Introduction to Linguistics I
Review 2
Instructor: Kiki Nikiforidou
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
1
Morphology
• Morphology studies
 How words are formed, the internal
composition of words and how it relates to
their meaning
• The basic unit in morphology is the
 morpheme, which is
 the minimal unit of meaning, the minimal
linguistic sign
 an arbitrary combination of meaning and
form that cannot be divided any further
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
2
Morphology
• One basic reason for taking the morpheme
(and not the word) as our basic unit is that
There are many words which consist of
different parts and not all of these parts
are words:
feverish
fever + -ish
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
3
Morphology
• Free morphemes are
 words, they can stand on their own
system, on, she, play, strong etc.
=> simple forms
• Bound morphemes are
 attached to another form
-ed, -ness, -ity, -ful, dis-, re- etc.
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
4
Morphology
• One common way of creating words is
 by joining one free morpheme with one or
more bound morphemes:
play –ful –ness -> playfulness
 in this case the free morpheme is
 the root of the word
play –ful –ness
un- happy –ness
=> Root = (most often) free, lexical (content)
morphemes that cannot be analyzed into
smaller
parts
Department of English
Introduction to Linguistics I
Studies
5
Morphology
• But there are also bound roots
(especially in words borrowed from Latin
or Greek)
remit permit commit
pathology
geology
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
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Morphology
Free morphemes are divided into
lexical and
functional
Lexical free morphemes are
Content words with specific meaning, ordinary
verbs, nouns, adjectives:
play, big, small, ball, machine, love, hate
• Functional free morphemes are
 Words with a grammatical/structural role in the
sentence and generally abstract meanings,
pronouns, articles, conjunctions, prepositions
he, she, a, the, and, but, on, in
•


•

Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
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Morphology
Functional morphemes are
 a closed class (do not accept new
members easily)
 represent a cognitively real category for
speakers
Identify all the root and all the functional
morphemes in this sentence:
They conceived of plans for helping kids
from troubled families, tactful to the parents
and mindful of provocation.
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
8
Morphology
•


•

Bound morphemes are divided into
derivational and
inflectional
Derivational bound morphemes
create a different word and can therefore be
class-changing
develop + –ment, local + -ity, dis- + charge
• Inflectional bound morphemes
 express a grammatical type (function) of the
same word, are never class-changing
play + -ed, sing + -s, ball + -s, small + -er
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
9
Morphology
• Only 8 inflectional morphemes in English
BUT: watch out for homonyms, that is
different morphemes with the same form:
small -er vs. sing -er
(am) record -ing vs. (the) record –ing
• Inflectional morphemes in English are
=> only suffixes
• Derivational morphemes are
=> both prefixes and suffixes
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
10
Morphology
Identify all the derivational and all the
inflectional morphemes in the following
sentences:
If you are working 50 hours a week you do
not have time to read 10 papers a day nor
attempt to declassify governmental
archives. Fewer and fewer people are
successful in that. Transformations on the
other hand require insistence.
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
11
Morphology
• The allomorphs of a morpheme are
 each of the variant forms of a morpheme
depending on the (phonological) context
“a” (indefinite article)
a [ə]
before consonant
Department of English
Studies
an [ən]
before vowel
Introduction to Linguistics I
12
Morphology
• The morphological rules of the
language are
regular productive patterns of word
formation:
• Verb + -able  Adjective ("fit to ‘Verb’ or
to be ‘Verbed’"), e.g. accept  acceptable
• un- + Adjective  Adjective (antonym),
e.g. happy  unhappy
• Adjective + -en  Verb ("to make
something "adjective""), e.g. fat  fatten
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
13
Word formation processes
jeep, aspirin, volt, and sandwich are all examples of
 Coinage. Coinage is
 The creation of new words on the basis of
existing product names, trade labels or proper
names
legal, commerce, manage, spaghetti, iatrogenic, ad
hoc are all examples of
 Borrowing. Borrowing is
 adopting words from another language
 Loan translation is direct (word for word, morpheme
for morpheme) translation of an expression in another
language, φωτοαντίγραφο < photocopy
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
14
Word formation processes
verbalization, deportation, unpredictable are all
examples of
 Derivation. Derivation is
 adding derivational affixes to a stem to create
(new) words
telethon, mochaccino, simulcast, infomercial
are all examples of
 Blending. Blending is
 joining the first part of a word to the last part
of another (typically)
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
15
Word formation processes
ice-cream, ice-cream cone, dishwasher safe,
hard drive, tablecloth, mouse trap are all examples
of
 Compounding. Compounding is
 joining at least two words to create a different
word
 The different word has a single, possibly
unpredictable, meaning and one main stress
DVD, ATM, ufo, NYU, UCL are all examples of
 Acronyms. Acronyms are the initial letters of a
group of words which themselves become words
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
16
Word formation processes
(to) bottle, (to) floor, (to) vacation, (to) up, (to)
carpool, (to) dirty, (a) takeover, (a) guess are all
examples of
 Conversion. Conversion is
 creating different words by simply changing the
function of existing words (=zero derivation)
Ron, Ed, Pam, plane, chem, exam, prof, sci are all
examples of
 Clipping/abbreviation. Clipping is reducing
polysyllabic words to shorter forms that become
different words
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
17
Word formation processes
(to) emote, (to) liaise, pea, (to) sculpt,
(to) backform are all examples of
 Backformation. Backformation is the creation of
a new word through a (typically incorrect)
analysis of an existing word
Which are the processes involved in the following
words?
(to) snowball, withdrawal, footballer, (to) shortlist,
contrabassist
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
18
Syntax
• The descriptive vs. prescriptive
approach distinction has to do with
whether we view linguistic rules
 as instructions for the “proper” use of
language (= prescriptive approach)
 or, as general descriptions of how
speakers actually use language at all
levels (phonology, morphology, syntax)
(=descriptive approach)
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
19
Syntax
The descriptive vs. prescriptive
distinction is more important in syntax
because
most of the prescriptive rules of the
past were syntactic rules:
the rule of the ‘split infinitive’
the rule of ‘preposition stranding’
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
20
Syntax
NP  Art (Adj) N
NP  PluralN
NP  ProperN
VP  V NP NP
VP  V (Adv)
S  NP VP
are some of the basic
 Phrase structure rules of English
 Phrase structure rules are dynamic patterns that
generate all the well-formed phrases and
sentences
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
21
Syntax
 Recursion is
the property of phrase structure rules to apply
more than once in generating a sentence
We know that you know that she knows that
linguistics is fun.
Art  {a, the}
PN  {Mary, George,…}
V  {help, want,…}
are some of the
 Lexical rules of English
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
22
Syntax
Structural ambiguity is
two different interpretations attached to a single
phrase or a single sentence, due to two different
ways of structuring the words
The friends of my mother and my father were all
there
We fried the eggs in the pan
She hid the wallet on the shelf
Department of English
Studies
Introduction to Linguistics I
23