline)
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Put more H
2
O in the coffee, then the bones
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(message on chalkboard in physical anthro lab)
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Fruit flies like a banana
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(attributed to Groucho Marx).

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Prescriptive
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Provides a model of ‘ proper ’ speech
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Many schoolteachers, even today
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Descriptive
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Describes a language structure on its own terms
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Boas and anthropologists, 1900s
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Generative
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Generates all possible sentences of a language
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Noam Chomsky, 1950s.

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Begin at the level of Deep Structure
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Phrase Structure Rules
– produce abstract sentences
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Transformation Rules
– change sentence structures
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Does time fly like an arrow?
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Phonological rules assign sounds
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Result is pronounceable sentence
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At the level of Surface Structure.

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Trees show structure more clearly.

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Relies on introspection
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You need to know the language well enough to judge grammaticality of sentences
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Assumes universal underlying structure
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Accessible through any language
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But new data continues to challenge universals
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Not as useful in learning new languages
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Working with surface level sentences
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Requires working with actual speakers
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And discovery of substitution frames