Transcript Consider the following

MORPHOLOGICAL
PROCESSES
Dr. Monira I. AL-Mohizea
morphological processes
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there are a set of important (inflectional) morphological
processes involving mainly (phonological) changes that
must be taken into perspective:
Zero morph
Internal change
Exponence
Suppletion
Syncretism
Haplology
Reduplication
Stress placement
Consider the following:
a. Put it in the bin (n.)
Take a fast (adj.) train
He has short legs (n.)
b. Bin (v.) it!
The train goes very fast (adv.)
We legged (v.) it
(1) Conversion
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Conversion is a very productive method of deriving words,
especially verbs from nouns and nouns, from verbs.
Definition: (also called 'zero-derivation') when conversion is
used, a new word is formed by assigning an existing word
a new syntactic category (part of speech) without changing
its form in any way.
The word class of the derived word can be detected by
looking at the context in which it appears.
Examples??
(2) Affixation
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Affixation is word-building involving the use of affixes.
It is extremely common.
Affixes can be classified as prefixes and suffixes depending
on whether they precede or follow the root.
Another type of affixation is the infixation which is very
marginal in English.
Expletive infixation is used commonly for expressive
purposes, as of McCarthy (1982) but it has no grammatical
role.
Consider the following: Fan-bloody-tastic
Consider the following:
A sheep was walking along the river.
vs.
 20 sheep were walking along the river.
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(3) Zero morph
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In this process, the word sheep unlike other nouns, has no
overt marking of number even when its meaning is plural.
(Twenty) clearly indicates plurality as well as the auxiliary
verb (were) which indicates that.
English syntax recognizes the plurality of this noun and
requires the verb agreeing with it to be plural.
Likewise many monosyllabic verbs, as let, cut, hit, are not
marked overtly when they occur in a context where the
syntax requires past tense inflection on the verb.
E.g. I cut it yesterday.
Consider the following:
Nouns
Singular
foot [fot]
Mouse [maus]
Verbs
Present
ride
sing
Plural
feet /fi:t/
mice [maIs]
Past
rode
sang
Past participle
ridden
sung
(4) Internal change
Definition: Sometimes inflection is done by
changing a vowel in the root. This is called
internal change or (apophony).
 In some cases, apophony may be accompanied
by affixation as in the case of (Ridden).
 Think of other examples??
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Consider the following:
In sweets [s] realizes ??
 In parked (the actual pronunciation of -ed) is ??
it realizes:
?? Or ??, or ??
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(5) Exponence
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Definition: Exponence is the realization of morphosyntactic features via inflection.
The morpheme [s] in (sweets) is the exponent of the
morpho-syntactic feature plural, and [t] (the actual
pronunciation of –ed in parked) realizes past tense or
past participle.
The relationship between morphs and morpho-syntactic
features such as plural, past tense, present tense, etc. is
one of realization (or representation) rather than
composition.
Simple vs. Cumulative exponence
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Simple exponence: one morpheme for one
morphosyntactic feature.
E.g. [s] in (sweets) realizes plural.
Cumulative exponence: more than one
morphological feature maps onto a single
morpheme.
E.g. [s] in (she thinks), realizes third person,
present tense, and singular.
Consider the following:
A. Parked
Missed
Watched
B. Lived
Ruled
Spied
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Normally allomorphs of a morpheme are
phonologically related.
The regular past tense ending in English is realized
as [t] after a verb whose last sound is voiceless.
(e.g. parked (pa:kt).
If the verb’s last sound is voiced (e.g. lived [livd], it
is realized as [d].
The sounds [t] and [d] are similar, both are alveolar
stops.
(6) Suppletion
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Occasionally we find allomorphs of the same
morpheme whose phonological shapes are unrelated.
If a phonological relationship is totally non existent, we
speak of total suppletion (E.g. good & better, go &
went).
The term partial suppletion is used to describe
situations where residual phonetic similarity between
allomorphs can be detected (e.g. seek – sought, bring brought, etc).
Consider the following:
A. Past
gave
sang
B. Past
Cooked
Brought
Past participle
given
sung
Vs.
Past participle
Cooked
Brought
(7) Syncretism
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Definition: Syncretism refers to a situation where morpho-syntactic
categories that are represented by distinct forms elsewhere are
mapped on to the same form in some contexts.
In many regular verbs, and some irregular ones, the morph-syntactic
properties of past and past participle are mapped onto different
forms (e.g. gave– given) No syncretism.
Without syncretism there is internal change and suffixation of -en,
to signal past participle.
With syncretism, the same form, i.e., -ed is suffixed, and only the
context can help distinguish between past participle and past tense.
Consider the following:
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Probably
*probly
Jones's house
Jones' house
(7) Haplology
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Avoidance of sequences of identical linguistic forms is a phenomenon
found in many languages.
Definition: Haplology is a type of dissimilation, when two identical or
very similar syllables or sounds occur next to each other and one is be
deleted.
It can happen internally within a word or root morpheme of at least three
syllables (e.g. probably).
If a weakly stressed syllable is next to an adjacent syllable that is
identical as in (probably) haplology occurs.
The genitive suffix is spelled <s> and is phonologically realized as [s] [z]. If it is too similar to the final sound of the base it is merged in many
people's pronunciation and normally omitted in writing (e.g. Jones's house
=> Jones' house).
The genitive in this situations is indicated merely by the presence of the
apostrophe.
Consider the following:
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night-night
go-go
bye-bye
airy-fairy
hoity-toity
razzle-dazzle
(8) Reduplication
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Reduplication is the creation of a new word by repetition of
an existing word in its entirety, or in part.
Repetition of the entire word is called full reduplication (e.g.
bang-bang, bye-bye).
In partial reduplication, only part of a word is repeated it
has traditionally involved rhyming (e.g. airy-fairy, hoity-toity,
razzle-dazzle, and nitty-gritty.
Partial reduplication can also be ablaut (vowel change) as in
tip-top, shilly-shally, zigzag, pitter-patter.
The process affects a monosyllabic word. The vowel of the
rhyme is changed, leaving the rest of the word intact.
Consider the following:
Stress placement
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In some cases, derivation is effected by changing
stress placement.
Nouns can be derived from verbs and verbs from
nouns by certain rules.
Thank you 