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CLASS 8, Jan 30, 2007
LIN 1310B
Introduction to Linguistics
Prof: Nikolay Slavkov
TA: Qinghua Tang
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Today
• Announcements and Reminders:
-Test 1 will be next Tuesday
-Next Class: Review for Test 1 (think of questions
that you might have).
-Bring a pencil and an eraser for the Test!!!
• Today’s Lecture:
-Finish Morphology
-Do exercises (time permitting)
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Review from last time
• Inflection vs. Derivation: three criteria that
distinguish inflection from derivation (category
change; order; productivity;)
• How inflection is marked: affixation, internal
change, suppletion; reduplication; tone placement.
• English typically uses suffixation but also has
internal change, and suppletion!
• Other inflectional phenomena: case and
agreement.
• This is my book; The book is mine. both are
possessive.
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Concatenative vs Non-concatenative
Morphology
• Concatenative morphology refers to attaching
morphemes to one another. In other words affixes
attach to bases. It is a linear process. e.g. unaccept-able
• Non-concatenative morphology refers to a non
linear process where you don’t attach different
morphemes together. Internal change (drink –
drank) and suppletion (go – went) are examples of
non-concatenative processes.
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Other Morphological Phenomena
• Cliticization: clitics are morphemes that behave like
independent words, yet they cannot stand alone; they must
attach to another word called host.
E.g. I’m doing well. ’m is a clitic
Jean t’aime
Jean you-love.3sg
‘Jean loves you’
Cliticization vs. affixation: even though clitics cannot stand
alone, i.e. need to attach to something, they are not affixes.
Clitics belong to a lexical category (verb, noun or pronoun,
preposition, etc.)
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Conversion = Zero Derivation
• Conversion is a process in which a word
changes its category and meaning without
affixation: e.g. run (N) run (V). This is
considered derivation because the change of
meaning and category. However, because
there is no overt affix, we call this zero
derivation.
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Examples of Zero Derivation
V derived from N
To ink a contract
To butter the bread
To ship the package
V derived from A
to dirty the shirt
to empty the glass
to better the situation
N derived from V
a long run
a hot drink
a pleasant drive
N derived from A
the poor, gays
V derived from P
down a drink; up the price
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Zero Derivation and Stress Placement
Verb
Noun
import
import
implant
implant
present
present
subject
subject
=> in these bisyllabic words stress in on the
second syllable when they are verbs and on
the first syllable when they are nouns.
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Clipping
• Clipping is a process in which one or more
syllables are deleted from a polysyllabic
word.
E.g. prof, poli-sci, phys-ed, burger, lab, Liz,
Ron, etc.
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Blends
• Blends are words created from non-morphemic
parts of two already existing words.
E.g. brunch, smog, spam, telethon, chunnel, etc.
Blends eventually are analysed by native speakers as
single morphemes: e.g motel, bit, modem. I.e.
people no longer realize they are blends, and thus
these items are listed in the lexicon as roots.
motel = motor and hotel; bit = binary and digit
modem = modular demodulator
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Backformation
• Backformation is a process that creates a new word by
removing a real or perceived affix from another word.
E.g. enthuse ← enthusiasm
orient ← orientate ← orientation
pea ← pease
edit ← editor
swindle ← swindler
peddle ← peddler
liposuct ← liposuction
orate ← oration
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Acronyms and Abbreviations
NATO, WTO, AIDS, P.E.I., USA, CIDA
Acronyms are pronounced as words, (i.e. not
letter by letter). NATO, AIDS, CIDA
Abbreviations are pronounced letter by letter:
WTO, P.E.I., USA
WHO??? (World Health Organization)
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Word manufacture or coinage
• Newly invented or coined words: Kodak,
Dacron, Orlon, Teflon.
=> depending on the purposes of the inventor,
the word may sound more scientific, more
fun, more childish, etc.
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Other Morphological Phenomena
Onomatopoeia
• Words that have been created to sound like
the thing that they name.
E.g. cock-a-doodle-doo, meow, chirp, bowwow
Such words tend to be similar across
languages, but variation does occur due to
the particular language’s sound system and
due to other factors.
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OPEN AND CLOSED CLASS
ITEMS IN THE LEXICON
Open class items include nouns, verbs, adjectives
and adverbs
• They carry the main semantic content of
utterances and are sometimes called content
words or content morphemes
Closed class items include pronouns, prepositions,
articles, conjunctions and other grammatical or
function morphemes
• Inflectional and derivational affixes are also
considered closed class morphemes
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EXPANDING THE LEXICON WITHOUT
DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
Idiom – a fixed phrase whose meaning cannot be
inferred from the meanings of the individual
words
Idioms cannot be syntactically manipulated into
questions or passives and still retain their
idiomatic meanings
Example: the idiom ‘to buy the farm’ does not
retain the meaning ‘to die’ in the passive phrase
‘the farm was bought by him’
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Morphophonemics
• The interaction between morphology and
phonology is called morphophonemics or
morphophonology.
pills [z]
lips [s]
judges [əz]
pills [s] cannot occur after [l]
???else???
[s] cannot occur after [l] when there is a morpheme
boundary => interaction between morphology and
phonology.
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Exercises
• ex 6, p. 127 of text
Do a tree for each of the following words:
inexpensive, redisposal, disinvestment.
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Exercises
• ex 10, p. 128
Inflection or Derivation?
a) go, goes, going, gone
b) discover, discovery, discoverer, discoverable,
discoverability
c) lovely, lovelier, loveliest
d) inventor, inventor’s, inventors, inventors’
e) democracy, democrat, democratic, democratize
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Exercises
• Do a tree for the following:
invalid (His conclusions are invalid)
optionality
disobeys (He disobeys his mother)
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Exercises
In Class (time permitting): Exercises 6, 10, 4 ,
16, 1, 13, of text
DGD: p. 85, p. 87 p.98 ex 5, p. 91, p. 95 of
study guide