Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Derivational morphology in L1 & L2
Derivational morphology in L1 & L2
Productive application of morphological operations by three-year olds.
Grammatical = Inflectional vs. Lexical = Derivational morphology
Suppletive vs. genuine innovative - where suppletive means there is a (different)
conventional term for that lexical slot
1. ima, tegazezi li et ha-egozim [Nir 3;3] cf. taxceci li et ha-limon
2. taxbishi lo et hakova [Nir 3;3] cf. ani yaxol lehaxlic ta naalayim
3. ra'iti et hanyarot, ex hem medapdepim [Nir 3;3]
4. ima, at mashka et Shay? gam mi-bakbuk mashtim [Nir 3;6]
5. takumi oti [=ta'azri li lakum] [Nir 3;7]
6. ima, tafshiti oti ve ani ehye pashut [Uri 4;4]
7. lo nizlag li [Uri 4;4]
8. hine ze hakol niklaf [=hitkalef] [Daniel 3;5]
9. anaxnu kaxa mizaharim [Daniel 3;5]
Pragmatic principles in using the mental lexicon (Clark 1994):
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Conventionality –For each meaning, there is a conventional expected word or form
that speakers use.
Contrast – Different words or forms mark different meanings >> one form-one
meaning (beef/cattle)
>>> Homonymy assumption – Two different meanings shouldn’t be carried by the
same word. This doesn’t hold for mature adults.
>>>>
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Words contrast in meaning - even synonyms are used by the same speaker on
different registers/different occasions
Established words have priority – word search is conducted. If it fails –
circumlocution or innovations are used.
Innovative words fill lexical gaps – lexical innovations must contrast in meaning
with lexical gaps
Transparency of meaning – words that are based on known roots and affixes
Sky-car, baby-bottle, to flag, to cello, to dust, brighty, brusher, hider
Simplicity of form - preference for simpler forms for new words
Car-smoke < wagon-puller, soref < sarfan
Productivity: speakers prefer the most productive option with the appropriate meaning.
Accessibility in the input (measured by frequency) determines productivity.
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Derivational morphology in L1 & L2
Denominals (derived verbs) in English and Hebrew
English: Zero derivation (as early as 1;10 for Damon). Affixation (-ate, -ify, -ize) hardly
ever occurs.
Examples:
1;10 I noised (made noise)
2;5 I’m flagging around (waving a toy animal)
3;0 Make it bell (ring the doorbell)
3;5 He prayers with it (with a prayer book)
4;9 Can I typewriter on your typewriter?
Many novel verbs are causatives (transitive), with less intransitive verbs.
Why is it so productive?
Hebrew: Mainly in piel (transitive), hitpael (intransitive), hif’il (causative), and only after
age four (but zero derivations, as in he axla oti, are used from around age three).
(Berman 1982, Berman & Sagi 1981)
Examples:
ani af pa’am lo xamarti al xamor
ani mesarex ha-yom levad et ha-na’alayim
hit’akravti
carix lehashpic et ha-iparon
Bilingual Innovations
(Word-internal code-switching)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
muzi [move + zuzi] (2;6 - Walters)
noce [no + roce] (2;1 - Walters)
Hi maflisha et ha-toilet (Savion 3;1)
Hi hekika oti (Savion 4;0)
*EFR: really? who are these?
*YAR: the wolfim. (Yarden 3;7)
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Derivational morphology in L1 & L2
Kantone, K. F. 2005. Evidence against a Third Grammar: Code-switching in Italian-German
Bilingual Children. ISB4: Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Bilingualism, ed.
James Cohen, Kara T. McAlister, Kellie Rolstad, and Jeff MacSwan, 477-496. Somerville, MA:
Cascadilla Press.
“We have evidence for cases in which a suffix is added to a noun in order to agree with
the determiner, as in
• (6a), where the German word Krone is changed into crona, making it more similar
to the Italian equivalent corona.
• We also find a German noun - Topf - with the suffix -ino, which is an Italian
diminuitive, as reported in (6b).
• In (6c) a suffix is taken away in order to apply the phonological rules of the base
language: the Italian word gusto appears without the suffix to make it sound more
German. Note that a compound - fruitflavor - has been created using two items
from two different languages.
• The example (6d) contains the Italian word viola with the German comparative
suffix -ren.
• In (6e) the Italian word stem cas – is used with the German plural ending -en,
creating houses,
• in (6f) the same operation creates ice-creams” (Kantone, p. 491)
Order of acquisition in L2
Lowie, Wander. (1998). The Acquisition of Interlanguage Morphology. A study into the role of
morphology in the L2 learner’s mental lexicon. Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Doctoral
Dissertation.
•
•
•
•
Suffixes that exhibited both formal and semantic similarity are acquired first (e.g.
– deriving nouns: ity/ité)
Suffixes with semantic but not formal similarity are acquired next (e.g. – deriving
adverbs: ly/ment)
Suffixes with formal but not semantic similarity are last (e.g. – false cognates
ment - deriving nouns / ment – deriving adverbs).
More errors in identifying the syntactic category of derived words than in
identifying the meaning.
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Derivational morphology in L1 & L2
Words for things in L1
English forms new words mostly by compounding and derivation (with or without
affixes)
Conversion: zero-affix which changes the category (cook, attempt)
Prefixes: rarely change the category (unhappiness, relocation)
Suffixes: often alter the category (mover, washing, loudness)
Predictions:
Conversion (& compounding) < affixation (transparency & simplicity)
More frequent < less frequent (productivity)
Findings:
Demon- from age 2 and on:
60-75% compounds, 25-40% derived
20 – 35% derived (+affix), 5% derived (-affix)
-er, -ie, -ing & ness < -ist, -ment (after 4;0)
soccer-man, money-man < cooker (primary marker of agency after 3;0)
Other children: teaser, presser < angriness
Why are –tion and –ity acquired (= used productively) only after children start to read?
Innovations in Adult L2 production.
Mandarin-English
Lardiere, D. 2006. Knowledge of Derivational Morphology in a Second Language Idiolect.
Proceedings of the 8th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition Conference
(GASLA 2006), ed. Mary Grantham O’Brien, Christine Shea, and John Archibald, 72-79.
(1) I tried to analysis what kind of a person M. is
(2) When my father went bankruptcy …
(3) God try to give us his wisdom and happy
English- French
Petrush, R. A. 2008. Derivational Morphology in English-French
Acquisition. Proceedings of the 9th Generative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition
Conference (GASLA 2007), ed. Roumyana Slabakova et al., 181-187. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla
Proceedings Project.
(1) Les Français sont très sexualités.
‘the French are very sexuality’
(2) En Tintin il y a beaucoup de stéréotypiques d’Amérique.
‘in Tintin there are many stereotypicals of America’
(3) Elle est la vraiment princesse.
‘she is the truly princess’
Dr. Sharon Armon-Lotem
Derivational morphology in L1 & L2
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Subjects: 23 2nd semester French, 26 4th semester, 19 6th semester
Method: A grammaticality Judgment task
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Learners are capable of identifying morphological mismatches
The ability to correctly reject ungrammatical sentences improves with proficiency
level.
Base forms and derived forms are not treated differently in judging acceptability
Effects are clearer at higher levels
However, production errors are frequent among advanced learners (performance
rather than a processing).
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