24.900: Introduction to Linguistics
Classnotes: Week of February 25, 2002
MORPHOLOGY ➾ PHONOLOGY
✔Problem set #3: Due Monday, March 4, 2002
✘No class on Wednesday, February 27, 2002
✤Recitation section problem solved!!!!
1. Review of important points regarding Morphology
a. Note about compounding
• The compound stress rule is involved in the phonological interpretation of syntactic
structure – the same syntactic structure that is interpreted semantically.
• Thus the “constituents” or units involved in meaning (what modifies what in the
structure) are the same constituents assigned S or W for stress purposes.
"black board" vs. blackboard
b. Morphology in review
• Pieces
– syntactic pieces
– semantic pieces
– phonological pieces
• Relations/structures
– hierarchical “tree structure”
– as in LISP list
• Interpretation
– semantic interpretation
- phonological interpretation
c. What are those pieces?
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• Syntactic
– roots
"girl"-ish
– “functional heads” = syntactic feature bundles
girl -"ish"
• Semantic
– roots
– interpretable syntactic features
• Phonological
– roots
– “morphs” = structures of phonological features that
realize (=interpret) syntactic feature bundles
d. Word structure…
• is always a hierarchical tree structure whose "terminal nodes” (non-branching nodes)
consist of roots or functional heads, where…
• “roots” are “signs” in the sense of Saussure (cat)
• functional heads are bundles of syntactic
features – things like [plural], [past], [N]
Root
functional heads
So…
• word structure isn’t about segmenting the phonological structure into a linear string of
morphs:
nation-al-iz-ation
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insertion of morphs as part of phonological interpretation
• choice of morph for syntactic feature bundle depends on
adjacent head:
• -al: procedur-al, norm-al, region-al, (a)tion-al…
• -ous: noxious, anxious, religious, impervious,
glorious, nervous…
• -al and -ous both morphs that realize Adj functional heads/nodes in construction with
roots (and with Ns). Need to look at the node with which the Adj head is in construction
to know which morph to use.
Arabic and other Semitic languages suggest that roots themselves do not bear
syntactic category features
• ktb root for “writing” in Arabic
• kataba ‘he wrote’ kattaba ‘he caused to
write’
• kaataba ‘he corresponded’ takaatabuu ‘they kept
up a correspondence’
• kitaabun ‘book’ kuttaabun ‘Koran
school’
• kitaabatun ‘act of writing’ maktabun ‘office’
English shows similar behavior of roots…
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• atroc-ious, atroc-ity *atroc
• religi-ous, relig-ion *relig(i)
• don-ate, don-or *don
• nomin-ate, nomin-ee *nomin
• re-ceive, de-ceive, con-ceive, per-ceive *ceive
This suggests…
• Roots never bear syntactic category features
• An important general point here that takes us back to the structure of grammar
presented in the first week of lectures:
Phonology interprets structures of morphemes built by the syntax of the language. In no
sense is the sound structure of language prior to syntax – not in acquisition and not
in the structure of our linguistic knowledge.
Language Myths: (L. Bauer, & P. Trudgill (eds.), 1998. Language Myths.London: Penguin Books)
Myth #1:
The meanings of words should not be allowed to vary or change. This is inherently
an undesirable process as change can be dangerous and confusing. We should do
everything in our power to stop it.
Phonetics and Phonology:

Your mental/neurological/linguistic representations of speech sounds involve
discrete sound categories

You hear speech sounds largely in terms of the way that you might produce them

Your representations of speech sounds exhaustively decompose into (“distinctive”)
phonological pieces
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1. Phonetics
Main points today:
• Articulators
• Place of articulation
• Manner of articulation
• Acoustic correlates of articulation
a. Articulators
• Vocal cords (glottis)
• Velum (open/close nasal cavity)
• Tongue root (dorsum)
• Tongue tip (corona/coronal sounds)
• Lips
b. Vocal cords/glottis
• [+/-voice] (+/-spread glottis and +/-constricted
glottis) [+voice] = -spread, -constr
• aspiration: t vs. t h
+spread glottis
• glottal stops
+constricted glottis
• Regular vowels = -spread glottis
• Whispered vowels = +spread glottis
• [h] = whispered vowel
c. Velum
• Raise the velum = [-nasal]
• Lower the velum = [+nasal]
• Note: vowels as well as stop consonants can be
nasal.
• In English, vowels before nasal consonants are
nasalized.
• In French, nasal and non-nasal vowels contrast
d. Dorsum
• Can make contact with uvula (no such
sounds in English) or velum
velar sounds g, k, ª
• [+/-high] [+/-low] for vowels refer to the
position of the velum
• g, k, ªare [+high] [-low]
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d. Lips/labial sounds
• Labial sounds may be [+/-round]
• Labial stops/fricatives in English are
generally [-round]:
b, p, m, f, v
• But say, “moo” and watch/feel your lips
e. • [+back] [-low] vowels in English are
[+round]
• In French, [+/-round] is contrastive for
[-low] [-back] vowels
2. Place of articulation (near/against what do you place your articulators?)
• Velar (dorsal sounds)
– contrast: velar vs. uvular
• Palatal (-anterior coronal sounds)
• Alveolar (+anterior coronal sounds)
– contrast: palatal vs. alveolar
• Interdental (+anterior coronal sounds)
Î, –
• Labio-dental (labial, -round sounds) f, v
• Labial b, p, m
3. Manner of articulation
a. • Consonantal (vs. vocalic)
stops (nasal and non-), fricatives, glides
• Sonorant
resonance in vocal track possible = vowels,
glides, nasal stops, vowels, liquids
• -sonorant (obstruents)
non-nasal stops and fricatives
b. • +/-continuant
+continuant vowels, glides, laterals,
fricatives
-continuant stops
c. • “affricates”
stop followed by fricative acting as one
segment: t‹ (⁄) d›(€)
d.Acoustic correlates of articulation
• Glottal pulses (or, if spread glottis, noise)
from vocal cords drive the acoustics of the vocal track.
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• The fundamental frequency of the glottal pulses corresponds to the pitch of the voice.
• The vocal tract acts as a filter over the harmonics of the fundamental frequency.
• The tongue separates the vocal track into two main, connected resonating chambers.
• Tongue height mainly changes the volume of the back chamber – low vowels have a
smaller back chamber and thus a higher resonant frequency for this chamber, which
corresponds to the first “formant” or enhanced frequency band of the
speech spectrum.
• The front or back position of the tongue [+/-back], changes mostly the size of the
upper resonating chamber of the vocal track. Back position increases the size of this
chamber and lowers the frequency of the second formant or frequency band in the
speech spectrum.
• The perceptual system is particularly tuned to the frequency of the formants, i.e., the
pattern of enhanced harmonics of the pitch of the voice.
• Perception of the formants is perception of the changing shape of the vocal apparatus
as it articulates speech.
• That is, the perceptual system is hearing the movements of the articulators and
classifying speech sounds according to these movements.
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