Transcript Inflection

Ms. Rasha Ali
INFLECTION
WHAT IS INFLECTION?
Inflection refers to word formation that doesn’t
change category and doesn’t create new
lexemes, but rather changes the form of
lexemes so they fit into different grammatical
contexts.
TYPES OF INFLECTION
Number
Person
Tense &
aspect
Gender &
noun class
Case
Voice
Mood &
modality
1. NUMBER
2. PERSON
3. GENDER & NOUN CLASS, P.90-91
A- Grammatical gender
B- Suffixes gender
German
Feminine: ung, •
keit, heit, schaft
Neuter: chen, lein •
Hausa
Sound: nouns •
end with aa =
fiminine
C- Agreement nouns gender (articles)
Le =
masculine
der =
masculine
die = feminie
La =
feminine
das = neuter
D- Different classes
Human = non-human
Animate = inanimate
Animate = spirit + animals
4. CASE
Case is another grammar category that may
affects nouns or noun phrases.
Nouns deployed in sentences as:
Subject, location, time, instrument, d-object, idobject, object of preposition.
In Latin nouns inflected in one of 5 cases:
1. Nominative
2. Genitive
3. Dative
4. Accusative
5. Ablative
subject
possessor
indirect object
direct object
object of preposition (with, from)
For examples read page 93
5. TENSE & ASPECT
Tense and aspect connect to verbs. They have to do
with time but in different ways.
Tenses:
Present
Past
Future
S=E
E before S
S before E
S = time of speaking
E = event
In English
Past + -ed inflectional
Future will + (v) no inflectional = peri-phrastic
Periphrastic marking = the use of separate word
to form a tense. Read examples in page 94
Aspect
The way in which the event occurs In time.
Different forms of aspect
Perfective
Imperfective
Complete event
On-going event
Look from the outside
Look at event from inside
Internal structure not
relevant
-
e.g. I ate the apple.
e.g. I was eating the apple.
This form focuses on particular points in an
event.
Inceptive
Continuative
Completive
Focuses on the
beginning of an event
Focuses on the
middle of an event
Focuses on the
end of an event
He began to beat it.
Simba is reading the
book.
That roof had
been leaking.
Quantificational is another form of aspect. It
concerns the number of times an action is
done or an event happens or how frequently an
action is done.
Semelfactive
The action •
is done
once
Iterative
The action •
is done
repeatedly
Habitual
The action •
is usually
done
6. VOICE
In English
Active: the cat chased the mouse.
Passive: the mouse was chased.
The passive is marked by the (aux+v3)
In Latin
The passive is marked by inflectional suffixes.
For examples
Active singular = amo
Passive singular = amor
7. MOOD & MODALITY
To do with range of distinctions that include signaling the kind of
speech act.
Speech act: things we can do with words, e.g. making a
statement, asking a question …etc.
Languages have three moods
1. Declarative = statement
2. Interrogative = question
3. Imperative = command
But Tonkawa language has eight moods
Declarative = I married.
Assertive =
He lies!
Exclamatory = The meat is all gone!
Interrogative = How are you?
Intentive =
I shall catch him.
Imperative = Sit down!
Potential =
I might see him.
Exhorative = Let him burned up.
Another distinction in mood/modality
Realis = the speaker means to signal that the event is
actual.
Irrealis = signals something that can be imagined or
thought.
In English there’s no special inflection that signals mood.
Subjunctive mood in English (sentences expressing
something contrary to fact) if I were an aardvark, I’d eat
insects.
INFLECTION IN ENGLISH
1. What we have
As we mentioned before that English is poor of
inflections. Some inflections in English:
Noun
Pronoun
Verb
Singular
Cat - mouse
Singular
I, she, it
3rd person
She walks
Plural (s)
Cats - mice
Plural
We, they
Passive
Was chaced
WHY ENGLISH HAS LITTLE INFLECTION
For two reasons
1. The stress system in English (old/modern).
2. Language contact in the Northern parts of
Britain.
Read for more details page 103
HOW ABOUT OLD ENGLISH
Old English has a bit more inflection than now.
Old English has three genders:
Masculine
Feminine
Neuter
And a system of four cases:
Nominative
Accusative
Dative
Genitive
Verb inflection was also more complex in Old
English.
Verbs were inflected for person & number, and
were different for present tense and past tense
in both indicative & subjunctive.
There were strong verbs: internal stem change.
And weak verbs: inflected by using suffixes.
INFLECTION AND PRODUCTIVITY
As we explained in previous chapters that some
word formation rules are more productive than
others.
Affixes are used to form new lexemes, some of
them are dead/nearly so, others are
productive/fully productive.
INHERENT VS. CONTEXTUAL INFLECTION
Contextual inflection is inflection that determined
by the syntactic construction.
Inherent inflection is inflection that doesn’t
depend on syntactic context.
So nouns are inherent inflection while adjectives
are contextual one.
INFLECTION VS. DERIVATION REVISITED
Inflection
Derivation
Never changes category
Sometimes changes category
Adds grammatical meaning
Often adds lexical meaning
Is important to syntax
Produces new lexeme
Is usually fully productive
Can range from unproductive to
fully productive
If the word has both then the derivational affixes almost
always occur inside the inflectional one.
HOW TO MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
Analyzing the inflectional system of an unfamiliar
language is not very different from analyzing
the sort of derivational data in English (chapter 3).
1. You need to scan the given data.
2. Compare between them (similarities/differences)
3. Find the root and the derived words.
4. Find different categories (number,person,object,subject…etc)
Read more pages 110, 111, 112
Answer exercise (1) page 113.
Thank you 