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-erSing-ingOpen-edCar-sWrite-sBigg-est

Treat-mentRude-nessUn-kindFam-ousUse-lessHelp-fulIr-regularRed-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/, / z/ɪ• 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/, / d/ɪ

• 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

CareUseCheerColourHelpTaste HopeTact

FateSpoonDelightBagPlayCup

FriendAgeCeaseChildDefenceEndEffortPenny

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;