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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Morphology is the field within linguistics that studies the internal

structure of words. (Words as units in the lexicon are the subject matter of

lexicology). While words are generally accepted as being (with clitics) the

smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can

be related to other words by rules. For example, English speakers recognize that

the words dog, dogs, and dog-catcher are closely related. English speakers

recognize these relations from their tacit knowledge of the rules of word-

formation in English. They intuit that dog is to dogs as cat is to cats; similarly,

dog is to dog-catcher as dish is to dishwasher. The rules understood by the

speaker reflect specific patterns (or regularities) in the way words are formed

from smaller units and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way,

morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word-formation

within and across languages, and attempts to formulate rules that model the

knowledge of the speakers of those languages.

The term 'morphology' has been taken over from biology where it is used

to denote the study of the forms of plants and animals. It was first used for

linguistic purposes in 1859 by the German linguist August Schleicher (Salmon

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2000), to refer to the study of the form of words. In present-day linguistics, the

term 'morphology' refers to the study of the internal structure of words, and of

the systematic form-meaning correspondences between words. “The notion

'systematic' in the definition of morphology given above is important. For

instance, we might observe a form difference and a corresponding meaning

difference between the English noun ear and the verb hear. However, this

pattern is not systematic: there are no similar word pairs, and we cannot form

new English verbs by adding h- to a noun."

In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description

of the structure of morphemes and other units of meaning in a language such as

words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context. (words

in a lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology). Morphological typology

represents a way of classifying languages according to the ways by which

morphemes are used in a language —from the analytic that use only isolated

morphemes, through the agglutinative ("stuck-together") and fusional

languages that use bound morphemes (affixes), up to the polysynthetic,

which compress lots of separate morphemes into single words.

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CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A. Generative Morphology

1. The Principles of Generative Morphology

According to Chomsky (1965:3-9), the principles or the assumptions

underlying generative transformational grammar in general and generative

morphology in particular can stated as follows :

First, generative transformational grammar is theory of competence.

Chomsky distinguishes between competence and performance. Competence is

the native speaker’s knowledge of his language, while performance is the real

language use by native speaker in real situations.

Generative transformational grammar starts from competence, not from

performance. In this connection, Chomsky states that linguistic theory is

metalistic, because this theory attempts to find out the mental reality underlying

real behavior.

Furthermore, it is stated that linguistics is the study of competence. The real

object of linguistic study is the homogeneous speech community in which all

people use the same language and study that language properly. The linguistic

data are not the utterance of the individual that must be studied, but his

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intuition of his language, particularly his judgment on what sentence are

grammatical and what sentences are ungrammatical and his judgment on the

interrelationship of sentence, which means what sentences have the same

meaning. The theory of language should be formed to explain this intuition.

Second, language has creative innovative characteristic. The creativity of

language is meant the ability of the native speaker to generate new sentences,

that is, sentences that have no similarities with usual sentences. The native

speaker has the capability of generating and understanding new sentences or he

has the capability of making judgments of their grammaticality.

Third, generative transformational grammar is the set of rules that gives

structural description to the sentence. The aims of the linguist who attempts to

explain the creative aspect of grammatical competence are to formulate a set of

sentence formation rules (syntactic rules), sentence interpretation rules

(semantic rules) and pronunciation rules (phonological rules). Thus studying a

language means studying a set of syntactic rules, semantic rule, and phonological

rules.

Fourth, language is the mirror of mind. Chomsky (1972:103) atates that

there is a number of questions that cause someone to study language. By

studying language in detail, we will know the inherent features of human mind.

In other words, we can achieve better understanding on how human mind

produces and processes language.

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Akmajian et. Al, (1984:5-7) complete the basic assumtions of generative

transformational grammar as follows :

First, human language in all levels in governed by rules. Every language that

we know has syntactic rules governing pronunciation, word formation, and

grammatical constructions.

What is meant by rules here are descriptive rule, namely, rules that describe

real language of certain groups of speakers. The descriptive rules actually

express the generalization and regularity of various aspects of language.

Second, various human language from unified phenomena. The linguist

assume that it is possible to study human language in general and certain

languages to express universal language features.

From the point of view of surface structure, human languages are very

different from each other, but from the point of view of deep structure, those

languages have universal features.

Next, the assumtions underlying generative morphology are stated as

follows:

First, generative morphology is an integral part of the syntactic component.

In standard generative transformational grammar, morphology is not an

autonomous component, but a part of syntactic component.

Second, morphology analysis is carried out in two levels, namely, the level of

deep structure and the level of surface structure. Based on this assumption, we

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first trace the deep structure or underlying representation of morphological

construction. Then we see the process that occur to that underlying

representation in order to be able to determine its derived or surface structure.

2. Basic Concepts of Generative Morphology

a. Competence and Performance

Crystal (1980:73) states that competence is a term used in linguistics,

particularly generative transformational grammar, to refer to someone’s

knowledge of his language, that is, the system of rules which he has mastered, so

that he is able to generate and understand an infinite number of sentences, and

to recognize grammatical mistakes and ambiguities.

According to Bechert et.al (1976:18), competence covers the following

abilities:

1. The ability to generate and understand the infinite number of

sentences.

2. The ability to determine whether an utterance or expression belongs to

the language concerned.

3. The ability to give meanings to utterance or expression belonging to a

certain language.

4. The ability to determine the level of derivation from those utterances.

5. The ability to determine the different kinds of derivation.

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6. The ability to determine the identities of the expression concerning

their membership on one utterance.

7. The ability to give judgments concerning the formal similarities among

various utterances.

8. The ability to determine the similarities of meaning of those utterances.

9. The ability to determine the variability of meaning of an utterance.

b. Deep Structure and Surface Structure

Crystal (1980:102) states that deep structure is a theoretical term central

in generative transformational grammar, contrasted with surface structure.

Deep structure is an abstract syntactical representation of a sentence, that is, a

basic level of structural organization explaining all factors that govern the way

how sentences should be interpreted.

Furthermore, Crystal (1980:341) states that the surface structure of a

sentence is the final stage in the syntactical representation of a sentence, which

prepare input to the phonological component, which is very in accord with the

structure of sentence which we articulate or hear.

3. The Models of Generative Morphology and Their Organization

There are two models of generative used in the word of linguistic,

namely:

a. Halle’s Model and its organization

Hale’s Model consist of four component :

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1) List of morpheme

According to Halle, the basic unit of lexicon are morpheme.

Every morpheme is indicated as a sequence of phonological segments

and it is put between labeled brackets. The representation by nouns,

verb and affixes for example:

a) [home]N

b) [discuss]v

c) [-ty]Suf

2) Word formation rules

There are two kinds of Word Formulation Rules namely, (1) Word

Formulation Rules which apply to stems and form the linear sequence

“ stem + one or more morpheme” with or without the internal

structure, and (2) Word formulation rules which apply to words.

Example:

(i) [STEM + I + ty]N (ii) [verb] + a] N

[STEM + an]Adj [Adjective + (i) + (Ty)]N

[STEM + al]N [ADJECTIVE + en]v

[be + STEM]N [NOUN + ish]Adj

The two kinds of word formulation rules above generate two

kinds of derived words, as can be seen in the following example:

(i) Srendip + i + ty (ii) arrive + al

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Vac + ant obes + ity

Tot + al dark + en

Be + lieve child + ish

All word formulation rules perform a number of tasks, and have

the following features:

a) Word formulation Rules specify sequences in which

morphemes must be arranged to form words of language.

b) Word formulation rules specify (i) the syntactic category of the

base, example: Noun, Verb, (ii) the syntactic category of the

output. Example: noun, Verb), (iii) the internal boundary in the

output example: “+” and (iv) regular semantic information

c) Word formation rules specify the semantic and syntactic

features of the derived words that are not in accord with the

features of the base.

d) Word formation rules operate in the same way as derivational

morphology and inflectional morphology.

e) Word formation rules are more powerful than phonological

rules.

f) Since word formulation rules that create new words, then they

also function to analysis the existing words.

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3) Filter

The filter component is a mechanism tat handles the

idiosyncrasies occurring in a language. Not all words can be derived

by word formulation rules. Word formulation rules can form words

that are phonologically, syntactically, and semantically, but not occur

in surface structure. The filter functions to mark such formation wit

the features [-LI], that means that those formation cannot enter the

dictionary.

4) Dictionary

The words that have gone the filter form the dictionary of a given

language, which the last component of this morphological model. The

dictionary covers either regular formation that have not been

modified by the filter by adding or deleting certain features, or

idiosyncratic formation have been modified in certain ways by filter.

b. Arronof’s Model

1) Criticism on Halle’s Model

Scalise (1984: 34) state that the researches carried out later

shows a number of problems concerning generative morphology of

Halle’s model. The problems are related to every subcomponent of

this model, namely the list of morpheme, word formulation rules,

filter and dictionary.

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2) The component of Arronof’s Model

a) Word- based Hypothesis

i) The bases of the word formulation rules are word

ii) These words are the existing words. Thus possible but non

existent

iii) The word formulation rules can take single words as bases, not

more like phrases and less like bound morpheme

iv) The input and output of the major the WFR must be the

members of the major lexical categories.

b) Word formulation rules

The word formulation rule is a specific mechanism that create new

words in a language that lies wholly in lexicon. Example : [W]x

[[W]x + AF] y “ semantic of Y”

The formulated : [read]v [[read]v + able]A “ capable of being

read”

c) Readjustment rules

According to Arronoff the readjustment rules are the rules that are

limited to special morphemes and occur only in the environment

of those special morphemes.

And Arronoff divides into two part, namely:

i) Truncation rules

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The general form of truncation rule is as follows:

[[root + A]x +B]v

1 2 3

1 Ø 3

ii) Allomorphy rules

Allomorphy rules are the rules that add morphemes or

formatives to the roots or bases when suffixes are added. The

formulated

[[root]x + Suf]y

1 2

1+Formative 2

In which X represents a lexical category of the root and Y

represent takes a morpheme of formative when a suffix I

added to the underlying representation.

4. The Analysis of Generative Morphology

All identified morphemes are classified into two main groups, namely:

a. Free morphemes

Free morphemes are morphemes that can stand alone as word.

Free morphemes consist of class or content words, like:

1) Class or content words:

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Nouns : fish, sea, house, shirt, drug, king ……………

Verbs : hit, go, cut, come, see, show, like ……………

Adjective : handsome, beautiful, cleaver, clean ……….

Adverb : here, there, now, yesterday, tomorrow ……

2) Function words:

Determiners (Det) : the, a(n), one, two, many, some, my ………..

Auxiliaries (Aux) : be, am, is, are, do, does, did, can, may ……..

Intensifiers (Int) : very, rather, somewhat, so, too ………………..

Question words (QW) : who(m), what, where, when, why, how …..

b. Bound morphemes

Bound morphemes are morpheme that cannot stand alone. Can be

further divided into:

Prefixes: a-, auto-, dis-, en-, for-, in-, inter-, mis-, re-, un-, …………..

Suffixes : -ion, -ty, -ment, -ness, -er, -ate, -en, -fy, -ize, -able, -al …….

The analysis of generative morphology divided into two, namely:

a. The Analysis of Generative Morphology of Halle’s Model

1) List of morphemes

All morphemes, either free morphemes or bound morphemes are

listed in the list of morphemes by using labeled bracketing.

Example

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a) Free morphemes

[decorate]v

[active]adj

[electric]adj

b) Bound morphemes

[-ion]suf

[-ty]suf

2) Word formation

After all morphemes are listed in the list of morphemes is to

formulate a set of Word formation Rules (WFR). And tan every rule

must be accompanied by its meaning or semantics.

Word formation rules (WFR)

Name Abbreviation

Noun Formation Rules (NFR)

Verb Formation Rules (VFR)

Adjective Formation Rules (AdjFR)

Adverb Formation Rules (AdvFR)

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In English, nouns, for example, can be formed with the following

rules:

(NFR-1) [[X]v + [-ion]suf]N

Semantics: ‘the act of X-ing

This rule states that some English nouns can be formed by adding

the suffix- ion to the base consisting of verbs with the meaning the act

of X- ing.

(NFR-2) [[X]adj + [-ty]suf]N

Semantics: ‘the state of being X’

This rule state that some nouns in English can be formed by

adding the suffix-ty to the base with the meaning ‘the state of being X’.

The application of (NFR-1) and (NFR-2) generate the following

underlying representations:

*[#[decorate] + [-ion]#]

*[#[educate] + [-ion]#]

*[#[nominate] + [-ion]#]

*[#[active] + [-ty]#]

*[#[electric] + [-ty]#]

All of the above underlying representations are ungrammatical or

unacceptable, so they cannot enter the dictionary.

3) Filter

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The filter is the mechanism that can change unacceptable

underlying representations into acceptable one. To be acceptable,

they must go through phonological processes, namely, two

assimilations and one syllable structure process.

The phonological rule for these three phonological processes can

be formulated as follows:

(PR-1)

-sonorant

+anterior ……. + [-ion]

+coronal

(PR-2)

+ Syllabic Ø +high / … #

- back

This rule state that the high vowel phoneme /i/ is inserted at the

end of the base when the suffix –ty is added to te base.

(PR-3)

+consonantal -anterior + high +coronal +syllabic + back -voice / ….. +high-voice +continuant -back+continual +strident

-sonorant +high-anterior

+strident _voice

/…

C C

V

C CC

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-Delrel

4) Dictionary

All words have been formed through Word Formation Rule (WFR)

and have gone through the filter are listed in the dictionary. In the

dictionary, all words are accompanied their meanings and their

semantic feature.

b. The Analysis of Generative Morphology of Aronoff’s Model

1) Dictionary

In the formation, the steps must be taken is to list sets of words used

as bases of Word Formation Rule (WFR) in the dictionary as the first

of Aronoff’s Model. Example :

a) [active]Adj

b) [decorate]v

c) [educate]v

d) [electric] Adj

e) [examine]v

f) [nominate]v

2) Word Formation Rule

a) The Rule for the formation of English Noun with the suffix –ion

(NFR-1) [X]v [[X]v + [-ion]suf ]N

Semantics: ‘the act or result of X-ing’

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b) The Rule for the formation of English Noun with the suffix –ty

(NFR-2) [X] Adj [[X] Adj + [-ty]suf ]N

Semantic: ‘the state of being X’

3) Underlying Representation

The application of (NFR-1) and (NFR-2) can generate the following

underlying representations:

(a) *[#[active /æktive/]Adj + [-ty]suf#]N

(b) *[#[decorate /dek reit/]v + [-ion]suf#]Nе

(c) *[#[educate/ejucate/]v + [-ion]suf#]N

(d) *[#[electric/ilektrik/]Adj + [-ty]suf#]N

(e) *[#[examine/igzæmin/]v + [-ion]suf#]N

(f) *[#[nominate/nomineit/]v + [-ion] suf]N

All is underlying representation are ungrammatical or

unacceptable. The underlying representation (a), (b), (c), (d), and (f)

are phonologically unacceptable, while the underlying representation

(e) is morphologically and phonologically unacceptable.

4) Phonological Rule

The phonologically unacceptable underlying representations must

go through certain phonological process. The following underlying

representation:

*[#[active/æktive/]Adj + [-ty]suf#]N

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To be acceptable must go trough one phonologically process. The

syllable structure process in which the high vowel phoneme /i/ is

inserted at the end of the base when the suffix –ty is added to it.

The process of derivation can be described in the following:

UR : *[#[active/æktive/]Adj + [-ty]suf#]N

(PR-2) insertion of /i/ : [#[æktiv +i/] adj + [-ty]suf#]N

Output : [activity/æktivity/]

5) Readjustment Rule

The morphologically unacceptable underlying representation

must go through the readjustment process.

*[#[examine/igzæmin/]v + [-ion] suf#]N

The rule for this readjustment process can be formulated as

follows:

(RR-1) *[[base]v + [-ion]suf]N

1 2

1+at 2 This rule states the formative –at is inserted at the end of the base

when the suffix –ion is added to it.

6) Surface Representation

By applying (RR-1), the following unacceptable surface

representation can be generated:

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*[#[examine + at /igzæmineit/]v + [-ion]suf#]N

Because this surface representation is phonologically

unacceptable, so it must go through a phonologically process.

The process of derivation can be described as follows:

SR : *[#[/igzæmineit/]v + [-ion]suf#]N

(PR-1) /t/ /š/: [#[/igzæmineiš/]v + [-ion] suf#]N

Output : [examination/igzæmineišen/]

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CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION & SUGGESTION

A. Conclusion

Generative morphology is an integral part of the syntactic component.

Morphology is not an autonomous component, but a part of the syntactic

component. Nerveless, there have been efforts of making morphological

component as autonomous component, called Word Formation Rule (WFR).

Beside that morphological analysis is carried out in two levels namely the level

of deep structure and the level of surface structure. In generative morphology

we know two model to analysis morphological manely, Hale’s model and

Arronoff’s model.

B. Suggestion

Based on the explanation of this paper, we hope that all of the audience

can get the point and more understand about generative morphology

furthermore it can be applied in our daily life especially in learning morphology.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ba’dulu, Abdul M. 2010. Morphosyntax. Makassar: Badan Penerbit universitas Negeri Makassar.

Wikipedia. Morphology (linguistics). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. (Downloaded on 27th September 2011)