Week 4. A definion of morphology

• Morphemes are the smallest linguisc units you can divide words into without losing How Words Are Made: semanc coherence. There are lexical Morphology (part 1) morphemes and grammacal morphemes.

• The area of grammar concerned with the structure of words and with relaonships between words involving the morphemes that compose them.

Neal Snape

What is a word? An orthographic definion

• An orthographic definion • Words as units in the wring system: words • A phonological definion are uninterrupted strings of leers

• A semanc definion • For ex. wring is a word because there are blank spaces surrounding it • A syntacc definion

How many words are there in the Problems with this definion: following sentences?

• Can you make a list of punctuaon marks? • a. John’s girl friend lives in a high-rise apartment building. • Can you think of instances of words characterized by different spellings? • b. Mary’s a policewoman in the United States.

• What about compound nouns? • - Is John’s in a. above one or two words? • - Is Mary’s in b. above one or two words? • - Is high-rise in a. above one or two words?

1 The orthographic word may not A phonological definion coincide with our intuions:

• Words as phonological units: spoken in • Compound nouns: apartment building, isolaon each word can only have one main parking cket, ground floor, United States. stress

• Phrasal verbs: get up, look aer, put up with. • e.g. Words as elements of the system The underlined characters indicate the main stress

Problems with this definion: A semanc definion

• Funcon words (i.e. words such as as, of, the) • Words as meaningful units: do not seem to have a main stress; • a. Words express unified concepts • Clics (i.e. ‘s in the example below) do not seem to have a main stress- • b. Words are the minimum meaningful units of a language • Ex. Jane’s in the garden: ‘s, in, the are not stressed.

A syntacc definion #1 Problems with these definions:

• Concepts can be expressed by noun groups or • Words as syntacc units: words are the smallest larger units; for ex. the man who lives next syntacc elements in a sentence: door or that beauful summer morning of 1985 when we drove to the beach on an old • a. They belong to certain word classes (and follow CV2 the rules of these syntacc categories)

• Funcon words may not have an easily idenfiable meaning (for ex. can you specify the meaning of the?)

2 A syntacc definion #1 A syntacc definion #2

Words can be grouped into 2 main categories: • b. Only words (and groups of words) can be moved to a different posion in a sentence

• 1. Open-class words: classes of words which – 1. She can ride the bike can contain an infinite number of words – 2. Can she ride the bike? – (i.e. nouns, lexical verbs, adjecves, adverbs)

• 2. Closed-class words: classes of words which 1. She brought the can opener. contain a limited number of words 2a. The can was brought by her opener. ✘ – (i.e. pronouns, preposions, auxiliary and modal 2b. The can opener was brought by her. ✓ verbs, conjuncons, determiners)

Taking words apart • The lexical free morpheme apple with the grammacal bound morpheme plural –s are • Why is the meaning of the following words two disnct morphemes that can be divided, predictable to a certain extent? e.g., apple-s, but not *app-les.

• unbelievable, capitalisc, mismatched, • Grammacal morphemes have certain forms, disproporonal, misunderstanding, irregularity. e.g., plural –s can be realized as –s, -z, -iz and –en as in children, and it can be abstract in nature, e.g., sheep, not *sheeps as sheep has a zero or null plural form.

Complex words: affixaon

• Another type of morpheme known as • Words can be composed of idenfiable smaller derivaonal morphemes refers to bound parts, morphemes, put together in a systemac fashion, so that the meaning of the whole can morphemes like –ly that aach to lexical reliably be determined on the basis of the words to change one word in the lexicon to meaning of the smaller parts. another, e.g., happy (adjecve) to happily (adverb). • un-believe-able, an-capital-ist-ic, de-colony-al- ize-aon, dis-proporon-al, mis-under-stand- ing, ir-regul-ar-ity.

3 Word compounding: exercise

• How many compund words can you create with Hand-, body-, air-, sick-, bag the following words? punch-, sleeping bag Sports, estate, company, car courtesy, car Mail-, post-, leer-, box box telephone, gear- case Book-, suit-, brief-, case display, lower

A morpheme must A morpheme must

– Also contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole word – be idenfiable from one word to another – However, consider: Believ-able Attack Eat-able Stack Read-able Tackle Work-able

Taxi (/tæksi/) N.b. this extra meaning is not necessarily equal in all cases, e.g. readable, does not mean ‘can be read’ in a literal sense, but rather ‘enjoyable to read’.

How can I recognise a morpheme? Idenfying the core element:

Derivaonal morphemes must be idenfiable • Happy: un-happy, happi-ness, happi-ly; from one word to another: idenfying affixes: • Change: change-able, chang-ing, un-chang-ed; – un- : uncomplicated, unhappy, unclear, … – -able: variable, changeable, solvable, … • Select: de-select, select-ion, select-ive-ly; – de- : deselect, dethrone, detoxify, … – -al: cultural, federal, liberal, modal, … • Liber-: liber-al, liber-al-ism, liber-ate, liber-ty; – -ize: computerize, realize, … • Oper-: oper-ate, oper-at-ion, oper-at-ion-al

4 Disnguishing between morphemes: Disnguishing between morphemes: • Bound and free morphemes: • Bound and free morphemes:

• Free morphemes (or words) can occur on their • Bound morphemes can occur only if they are own: aached to other morphemes: – happy, change, select, green, house, … – Affixes (un-, -ness, -able, de-, -ive, -er, …) – liber-, oper-, circul-, legim-, materi-, … • e.g. liber-aon, oper-ate, circul-ar, legim-(a)cy, materi-al

Bound morphemes as core elements: Problem case: Verbs of Lan origin words derived from Lan Circul- Circular Liber- Liberty receive deceive conceive perceive revert convert pervert Circulaon Liberaon relate collate translate

Circulator Liberalize reduce deduce conduce

Circulatory Liberne Should these be considered to be composed of a single morpheme? Or prefix + bound morpheme?

General tendency What is the difference between these two sets of complex words • The core vocabulary of English is generally composed of words of Anglo-Saxon origin Fair-ly Treat-ment Fast-er Rude-ness Sing-ing Un-kind • There is a general tendency for core elements to Open-ed Fam-ous be free morphemes Car-s Use-less Write-s Help-ful • E.g. hand, hand-y, hand-le, hand-ful, mis-hand-le, Big-gest Ir-regular Red-dish

5 • Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish, Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular • Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed, Car-s, Write-s, Big-gest • These affixes do not necessarily change the class of the word, but this is normally the • These affixes do not change the word class, case, e.g. fame (n.)> famous (adj.) but rather contribute to meeting grammatical constraints. • Furthermore, the semantic element is notably higher. • These are called inflectional morphemes • These morphemes are called derivational morphemes

Derivaon with –ful and –less -ful/less Only -ful Only -less Care Fate Friend • Which words can be derived by adding the following suffixes Use Spoon Age Cheer Delight Cease -ful/less Only -ful Only -less Colour Bag Child Help Play Defence

Age, Bag, Care, Cease, Cheer, Child, Colour, Cup, Defence, Taste Cup End Delight, Effort, End, Fate, Friend, Help, Hope, Penny, Play, Hope Effort Spoon, Tact , Taste , Use, Tact Penny

Infleconal morphemes: Plurals #1

• He go to the park every day • Cat > cats; dog > dogs; case > cases • She speaks to me yesterday • N.b. these are pronounced /s/, /z/, /ɪz/ • He is a very fame actor • He gave me very good treat • These different realizaons are called allomorphs of the infleconal morpheme for plurals

6 Infleconal morphemes: Plurals #2 Infleconal morphemes: Verbs #1 • English is particularly low on inflectional • Irregular plurals are also considered to be morphemes for verbs cfr. Italian (amare 1st allomorphs person> amo, amavo, amai, amerò, ami (subjunctive), amassi, amerei x 6) • e.g. foot > feet; man > men; child > children, sheep > sheep; fish > fish etc. • English: love, loves, loved (past simple and p.part.), loving

• BE has the largest number of realizations: Be, am, are, is, was, were, been, being

Infleconal morphemes: Verbs #2 Infleconal morphemes: Verbs #3

• Verbs in the past and past parciple form can • Verbs in the past and past parciple form can be: be: Irregular

• 1 Regular: kissed; changed; wanted • Involve no change> hit-hit-hit • Note that the –ed suffix has three, • Involve vowel change> drink-drank-drunk phonologically determined, realizaons (i.e. • Involve consonant change > make-made-made three allomorphs): /t/, /d/, /ɪd/ • Involve vowel and consonant change> leave-le- le • The following lines rhyme: – You were the first one I kissed • Suppleon (i.e. with no phonological relaon)> – Because you were at the top of my list BE> was-were; GO> went

Infleconal morphemes: Adjecves Derivaonal morphemes

• Far more numerous than infleconal • Comparaves: morphemes – HOT> ho-er – ho-est – IMPORTANT > more important – most important • Allow producvity (involved in the coining of new words) • Note suppleon in – GOOD > beer – best • prefixes or suffixes – BAD > worse – worst • Suffixes usually, but not always, change word class • Prefixes, usually don’t change word class

7 Derivaonal morphemes: some Tree diagrams examples Label the boxes in the diagram

• Verbs > Nouns: work-er, act-or, treat-ment, elect-ion

• Nouns > Adjecves: colour-ful, friend-less, fac- ial, fam-ous

• Verbs > Adjecves: bor-ing, interest-ed honour-able, access-ible

Greed >

Greedy >

Greediness

8 Draw tree diagrams for the following words

• Unwholesome • Rulership • Underdeveloped • Overachiever • Operaonal • Indispensable

NB: Specif- is a bound root

Producvity – the creaon of new words

• There a six main ways of creang new words

• By combining two or more core elements: this process is called ‘compounding’ – truck driver, mother-in-law, download;

• By adding parts to a core element: this process is called ‘affixaon’ – clockwise, credible, coarsely, kingdom;

9 • By changing the word class of a given word: this process is called ‘conversion’ – Bole > to bole; to call > a call; • By clipping a longer word: this process is called • We can also find mulple processes e.g., ‘truncaon’ camera > web camera (Compounding) > – Veterinary Surgeon > vet; Zoological gardens > Zoo; webcam (Truncaon) • By amalgamang parts of different words: this process is called ‘blending’ • Ball > snowball (Compounding) > to snowball – Smoke + fog > smog; Motor + Hotel > Motel; (Conversion) Camera + Recorder > Camcorder • Acronyms • - North Atlanc Treaty Organizaon > NATO; Absent without leave > AWOL; Personal Idenficaon Number > PIN

Exercise for next lecture

• Produce tree diagrams of the following mulply affixed complex words:

– airworthiness – speechlessness – non-specializaon – developmental – anhistorical – miscarriage

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