Morphology

Morphology

Morphology

Definition: the analysis of word structure.

Inflectional vs Derivational Morphology Morphology

studies the ways in which morphemes are used to express grammatical contrasts in sentences

studies the principles/rules governing the construction of new words

Inflectional Morphology

Morpheme - unit of meaning which may be represented by one or more allomorphs

Examples: cat-s sing-ing good-ness un-happi-ly act act-ive act-iv-ity in-act-ive in-act-iv-ity

Kinds of Morphemes

1. Roots/stems/Free Morphemes

1. Affixes/Bound Morphemes

Affixes/Bound MorphemesRepresent grammatical or relational meanings

Types of AffixesPrefixes - come before the stem

Un-happySuffixes - come after the stem

Happi-nessInfixes - come within the stem (English doesn't use these) Tagalog (Philippine language) examples of infixes Stem: -basa- which means "read"

/bumasa ako nan libro/ read I the book I read the book. (past tense)

/binasa an libro/ was read the bookThe book was read.

Bontoc (Philippine language) examples of infixes /fikas/ "strong" /fumikas/ "He is becoming strong" /bato/ "stone" /bumato/ "He is becoming stone" /fusul/ "enemy" /fumusul/ "He is becoming enemy

Allomorphs

Definition: alternative forms which

carry the same meaning but have different phonological shape.

AllomorphsExamples from English

• /-iz/ class/classes (following sibilants s,c,z,j)• /-s/ cat/cats (following nonsibilant voiceless

consonants)• /-z/ tub/tubs (following nonsibilant voiced

consonants)• /-z/ bee/bees (following vowels)

Allomorphs in “Plural” Morpheme (/-iz/, /-s/, /-z/)

Morphologically Characterized Language

Types

Isolating LanguagesAgglutinating Languages

Fusional LanguagesPolysynthetic Languages

Two Questions Used to Classify Languages

Morphologically1. Does a word divide into smaller

meaningful parts?2. Does each component express a

single meaning?

Isolating Languages

Question 1 = NO

Languages that use undividable words, but have strict rules of word order to keep the

grammatical meanings of things clear.

Also know as “analytic languages “

Included are Chinese, Indonesian, Pidgins and Creoles.

Isolating languages

Mandarin Chinese examples

/wo gang yao gei ni na yi bei cha/ I just want for you bring one cup tea

"I am about to bring you a cup of tea."

/xia yu/down rain"It was/is/will be raining"

Agglutinating LanguagesQuestions 1 = Yes, 3=Yes

• Words can be divided into morphemes• Each morpheme expresses a separate

grammatical meaning

Included are Finnish, Turkish, Japanese, Tamil, etc.

Agglutinating LanguagesTurkish example

from the stem /ol-/ meaning die ol-mek "to die" stem + infinitive ol-dur-mek "to kill" st+Cause+infinitive ol-dur-me-mek "to not kill" st+cause+neg+infin ol-dur-ul-mek "to be killed" st+cause+Pass+infi ol-dur-ul-me-mek "to not be killed"

st+cau+pas+neg+inf

oldurebilemeseydim "I wish I hadn't been able to kill"

ol -dur -ebil -eme -sey -d -im die cause able not wish past I

Fusional LanguagesQuestions 1 = Yes, 3=No

• Words can be divided into morphemes, • Morphemes can express more than one

grammatical meaning

Also know as “inflectional languages “

Included are Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages. .

Fusional LanguagesLatin Example

Declensions -- variations on nouns (e.g. man, men, man’s, men’s).

Conjugations -- variations on verbs (e.g. sing, sang, sung).

e pluribus unum

pluribus plur- ibus

many – plural/dative case“Out of many, one”

Systems of Inflectional Morphology

Verb tenses - mark time and personEnglish example: 6 persons and past, present, future,etc

Noun tenses - mark time on nouns Japanese example: shiroi(white), shirokatta(was white), and

shirkute(being white)Noun cases - mark gramatical role in sentence

Finnish example: fifteen casesnominative (subject) ablative (from)allative (to) essive (as)

partitive (part of) translative (change to)abessive (without) accusative (object)instructive (by) inessive (in)comitative (with) elative (out of)genitive (possessive) illative (into)adessive (on)

Latin Declension of “Friend” and “Field”

Case Singular Plural Singular Plural

Nominative amicus amici ager agri

  (subjective) (uh-mee-kus) (uh-mee-kee) (uh-gehr) (uh-gree)

Genitive amici amicorum agri agrorum

 (possessive) (uh-mee-kee) (uh-mee-ko-rum)

(uh-gree) (uh-gro-rum)

Dative amico amicis agro agris

  (indirect object)

(uh-mee-ko) (uh-mee-kees)

(uh-gro) (uh-grees)

Accusative amicum amicos agrum agros

  (direct object)

(uh-mee-koom)

(uh-mee-kos) (uh-grum) (uh-gros)

Ablative amico amicis agro agris

  (from the . . =adverb)

(uh-mee-ko) (uh-mee-kees)

(uh-gro) (uh-grees)

Polysynthetic Languages A small group of languages that have

complex multi-morpheme words that carry a sentence-worth of information.

Included are Basque and many Amerindian languages.

Also know as “amalgamating languages”

These languages are usually very difficult to learn, unless you are brought up with them.  The Basques joke that they are immune to the Devil because he couldn't learn their

language!

Polysynthetic Languages

Chukchi Example

1st person- big- head- aching

I have a bad headache.

•baataanitaaanishinaabemong = "being able to speak Ojibwe."

•ngiinitaaozhibii'amaadimin = "we used to write to each other."

Ojibwe Example

Derivational Morphology

Processes of New Word Formation

• Prefixation "disobey“• Suffixation "kindness"• Conversion - a word changes its class without

changing its form "carpet (n.)" becomes "carpet (v.)"

• Compounding - two free bases/stems are added together “blackbird"

• Reduplication - "goody-goody" "wishy-washy" "teeny-weeny"

• Clippings - "ad" "telly" "flu"• Acronyms - "NATO" "DJ" "VIP"• Blends - "Brunch" from Breakfast and Lunch

"Telex" from teleprinter and exchange

Defining “Word”Five ways to identify a word

1. Potential Pauses - consistent pauses in speech when sentence spoken slowly.

2. Indivisibility - where are additional words added? They will be added between words, not within them.

3. Minimal Free Forms - Bloomfield defined as: the smallest units of speech that can meaningfully stand on their own.

4. Phonetic Boundaries - in languages with consistent and uniform stress (for example Welsh on the last syllable) can identify the end of each word by stress.

5. Semantic Units - in some sentences, words constitute units of meaning (Dog bites man.) However, in other sentences, words are not clearly separate units of meaning (I switched on the light.) "the" doesn't have a clear separate meaning, and "switched on" requires two words to convey meaning.

Word Classes Definition: groups based on the way words

are used/behave in language

Example from Englishnouns boy, machine, beautypronouns she, it, whoadjectives happy, three, bothverbs go, frighten, beprepositions in, under, withconjunctions and, because, ifadverbs happily, soon, ofteninterjections gosh, wow, alas

also sometimesparticiples looking, takenarticles a, the, an

Criteria for Word Classes

Example of adjective criteria from English

Five criteria for "adjectiveness"A. occurs after form of to be - he's sad.B. occurs after articles and before nouns –

the big car.C. occurs after very - very nice.D. occurs in the comparative or superlative

- sadder/saddest, more/most important.E. occurs before -ly to form adverbs - quickly

Gradience

Words will not always fit neatly in one particular class

Example from English - "round“

Adjective Mary bought a round table.Preposition The car went round the corner.Verb The yacht will round the buoy soon.Adverb We walked round to the shop.Noun It's your round. I'll have a beer.

Adjective Gradience in Six Words

A. occurs after form of to be - he's sad.

B. occurs after articles and before nouns –

the big car.C. occurs after very - very

nice.D. occurs in the comparative

or superlative -sadder/saddest, more/most important.

E. occurs before -ly to form adverbs - quickly