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)

• [[base] + [affix]] [[[re-] + [construct]] + [-ion]]

• WORD reconstruction

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 able

• Tree terminology: branches

• nodes: where two branches meet

• nodes represent constituents of the word

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• Linguists draw another distinction among affixes:

1. 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:

• -s 3rd person wait --> waits

• -ing progressive wait --> waiting

• -ed past tense wait --> waited

• -en past participle eat --> eaten

• -s plural card --> cards

• -’s possessive dad --> dad’s

• -er comparative tall --> taller

• -est superlative weak --> weakest

1. 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.

• Inflectional affixes relate a lexeme to its various forms.

• Derivational affixes relate one lexeme to another lexeme.

lemma

word forms

different 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

• -en: moist + -en = moisten

red + -en = redden

cute + -en = ?cuten

abstract + -en = *abstracten

An Intermediate Case• -ify attaches to adjectives to form verbs

• just + -ify = justify

pure + -ify = 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.