Transcript General Morphology Thoughts

Morphology, Part 2
January 26, 2012
In Our Last Episode
• Words and morphemes (meaningful “word parts”)
• Free and bound morphemes
• Simple and complex words
• Affixes and roots
• Word-formation rules
• Affixes attach to a root (or base) of a particular
lexical category…
• and create a new word.
Layers of Words
• Words that are formed through the addition of multiple
affixes have a layered, or hierarchical structure.
• One (ugly) way to represent this structure is through
bracket notation:
• [root]
[construct]
• [[affix] + [root]]
[[re-] + [construct]]
• [[base] + [affix]]
[[[re-] + [construct]] + [-ion]]
• WORD
reconstruction
(=base)
Tree Structures
• In this class, we’ll primarily stick with tree diagrams to
represent word structure.
• (because they look better and are easier to read)
re
construct
ion
un
desire
• Tree terminology: branches
• nodes: where two branches meet
• nodes represent constituents of the word
able
Building the Perfect Beasts
• To accurately capture all of the facts of word formation…
• tree structures should represent the lexical categories
of all constituents at each node in the tree.
Noun
Adj
Verb
Adj
Aff
Verb
Aff
Aff
Verb
Aff
[re-]
[construct]
[-ion]
[un-] [desire] [-able]
Ambiguity
• Some complex words can have more than one
interpretation
• Different derivations can result in different interpretations
• Example: “unlockable”
Note: [un-] can
attach to both
adjectives and verbs
[-able] attaches to
verbs and creatives
adjectives
Unlockable, part 1
Adj
Adj
Aff
Verb
Aff
[un-]
[lock]
[-able]
• = not able to be locked
Unlockable, part 2
Adj
Verb
Aff
Verb
Aff
[un-]
[lock]
[-able]
• = able to be unlocked
Inflections vs. Derivations
•
1.
Linguists draw another distinction among affixes:
Inflectional affixes:
• mark grammatical properties
• (person, number, gender, tense, aspect)
• don’t change other aspects of meaning
• are required by rules of sentence structure
• create a new “word form”
2. Derivational affixes:
• change meaning
• create a new word
• (typically) have clear semantic content
• may change the lexical category of the word
Inflectional Affixes
•
There are precisely eight inflectional affixes in English:
1. -s
3rd person
wait --> waits
2. -ing
progressive
wait --> waiting
3. -ed
past tense
wait --> waited
4. -en
past participle
eat --> eaten
5. -s
plural
card --> cards
6. -’s
possessive
dad --> dad’s
7. -er
comparative
tall --> taller
8. -est
superlative
weak --> weakest
•
All of these are suffixes.
Inflectional Affixes
• Other languages can have a lot more inflectional affixes.
• Examples from French: parler “to speak”
• 1st person, plural: parlons
“We speak”
• 2nd person, plural: parlez
“You guys speak”
• Past tense:
• 1st person, singular: parlais
“I spoke”
• 1st person, plural: parlions
“We spoke”
• 2nd person, plural: parliez
“You guys spoke”
• Plus many, many more.
Derivational Affixes
• In contrast to inflectional affixes, derivational affixes:
• Create new words when they’re attached to roots
• Examples:
• re-
cycle --> recycle
• de-
code --> decode
• -y
fish --> fishy
• -ize
vandal --> vandalize
• Also: English has far more derivational affixes than
inflectional affixes.
A Note on Word Forms
• Morphologists use the term lexeme to refer to a group of
related word forms.
• wait, waits, waited, waiting, etc.
• The canonical form of the lexeme is called the lemma.
• = the “headword” in a dictionary.
lemma
word
forms
different
lexeme
• Inflectional affixes relate a lexeme to its various forms.
• Derivational affixes relate one lexeme to another
lexeme.
The Class System
•
In English, there are two types of derivational affixes:
1. Class 1
•
(or Level 1)
•
Often cause phonological (sound) changes in the
root
•
Also cause more profound semantic (meaning)
changes to the root
•
Can combine with bound roots, too.
•
Ex: -ity, -y, -ion
For instance:
•
Electric  electricity; stupid  stupidity
•
democrat  democracy; nation
The Class System
• Class 2 (or Level 2)
• Don’t cause phonological (sound) changes in root.
• Less of a semantic (meaning) effect, too.
• Ex: -ness, -less, -er, -ish
• Normally, Class 1 affixes attach to the root before Class
2 affixes.
• relational
-ion (1), -al (1)
• divisiveness
-ive (1), -ness (2)
• *fearlessity
-less (2), -ity (1)
• fearlessness
-less (2), -ness (2)
Productivity
• Productivity = the extent to which a word-formation rule
can be applied to new morphemes, to form new words
• Class 2 affixes tend to be more productive than Class 1
affixes.
• -ness vs. -ity
• both attach to: adjectives
• both form: nouns
• both mean: the quality of the adjective
blindness
stupidity
happiness
validity
goodness
complexity
Productiveness
• -ness is very productive, so it can expand its reach to
other words:
• stupidness, validness, complexness
• The same is not true of -ity:
• *blindity, *happity, *goodity
• -ness is so productive, it can also be affixed to new
words:
truthy + -ness

truthiness
chair + -ness

chairness
productive + -ness

productiveness
Unproductivity
• -able is another very productive morpheme:
• make-fun-of-able
• Other morphemes are not so lucky:
• -th: warm + -th
=
warmth
wide + -th
=
width
deep + -th
=
depth
cool + -th
=
*coolth
=
moisten
red + -en
=
redden
cute + -en
=
?cuten
• -en: moist + -en
abstract + -en =
*abstracten
An Intermediate Case
• -ify attaches to adjectives to form verbs
• just + -ify
pure + -ify
=
justify
=
purify
• quick + -ify =
?quickify
smart + -ify =
?smartify
• An anecdotal case
busy + -ify =
busify
ugly + -ify
uglify
=
• -ify has limited productivity
Blocking
• Productivity can sometimes be limited by the existence of
other words
• intelligent + -ness =
*intelligentness
• “intelligence” gets in the way
• it blocks intelligentness from existence
• true + -ness =
*trueness
(truth)
• inhabit + -er=
*inhabiter
(inhabitant)
• guide + -er =
*guider
(guide)
• In other cases, a new word gets created anyway:
• pride + -ful =
prideful
(proud)
Content and Function Words
• One last distinction: there are both content and
function words.
• Content words =
• have some semantic content (meaning)
• nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
• ex: politics, baseball, socks, green, create
• Function words =
• specify grammatical relations
• have little or no semantic content
• prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions
Content and Function Words
• Content words are an “open class”--
• we can add new members anytime we want.
• Function words are a “closed class”-• it’s not easy (or possible?) to add new members.
• When was the last time you heard a new pronoun? Or
new preposition?
• (thoughts on the quick write?)
• Our minds also process function words differently from
content words.