an introduction to morphology

Morphology

Oct 19, 2011

Contents What is Morphology? Organization in the lexicon Structure of derived words Morphological Analysis

What is morphology? The study of form or shape Internal structure of words How meaningful pieces of language combine

and recombine to form words Morpheme – the smallest linguistic unit that

can carry meaning Lexicon – the mental dictionary

Organization in the lexicon How do we know the lexicon is organized?

Certain words fit into certain categories The words ‘fish’ or ‘cat’ are inappropriate for

describing the color of something, for example, but ‘blue’ fits.

Lexical categories: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, determiner, preposition, conjunction All languages have nouns and verbs Other languages may have additional sub-

categories such as animate and inanimate nouns.

Lexical Categories Noun

refers to a person, place or thing Verb

indicates occurrence or performance of an action, or the existence of a state or condition

Adjective describes a noun or pronoun

Adverb modifies a verb, another adverb, or an adjective

(e.g. very, slowly, etc.)

Continued…

New words get added to these categories all the time, either because of new products and technologies, or word borrowing

Lexical Categories Pronoun

replaces a noun when that noun has already been mentioned

Determiner also called ‘articles’, modify a noun (e.g. a, the,

their, etc.) Conjunction

connects/coordinates words, phrases, or sentences

Preposition indicates the relationship of one word to another

Continued…

New words rarely get added to these categories. These are function words which serve to piece meaning together and are rarely changed.

Organization in the lexicon Regular patterns for creating new words Brass > brassy Chalk > chalky Need > needy /Noun/ + /i/ > [Adjective] /brass/ is a root morpheme

Affixes /-i/ is an affix

Suffix, prefix, or infix? /-i/ is a suffix /un-/, as in ‘undress’, is a prefix Infixes attach inside a word. For example, in Tagalog [sulat]

(wrote) becomes [sumulat] (one who wrote). An affix can attach to a root or a stem (a root with

one or more affixes) Derivational affix – creates a new word of related

meaning, can change the lexical category of the root or stem.

Inflectional affix – does not change meaning or lexical category of word; has grammatical function (e.g. plural /-s/, past tense /-ed/)

Organization in the Lexicon One lexical entry per morpheme

Advantages: economy, novel forms will also follow the same pattern

E.g. This is a wug. These are two _____. (Berko, 1958)

Lexicon ( 4 morphemes)

Words produced (6)

/cat/ [cat], [cats]

/dog/ [dog], [dogs]

/lake/ [lake], [lakes]

/-s/

Summary TableRoots Affixes

Belong to a lexical category Specified for lexical category that they can combine with

Can appear by themselves (free morphemes)

Cannot appear by themselves (bound morphemes)

Derivational or inflectional

Can attach at the beginning, end or inside a word

They are productive (they can attach to a large subset of morphemes to create new words)

Exercise 1

Count the number of root sand affixes in the words: crank, cranky, less, tasteless. Provide rationale.

Exercise 2 Should /-un/ be analyzed as one morpheme or

two morphemes (/-un/1 and /-un/2)? Undress Unusable Unspeakable Untie

Structure of derived words

governmental

Structure of derived words

[Adj] [N]

root [V]

govern -ment -al

Structure of derived words

reinterpretation

Structure of derived words

[N]

[V] [V]

re- interpret -ation

[[re [interpret]V ] V ation] N

Structure of derived words

[N]

[V]

re- interpret -ation

If the morpheme /ation/ attaches to the noun first, the result is a noun .The affix /re/ only attaches to verbs and means to perform an action again. The derivation cannot go further, the derivation fails.

Ambiguous Derivations Uncomfortably

[[un [[comfort]N abl]A] A ly] Adv

[un [[[comfort]N abl] A ly] Adv ] Adv

Morphological analysis Identify affixes

From groups by lexical category or grammatical from

Look within a group for repeating segments (affixes)

Look across groups for non-alternating segments Solve for underlying form of allomorphs, if any

Follow steps for phonological analysis

Exercise 3 Kujamaat Jóola

Identify all affixes and allomorphs, if any.

Singular N Plural N English

kɔ:l wɔ:l bone

kaƞag uƞag fin

kəsinsiƞ usinsiƞ basket

kapɔt upɔt pot

kajata ujata frog

kasankɛn usankɛn language

Exercise 3 Look within

Singular N Plural N English

kɔ:l wɔ:l bone

kaƞag uƞag fin

kəsinsiƞ usinsiƞ basket

kapɔt upɔt pot

kajata ujata frog

kasankɛn usankɛn language

Exercise 3 Look accross

Singular N Plural N English

kɔ:l wɔ:l bone

kaƞag uƞag fin

kəsinsiƞ usinsiƞ basket

kapɔt upɔt pot

kajata ujata frog

kasankɛn usankɛn language

Exercise 3 Kujamaat Jóola Allomorphs of the singular morpheme: [k-],

[ka-], [kə-] Allomorphs of the plural morpheme: [w-], [u-]

Thank you! Leave a comment if you have any questions

or would like additional exercises