Word Structure
Part 1
The Structure of Words:
Morphology
• Fundamental concepts in how words are
composed out of smaller parts
• The nature of these parts
• The nature of the rules that combine these
parts into larger units
• What it might mean to be a word
Today
I.
Morphemes
II.
Types of Morphemes
III. Putting Morphemes together into larger
structures
–
Words with internal structure
–
Interesting properties of compounds
I. Morphemes
• Remember that in phonology the basic
distinctive units of sound are phonemes
• In morphology, the basic unit is the
morpheme
• Basic definition: A morpheme is a minimal
unit of sound and meaning
(this can be modified in various ways; see
below)
Some Examples
• Many words can be divided into smaller parts,
where the parts also occur in other words:
dogs
walking
blackens
player-hater
dog-s
walk-ing
black-en-s
play-er hat-er
Compare: cat-s; runn-ing; dark-en-s; eat-er
(note: in some cases there are spelling changes
when we add morphemes; ignore this)
Parts, cont.
• The smaller parts occur consistently with
many words:
– -s: forms the plural consistently
– -ing: forms a noun from a verb
– -en: forms a verb meaning ‘become ADJ’ from an
adjective ADJ
– -er: forms an agentive nominal from a verb, a
person or thing who does that activity
Consistent Sound/Meaning
• Notice that this is not the only way we can
divide up words into smaller parts; consider
– Tank, plank, flank, drank, rank, etc.
• In these words, we could easily identify a
component -ank
• However, this is not a morpheme
– There is no consistent meaning with this -ank
– The “leftover” pieces t-, pl-, fl-, dr-, r- are not
morphemes either
Connections between Sound and
Meaning
• Remember that a phoneme sometimes has
more than one sound form, while being the
same abstract unit: /p/ with [p] and [ph]
• A related thing happens with morphemes as
well
• In order to see this, we have to look at slightly
more complex cases
Morphemes and Allomorphs
• We will say in some cases that a morpheme has
more than one allomorph
• This happens when the same meaning unit like [past]
for past tense or [pl] for plural has more than one
sound form
– Past: one feature [past]
• kick / kick-ed
• leave / lef-t
• hit / hit-Ø
• The last example shows a case in which the
phonological form of the morpheme past is zero, i.e.
it is not pronounced
Allomorphy, cont.
• In the case of phonology, we said that the different
allophones of a phoneme are part of the same
phoneme, but are found in particular contexts
• The same is true of the different allomorphs of a
morpheme
• Which allomorph of a morpheme is found depends on
its context; in this case, what it is attached to:
– Example: consider [pl] for English plural. It normally has the
pronunciation –s (i.e. /z/), but
• moose / moose- Ø
• ox / ox-en
• box/*box-en/box-es
• So, the special allomorphs depend on the noun
An Additional Point: Regular and
Irregular
• In the examples above, the different allomorphs have
a distinct status. One of them is regular.
– This is the default form that appears when speakers are
using e.g. new words (one blork, two blorks)
– For other allomorphs, speakers simply have to memorize the
fact that the allomorph is what it is
– Example: It cannot be predicted from other facts that the
plural of ox is ox-en
– Demonstration: The regular plural is /z/; consider one box,
two box-es.
• Default cases like the /z/ plural are called regular.
Allomorphs that have to be memorized are called
irregular.
• Irregular allomorphs block regular allomorphs from
occurring (ox-en, not *ox-es or *ox-en-s).
Two types
• There are in fact two types of allomorphy.
Think back to phonology…
– The Plural morpheme in English has different
sound-forms: dog-s/cat-s/church-es
• These are predictable, based on the
phonological context
– In the case of Past Tense allomorphy, it is not
predictable from the phonology which affix appears
• We can find verbs with the same (or similar)
sound form, but with different allomorphs:
break/broke, not stake/*stoke
• If you think about this case for a while, though,
you will notice some patterns; more on this later
II. Morpheme Types
We’ll now set out some further distinctions
among morpheme types
• Our working definition of morpheme was
‘minimal unit of sound and meaning’
• A further division among morphemes involves
whether they can occur on their own or
not:
– No: -s in dog-s; -ed in kick-ed; cran- in cran-berry
– Yes: dog, kick, berry
Some Definitions
• Bound Morphemes: Those that cannot
appear on their own
• Free Morphemes: Those that can appear on
their own
• In a complex word:
– The root or stem is the basic or core morpheme
– The things added to this are the affixes
– Example: in dark-en the root or stem is dark,
while the affix– in this case a suffix– is -en
Further points
• In some cases, works will use root and stem
in slightly different ways
• Affixes are divided into prefixes and suffixes
depending on whether they occur before or
after the thing they attach to. Infixes-- middle
of a word (e.g. fan-f*ing-tastic)
• For the most part, prefixes and suffixes are
always bound, except for isolated instances
Content and Function Words
Another distinction:
• Content Morphemes: morphemes that have a
referential function that is independent of
grammatical structure; e.g. dog, kick, etc.
– Sometimes these are called “open-class” because speakers
can add to this class at will
• Function morphemes: morphemes that are bits of
syntactic structure– e.g. prepositions, or morphemes
that express grammatical notions like [past] for past
tense.
– Sometimes called “closed-class” because speakers cannot
add to this class
Cross-Classification
• The bound/free and content/function
distinctions are not the same. Some
examples:
Content
Function
Bound
cran-
-ed
Free
dog
the
Aside: Non-Affixal Morphology
• In the cases above, we have seen many affixes
associated with some morphological function
• In other cases, there are additional changes; e.g.,
changes to the stem vowel:
– sing/sang
– goose/geese
• Examples of this type are not obviously affixal, as
there is no (overt) added piece (prefix or suffix).
Rather, the phonology of the stem/root has changed
Some examples
• Stem changing:
Present
Past
Participle
sing
sang
sung
begin
began
begun
sit
sat
sat
come
came
come
Another pattern
• While in many cases the stem change does
not co-occur with an affix, in some cases it
does:
Examples:
break
broke
brok-en
tell
tol-d
tol-d
freeze
froze
froz-en
Use of stem changing patterns
• In some languages, stem-changing is much
more important than it is in e.g. English
• In Semitic languages, extensive use is made
of different templatic patterns, that is, abstract
patterns of consonants and vowels:
– Arabic noun plurals:
• kitaab ‘book’; kutub ‘books’
• nafs ‘soul’; nufus ‘souls’
III. Internal structure of words
• Words have an internal structure that requires
analysis into constituents (much like syntactic
structure does)
• For example:
– Unusable contains three pieces: un-, use, -able
• Question: If we are thinking about the
procedures for building words, is the order
– derive use-able, then add un-; or
– derive un-use, then add -able
Word Structure
Possibilities:
Structure 1
Structure 2
un use able
un use able
Word Structure, Cont.
• Consider:
– With –able, we create adjectives meaning
‘capable of being V-ed’, from verbs V
• Break/break-able; kick/kick-able
– There is no verb un-use
– This is an argument that Structure 1 is correct:
[un [use able]]
– This analysis fits well with what the word means
as well: not capable of being used. Structure two
would mean some thing like ‘capable of not being
used’
Another example
• Consider another word (from the first class…):
unlockable. Focus on un• Note that in addition to applying to adjectives
(clear/unclear) to give a “contrary” meaning, unapplies to some verbs to give a kind of “undoing” or
reversing meaning:
do, undo
zip, unzip
tie, untie
• Note now that unlockable has two meanings
The Unlockable example
•
Two meanings:
1)
2)
Not capable of being locked
Capable of being unlocked
These meanings correspond to distinct structures:
1)
un lock
2)
able
un lock able
Unlockable, cont.
• The second structure is one in which –able
applies to the verb unlock
• This verb is itself created from un- and lock
• The meaning goes with this: ‘capable of being
unlocked’
• In structure 1, there is no verb unlock
• So the meaning is ‘not capable of being
locked’
Some General Points
• The system for analyzing words applies in
many cases that are created on the fly
• Complex words and their meanings are not
simply stored; rather, the parts are assembled
to create complex meanings
• Another example of the same principle
applies in the process of compounding
Introduction to Compounding
• A compound is a complex word that is formed out of
a combination of stems (as opposed to stem + affix)
• These function in a certain sense as ‘one word’, and
have distinctive phonological patterns
• Examples:
olive oil
shop talk
shoe polish
truck driver
Note that the different elements in these compounds
relate to each other in different ways...
Internal structure
•
Like with other complex words, the internal
structure of compounds is crucial
•
There are cases of ambiguities like that with
unlockable
•
Example: obscure document shredder
1) Person who shreds obscure documents
[[obscure document] shredder]
2) Obscure person who shreds documents
[obscure [document shredder]]
Compounding, cont.
•
An interesting property of compounds is that although they are ‘words’,
they form a productive system, without limits (as far as grammar is
concerned, not memory).
•
Note also that compounds have special accentual (stress) properties:
judge
trial judge
murder trial judge
murder trial judge reporter
murder trial judge reporter killer
murder trial judge reporter killer catcher
murder trial judge reporter killer catcher biographer
murder trial judge reporter killer catcher biographer pencil set
…