English Morphology – Lecture
2
David Brett
Antonio Pinna
University of Sassari 2007
Distinguishing between
morphemes:
• Bound and free morphemes:
• Free morphemes can occur on their own:
– happy, change, select, green, house, …
• Bound morphemes can occur only if they are attached to
other morphemes:
– Affixes (un-, -ness, -able, de-, -ive, -er, …)
– Binding forms liber-, oper-, circul-, legitim-, materi-, …
• Eg. liber-ation, oper-ate, circul-ar, legitim-(a)cy, materi-al
• Cran-berry (berry, straw-berry, black-berry)
• Dis-gruntle-d
• Gorm-less
• Cranberry morphemes
Bound morphemes as core
elements: words derived from Latin
Circul-
Circular
Liber-
Liberty
Circulation
Liberation
Circulator
Liberalize
Circulatory
Libertine
Problem case: Verbs of Latin origin
receive
conceive
perceive
revert
convert
pervert
relate
collate
reduce
deceive
deduce
translate
conduce
Should these be considered to be composed of a single morpheme?
Or prefix + bound morpheme?
General tendency
• The core vocabulary of English is
generally composed of words of AngloSaxon origin
• There is a general tendency for core
elements to be free morphemes
• E.g. Hand
• Hand-y, hand-le, hand-ful, mis-hand-le,
What is the difference between
these two sets of complex words
Fast-er
Sing-ing
Open-ed
Car-s
Write-s
Bigg-est
Treat-ment
Rude-ness
Un-kind
Fam-ous
Use-less
Help-ful
Ir-regular
Red-dish
Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed,
Car-s, Write-s, Big-gest
• These affixes do not change the word
class (verb, noun etc.), but rather
contribute to meeting grammatical
constraints. These are called:
Inflectional morphemes
Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish
Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular
These affixes do not necessarily change the
class of the word, but this is normally the
case, e.g. fame (n.)> famous (adj.)
• Since these words derive from others
these morphemes are called:
Derivational morphemes
• He go to the park every day
• She speaks to me yesterday
• He is a very fame actor
• He gave me very good treat
Inflectional morphemes: Plurals
#1
• Cat > cats; dog > dogs; case > cases
• N.b. these are pronounced /s/, /z/, /ɪz/
• These different realizations are called
allomorphs of the inflectional morpheme
for plurals
Inflectional morphemes: Plurals
#2
• Irregular plurals are also considered to
be allomorphs e.g.
• Foot > feet; man > men; child > children
• Sheep > Sheep; Fish > fish etc.
Inflectional morphemes: Verbs
#1
• English is particularly low on inflectional
morphemes for verbs cfr. Italian (amare
1st person> amo, amavo, amai, amerò,
ami (subjunctive), amassi, amerei x 6)
• English: love, loves, loved (past simple
and p.part.), loving
• BE has the largest number of realizations:
• Be, am, are, is, was, were, been, being
Inflectional morphemes: Verbs
#2
• Verbs in the past and p. participle form can
be:
• 1 Regular: kissed; changed; wanted
• Note that the –ed suffix has three,
phonologically determined, realizations
(i.e. three allomorphs): /t/, /d/, /ɪd/
• The following lines rhyme:
You were the first one I kissed
Because you were at the top of my list
Inflectional morphemes: Verbs
#3
•
•
•
•
•
Verbs in the past and p. participle form can be:
2 Irregular
Involving no change> hit-hit-hit
Involving vowel change> drink-drank-drunk
Involving consonant change > make-mademade
• Involving vowel and consonant change> leaveleft-left
• Suppletion (i.e. with no phonological relation)>
BE> was-were; GO> went
Inflectional morphemes:
Adjectives
• Comparatives
• HOT> hott-er – hott-est
• IMPORTANT > more important – most
important
• Note suppletion in
• GOOD > better – best
• BAD > worse – worst
Derivational morphemes
• Far more numerous than inflectional
morphemes
• Allow productivity (involved in the coining
of new words)
• Can be prefixes, or suffixes, not
circumfixes
• Suffixes usually, but not always, change
word class
• Prefixes, usually don’t
Derivational morphemes: some
examples
• Verbs > Nouns: work-er, act-or, treat-ment,
elect-ion
• Nouns > Adjectives: colour-ful, friend-less,
fac-ial, fam-ous
• Verbs > Adjectives: bor-ing, interest-ed
honour-able, access-ible
Derivation with –ful and –less
• Which words can be derived by adding the
following suffixes
-ful/less
Only -ful
Only -less
Age, Bag, Care, Cease, Cheer, Child, Colour, Cup,
Defence, Delight, Effort, End, Fate, Friend, Help, Hope,
Penny, Play, Spoon, Tact , Taste , Use,
-ful/less
Only -ful
Only -less
Care
Use
Cheer
Colour
Help
Taste
Hope
Tact
Fate
Spoon
Delight
Bag
Play
Cup
Friend
Age
Cease
Child
Defence
End
Effort
Penny
Tree diagrams
Label the boxes in the diagram
Greed >
Greedy >
Greediness
N.b. Specif- is a bound root cfr. Specif-y
Draw tree diagrams for the
following words
•
•
•
•
•
•
Unwholesome
Rulership
Underdeveloped
Overachiever
Operational
Indispensable
Productivity – the creation of new
words
•
•
There a six main ways of creating new words
By combining two or more core elements: this process is called
‘compounding’
– truck driver, mother-in-law, download;
•
By adding parts to a core element: this process is called ‘affixation’
– clockwise, credible, coarsely, kingdom;
•
By changing the word class of a given word: this process is called
‘conversion’
– Bottle > to bottle; to call > a call;
•
By clipping a longer word: this process is called ‘truncation’
– Veterinary Surgeon > vet; Zoological gardens > Zoo;
•
By amalgamating parts of different words: this process is called ‘blending’
– Smoke + fog > smog; Motor + Hotel > Motel; Camera + Recorder > Camcorder
•
•
Acronyms
- North Atlantic Treaty Organization > NATO; Absent without leave > AWOL;
Personal Identification Number > PIN
• We can also find multiple processes e.g.
• Camera > web camera (Compounding) >
webcam (Truncation)
• Ball > snowball (Compounding) > to
snowball (Conversion)
Exercise for next lecture
• Produce tree diagrams of the following
multiply affixed complex words:
• airworthiness; speechlessness; nonspecialization; developmental;
antihistorical; miscarriage;