Transcript Week3- Morphology

WEEK3- MORPHOLOGY
Dr. Monira I. Al-Mohizea
What is this?
A ‘Horse’ is….
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In Arabic it is called ‘‫’حصان‬.
In French it is called ‘cheval’.
in English it is called ‘horse’.
None of these is a better or worse way symbolizing
the concept 'horse'.
There is no principle that can enable us to
determine which linguistic sign will have a particular
meaning. The meanings of all morphemes and many
words if have to be listed in our mental lexicon??,
and memorized.
What is a ‘Lexicon’
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Formally, in linguistics, a lexicon is a language's
inventory of lexemes.
The vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of
knowledge (mental).
Exception!
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In the case of onomatopoeia, where the word imitates some
aspect of the meaning of the concept it represents (i.e. the
formation of a word from a sound associated with what is
named, e.g. cuckoo, sizzle). The linguistic sign is iconic and not
arbitrary.
But the iconicity is closely linked to convention, and
arbitrariness.
 E.g. the sound imitative of a dog's bark is woof in English,
hut, in Romanian ham ham, in Russian gaf gaf, in Estonian.
The differences do not reflect any dialectal differences
among canine (dogs) populations.
Classifications of morphemes
Morphemes are classified as free or bound
morphemes.
 a free morpheme can occur in isolation (as a
word on its own).
E.g. dog, write, deserve and child.
 a bound morpheme cannot occur in isolation,
E.g. , the forms -ish, tin-, -ed, -1y, re-, -ing
 Any form that is used to represent a
morpheme is called a “morph’’.
E.g. the word child-ish has two morphs.
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Allomorphs
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Morphemes are represented by more than one form in
different contexts. These variants are called allomorphs.
Allomorphs are morphemes having the same function but
different form. Unlike synonyms they usually cannot be
replaced one by the other.
Allomorphs are distinct with regard to form, but they have the
same grammatical or semantic function.
E.g. the indefinite article in English has two allomorphs:
a is used if the next word starts with a consonant, e.g., a
leg, a mother, a tomato.
an is used if the next word starts with a vowel, e.g., an ear,
an egg, etc. They differ in pronunciation but are
semantically identical.
Word Structure (affix, prefix, suffix)
Starting off with the base ‘write’, we can add –ing
= writing
 -re +writing (base) + rewriting, etc.
 A base is a unit to which elements can be added in
word-formation processes.
 Affix: is a bound morpheme (suffix/prefix) that must
be attached to a base. i.e. a morpheme that is not a
root?; it is always bound.
 a prefix precedes the base (e.g. prewash)
 if it follows the base it is called a suffix (e.g. writer)
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Infix & Circumfix
Infix: common in Austronesian and Austroasiatic
languages (e.g. Tagalog, Khmer)
In Tagalog: basa = ‘read’=> b·um·asa ‘read-past’
very rare in English:
 E.g. ‘abso·bloody·lutely’
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Circumfix: morphemes having two parts that are
placed around a root.
In Dutch:
Berg = ’mountain’ => ge·berg·te ‘mountains’.
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The base vs. the root
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The base is also referred to as a root.
But, the root is the rump ‘remainder’ of a word that
remains when all the affixes have been stripped away
(i.e. it is a nucleus of the word that affixes attach too).
A base doesn't have to be a bare root. In many cases
the base contains a root and one or more affixes; (e.g.
rewrite)
We can form a compound word by combining two
bases (words in their own right)
E.g. Ear+ witness = earwitness
What is a stem?
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In forming a word, a lexical base to which
inflectional morphemes are attached (e.g.
sleep=sleep-s) is called a stem.
Lexical vs. functional morphemes
Two broad types of Morphemes:
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Lexical morphemes
vs.
functional morphemes
Lexical morphs
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Lexical morphemes:
(Known as ‘content words‘)
Lexical morphemes are nouns, adjectives, verbs and
adverbs (NAVA words).
This has an important consequences for morphology
because lexical morphemes belong to an open class which
can expand.
Discuss??
Functional morphs
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Functional morphemes:
Also called ‘function words’) and they:
Mostly signal syntactic relationships, & include
prepositions (e.g. as - are free function morphemes),
pronouns (e.g. his, her) and determiners (e.g. the, a,
an).
Functional morphemes belong to closed set that
admits no new members (new prepositions, pronouns,
and determiners are very rarely added to the
language.
Important conclusion!
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It follows that the branch of morphology that
examines the creation of new vocabulary items
is primarily concerned with lexical morphemes
Word formation processes
Two broad types of word formation processes:
 Inflection versus derivation
Discuss the following:
a. She sleeps.
Othman sleeps
lt sleeps
b. *We sleeps
*They sleeps
*You sleeps
What is inflection?
Inflection is syntactically motivated word-formation.
 Inflection creates various forms of the same word
 E.g. third-person singular subject of a present tense
verb (e.g. he reads a book every night)
 E.g.
Singular
Plural
this boy (*these boy)
those boys (*this boys)
that boy (*those boy)
those boys (*that boys)
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Inflection (1)
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English has a small number of inflectional morphemes.
They are all suffixes. Discuss??
Inflectional suffixes form a closed set (i.e. the language
no longer adds to its inventory of inflectional endings.
(English used to have considerably more complex inflectional
morphology).
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Inflection is syntax driven.
Many inflectional processes involve agreement.
(subject-verb- number- agreement??).
Inflectional suffixes
Some terms..
Genitive: In grammar
denoting a case of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives ( in
grammatical agreement with them)
used to indicate a relation of possession or
associ
ation.
Exercise!
Following the inflectional suffixes tables, think of
other examples in English for nouns:
 Native irregular plurals vs. borrowed irregular
plurals
And for verbs:
 Regular vs. irregular
And for adjectives:
 Comparative vs. superlative
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Inflection (2)
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Inflectional properties may be inherent (a
morpheme is associated with its properties
regardless of context).
E.g. Countable vs. uncountable nouns
Hammer(s)
*equipment(s)
Derivation
Derivation is not motivated by the syntax, its role is to
generate new lexical items.
 Derivation changing meaning
Input
Derived word
Possible
impossible
Tell
retell
Do
undo
 Derivation changing syntactic category
Faith (noun)
faithful (adjective)
fierce (adjective)
fiercely (adverb)
sing (verb)
singer (noun)
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Discuss!
Differences:
Inflection vs. Derivation??
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Inflection vs. Derivation
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Derivation tends to affects the meaning of the word, while
inflection tends to affect only its syntactic function.
Derivation tends to be more irregular and sporadic – there are
more gaps, the meaning is more idiosyncratic and less
compositional, but inflectional morphology is mostly regular.
 E.g. all verbs take –ing but we cannot say ( *yellowen)
following (whiten and darken).
Therefore, derivational processes tend to be more productive
than inflectional ones.
The boundary between derivation and inflection is often fuzzy
and unclear. Discus with your partner & give examples
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Complex words (containing a sequence of suffixes)
such as, Sing-er-s.
The derivational suffixes are nearer to the root (-er)
whereas the inflectional plural –s suffix is at the
edge of the word.
Diagram
Thank You 