Transcript Morphology

Morphology
I. Basic concepts and terms
II. Derivational morphology: Derivational
processes
III. Inflectional morphology: Inflection
IV. Function words
V. Problems in morphological description
VI. Interaction between morphology and
phonology
VII. Collocations
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Basic Concepts and Terms (1)
Morphology:

The study of the structure of words & how words
are formed (from morphemes)
Morpheme:

The smallest unit of language that carries meaning
(maybe a word or not a word)

A sound-meaning unit

A minimal unit of meaning or grammatical
function

The level of language at which sound and meaning
combine
A. Free morpheme: lexical & functional morpheme
B. Bound morpheme: derivational & inflectional
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Morphemes
lexical
free
Morphemes
(open classes)
functional
(closed classes)
bound
derivational
inflectional
(Yule 78)
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Free Morpheme
I.
Definition: can occur by itself, not attached to
other morphemes
Examples: girl, teach, book, class, the, of, etc.
II.
III. Two kinds
A. lexical morpheme (open class)
1. feature: has lexical meaning; new examples
can be freely added
2. examples: N, Verb, Adj, Adv (content words)
B. functional morpheme (closed class)
1. feature: new examples are rarely added (but
not impossible to add)
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Yuan Conj, Art. (function words)
2. examples: Pro,
Prep,
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Bound Morpheme
I. Definition: must be attached to another morpheme
II. Derivational morpheme
A. may change syntactic class
B. to form new (different) words
C. examples: -able, -ex, un-, re-, -ness, etc.
III. Inflectional morpheme
A. Different forms of the same word (no new word added)
B. Not change syntactic class (nor adding lexical meaning)
C. To indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a
word
D. Only 8 kinds in English: -’s, -s (plural nouns), -ing, -ed/en, -est, -er, -s (S-V agreement)
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Exercise (1)
What’s the difference between the two
morphemes “able” and “-able”?
• able (adj. in “I’m able to do it”)
• -able (e.g., “enjoyable”)
able  lexical (free) morpheme
-able  derivational morpheme
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Basic Concepts and Terms (2)
Stem (root, base): the morpheme to
which other morphemes are
added
free (e.g. teacher, dresses, unkind)
Stem
bound (e.g. inept, unkempt, repeat)
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Basic Concepts and Terms (3)
Affix:
Prefix e.g. unhappy
Infix e.g. absogoddamlutely
(see Yule 69: Kamhmu; Nash 56: Bontoc)
Suffix e.g. happiness
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Exercise (2)
Define all the terms in the Yule chart (p.
78), and give examples of each.
Identify all the morphemes in the sentence
below, and label them as L (lexical), F
(functional), D (derivational), or I
(inflectional).
Annie, a hard working learner,
painstakingly checked her homework.
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Derivational Morphology
Processes which form new words
Processes occur according to rules (which
show the relation between words and
provide ways to form new words)
Not all derivational rules have been figured
out yet.
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II. Derivational Processes:
A Method to Get New Words
1. Derivation: (or Derivational affixation, Affixation)
2. Compounding: combine two or more morphemes to form new words
3. Reduplication: full or partial repetition of a morpheme
4. Blending: parts of the words that are combined are deleted
5. Clipping: part of a word has been clipped off
6. Acronyms: abbreviate a longer term by taking the initial letters
7. Back formation: A word (usually a noun) is reduced to form another
word of a different type (usually a verb)
8. Extension of word formation rules : Part of a word is treated as a
morpheme though it’s not
9. Functional shift (Conversion): A change in the part of speech
10. Proper names  Common words
11. Coining: Creating a completely new free morpheme
12. Onomatopoeia: words imitate sounds in nature
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13. Borrowing: The taking over of words from other languages
1. Derivation (1)
 Derivation (also called derivational affixation
or affixation): affixes are added to other
morphemes; derived by rules (Nash 56; Yule 69)
A. different rules, e.g. N
V + affix worker
V
N + affix hospitalize
V
ADJ + affix activate
ADJ
N + affix national
ADJ affix +ADJ unkind
B. multiple combination of rules
e.g. organizational Yun-Pi Yuan
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1. Derivation (2)
Tree structure of “organizational”
ADJ
N
Affix
V
Affix
N Affix
organ ize ation
al
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2. Compounding (1)

N
Compounding (compounds): combining two or
more free morphemes (roots) to form new words
N
ADJ
V
P
N
N
N
N
N
N ADJ N
V N
fire engine greenhouse jumpsuit
wall paper bluebird
killjoy
book case
N
textbook
P N
afterthought
outpatient
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2. Compounding (2)
ADJ
ADJ
N ADJ
nation-wide
sky blue
pitch-black
(pitch-dark)
N
ADJ ADJ
P
ADJ
ADJ ADJ
red - hot
far - fetched
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ADJ
P ADJ
overripe
ingrown
outspoken
outstanding
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2. Compounding (3)
V
N
ADJ
P
V
V
V
V
V
V
N V
ADJ V
P V
V V
Spoon-feed whitewash
outlive
blow-dry
Steam-roller dry-clean underestimate breakdance
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2. Compounding (4)
N
N
N N
N
N
N
N
N
N
N N
dog food box stone age cave man
(repeated application of the rule that allows a
noun to branch into two nouns.)
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2. Compounding (5)
Eng. orthography not consistent in
representing compounds
– Written as single words
– Written with a hyphen
– Written as separate words
Possible to recognize noun compounds by
stress pattern (an e.g. of interaction between
morphology and phonology)
– greenhouse vs. green house; hot dog vs. hot dog
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2. Compounding (6)
Some Chinese examples:
汽車、火車
馬車、牛車
機車、貨車
腳踏車、三輪車
(Nash 57)
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3.Reduplication
 Reduplication: full or partial repetition of a free
morpheme; sometimes with variation
full
partial
with variation
so-so
一點點
zigzag
bye-bye
冷冰冰
dilly-dally
天天.人人
蹦蹦跳
hotchpotch
來來.往往
hodgepodge
點點.滴滴
mishmash
卿卿我我 (Nash 57 for more examples)
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4. Blending (1)
Blending (blends): similar to
compounding, but some parts of the free
morphemes involved are lost (usually
keeping 1st part of 1st word + end of
2nd word)
e.g. brunch
breakfast+ lunch
smog
smoke+ fog
motel
motor+ hotel
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4. Blending (2)
newscast
news + broadcast
telex
teleprinter + exchange
bit
binary + digit
Reaganomics
Reagan + economics
fantabulous
fantastic + fabulous
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5. Clipping
 Clipping (clipped forms): part of a free
morpheme is cut off (i.e., shortening a
polysyllabic word); often in casual speech
e.g. prof.
phys-ed
ad
poli-sci
doc
math
lab
bike
porn
sub
gas
dorm
flu
fax
lit., ling.
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(also in names)
Liz
Kathy
Ron
Lyn
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6. Acronyms (1)
Acronyms: abbreviate a longer term by
taking the initial letters
A. follow the pronunciation patterns of Eng.
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
TOEFL (Test of Eng. as a Foreign Language)
AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)
NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration)
UFO ( ? )
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6. Acronyms (2)
B. If unpronounceable  each letter is
sounded out separately
ATM (automatic teller machine)
I.Q. (intelligence quotient)
MRT (Mass Rapid Transit)
MTV (music television)
VCR (video cassette recorder)
TGIF ( ? ); ASAP ( ? )
WYSIWYG ( ? ) Yun-Pi Yuan
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6. Acronyms (3)
C. Customary to sound out each letter
even if the combined initials can be
pronounced.
AIT
American Institute in Taiwan
UCLA
The University of California at Los Angeles
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6. Acronyms (4)
Acronyms lose their capitals to
become everyday terms:
– laser (light amplification by stimulated
emission of radiation)
– radar (radio detecting and ranging)
– zip (zone improvement plan)
(Yule 68)
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7. Back formation (1)
 Back formation: A word (usually a noun) is
reduced to form another word of a different type
(usually a verb)—Yule 67
It starts with an existing word and forms
“backwards,” by taking off what appears to be
a suffix but really is not, resulting a new word
thought already to exist (Nash 59).
 A “mistake” based on the similarity of an
existing free morpheme to some (originally
uninvolved) morphological process

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7. Back formation (2)
e.g. editor
edit
donation
donate
burglar
burgle
zipper
zip
television
televise
babysitter
baby sit
Note: derivational affixation: teach
back formation: editor edit
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teacher
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8. Extension of word formation rules
 Extension of word formation rules: Part of a
word is treated as a morpheme though it’s not
burger
(mar)athon
a(lco)holic
hamburger
cheese burger
buffalo burger
fish burger
vege burger
tofu burger
telethon
danceathon
walkathon
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workaholic
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9. Functional shift (Conversion)
 Functional shift (or conversion, category
change): A change in the part of speech
V N a guess, a must, a spy, a printout,
walk, run, laugh, touch
N V position, process, contact, notice,
party, fax, butter, bottle
(computer-related terms) input, output, format
V ADJ see-through, a stand-up comedian
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10. Proper names common
words (1)
 Proper names  Common words
A. People
jacklumberjack, jack of all trades
tomtomcat, tomboy, peeping Tom
阿花 (三八阿花)
B. Real people
Earl of Sandwich, teddy bear, Marquis de
Sade  sadism, sadist; 杜康
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10. Proper names (2)
C. Places
Hamburger, marathon, bikini, Shanghai, champagne,
cognac, 香港腳, 蒙古大夫, 哈蜜瓜
D. Mythology
Tantalus  tantalize
Eros erotic; Narcissus narcissistic
Mars martial
psyche, panic, Echo
E. Brand names
band-aid, zipper, Xerox, coke, Scotch tape,
Kleenex, Vaseline, 生力麵
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11. Coining
Coining (Coinage): Creating a completely
new free morpheme, which is unrelated to
any existing morphemes; a rare thing
e.g. googol, pooch,Nylon
Note 1: “Kleenex,” “teflon” are not really coinages
(according to Nash’s definition) though Yule puts them
under this category “Aspirin” (might have relation to
chemical name) and “Xerox” (which might come from
Greek) and “vaseline” are also questionable.
Note 2: everyday usage of “coining”  linguistic definition
of “coining”
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12. Onomatopoeia
 Onomatopoeia: words imitate sounds in nature
(or in technology), but need to conform to
phonological system of the language










A dog: bow wow or woof-woof, 汪汪
A clock: tick-tock, 滴答
A rooster: cock-a-doodle-doo 咕咕咕
A camera: click, 喀擦
A duck: quack 嘎嘎
A cat: meow 喵喵
Ring of a bell: ding-dong, 叮咚
A cow: moo, 哞哞
A bee: buzz, 嗡嗡
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A snake: hiss, 嘶嘶
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13. Borrowing
 Borrowing (Borrowed words or loan-words):
the taking over of words from other languages
A. Loan translation (or calque): direct translation
of the elements of a word into the borrowing
language (Yule 65)


hot dog 熱狗
superman 超人
B. Transliteration



cool 酷
DINK 頂客
YUPPIE 雅痞
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III. Inflection (1)
 Inflectional morphology: adds
grammatical functions (i.e., number,
tense, aspect, gender, case), so related to
syntax, but does not create new words (so
not related to the lexicon).
A. Eng.: inflections (8 kinds) are all suffixes
B. Other languages (e.g.of prefixes & infixes):
a. Quiche (spoken in Mexico): prefixes for
tense
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III. Inflection (2)
b. Ganda (language spoken in Uganda):
(Yule 80)
omu- (inflectional prefix) + singular noun
aba- (inflectional prefix) + plural noun
e.g., omusawo (doctor) abasawo (doctors)
omukazi (woman) abakazi (women)
c. Swahili (spoken in east Africa):
(Nash 66)
prefixes added to verbs to show person & tense
ni-na-soma “I am reading”
(na- present tense)
u-na-soma “You are reading”
a-na-soma “He is reading”
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III. Inflection (3)
ni-li-soma “I was reading”
(li- past tense)
u-li-soma “You were reading”
a-li-soma “He was reading”
ni-ta-soma “I will read”
(ta- future tense)
u-ta-soma “You will read”
a-ta-soma “He will read”
d. Tagalog (a lang. of the Philippines)
(Yule 81)
Infixes: partial reduplication (of 1st syllable) for
future tense
e.g., basa “read’
bili “buy”
sulat “write”
babasa “will read” bibili
“will buy” susulat “will write”
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III. Inflection (4)
e. Ilocano (a lang. of the Philippines) (Yule 81)
infixes: partial reduplication for plural nouns
e.g., ulo “head”
dalan “road”
biag “life”
mula “plant”
ululo “heads”
daldalan “roads’
bibiag “lives”
mulmula “plants”
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III. Inflection (5)
Inflections on a word influence syntactic
choices in other parts of a sentence
A. That planter grows. . . .
B. Those planters grow. . . .
 Basic word structure in English:
(DER) Base (DER) (INFL)
e.g.
plant er
s
un organ ize
ed
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planters
unorganized
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III. Inflection (6)

A problem in analysis: Mandarin
inflectional/functional “了”:

Inflectional:
•

Perfective aspect: 怎麼碰了杯子也不喝？
Functional:
•
Sentence final particle: 他胖起來了
把球拿走了
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IV. Function Words

Free functional morphemes


Definition: (Nash 64)
A list of function words in Eng: (Nash 65)


More than inflections
Eng. And Chinese tend to isolate grammatical
functions out into free morphemes
•

杯子在桌子上
Some other langs. tend to use bound (inflectional)
morphemes
•
e.g., Russian (Nash 12), Swahili (Nash 66)
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V. Problems in Morphological
Description

Bound stem
receive, unkempt, inept; cranberry? Huckleberry?

Unidentifiable or inseparable elements
•
Due to historical influences and borrowing:
A. Plural form:

sheep  sheep; man  men
B. Past tense:

read  read; go  went
C. Noun  ADJ:

law (old Norse into old Eng)  legal (from Latin)

mouth (old Eng.)
 oral (Latin) (Yulee 79)
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VI. Interaction Between
Morphology and Phonology (1)
A. Past tense in English (inflection)
past tense morpheme /d/=allomorphs {d, t, Id}
1. Verbs ends in +voiced
•
e.g. agreed, dragged
2. Verbs ends in -voiced
•
/d/
/t/
e.g. worked, missed
3. Verbs ends in alveolar stop
•
/Id/
e.g., loaded, estimated
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VI. Interaction Between
Morphology and Phonology (2)
B. Plural form (inflection)
plural morpheme /z/=allomorphs {z, s, Iz}
1. Noun ends in +voiced
/z/
e.g. flags, games
2. Noun ends in -voiced
e.g. maps, banks
3. ends in +sibilant
/s/
/Iz/
e.g. glasses, watches
C. Negative (Nash 51)
/In/ = {In, I}
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VI. Interaction Between
Morphology and Phonology (3)
 Morphophonemic Rules:
The rules that determine the pronunciation
of the regular past tense, plural morphemes,
and negative prefix are called
morphophonemic rules because
morphology adds the affix to the root, and
the phonology controls the pronunciation
of the affix (morpheme).
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VII. Collocations
A. Definition: combinations of words stored as
whole units in the brain, like one big word; So,
unnecessary to be put together using syntax—
can be called up for use all at once.
B. Examples:
and
(fork, knife, bread, pepper, salt, butter)
harm;
business;
a mistake
How’re you? How do you do? Nice to meet you.
I’m so glad you could bring Pamela.
* That Pamela could be brought by you makes me so glad.
* That you could bring Pamela makes me so glad.
* I’m so glad Pamela’s being
brought by you was possible.
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