File 4.0 - What Is Morphology?

Morphology: The study of word making.

File 4.1 - Words and Word Formation: The Nature of the Lexicon

Lexical category: Sometimes called parts of speech, examples include: noun, adjective, verb, etc.

When examining words and debating their relationship to each other, we must consider both their phonological form and their meaning.

If two words belong to different parts of speech, it is pretty clear that they are different words - for example, cat and catty

Root: The basis of another word, such as cat being the root for catty

Derivation: Taking the phonological form of one word and performing an "operation" on it, creating a new word or form of a word

Stem: Another term for root.

Affixes: Additional pieces added to a stem.

Inflection: The creation of different grammatical forms of words - these are not new words, just different forms of the original word

Inflectional affixes of English:

Function Affix(es) Attaches to Example

Third person singular present

-s Verbs She waits there at noon.

Past tense -ed Verbs She waited there yesterday

Progressive aspect -ing Verbs She is waiting there now

Past participate -en, -ed Verbs Jack has eaten the cookies. Jack has tasted the cookies.

Plural -s Nouns The chairs are in the room.

Possessive -'s, -s' Nouns The chair's leg is broken. The chairs' legs are broken.

Comparative -er Adjectives, adverbs

Jill is taller than Joe. Joe runs faster than Jill.

Superlative -est Adjectives, adverbs

Ted is the smallest in his class. Michael runs fastest of all.

A root may only contain one morpheme, but a stem may contain more than one morpheme-

An affix is a single morpheme - a suffix follows the stem, a prefix precedes a stem-

Affixes that sound alike but have different meanings or functions are homophonous-

Morphemes: The parts that words are made of.

Free morphemes: Morphemes that can be used separately as words themselves.

Bound morphemes: Morphemes that cannot be used separately as words, and can only appear as affixes.

There are some roots that do not have stand-alone forms, and only appear with one or more affixes attached - these are called bound roots, and while they seem to have some basic meaning, they are unable to stand alone

Content morphemes: Morphemes that carry semantic content (car, house, etc.). Morphemes that produce a word that belongs to a different part of speech are also included.

Function morphemes: The opposites of content morphemes, these simply add grammatical content -

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inflectional affixes are included, as are prepositions (at, for), articles (a, the), and conjunctions (and, but)

Kinds of morphemes

Content morphemes Function morphemes

Free morphemesNouns-

Verbs-

Adjectives-

Adverbs-

Content words:Determiners-

Prepositions-

Pronouns-

Conjunctions-

Function words:

Bound morphemes Bound rootsDerivational affixes

Inflectional affixes

Formation refers to the systematic relationship between roots and the words derived from them and between a word and its various inflected (grammatical) forms.

Productive rules: Rules that allow speakers to form novel words.

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File 4.2 - Morphological Processes

Word formation process: A rule for forming new words or forms of words. Examples include affixation, reduplication, or compounding.

Affixation: Adding an affix to a stem - in English, only prefixes and suffixes are used, but other languages use infixes - inserted within the root morpheme

Signed language also has affixes - for example, the REVERSAL-OF-ORIENTATION suffix.

If a signed affix occurs at the same time as the stem, it is considered simultaneous, and is usually inflectional - two examples are verb inflection (to mark the subject and object of the verb) and adverbial inflection of adjectives (from HOT, to VERY HOT)

Compounding: Forming new words using two or more independent words, rather than affixes. An example would be girlfriend, textbook, air-conditioner, etc.

The difference between compound words and syntactic phrases is that they have different stress patterns - compounds have primary stress only on the first word, while individual words have their own primary stress

Reduplication: Forming new words by doubling an entire free morpheme (total reduplication) or part of it (partial reduplication)

ASL also uses reduplication in some of its plural formations

Alternations: Internal modifications of a morpheme. For example, man to men, goose to geese, strife to strive.

Suppletion: An irregular inflected form phonetically unrelated to the root - for example, is turning into was, and go turning into went

File 4.3 - Morphological Types of Languages

There are two morphological types of languages: analytic and synthetic

Analytic languages: Use sequences of free morphemes - each word is a single morpheme, used only by itself

A purely analytic language is called an isolating language - they don't use affixes, at all

A purely analytic language won't use any other morphological processes - instead, meaning is derived from things like location in the sentence

Agglutinating languages: Morphemes are joined together loosely, and it's easy to determine where the boundaries between morphemes are - each bound morpheme usually carries a single meaning

Fusional languages: Affixes are harder to separate from them stems, and usually fused with the stem - a single affix frequently carries several meanings at the same time

Polysynthetic languages: Words are formed by combining multiple stems and affixes, usually

Synthetic languages: Bound morphemes are attached to other morphemes, allowing words made up of multiple elements

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Polysynthetic languages: Words are formed by combining multiple stems and affixes, usually turning nouns into verbs - long, complex words are formed with modified versions of nouns (hand, knife, tiger) turned into verbs

File 4.4 - The Hierarchical Structure of Derived Words

The stems with which an affix may combine normally belong to the same part of speech

The words that are formed when an affix is added to a stem is usually belongs to the same part of speech

This means that you can trace the derivation of a word to find the stem and the affixes in the correct order - if a word has two affixes, one of which is used with verbs to create new verbs, and the other of which attaches to verbs to create adjectives, a specific order is required

Hierarchalwords are words created through this kind of "sequential" affixation

Some words are ambiguous, and because they have multiple meanings, there are different processes of formation for them

Un- can be used with adjectives to form new adjectives, but it can also be used with verbs to form new verbs - these are entirely different morphemes

Some affixes have a wider range of combination possibilities, but they will typically follow their own rules - an imaginary affix could combine with verbs to form verbs, and attach to nouns to create adjectives, but never to form an adjective out of a verb

File 4.5 - Morphological Analysis

Comparison is the best way to do morphological analysis - particular forms are compared and contrasted to find differences

Both form and meaning similarities are necessary, to make sure they aren't different morphemes - for example, with -er or un-, which are completely different depending on the stem

Derivational affixes usually involve similarities in meaning, and inflectional affixes usually involve a similarity in function

Sometimes, the same meaning is conveyed by different forms, such as imbalance and inability, in which case they would be allomorphs of the same morpheme - like an allophone to a phoneme

Given a set of data, morphological analysis is possible to identify each morpheme, its meaning, and its type

1. Isolate and compare forms that are partially similar2. If a single phonetic form has tow distinct meanings, it must be analyzed as two different morphemes3. If the same function and meaning are associated with different phonetic forms, they must be represented by the same morpheme (allomorphs) and the form may be predictable on the basis of the phonetic environment

Textbook Exercises

p. 176

4. In each group of words that follow, two words have the same morphological structure, one has a different suffix from those two, and one has no suffix at all. Your task is to tell which two words have the same suffix, which one has a different suffix, and which has no suffix at all. Having done this, tell the meaning of each suffix. (You may find that they become more difficult as you go along.)

Silver There is no suffix.Smoker this is the same -er as in rider.

Colder -er is an inflectional suffix marking the comparative.Example: Rider -er is a derivational suffix meaning 'one who…'

a.

Nicer -er as an inflectional suffix, marking the comparative.

Painter -er as a derivational suffix, meaning 'one who…'

Runner -er as a derivational suffix, meaning 'one who…'

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Feather There is no suffix.

b.

Clocks -s as an inflectional suffix, for plural.

Nick's -s as an inflectional affix, for possession.

Hearts -s as an inflectional suffix, for plural.

Glass There is no suffix.

c.

Friendly -ly as a derivational suffix, turning a noun into an adjective.

Sadly -ly as a derivational suffix, turning an adjective into an adverb.

Softly -ly as a derivational suffix, turning an adjective into an adverb.

Silly There is no suffix.

d.

Sons -s as an inflectional suffix, for plural.

Lens There is no suffix.

Vans -s as an inflectional suffix, for plural.

Runs -is as an inflectional suffix, for the third person singular verb tense.

e.

Youngster -er as a derivational suffix, marking membership in a group.

Faster -er as an inflectional suffix, marking the comparative.

Monster There is no suffix.

Gangster -er as a derivational suffix, marking membership in a group.

f.

Wrestling -ling as a derivational suffix, turning a verb into a noun.

Handling -ling as a derivational suffix, turning a verb into a noun.

Fling There is no suffix.

Duckling -ling as a derivational suffix, meaning 'small version of…'

g.

Nifty There is no suffix.

Ducky -y as a derivational suffix, meaning 'small version of...'

Thrifty -y as a derivational suffix, making a noun into an adjective.

Lucky -y as a derivational suffix, making a noun into an adjective.

h.

Given -en as an inflectional suffix, marking the past participle.

Maven There is no suffix.

Wooden -en as an derivational suffix, meaning "made of wood."

Taken -en as an inflectional suffix, marking the past participle.

p. 178

8. Consider the follow data from Bontoc. These data show an example of derivational morphology in which an adjectival root is turned into a verb. What type of affix is used to form the verb? Describe its placement in the word.

[fikas] 'strong' [fumikas] 'he is becoming strong'

[kilad] 'red' [kumilad] 'he is becoming red'

[bato] 'stone' [bumiato] 'he is becoming stone'

[fusul] 'enemy' [fumiusul] 'he is becoming an enemy'

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An infix is being used, inserting [umi] after the initial consonant. This is replaced by [um] when an [i] is already present after the first consonant.

p. 182

24. Draw tree diagrams for each of the following words:

a. disappearance: dis + appear = disappear (verb) + ance = disappearance (noun)b. unaffordable: afford + able = affordable (adjective) + un = unaffordable (adjective)c. un-American: America + n = American (adjective) + un- = un-American (adjective)d. manliness: man + ly = manly (adjective) + ness = manliness (noun)e. impersonal: person + al = personal (adjective) + im = impersonal (adjective)f. irreplaceability: place + re = replace (verb) + able = replaceable (adjective) + ir = irreplaceable (adjective) + ability = irreplaceability (adjective)g. oversimplification: simple + fy = simplify (verb) + cation = simplification (noun) + over = oversimplification (noun)h. unhappiness: happy + ness = happiness (noun) + un = unhappiness (noun)i. decommission: commission + de = decommission (verb)

p. 183

29. Isthmus Zapotec. Examine the following data from Isthmus Zapotec, a language spoken in Mexico. Answer the questions that follow.

a. [palu] 'stick' g. [spalube] 'his stick' m. [spalulu] 'your stick'

b. [kuːba] 'dough' h. [skuːbabe] 'his dough' n. [skuːbalu] 'your dough'

c. [tapa] 'four' i. [stapabe] 'his four' o. [stapalu] 'your four'

d. [geta] 'tortilla' j. [sketabe] 'his tortilla' p. [sketalu] 'your tortilla'

e. [bere] 'chicken' k. [sperebe] 'his chicken' q. [sperelu] 'your chicken'

f. [doʔo] 'rope' l. [stoʔobe] 'his rope' r. [stoʔolu] 'your rope'

i. Isolate the morphemes that correspond to the following English translations:

[s] possesion (genitive)

[be] third person singular

[lu] second person plural

ii. List the allomorphs for the following translations:

'tortilla': [geta], [sketa]'rope': [doʔo], [stoʔo]'chicken': [bere], [spere]

iii. What phonological environment triggers the alternation between these allomorphs?

Possession.

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