English Morphology – Lecture 2

David Brett

Antonio PinnaUniversity 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 LatinCircul- Circular Liber- Liberty

Circulation Liberation

Circulator Liberalize

Circulatory Libertine

Problem case: Verbs of Latin origin

receive deceive conceive perceive

revert convert pervert

relate collate translate

reduce deduce 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 Anglo-Saxon 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-dishFam-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-made-

made• Involving vowel and consonant change> leave-

left-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

-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,

Derivation with –ful and –less

• Which words can be derived by adding the following suffixes

-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 diagramsLabel 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; non-specialization; developmental; antihistorical; miscarriage;