LING 220 LECTURE #11
MORPHOLOGY (Part 2)
Some affixes do not change the grammatical category:
in-competent ADJ. un-happy ADJ. re-consider VERB foot-age NOUN
There are some accidental gaps in the lexicon, for example:
ideal-ist but: *idea-ian (see grammar-ian) *idea-ist (see Marx-ist)
COMPLEX DERIVATIONS
“authorizational” A
N
V
N Af Af Af | | | | author ize ation al Study Figure 4.6 on p. 133
“unhappiness” -- there are two ways to analyze this word:
N
A
Af A Af | | | un happy ness
* N
N
Af A Af | | | un happy ness
The prefix un- combines with adjectives!
un- + A unable, unwise un- + N *unknowledge, *unproduction (exception: uncola)
Study Table 4.14 on p. 134 3. COMPOUNDING: the combination of lexical categories (Noun, Verb, Adjective, or Preposition) to form a larger word.
When the lexical categories are the same, the compound will have the same category, for example: mailman (N + N → N).
When the members of the compound are of different categories, the class of the final word will determine the category of the compound, for example: dryclean (A + V → V)
When there is a Preposition in the compound, the category of the other member will determine the category of the compound, for example: uplift (P + V → V).
Formalization:
Study Figures 4.9, 4.10 and 4.11 on pp. 136-137
The morpheme that determines the category of the compound is called HEAD. Example: dryclean ↓ clean (V) : HEAD
STRESS PATTERN: the first member of the compound has the primary stress.
Compare: bláckboàrd bláck boàrd ‘a board that is black’
MEANING OF COMPOUNDS
Sometimes the meaning of compounds cannot be predicted, for example:
blackboard may be green, white, etc.
On the basis of their MEANING, compounds are of two types:
a. ENDOCENTRIC: the rightmost member (HEAD) identifies the general class to which the meaning of the entire class belongs.
steamboat (a type of boat) catfood (a type of food)
b. EXOCENTRIC: the meaning does not follow from the meaning of its parts.
redneck (not a type of neck)
Sometimes the difference between these two types of English compounds can be seen in the Plural forms: maple leaves (a type of leaf: Endocentric compound)
Maple Leafs (members of Toronto’s hockey team: Exocentric compound) COMPOUNDS IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Mandarin: daxiao ‘size’
‘big’ ‘small’
Finnish: maailma ‘world’
‘earth’ ‘sky’
ylioppilastutkintolautakunta (5 words)
‘university examination committee’
Hungarian: no vér ‘sister’
‘woman’ ‘blood’
4. OTHER TYPES OF WORD FORMATION a. CONVERSION: a process that creates a new word by assigning a word to a new syntactic category (= zero derivation).
NOUN → VERB
bottle bottle (something) father father (a child)
VERB → NOUN
condúct cónduct call call (a phone call) PREPOSITION → VERB
up up (they up the prices)
Study Table 4.22 on p. 141. b. CLIPPING: a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form.
advertisement → ad
influenza → flu c. BLENDS: the creation of words from non-morphemic parts of two already existing words.
smoke and fog → smog
breakfast and lunch → brunch d. BACKFORMATION: a process that creates a new word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word.
option → opt enthusiasm → enthuse pease → pea (the final [z] was incorrectly interpreted as the Plural suffix). e. ACRONYMS: words are formed by taking the initial letters of (some or all) of a set of other words.
self-contained underwater breathing apparatus → scuba radio detecting and ranging → radar MADD, AIDS etc. The combined initial letters follow the phonotactics of English: if they do not, each letter is sounded out separately, e.g., UBC, SFU. f. COINAGE: words are created from scratch, for example: Kodak, Teflon,etc.
g. WORDS FROM NAMES:
kleenex, xerox, boycott, cardigan, etc.
INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
INFLECTION is a morphological process that modifies the form of a word to indicate the grammatical subclass to which it belongs.
dogs: Plural subclass of nouns played: Past Tense subclass of verbs
INFLECTION VERSUS DERIVATION
1. Inflection does not change the grammatical category of a word or the meaning of the word to which it applies.
N V
N Af V Af | | | | window s play ed Compare with the following derivations:
A N
N Af N Af | | | | nation al king dom (new meaning!)
2. A derivational affix is closer to the root:
hunters : -er (deriv. affix), -s (inflect. affix)
kingdom: *kingsdom
3. Inflectional affixes have relatively more freedom with which they can combine with words: derivational affixes have some restrictions.
dogs, clocks, radios etc.
but:
hospitalize *clinicize terrorize *horrorize
In English there are 8 inflectional affixes:
Study Table 4.25 on p. 144
CASE: a category that encodes information about the grammatical role of the morpheme (subject, direct object, location etc.). In Modern English these functions are expressed largely with word order and the use of prepositions. Turkish : Table 4.29 on p. 149.
Finnish: 15 cases Rumanian: 2 cases Hungarian: 29 cases