Morphology

Chapter 3 – The grammar of English

Morphology

The area of linguistics that deals with the structure

or form of words.

It describes how morphemes combine to the

creation of meaning or the construction of new

words.

Morpheme = the smallest unit of meaning or

grammatical function

inflectional morphology deals with changes in the

form of words that have grammatical meaning

e.g. -est signals the superlative of adjectives

derivational morphology deals with the process of

new word formation

e.g. happy unhappiness (see Chapter 4)

What is a morpheme?

unhappy un-happy = negative + happy

cats cat-s = cat + plural

• A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function. It cannot be divided into smaller units expressing meaning or grammatical function.

• Free: can stand alone as words

- lexical e.g. pen, book

- functional e.g. if, the

• bound: cannot stand alone and must be linked to another morpheme (called base or root) e.g. -ly, un-, -able, -ee

- derivational e.g. -ness, -able

- inflectional e.g. -s, -ing

morphemes and morphs

Morph = concrete = the physical form of a morpheme

A morpheme (abstract) is realized by a morph

words morphs morphemes

played play-ed {PLAY}+ {past }

unhelpful un-help-ful {negative} + {HELP} + {adjective}

impolitely im-polite-ly {negative} + {POLITE} + {adverb}

• Words Morphs Morphemes • Taller tall-er {TALL} +{comparative}

• Teachers teach-er-s {TEACH}+{noun}+{plural}

• Repainted re+paint+ed {repetition}+{PAINT}+{past}

• Drinkable drink+able {DRINK}+{possible}

• Going go+ing {GO}+{present participle}

Phonetical Allomorphs

morph -ed indicates {past tense}

the morpheme can be phonetically realised in different ways depending on the phonological context :

e.g. raised [d] (-ed preceded by voiced consonant)

looked [t] (-ed preceded by voiceless consonant) decided [ ] (-ed preceded by /t, d/)

Morphs that realise the same morpheme in different contexts are called allomorphs of that morpheme

Graphic Allomorphs

• Inaccurate, intolerant, inexpensive, illegal,

impossible, irresponsible:

• the morphs -in, -im, -il, -ir are graphic

allomorphs of the same morpheme

meaning {not} or oppositeness of

meaning. They realise the same

morpheme {in} in different phonological

contexts (e.g. before a labial [p] or [m]

there is –im, before [r] there is –ir, etc.

• Problematic concepts

• Some scholars prefer to avoid the

distinction between morph, morphemes

and allomorphs.

• To simplify our analysis we will talk about

morphemes only.

Root, base root= the core of the word, the morpheme which

determines the meaning of the word

e.g. happy is the root of happiness

bound root= a root that is not independent

e.g. dent- in dentist, dental, dentistry (Latin dens, dentis): liberal, liberty, liberalise (Latin liber); morpheme –ceive in receive, perceive, conceive (obscure origin) -fer in infer, prefer, refer, transfer (Latin verb fero =bring, send)

base= part of the word to which any affixes are attached (inflectional or derivational)

e.g. happy is the root of unhappy; unhappy is the base of unhappiness

Affixes

• Affix = morpheme attached to the

beginning or end of another morpheme.

• Prefix precedes, suffix follows.

• All affixes are bound morphemes

• Affixes are attached to the root, a base, or

the stem of a word.

• A stem is a part of a word to which

inflectional affixes are attached.

• Stem and Base are very similar

• Reprinted = Re+print+ed

• Verb print = root

• Reprint = stem or base

• -ed = inflectional morpheme

• Originality = original+ity

• Origin =root; original stem; -ity =

derivational morpheme

Exercise 2 p. 174 Morpheme identification Identify the morphemes in the following words: Handwriting, unmarried, uncomfortable, walked, volleyball, smaller, unhappiness, employee, unemployment, blackboard, pubs, businesswoman, headteachers, cheerful, unkindness, unfaithfulness, dishonest, singers.

hand+write+ing

un+marry+ed

un+comfort+able

walk+ed

volley+ball

small+er

un+happy+ness

employ+ee

un+employ+ment

black+board

pub+s

busy+ness+woman

head+teach+er+s

cheer+ful

un+kind+ness

un+faith+ful+ness

dis+honest

sing+er+s

Exercise 1.1 p. 173 Identify the units (clauses, phrases, words, morphemes) in the following sentences:

Example: The young lady bought a pair of very expensive shoes and walked out of the shop. (Sentence)

Clauses: the sentence consists of two clauses which are joined by the

coordinating conjunction and: the young lady bought a pair of expensive shoes walked out of the shop. Phrases: the young lady (NP), bought (VP), a pair of very expensive shoes

(NP), walked (VP), out of the shop (PP). Words: the, young, lady, bought, a, pair, of, very, expensive, shoes, and,

walked, out of, shop. Morphemes: the, young, lady, buy, -ed (inflectional morpheme), a, pair, of,

very, expense, -ive (derivational morpheme), shoe, -s (bound inflectional morpheme), and, walk, out, of, shop

The dog barked the whole night so I took him out

for a walk in the morning (sentence)

• clauses: two, the dog barked the whole night,

So (coordinating conjunction) I took him out…

• phrases: The dog (NP), barked (VP), the whole night

(NP), I took him out (VP), for a walk (PP), in the morning

(PP)

• words: the , dog, barked, whole, night, I, took him, out,

for , a, walk, in, morning.

• morphemes: the, dog, bark –ed (inflectional morpheme),

the, whole, night, so, I, took, him, out, for, a, walk, in, the,

morning.

Exercise 2.2 p. 174 E.g. Unthinkable: un- (bound, derivational prefix), think (free, root), -able (bound, derivational suffix) Actors: act (free, root), -or (bound, derivational suffix), -s (bound, inflectional suffix). Computerize: compute (free, root), -er (bound, derivational suffix), -ize (bound, derivational suffix). Unbelievable – incredible - decolonialised

Unbelievable: un- (bound, derivational prefix), believe (free root), -able (bound, derivational suffix)

Incredible: in- (bound derivational prefix), cred- (bound root), -ible (bound derivational suffix)

Decolonialised: de- (bound derivational prefix), colony (free root), -al (bound derivational suffix), -ise (bound derivational suffix), -ed (bound inflectional suffix)

gratefulness, arguments, misunderstanding

• gratefulness: grate (free, root), -ful (bound,

derivational suffix), ness (bound, derivational

suffix); grateful (base)

• arguments: argue (free, root), -ment (bound,

derivational suffix), -s (bound, inflectional suffix)

• misunderstanding: mis- (bound, derivational

prefix), under (free, functional morpheme) stand

(free, root), -ing (bound, inflectional suffix).

PDE regular inflections

nouns -s plural, nouns -’s possessive case verbs -s 3rd pers. sing. verbs -ed past tense, verbs -ed past participle verbs -ing gerund adjectives -er comparative adjectives -est superlative

number in English nouns

• most nouns add -s e.g. girls, toys, cars • some nouns add -es e.g. tomatoes, branches, knives • the pronunciation of the inflectional ending -s/-es depends

on the phonetic context, i.e. there are three allomorphs of the plural morpheme -s

e.g. cakes = [s] (preceded by the voiceless consonant [k]) beans = [z] (preceded by the voiced consonant [n]) judges= [iz] (preceded by the affricate consonant [ ]

•some nouns have irregular plural endings, e.g.

children, brethren (Old English)

phenomenon-na, curriculum-la, stimulus-a (Greek/Latin/French)

tooth-teeth, mouse-mice (vowel mutation/replacive morph)

sheep (zero morph/zero inflection)

wife-ves, leaf-ves (from voiceless to voiced)

(see p. 131)

•uncountable nouns: e.g. evidence, advice, equipment, information, accommodation,

furniture, news, access, baggage, hardware, homework, money,

research, sugar, wine, meat, water, milk

POSSESSIVE CASE IN ENGLISH NOUNS The ’s genitive versus the of-form

Synthetic versus analytic option

Say whether the following examples are all acceptable and discuss the rule of the ’s genitive versus the “of form”

1. John’s car is fast 2. The car of John is fast 3. The students’ protest is still going on 4. The protest of the students is still going on 5. The car of the friend who is visiting me was stolen last night 6. The friend who is visiting me’s car was stolen last night 7. Yesterday’s newspaper 8. The newspaper of yesterday 9. The journey’s end 10. The end of the journey 11. The legs of the table 12. The table’s legs

Morphological analysis

• Morph = concrete realisation of a morpheme

• Morpheme = it is represented/realised by a morph

• WORD Morph Morpheme

• Oxen 2 ox-en 2 {OX}+{plural}

• Sheep 1 sheep 2 {SHEEP}+{plural}

• Women’s 2 women’s 3 {WOMAN}+

{plural}+

{possessive}

•

verb inflections

most English verbs are regular and have a paradigm of 5 word forms and 4 verb inflections (because past and past participle are the same)

e.g. love / loves / loved / loved / loving there is a smaller number of very frequently used irregular verbs e.g. take, took, taken (vowel mutation) put, put, put (zero morph) speak, spoke, spoken (vowel mutation) lose, lost, lost (replacive morphs) go, went, gone (suppletion) auxiliaries are very irregular, e.g. the verb to be has forms that differ

from one another, e.g. am, are, is, was, were, been, being (suppletion) most modal verbs do not inflect and have only two forms, e.g. may,

might, can, could

Morphological analysis

• Word Morph Morpheme

• Cooking 2 cook+ing 2 {COOK}+{present participle}

• Taken 2 take+en 2 {TAKE}+{past participle}

• Cut 1 cut 2 {CUT}+{past}or {present}or

{past participle}

• Went 1 went 2 {GO}+{past}

• Runs 2 run+s 2 {RUN}+{3rd person singular

present}

Gradability of adjectives and adverbs

Gradable: very beautiful, extremely nervous, a bit cold, not bad at all (they can be graded)

Ungradable: dead, married

Gradable adjectives and adverbs can be inflected to express comparative and superlative degrees

The comparative degree of short adjectives is formed by adding the suffix –er (shorter, faster, happier, nicer, younger); the superlative degree by adding the suffix - est (shortest, fastest, happiest, nicest).

We can say that the lexeme small has 3 inflected word-forms: positive (small), comparative (smaller), superlative (smallest).

Synthetic vs Analytic Comparison

• Synthetic comparison:

• -er ending (comparative) e.g. warmer

• -est ending (superlative) e.g. finest

• For adjectives of one or two syllables (ending with a

vowel sound)

•Analytic comparison (use of periphrastic form)

• more and most e.g. more/ most interesting

more / most pleasant

• more quickly

• For adjectives of more than two syllables or of two

syllables ending with a consonant sound

Irregular Comparison

• irregular comparison (process of

suppletion)

• e.g. good better best; little, less, least;

much, more, most; well, better, best; bad,

worse, worst • Word-Form Morph Morpheme

• Colder 2 cold-er 2 2 {COLD}+ {comparative

degree}

• Worst 1 worst 2 {BAD}

+{superlative degree}

pronoun/determiners inflection

Pronouns, and personal pronouns in particular, have

retained a certain degree of inflection in PDE.

e.g. personal pronouns express the categories of number, gender and case often through suppletive [sә′plitiv] forms

I - me; we - us, you - you, he - him, she - her, it - it, they – them

Determiners such as the demonstratives this, that express the category of number (singular: this/that ; plural: these/those)

Morphological Analysis

•Word-form Morph Morpheme

•Him 1 him

5{HE}+{3rdperson}+{masculine}

+{singular}+{object}

Her 1 her 5 {SHE}+{3rdperson}+{feminine}

+{singular}+{object}

Syntax and Morphology

• Morphology/ Morphological analysis: deal

with the internal form of words

• Syntax: deals with the interaction of words

into larger units (phrases, clauses, and

sentences) and with the rules which allow

speakers to combine them.

• The order of constituents specifies and

signals their syntactic function

• Mark beat Luke at tennis (NP, VP, NP,

PP)

• Luke beat Mark at tennis (NP, VP, NP,

PP)

• Same morphological features of the words

but the different meaning is dictated by the

order of constituents.

Unmarked / marked order

• Unmarked = typical, most common

• Marked = untypical, less frequent

• Unmarked order of constituents in English:

• SVO -> NP in initial position = S

NP after verb = O

In Italian the order is more flexible:

Io la odio = Io odio lei I hate her

BUT Her, I hate implies a certain emphasis/marked

This book, I really liked! emphasis/marked

Mistakes due to Italian interference

• *Will follow some examples (a structural

calque from “seguiranno degli esempi”)

• *In chapter 2 will be presented the

translation of the dialogue

• *Can I ask you what’s the time?

• *I speak very well English

Phrase (it. sintagma)

• a meaningful unit of syntax made up of one or more words

• it contains an obligatory head element and optional modifiers (accompanying words, define and modify the head pre-modifier vs post-

modifier

The black labrador (NP) was chewing (VP) a

juicy bone (NP) very noisily (AdvP)

Types of phrases

Noun Phrase (NP)

Verb Phrase (VP)

Adjective Phrase (AdjP)

Adverb Phrase (AdvP)

Prepositional Phrase (PP)

• except for prepositional phrases (PP), phrases can be constituted by a single lexical item

• all phrases can be extended by pre-modification or post-modification

Examples of Phrases

• NP the headword is a noun (Peter, he, our room, the

lady with the black hat, a nice flowery garden, the family

who lived here)

• VP the headword is a verb (has seen, loved, should

come, is illustrated)

• AdjP the headword is an adjective (happy, happy for

you, happy to go, very happy)

• AdvP the headword is an adverb (late, too early, very

fast)

• PP the headword is a preposition, but it is always

followed by another element (on the floor, opposite the

station, for her birthday, of the table). The floor = C

(complement of the preposition).

types of Noun Phrases

determiner pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

- - John -

my leather (n.) suitcase -

a large, old, blue

(size, age,

colour)

suitcase with wheels

(PP)

more Noun Phrases

det. pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

The London experience -

- London’s churches -

The - London I know

(clause)

build Noun Phrases

Determiner

pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

The ugly tabby

Cat on Paul’s

computer

desktop/ on the

desktop of

Paul’s

computer

A nice,

Australian

Bloke with a red

Ferrari

The tall modern Building in the centre of

town

Constituents of a

Noun Phrase p. 140 complexity

• Determiners (Det.

underlined, head in bold):

• a car, the teacher,

that house, some

books, five dogs

Pre-modifiers (Pre-Mod,

underlined, head in bold)

• Adj or AdjP:

a new car

an extremely expensive car

• N or NPs:

summer house

third-year university students

Post-Modifiers (Post-Mod)

post-mod underlined, head in bold,

• A PP: that old man with a hat and stick

• A relative clause: a lot of hazards that can injure

children (here a clause is a whole unit, can’t be broken

down into further constituents)

• Non-finite clause: a man walking with a stick

• That-clause: [all of these data supported] the belief that

our children are likely to be spoilt

• Appositive NPs: Peter Smith, managing director of…

/The President of US, Barack Obama

• Some AdvPs: holidays abroad/ the car outside

• Some AdjPs: something similar

ambiguity in NPs

• The French history teacher

the (det.) French (pre-mod.) history (pre-mod.)

teacher (head)

[the] [French] [history teacher]

(the teacher of history is French)

[the] [French history] [teacher]

(the teacher teaches French history)

tree diagram (the teacher of history is French)

NP

det. mod. head = NP

mod. head

The French history teacher

tree diagram (the teacher teaches French history)

NP

det. Mod. = NP head

mod. head

The French history teacher

TREE DIAGRAM

“An interesting government report about air

pollution”

NP

det. mod.(adj.) mod.(n.) head mod.PP

head C (NP)

mod.(n.) head

An interesting government report about air pollution

relative clause as a post-modifier of a NP

The man who came to dinner

NP

det. head (n.) mod. (clause)

the man who came to dinner

relative clause as a post-modifier of a NP

The man who came to dinner

NP

det. head (n.) mod. (clause)

S:NP P:VP

V A:PP

h(prep.) C:NP

h(pron.) h(v.) h (n.)

the man who came to dinner

complex post-modification

• The proposal for a new building which the

committee put forward last week

- for a new building (PP)

- which the committee put forward last week (relative

clause)

- If a PP, an AdjP or an AdvP occur within a NP, we

can say they are embedded in the NP or subordinate

to the NP = Subordination within phrases

Activity

• Analyse the constituent parts of the

following NPs illustrating with tree

diagrams:

1) A luxury apartment in the heart of Oxford (p.141)

2) A rather disgustingly dirty carpet (p. 142)

3) A very interesting book about Renaissance art in Italy

(p.143)

frequency of NPs in English

• pre-modification is more common

than post-modification in all registers

• complex pre- and post-modification is

typical of some registers such as

written academic prose and

newspaper headlines

English / Italian NPs Translate these noun phrases into Italian and notice the differences between

the two languages

1. The Los Angeles Police Department Il Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles 2. Air pollution L’inquinamento dell’aria 3. The Birmingham train Il treno per/da /di (?) Birmingham 4. Stansted airport L’aeroporto di Stansted 5. The proposal of a national curriculum La proposta di un curricolo nazionale 6. The country’s leading expert on youth culture Il maggior esperto del paese sulla cultura giovanile

Italian versus English NPs

English favours premodification (to the

left of the head). NPs are concise and

at times ambiguous • The Los Angeles Police Department

Italian favours postmodification (to the

right of the head) and the use of

prepositions. NPs are longer and more

explicit • Il Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles

Translate into Italian

• The State of the World’s Children Report

• Rapporto sulle condizioni dei bambini nel

mondo

• Zimbabwean riot police officers

• Ufficiali dei corpi antisommossa dello

Zimbabwe

• A severe hepatic artery stricture

• Un grave restringimento dell’arteria

epatica

A Verb Phrase (VP)

• It consists of a head verb, either alone or

accompanied by one or more verbs.

unlike NP, it is never exceedingly long

• Types of verbs:

• Lexical verbs

• Primary verbs functioning as main verbs (be,

have, do)

• Primary auxiliaries (be, have, do)

• Modal auxiliaries (must, may, can, shall, should)

VP

• If it contains one verb, it is a lexical verb,

e.g. went, arrives

• It there are more verbs, there is a lexical

verb pre-modified by one or more auxiliary

verbs

• Auxiliary verbs have a specific function: to

express categories such as aspect, voice, and

modality and to signal negation and clause type.

Grammatical categories

of verbs

• Tense: only present/past (in Italian present/past/future)

• Aspect: (unmarked = simple, progressive, perfective,

perfect progressive) (have- perfective; be-progressive

• Voice: active or passive (be- passive voice)

• Modality: (must – obligation/necessity; may – possibility;

will – prediction/volition; can – permission/ability)

• Mood: indicative, subjunctive, imperative

• Negation: positive or negative

• Clause structure type: declarative or interrogative

Verb Phrases : finite/ non-finite

• finite verbs or finite VPs: marked by tense

e.g. John plays the guitar

I enjoyed the concert

• non-finite verbs or non-finite VPs: not marked by tense, person or number

e.g. To arrive on time was their objective

She travelled accompanied by her father

She broke her leg while skiing

Tense

•tense: property allowing the verb to

differentiate between present and past

e.g. Jane likes music / Jane liked music

•It is marked through verb inflections

• Unlike in Italian, there is no morphologically

marked form to express future time in

English (but a range of forms such as

will/shall+ infinitive, going to, simple present,

present progressive etc. see 148-149)

Tense versus Time

• Tense is related to form, time to meaning

• Present tense for different times:

• She is a student, she studies Italian (present

time)/One day the child comes and says: “I want

to be an artist” (historic present refers to past

time)/If it rains, we won’t go (future)/This year

classes begin on Sept 15 and end on June 10

(future time)

• Past tense for different times: I just wanted to

say that I’m really sorry (refers to present time)

•

Aspect

property allowing the verb to give information about the state or the action

• Progressive (or continuous) : the action is in progress, ongoing

Sarah is helping her sister

• perfect: the action is complete, that is it occurred at an earlier time and continues to the time of utterance or is relevant to it

Sarah has helped her sister to take her degree

• perfect+progressive: (often called ‘duration form’) stresses

continuity in the past and includes the time of utterance

Sarah has been helping her sister since she was 12

Combination of tense/aspect

Present/past progressive

She is attending a linguistics course this year (present

tense, progressive aspect); when I met her, she was

working in an office (past tense, progressive aspect)

Present/Past Perfect

She has lived here for 5 years (present tense, perfect

aspect); She had lived in Milan before coming here (past

tense, perfect aspect)

Present/Past Perfect Progressive

She has been going to work by bike for years

This affair had been going on since February

Translate into Italian and identify the main

differences between the two languages

1. Sarah helps her sister every Thursday

2. Sarah is helping her sister a lot

3. Sarah has helped her sister to recover from illness

4. Sarah helped her sister one year ago when she was ill

5. Sarah has been helping her sister since last May

Translate from Italian into

English

1. Sono andata a Londra molte volte

2. Vivo a Londra

3. Vado a Londra ogni anno

4. Vivo a Londra da 5 anni e ne sono

felice

5. Ho vissuto a Londra per cinque anni

prima di tornare in Italia

6. Vivevo a Londra quando ho incontrato

John

Verb Phrase : Voice

• The singer performed the song

• The song was performed by the singer

• NP1+VP+ NP2 NP2 +be+VPed+ by+NP1

• The singer was performing the song

• The song was being performed by the singer

Functions of the Passive

• the agent is unknown or irrelevant

Mr Constable has been murdered

• the focus is on the process to convey objectivity, especially in academic prose

The results of the tests have been checked several times

• to disclaim responsibility

He is said to be a swindler

More frequent in scientific writing and in the press

Use of “get” instead of “be” in colloquial speech

Modality

• English verbs can be marked for modality

(expresses shades of meaning)

• Modals (9): shall, should, will, would must, can,

could, may, might.

• Unmarked for tense, but have a time reference

(shall/will for future; present or past: can/could,

will/would, may/might)

• Semi modals (multi-word verbs that behave like

modals): have to, need (to), used to, ought to,

had better, be supposed, be going to

Deontic vs Epistemic modality

• Deontic/intrinsic: refers to actions or events that

can be controlled by humans; involves

permission (can/could/may/might), advice

(should ought to), volition, (will, would, shall,

going to) ability (can/could), obligation (must,

have to, supposed to)

• Epistemic/extrinsic: expresses different degrees

of possibility or probability of a fact; involves

prediction (will, shall, be going to), possibility

(can, could, may might) and necessity (must,

have to, supposed to, ought to)

Discuss the concepts of “tense” and “aspect” in the English verb and

illustrate with examples.

Tense and aspect are grammatical categories of

verbs. Tense refers to the distinction between

present and past forms of verbs (I think vs I

thought), while aspect refers to the state of the

action (progressive or perfect). In English we

may distinguish between progressive and perfect

aspects: I’m reading a book describes an action

in progress and still incomplete, while I’ve read

an interesting book describes a completed action

which is still relevant to the time of the utterance.

In English it is also possible to combine the

progressive and the perfective aspect in

sentences like I’ve been living in London for five

years/ I’ve been living in London since 2007.

Unlike Italian, English does not have a

morphologically marked future tense. To

express future events the most common forms

are will+verb, be+ going to+verb or the present

progressive form, eg We are going to buy a new

car. Tense does not coincide with time. In fact, it

is possible to say The games start next week.