Keywords - L323.5
Morphology
_
_
Root
2.
A.
Smallest form of a word that is not an affix
B.
It has no lexical meaning, though it may have a vague semantic range.
Stem
A.
That part of a word which has lexical meaning.
B.
The remaining inflectional affixes have grammatical meaning.
i.
ii.
iii.
B.
see = stem
+s = inflectional affix
In some languages like English, stems and roots are often coterminous.
i.
ii.
B.
nouns: dog, cat, finger, top, table, sky, grain, sense, idea, tea.
verbs: go, walk, see, hear, play, think, prove, write, spin, die.
For some English words, the root is not coterminous with the stem:
i.
ii.
iii.
2.
see+s = word form
verbs: re-mit, *mit; de-struct, *struct (verb); per-ceive, *ceive.
nouns: *stup, stup-our; *val, val+our.
adjectives: in-ept, *ept; un-kempt, *kempt; *gruntled, dis-gruntled.
Base
A.
A base is a morpheme or morphemie sctructure to which
an affix may be adjoined. The result is a new base.
i.
B.
root = base = dog, cat, house, walk, run, red, white; root /base +
affix = stup - id, = frig - id, = com+ic (com-edy); base = lex+em+ic.
A base may be a stem if it has lexical meaning.
i.
ii.
All the examples immediately above.
affix + root = pre - fer, re - act, de - duct, re - cline, un+nat-ur+al.
B.
All stems are bases, but not all bases are stems.
i.
ii.
iii.
[re - [[frig - er] -ate] +or] = base, stem
derivational affixes are added to bases to form new bases.
C.
inflectional affixes are added to stems to form a word form.
[N-stem re - [[frig - er] -ate] +or] +s = word form (noun)
Derivational Affixes
A.
Lexical in nature
i.
2.
re - [[frig - er] -ate] = base ± affix = base] + suffix = base] + prefix =
base = stem].
B.
i.
2.
[[frig - er] ate] = root + one affix = base] + one affix + affix = base].
We could say that ‘lexical’ deals with ‘lexical meaning’, but haven’t
defined the meaning of lexical. It deals with the meaning of the stem,
but we defined a stem in terms of lexical meaning. This is a circular
approach and tells us nothing.
Inflectional Affixes
A.
Required by the grammar.
i.
ii.
iii.
ii.
agreement (a grammatical requirement)
the features of pronouns and proforms (never lexical)
grammatical features cannot given a specific construction.
(a).
*John go to the store. [needs an agreement feature]
(b).
*John going to the store. [needs an inflected auxiliary verb]
(c).
*John wants go to store. [‘to’ cannot be deleted.]
Auxiliary verbs (helping verbs).
(a).
A.
6
‘be, do, have’ when they are used to mark tense, voice,
relevance, and aspect.
We can now say that lexical features are those not identified as grammatical features.
Infixes
A.
Infixes are morphemes that occur within another single morpheme.
i. Let ‘XY’ be a single morpheme, and ‘A’ another single morpheme.
ii.
iii.
Insert ‘A’: ‘XAY’.
Some linguists call ‘XÚY’ a discontinuous morpheme.
iv.
Others have invented “prosodic” or “autosegmental” morphology.
(a).
ii.
We will cover this later.
See the text for some examples from Latin and Arabic.
Course Outline 323
Keywords - 3
Keywords - 5
This page last updated 2 FE 2005