Morphology/Semantics Project
TSL 6250 – Applied Linguistics
Dr. Gergana Vitanova
March 15th, 2011
Nancy Connolly
Stephanie Lancaster
Emily McLoughlin
Andrew Shaheen
Student Background
Reza is a 24-year-old master’s student in the Construction Engineering and Management
program at the University of Central Florida. Originally from Tehran, Iran, he is a native
Persian-Farsi speaker, and has been living in the United States since August of 2010. After
finishing his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, Reza made the decision to continue his
studies abroad. Though he was accepted to several universities in the United States, he decided
to attend UCF because one of the professors in the Construction Engineering and Management
program here shares a similar research interest. In addition to his coursework, Reza participates
in this research as a paid assistant. He plans to continue his studies at the doctoral level, and is
preparing to make a decision about where to pursue his Ph.D.
Although this is his first time living in America, Reza is no stranger the expatriate
lifestyle. In his childhood, both his parents taught abroad in Japan, taking the family with them.
Reza lived in Japan for three year and says that although he learned to communicate in Japanese,
he’s “forgotten” all of it. Interestingly, in his discussion of his childhood experiences in Japan,
Reza expresses a strong belief in the “Critical Period Hypothesis,” mentioning that his Japanese
proficiency developed “sooner and easier” than the English proficiency he gained later in life.
He began studying English in his adolescence in Iran, and continued his language studies
in college. Since arriving in the United States, Reza has participated in SPEAK test preparation
classes at the CMMS to further his proficiency. Last semester, he was tutored by one of our
group members as a part of his SPEAK test preparation, and kindly agreed to meet with us again
this semester. He demonstrates a very advanced intermediate spoken English proficiency,
although certain morphological and syntactic error patterns are evident in his speech.
Transcript of Interview
(Should we insert the transcript here or include it as an appendix at the end of the document?)
Morphological Analysis of Transcript
Fully Acquired Inflectional Morphemes
Reza demonstrated a strong and unequivocal command of most of the eight inflectional
affixes in the English languages. Repeated correct usage of these morphemes gave us consistent
evidence that they had been fully acquired.
1. Third-Person Singular “-S”
This morpheme did not appear often in Reza’s speech, as most of the interview centered on his
experiences and elicited first-person responses. However, every place it did appear was correct,
demonstrating a clear understanding of its usage. When referring to his program of study, Reza said,
“Civil engineering, uh, its deals, um you know, that uh, everyone knows civil engineering for building
and constructing.”
2. Past Tense “-ED”
The past tense “-ED” was another morpheme that was used rarely, but always correctly.
Describing a friend, Reza said, “But this semester she transferred to UCF.” Later her referred
to his past language study, saying ““Yes, yes. It helped me.” Referring to friends who aided in
his transition to the states, Reza said, “They helped us for uh, finding a house and renting.”
However, the nature of the interview tended to elicit responses not only in first-person, but also
in present tense, as Reza was describing his current studies and experiences in the United States.
3. Progressive “-ING”
Reza included this morpheme numerous times in his speech to describe current or past
repeated actions, using the standard “BE + VerbING” construction. In all cases, he correctly
conjugated the BE verb and added the “-ING” morpheme to the main verb following it. When
discussing his past in U.S., he remarked, “I went to Texas two times because my girlfriend was
studying there.” In an extended explanation about his younger brother back home, Reza said,
““He’s studying uh, mechanics in Iran… He’s playing guitar…. He’s teaching [guitar] now.”
He even used the construction in future tense, to explain his family’s plans to visit him: “Next
year they are coming to visit me in the United States.”
Despite his command of the “-ING” morpheme in progressive verb phrases, Reza had a
repeated struggle with the morpheme in a different context, when using it as a derivational affix
to change verbs into nouns. This issue is discussed further below.
4. Comparative “-ER”
This comparative morpheme was present and fully acquired in Reza’s interlanguage,
though it was not used with the frequency of the progressive “-ING.” Interestingly, one of the
times this morpheme appeared was in a remark supporting the “Critical Period Hypothesis,”
which posits that young children are better language learners than adolescents or adults. When
describing his experience learning Japanese as young boy, he said, ““You know, children uh,
learn uh, sooner and easier.” Other uses of the comparative “-ER” described his brother (“And
uh, he’s three years younger than me”) and his recently purchased car (“Now it’s easier to have
fun”).
5. Past Participle “-EN”
Interestingly, this morpheme did not occur at all in the transcript of our conversation with
Reza. Perhaps he is uncomfortable with this morpheme and how to use it, and chose simply to
omit it. However, after listening to his overall speech fluency, this seems unlikely. He displays
a remarkable command of almost all the inflectional affixes of English. Our conversation did not
afford many opportunities to naturally use the past participle, and this is more likely the reason
that it is absent from the transcript.
Problematic Inflectional Morphemes
A few inflectional morphemes consistently eluded Reza in his speech. This errors signal
an incomplete understanding of their correct usage in the English language.
1. Plural “-S”
Reza displayed a tendency to pluralize certain nouns in English that don’t have plural
forms. His difficulty distinguishing “count” and “non-count” nouns is apparent when he says,
“We are going to install some censors on uh, construction equipments,” “I’m really busy with
my works,” and “Our homeworks are very, very, uh… increased from uh, Iran’s schools.” In
each of these cases, the plural
“-S” morpheme is added to a noun that normally doesn’t add a morpheme to its plural form.
However, at one point Reza demonstrated knowledge of the distinction, saying “I have to
do lots of projects and research.” Here, “projects” is correctly pluralized while “research”
remains singular despite the quantitative phrase “lots of.” In fact, throughout his speech Reza
never incorrectly pluralizes the word “research.” Perhaps he learned the “non-count” nature of
this word in isolation, and has not yet fully acquired the concept as it relates to other nouns.
2. Comparative “-EST”
The comparative “-EST” presented a problem when Reza was discussing secondary
education in Iran. He consistently applied this morpheme to the word “high” in the phrase “high
school.” Though referring to secondary classes in the following excerpt, the “-EST” morpheme
makes it seem that Reza is referring to the most advanced school in Iran: “Actually um, up to
the highest school our uh, schools are uh, separate. Female classes and uh, male classes up to
highest school. But from university on, our classes are um, together. Our class all were coed but
uh, just up to the highest school they are separate because of their religious beliefs.”
While the incorrect use of “-EST” was consistent within the “high school” context, it was
not consistent with the rest of Reza’s speech. In fact, another example shows a correct usage of
the morpheme: “The longest time that I was far from my mother or my father was a week.”
Perhaps then, saying “highest school” instead of “high school” is the result of a pronunciation
gaffe or vocabulary misunderstanding, and not an issue with the usage of the “-EST” morpheme.
Problematic Derivational Morphemes
Reza’s strong vocabulary showed that several derivational morphemes have been fully
acquired in his interlanguage. However, it is unclear that these morphemes and their functions
were learned in isolation. More likely, they were simply acquired as parts of different words as
Reza expanded his vocabulary. One particular instance shows his incomplete knowledge of
derivational morpheme use in English.
1. Changing Verbs into Nouns
A few times, Reza used a sentence construction that necessitated turning verbs into
nouns. Several derivational affixes accomplish this function, including “-AL,” “-ANT,” “ATION,” “-MENT” and
“-ING.” Some examples of his speech illustrate Reza’s
understanding of these affixes. When describing how his Iranian friends already living in the
U.S. helped him adjust to life at UCF, he said, ““They helped us for uh, finding a house and
renting.” In this case, he adds the derivational affix “-ING” to create nouns out of the verbs
“find” and “rent.”
However, affixes were absent in other similar sentence constructions, resulting in some
confusion. One instance occurs when Reza explains, “We are going to install some sensors….
and then collect data…and use them for manage uh, construction site.” Later, a similar error
occurs when he says “Actually I’m deciding now this about what, what, I should do for my PhD
because the deadlines for apply for universities is approaching.”
In the first erroneous example, affixes such as “-ING” or “-MENT” would result in noun
forms of the verb “manage”. The sensors could be used “for management” of the construction
site or “for managing” the construction site. Leaving the simple verb form untouched, however,
does not easily convey the intending meaning. In the second example, the affix “-ATION” or
“-ING” would be appropriate, resulting in a phrase such as “deadlines for applying” or
“deadlines for application.” Again, however, the simply statement “deadline for apply” does not
function well.
Syntactic Analysis of Transcript
Determiners (DET) in Noun Phrases (NP)
1. Indefinite Articles: “A” and “An”
Reza showed a strong knowledge of the distinction between the allomorphs “a” and “an”,
which are used in different contexts depending on the starting sound of the noun they precede.
Noun phrases such as “a professor”, “an engineer”, “a dog”, and “a younger brother” all show a
familiarity with the different contexts for using “a” and “an.” Additionally, Reza never
substituted these indefinite articles where the definite article “the” would have been more
appropriate, indicating that he understands the concept of using indefinite articles for first
references and definite articles for subsequent references to the same noun.
Only when numbers came into noun phrases did Reza seem to struggle. At the beginning
of the interview, Reza described, “a eight years’ uh, war between Iran and Iraq.” Since the
word “eight” starts with a vowel sound, the indefinite article “an” would have been the correct
choice here. Later he mentions that he was in Japan “for a three years,” inserting an article
where none was actually necessary.
2. Definite Articles: “The”
Reza’s only seemed to struggle with omission of this determiner once. He consistently
said “the United States,” indicating an awareness that country names that sound plural must have
a definite article before them; however, in the very beginning of the interview referenced Iran by
saying, “It’s in Middle East and it’s the first from Iraq.” The noun phrase “Middle East,” also
referring to a plural geographic area, should have a definite article in front of it, just like the
United States. However, considering the notorious difficulty definite articles present for ESL
speakers, it’s remarkable that this is the only such error Reza made during the interview.
Auxiliaries (AUX) with Verb Phrases (VP)
1. Modals
Modals were occasionally omitted or confused in Reza’s speech, resulting in an overall
meaning different from what he intended to convey. One example of this occurs in his response
to a question about whether he has pets: “Nope. I like to have a dog but I never had uh, I’ve
never had any pets.” In this statement, Reza creates the impression that he generally likes having
a dog around. However, his intended meaning is that he wants to have a dog someday. In this
case, the modal “would,” together with the verb “want,” is needed to stand in for the verb
“want.”
When trying to form an “if-then” relationship in a later sentence, a necessary modal was
again left out. “Actually if we didn’t have our friends here then things were difficult,” Reza
says, when speculating about how much harder the adjustment to UCF would have been without
friends. However, his use of the simple past tense “were” obscures his meaning, leaving the
listener wondering if he is speculating (as the “if” suggests) or talking about difficulties that
actually occurred.
Aside from omitting modals, Reza occasionally chose modals that did not appropriately
fit his phrases. When discussing his workload, he says, “I didn’t have any research in Iran. But I,
now I should you know, submit papers, posters, and writing codes in C++.” The modal
“should” sounds strange here, since it normally functions in suggestion or recommendation
phrases. The auxiliary verb phrase “have to” would have been more fitting when discussing
necessary coursework.
However, another example illustrated a correct understanding of the function of “should.”
When discussing future plans, Reza says, “I should decide soon for what to do for my future.”
In this context, the use of the modal makes sense to native listeners, since Reza is effectively
recommending something to himself: that he start deciding what to do for the future.
Modals, with their multiple meanings and contexts, are one of the hardest syntactic
aspects of the English language to master. It is no surprise that, even at his advanced
intermediate level, Reza still struggles with the correct usages of these auxiliaries.
Enigmatic Word Order
(Ideas? I know she mentioned paying attention to word order, but I didn’t find much interesting
to talk about here…. Add on if you found something!)
Semantic Considerations
(Ideas for this part?)
Implications for Language Learning and Teaching
(Ideas for this part?)