Transcript here - MBHS Linguistics

Morphology!
But puns first.
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In partnership with Gabe
Have you seen Ken Burns' new documentary on the
impact of yeast on agricultural societies?
The Metacritic rating is rising, but it isn't doing well at the
box office.
Right now, their profits are in the bread.
Now, it’s time for some morphology: because you can
never get enough phology.
Morphology? Qu’est-ce c’est? Fa fa fa fa
fa fa...
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Morphology is the study of the structure of language –
how little bits of meaning combine to make things like
words and sentences
Basic Lexical Categories
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Über-important for syntax and morphology
You probably already know these
Nouns: cat, Eat Pray Love, Donald Trump, Mr. Rose
Verbs: eat, pray, love, trump, rise
Adjectives: descriptive, prescriptive, Kennedyesque
Adverbs: quickly, ponderously
There are many more. These are just the basic ones.
Back to Morphology
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A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a
language
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“Cat” is a morpheme. “C” is not, nor is “t” or “ca.”
Unsinkable has three morphemes:
“un-,” “sink,” and “-able”
Two types:
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Free morphemes can stand alone as a complete word (e.g.
“cat,” “of”)
Bound morphemes must join to other words
(e.g. “un-,” “dis-,” “-ing”)
Types of Bound Morphemes
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Inflectional morphemes indicate number, case, tense, or
gender. They don’t change the inherent meaning of the
root.
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“-s” and “-es” attach to nouns to make them plural
“-ed” (and other irregular forms) put verbs in past tense
Derivational morphemes do change the meaning of the
root.
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Adding “un-” to “happy” changes the meaning just a little
Some derivational morphemes change the lexical class of the
word (e.g. “energy” + “-ize” = “energize” – an adjective
becomes a verb)
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That last point about a morpheme changing a root’s
lexical class brings us to a semi-related tangent about a
very special morpheme…
The Null Morpheme!
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Sometimes there exist multiple forms of a word that
appear to be exactly the same. They appear to have
exactly the same morphemes, but clearly have different
meanings.
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e.g. “heat” (the noun) and “heat” (the verb)
The null morpheme, written as Ø, is not pronounced
or written as part of a word, but can change its meaning
Zero Derivation
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Zero Derivation is the process of adding a Ø to a word
It changes the lexical category of the word
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The original lexical class may not be clear
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“This is a baby.” (noun)
“This is a baby finch.” (adjective)
“You baby your child too much.” (verb)
“heat” can be used as a noun or a verb. What lexical class did it
start as?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, end of tangent
Roots
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Every word has one root – a free morpheme to which
bound morphemes can be attached
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Did I say “every?” Well, I lied. There are exceptions.
Compound words (e.g. “catnap,” “blackboard”) have multiple
roots. Those roots are free morphemes.
Bound roots: some words have clearly separable morphemes,
but no free roots (no roots that can stand alone)
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“Antagonize” and “antagonist” have “-ize” and “-ist” morphemes, and
clearly come from the same root, but “antagon” just ain’t a word.
Affixes
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An affix is a morpheme that is added onto a root (all
bound morphemes are affixes)
Two types in English:
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Prefixes are attached to the beginning of the root (e.g. “un-,”
“de-”)
Suffixes are attached to the end of the root (e.g. “-ing,”
“-ize”)
Affixes 2
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Affixes in other languages:
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Infixes are inserted into the middle of the root
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Does English have an example of an infix?
Abso-fucking-lutely!
“-fucking-” is the only English infix
Actually, I lied: the “-ma-” in “edumacation” is an infix, and is so
legitimate that there is an actual paper (Yu 2004) that studies it
Circumfixes are broken into two parts and surround the
root
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Does English have an example of a circumfix?
Fuck-absolutely-ing not!
There are no English circumfixes
Foreign Language Morphology
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Languages can be grouped based how they handle
morphology
Isolating (or analytic) languages: nearly every word is a
free morpheme
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e.g.Vietnamese
khi tôi dên nhà ban tôi, chúng tôi bát dâu làm bài
When I came to my friend's house, we began to do lessons
Foreign Language Morphology 2
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Synthetic languages: words have multiple morphemes.
There are two types:
Agglutinative languages: morpheme sequences are
added in a specific order. Each morpheme has one and
only one meaning. These languages are usually very
regular.
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e.g. Turkish
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ev house
evin
your house
evinde
at your house
Ojibwe is another example
Foreign Language Morphology 3
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Fusional languages: one morpheme may encode several
meanings
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e.g. Latin
“-us” indicates gender (masculine) and number (singular)
(and also nominative case)
Changing to masculine plural requires using a completely
different morpheme, “-i”
A Sample Morphology Problem
Or, What You Already Know How to Do
Sample Problem
Obokobo
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
namekobolipa
namemanamanahu
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
pokobomanamanalihu
English
“I do not like your face.”
“Your face is ugly.”
“My face is not ugly”
“My sister’s face is also not ugly.”
“Your sister’s face is ugly, also.”
“Your hair is also ugly.”
“My hair is not ugly.”
Step 1: Sort
face
hair
sister
namekobolipa
namemanamanahu
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
pokobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
I/my
you/your
namekobolipa
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
pokobomanamanalihu
namekobolipa
namemanamanahu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
be (“is”)
not
namemanamanahu
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
pokobomanamanalihu
namekobolipa
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
pokobomanamanalihu
ugly
namemanamanahu
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
pokobomanamanalihu
like
namekobolipa
also, too
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
Step 2: Find Similarities
face ‒ na
hair ‒ po
sister ‒ nina
namekobolipa
namemanamanahu
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
pokobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
I/my ‒ kobo
you/your ‒ me
namekobolipa
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
pokobomanamanalihu
namekobolipa
namemanamanahu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
be (“is”) ‒ hu
not ‒ li
namemanamanahu
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
pokobomanamanalihu
namekobolipa
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
pokobomanamanalihu
ugly ‒ manamana
namemanamanahu
nakobomanamanalihu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
pokobomanamanalihu
like ‒ pa
namekobolipa
also, too ‒ zu
naninakobomanamanazulihu
naninamemanamanazuhu
pomemanamanazuhu
Step 3: Find Patterns
object
possessor
subject
na
me
face
your
possessor
possessor
adjective
also
not
verb
kobo
li
pa
I
not
like
na
kobo
manamana
li
hu
face
my
ugly
not
is
na
nina
me
manamana
zu
li
hu
face
sister
my
ugly
also
not
is
“I do
not like
your
face.”
“My
face is
not
ugly.”
“My
sister’s
face is
also not
ugly.”