an introduction to morphology
TRANSCRIPT
Morphology
Oct 19, 2011
Contents What is Morphology? Organization in the lexicon Structure of derived words Morphological Analysis
What is morphology? The study of form or shape Internal structure of words How meaningful pieces of language combine
and recombine to form words Morpheme – the smallest linguistic unit that
can carry meaning Lexicon – the mental dictionary
Organization in the lexicon How do we know the lexicon is organized?
Certain words fit into certain categories The words ‘fish’ or ‘cat’ are inappropriate for
describing the color of something, for example, but ‘blue’ fits.
Lexical categories: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, determiner, preposition, conjunction All languages have nouns and verbs Other languages may have additional sub-
categories such as animate and inanimate nouns.
Lexical Categories Noun
refers to a person, place or thing Verb
indicates occurrence or performance of an action, or the existence of a state or condition
Adjective describes a noun or pronoun
Adverb modifies a verb, another adverb, or an adjective
(e.g. very, slowly, etc.)
Continued…
New words get added to these categories all the time, either because of new products and technologies, or word borrowing
Lexical Categories Pronoun
replaces a noun when that noun has already been mentioned
Determiner also called ‘articles’, modify a noun (e.g. a, the,
their, etc.) Conjunction
connects/coordinates words, phrases, or sentences
Preposition indicates the relationship of one word to another
Continued…
New words rarely get added to these categories. These are function words which serve to piece meaning together and are rarely changed.
Organization in the lexicon Regular patterns for creating new words Brass > brassy Chalk > chalky Need > needy /Noun/ + /i/ > [Adjective] /brass/ is a root morpheme
Affixes /-i/ is an affix
Suffix, prefix, or infix? /-i/ is a suffix /un-/, as in ‘undress’, is a prefix Infixes attach inside a word. For example, in Tagalog [sulat]
(wrote) becomes [sumulat] (one who wrote). An affix can attach to a root or a stem (a root with
one or more affixes) Derivational affix – creates a new word of related
meaning, can change the lexical category of the root or stem.
Inflectional affix – does not change meaning or lexical category of word; has grammatical function (e.g. plural /-s/, past tense /-ed/)
Organization in the Lexicon One lexical entry per morpheme
Advantages: economy, novel forms will also follow the same pattern
E.g. This is a wug. These are two _____. (Berko, 1958)
Lexicon ( 4 morphemes)
Words produced (6)
/cat/ [cat], [cats]
/dog/ [dog], [dogs]
/lake/ [lake], [lakes]
/-s/
Summary TableRoots Affixes
Belong to a lexical category Specified for lexical category that they can combine with
Can appear by themselves (free morphemes)
Cannot appear by themselves (bound morphemes)
Derivational or inflectional
Can attach at the beginning, end or inside a word
They are productive (they can attach to a large subset of morphemes to create new words)
Exercise 1
Count the number of root sand affixes in the words: crank, cranky, less, tasteless. Provide rationale.
Exercise 2 Should /-un/ be analyzed as one morpheme or
two morphemes (/-un/1 and /-un/2)? Undress Unusable Unspeakable Untie
Structure of derived words
governmental
Structure of derived words
[Adj] [N]
root [V]
govern -ment -al
Structure of derived words
reinterpretation
Structure of derived words
[N]
[V] [V]
re- interpret -ation
[[re [interpret]V ] V ation] N
Structure of derived words
[N]
[V]
re- interpret -ation
If the morpheme /ation/ attaches to the noun first, the result is a noun .The affix /re/ only attaches to verbs and means to perform an action again. The derivation cannot go further, the derivation fails.
Ambiguous Derivations Uncomfortably
[[un [[comfort]N abl]A] A ly] Adv
[un [[[comfort]N abl] A ly] Adv ] Adv
Morphological analysis Identify affixes
From groups by lexical category or grammatical from
Look within a group for repeating segments (affixes)
Look across groups for non-alternating segments Solve for underlying form of allomorphs, if any
Follow steps for phonological analysis
Exercise 3 Kujamaat Jóola
Identify all affixes and allomorphs, if any.
Singular N Plural N English
kɔ:l wɔ:l bone
kaƞag uƞag fin
kəsinsiƞ usinsiƞ basket
kapɔt upɔt pot
kajata ujata frog
kasankɛn usankɛn language
Exercise 3 Look within
Singular N Plural N English
kɔ:l wɔ:l bone
kaƞag uƞag fin
kəsinsiƞ usinsiƞ basket
kapɔt upɔt pot
kajata ujata frog
kasankɛn usankɛn language
Exercise 3 Look accross
Singular N Plural N English
kɔ:l wɔ:l bone
kaƞag uƞag fin
kəsinsiƞ usinsiƞ basket
kapɔt upɔt pot
kajata ujata frog
kasankɛn usankɛn language
Exercise 3 Kujamaat Jóola Allomorphs of the singular morpheme: [k-],
[ka-], [kə-] Allomorphs of the plural morpheme: [w-], [u-]
Thank you! Leave a comment if you have any questions
or would like additional exercises