TUTORIAL 4: MORPHOLOGY
JONATHAN NG
CHAN JUN WEI
CHAN SHI MIN
VERA YAP
ZHUO HONGCHAO
Q1:
 Syllables: rhythmic units of speech.
 Sound(s) of the word
 Morphemes: basic building blocks of words that carries meaning or
function and cannot be decomposed any further.

Meaning of the word
Q1:
 In order for rhyme/rime, the coda of the syllable must be the same for
both words

Limericks focus on this because limericks need rhyme
 Whereas, morpheme’s function is to indicate the meaning of a part of
the word

E.g. “beard” & “feared” rhymes,
the root word of feared is ‘fear’ + the inflectional morpheme -ed to indicate past tense
 Beard is just made up of one root word


E.g. “wren” & “hen”
Both end with –en, but –en is not used as a derivative or inflectional morpheme
 Both words chosen on the basis of rhyme

Q1:
So, even though words rhyme, that is they have the same coda,
they need not end off with the same morpheme and/or the same
function.
Q2a:
Unbelievable
Adj
Af
Un-
Adj
(BASE)
V
Af
Believe
-able
(ROOT)
Q2b:
Industrialisation
N
(BASE)
(BASE)
N
Industry
(ROOT)
V
Af
Af
Adj
Af
-ial
-ize
-ation
Q2c:
Nuclear Physicist
(ENDOCENTRIC COMPOUNDING)
N
(BASE) N
Nuclear Physics
(ROOT)
Af
-ist
Q2d:
McCainiac
N
N
Af
McCain
-iac
(ROOT)
Q2e:
Microwaveability
N
(BASE)
Adj
V
V
(BASE)
N
N
Micro-
Af
-able
N
wave
(ROOT)
-ility
Q3(i):
Q3(ii):
Q4:
A) Give the Japanese morphemes for the following English
translations:
(i)‘Open’ (ii) ‘Eat’
a. [tabeta] 'X ate Y.'
b. [aketa] 'X opened Y.‘
Past Tense: Ta
(i) Open : Ake
(ii) Eat : Tabe
(iii) passive marker (‘… be verb-ed, e.g., ‘They were
opened/eaten.’)
b. [aketa] 'X opened Y.‘
f. [akerareta] 'X was opened.'
Passive marker: -rare-
(iv) Causative marker (‘… make X verb, e.g., ‘Yosuke
made Zechy study)
i. [tabesasenai] 'X doesn't/won't make Y eat Z.'
j. [tabenai] 'X doesn't/won't eat Y.'
Causative marker: -sase-
(v) Non-past marker (present or future)
g. [tabesaserareta] 'X was made to eat Y.'
k. [tabesaserareru] 'X is/will be made to eat Y.'
Past tense: -ta
Non-past marker: -ru
(vi) Negative marker (the morpheme meaning ‟not“)
a. [tabeta] 'X ate Y.'
j. [tabenai] 'X doesn't/won't eat Y.'
Past tense: -ta
Negative marker: -nai
B) Suppose a Japanese verb form were to include the following sets of
morphemes. For each set, indicate the order in which the morphemes
would occur in a verb form.
(i) passive, root, past, causative
Order: Root, Causative, Passive, Past
Example: (g) [tabesaserareta] 'X was made to eat Y.'
B) Suppose a Japanese verb form were to include the following sets of
morphemes. For each set, indicate the order in which the morphemes
would occur in a verb form.
(ii) causative, non-past, root
Order: Root, Causative, Non-past
Example: (k) [tabesaserareru] ‘X is/will be made to eat Y.’
B) Suppose a Japanese verb form were to include the following sets of
morphemes. For each set, indicate the order in which the morphemes
would occur in a verb form.
(iii) root, negative, causative
Order: Root, Causative, Negative
Example: (i) [tabesasenai] 'X doesn't/won't make Y eat Z.'
C) Give the Japanese verb form that would be used for each of the
following English translations.
 (She) will (non-past marker) make (causative) (him) open (verb) (them)
Ake-sase-ru
 (He) will (non-past marker) be made (causative) to open (verb) (them)
Ake-sase-rare-ru
D) In Japanese, [uketa] means ‘(She) took (a test)’. Now, using this
fact with what you’ve observed above, how would you say the
following in Japanese? Don’t try to translate the items in parentheses.
 (She) will (non-past marker) be made (causative) to take(verb) (a test)
Uke-sase-rare-ta
 (She) makes (causative / non-past marker) (him) take (verb) (a test)
Uke-sase-ru
 (She) will (non-past marker) not (negative) take (verb) (a test)
Uke-nai
THE END
THANK YOU