Morphology

5.1, 5.3 (Ex. p 154 #0, 1)

Homework: 5.2 (due 3/19)

Morphology

• Up to this point we have studied the sounds of English and how they interact in systematic ways

• The next step:

Strings of language sounds form units of meaning

Morphology

• Morphology is the study of how units of meaning are formed

Morphology

• How many units of meaning are present in the following sentence:

my shoes are untied

Morphology

Or in this sentence:

I waited for her all morning

Morphology

Or in this sentence:

those socks are smelly

Morphology

• *Morpheme — the smallest unit of meaning in a language– i.e., it cannot be subdivided into smaller units

of meaning

Morphology

• We usually think of morphemes as bases/stems

affixes

Stem

• *Base / stem — the meaning unit that affixes attach to

This is the core of the word, which has the lexical meaning that is added to in some way by an affix

Morphology

• *Affixes – attach to bases/stems

Affixes

• Prefixes attach to the front of a stems or words

(in-)sight

(dis-)arm

(un-)aware

Affixes

• Suffixes — attach to the end of stems or words

try(-ing)

examin(-ation)

navig(-ate)

rect(-ify)

Affixes

• Infixes – attach in the middle of a word

• Karl (-the mailman-) Malone, etc.

fan(-f…-)tastic

a(-whole-)nother thing

Morphology

• Through the systematic interaction of morphemes, the units of meaning of a language are formed

• Part of what we know when we know a language is how morphemes interact

Morphology

Some morphemes show variation in use

• Colder

More beautiful

Morphology

Adjectives / Adverbs

• (-er) ‘more’ slower

• (-est) ‘most’ slowest

Can we make a descriptive rule for this variation?

Morphology

• *Allomorph: Variants of morphemes

That is, variations in the form of the morpheme, with each form having the same meaning

Allomorphs

• Plural (-s) morpheme

/z/ /əz/ /s/

beds sashes hats

• Question: Which is basic plural in English?

Allomorphs

• Possessive (-s)

• /z/ Bill’s

• /əz / Marcus’s

• /s/ Clark’s

Allomorphs

• 3Person Singular

• /z/ reads

• /əz/ watches

• /s/ hits

Allomorphs

*RULE:

• after voiced sounds, /z/

• after sibilants, /əz/

• after other voiceless sounds /s/

[sound familiar?]

More Allomorphs

• Past tense (–ed):

/d/ feared, burned, cried

/t/ wished, kissed [for some, burnt, learnt]

/əd/ heated, mended

More Allomorphs

RULE:

after voiced sounds, /d/

after voiceless sounds, /t/

after alveolar stops, /ed/

Allomorphs

• We can see that many allomorphs in English are phonologically conditioned —

Their form is determined by neighboring sounds

• Cf. Spanish: amigos

(in Spanish, no such conditioning)

Allomorphs

Other allomorphs in English:

• pres. part. (-ing) [ən], [iŋ] ‘playing’

free variation (only stylistic variation)

Allomorphs

• Unlike• Inactive• Impossible• Illogical• Irreversible

• What rule produced these allomorphs?

Morphology

• Lexical categories:

I. Content words: have lexical meaning

II. Grammar words: provide primarily grammatical information

Lexical categories

• I. *Content words (form class words)

Content (form class) words change form to fit into the grammar —

pitch (V.) → pitcher (n.)

Content words

1. Constitute most of vocabulary —

by far the greatest number of words

Content words (form class words)

2. Have lexical meaning —

that is, they mean something —

table, floor, eat

(Nouns, Verbs, Ajs., Avs.)

Content words (form class words)

3. Open category: New ones can come into the language at any time —

CDRom; mouse; blog; google; mcjob

Lexical categories

• II. *Grammatical (function class) words

1. Smallest part of vocabulary —

only a small fraction of words

Grammatical (function class) words

2. Primarily grammatical meaning —

and, but, on, under, who, etc.

These not so much mean things as signify grammatical relationships

Grammatical (function class) words

3. Closed class — unchanging grammatical structure words

No new ones

Morphology

• Content (Form Class) words in English may take inflectional morphemes or derivational morphemes

*Inflectional morphemes

1. Contain grammatical information

2. Do not change word class

3. Suffixes only

Inflectional morphemes

Inflectional morphemes of English:

N — pl. (-s) two shoes

– p possessive (-s) a dog’s breakfast

Inflectional morphemes

V — 3 person sing. –s She eats at noon.

–pres. participle –ing are eating

–past tense (-ed) earned $20

–past participle (–en) has eaten

[includes (-ed), vowel change]

Inflectional morphemes

Adj / Adv— (-er) slower

(-est) slowest

English has these 8 exactly

Derivational morphemes

• *Derivational morphemes of English

participate in deriving new words

1. Change word meaning —

(im-) port

(un-) do

Derivational morphemes

2. Can change word class

• (-er) driv-er, can open-er noun making

• (-ation) inform-ation noun making

• (-ize) real-ize verb making

• (-al) individu-al adjective making

• (-ious) delic-ious adj. making

Derivational morphemes

3. May be suffix or prefix

(un-)like(-ly)

(im-)practic(-al)

Morphology

*Word Formation —

• Note sequence in which morphemes are attached to stems and words:

Smell-y

Tie → un-tie → un-tie-d

form → re-form → re-form-ation

Veri-fy → veri-fi-able → un-veri-fi-able

Word formation

Native speakers of a language know which combinations are possible and which are actual

?saltish crackers

?sugary cookies

?three-years-old girl

Inflection vs. Suppletion

Contrast Spanish and English verb patterns:

• Spanish ser conjugation

Yo soy nosotros somos

Tu eres (vosotros sois) ustedes son

El es ellos son

Suppletion

• The English be verb paradigm:– I am we are– You are you are– He / she / it is they are

demonstrates suppletion —

separate items used to produce forms in a grammatical pattern

Suppletion

More examples in English:

go / went

person / people

good / better

bad / worse

Word formation

• These elements of word formation are an important component of the fundamental, complex knowledge we have of our language