Li8 Structure of Li8 Structure of EnglishEnglish

Hierarchical morphological structure

Today’s topicsToday’s topics Basic point: morphological structure of words is

hierarchically organized, as with words in syntax How do we know this?

Derivation Superordinate categories Order of attachment Phrasal embedding

Selectional restrictions Stress in compounds

Interesting aspects of hierarchical structure: Bracketing paradoxes Headedness

Exocentric vs endocentric Saturation and irregular compounds

Derivation Derivation Derivational morphology usually consists of adding a prefix or

suffix to a base (= stem). The base has a lexical category (N, V, Adj…), and the suffix

typically assigns a different category to the whole word. Two possible analyses of this process:

1. It yields an output with no internal structure E.g. [sad]Adj [sadness]N

2. The derivational history is preserved in the structure:

sad ness

Adj

Noun -ness: Adj N suffix

un interest ing

Adj

Adj

V

Multiple derivationMultiple derivation

Feb 10, 1959

Recursive derivationRecursive derivation

Recursive derivationRecursive derivation

N

|

missile missile missile missileanti-anti- anti-

N

|

N

|

N

|Note that the correct term for 'a missile to be deployed against "anti-missile missiles"' is not "anti anti-missile missile." It's "anti anti-missile-missile missile." You're always supposed to have one more "missile" than "anti," because otherwise nothing will blow up. Granted, this information comes from civilian linguists, rather than from military sources. Military sources would almost certainly be using acronyms instead…

Phrasal embeddingPhrasal embedding Buttinsky

We can tell “butt in” is a Phrase here because the t undergoes flapping before a stressed vowel (in flapping dialects)

Nogoodnik de-pant-s-ing

“depantsing is when one or more persons aggressively pulls down another persons pants and underpants, often wrestling them to the ground and then stripping them completely naked” http://www.misterpoll.com/3470596525.html

What about “the queen of England’s crown”? This ’s is a clitic rather than an affix

How do we know How do we know what the what the

hierarchical hierarchical structure is?structure is?

A black board eraser is obviously a type of eraser, and a black board is obviously a type of board

We can reflect this nicely in a right-headed hierarchical structure:

N

N

Adj N Nblack board eraser

Semantics often helpSemantics often help

Compound stressCompound stress How are the following compounds

stressed? government tax inspector engine fault detection mechanism

How do the stress patterns change according to the meaning/grouping?

Does the stress pattern relate to the meaning and constituent structure?

Chomsky, Halle, and Lukoff 1956: Compound stress contours can be generated from

hierarchical structure via a simple set of cyclic (recursive) rules1. Work outward from inside (most nested)2. Mark stress of first constituent as primary3. Demote remainder by one degree

black board eraser

Conclusion: compounds have hierarchical structure If they didn’t, we’d have no explanation for the predictability

of their stress patterns

word stress 1 1 1

cpd stress cycle 1 1 2

cpd stress cycle 2 1 3 2

Compound stressCompound stress

What about in What about in less clear less clear

situations?situations?e.g. “illegality”

Selectional restrictionsSelectional restrictions Semantic

un- cannot attach to adjectives that already have a negative connotation:

unhappy vs. *unsad (actually used in Chaucer) unhealthy vs. *unsick unclean vs. *undirty

Syntactic -ness attaches only to adjectives (happiness vs *dogness)

Morphological -ion attaches only to Latinate bases (decision vs *choosion)

Phonological -er cannot attach to words of more than two syllables

happy, happier competent, *competenter

Selectional restrictionsSelectional restrictions Application to difficult cases

Basic principle: if an affix with a selectional restriction forms a legitimate word, it must be attaching to a constituent that satisfies its selectional restrictions

Example: [[illegal]ity] or [il[legality]]? /in-/ ‘not X’ attaches to Latinate adjectives

illogical vs *illogic legal is an Adj, legality is a N; therefore…

Interesting aspects Interesting aspects of hierarchical of hierarchical morphological morphological

structurestructure

1. Irregulars in compounds2. Headedness and saturation3. Residual issues

Irregular plurals in Irregular plurals in compoundscompounds 2 popular generalizations about English

compounds:1. Inflection only appears on final member of constituent

Heads: fox(*es) hunting, stir(*red) fried Non-heads: burrito supremes, whopper juniors

2. The one exception is when the non-head takes irregular inflection mice catchers 140 : mouse catchers 480 rat catchers c. 40,000 : rats catchers 8

Possible counterexamples: systems analyst, parks supervisor, salesman

Why might this be? Kiparsky’s theory:

irregulars stored in lexicon Inflection dealt with after derivation (more on this in M-P

interactions lecture)

Irregular plurals in Irregular plurals in compounds Icompounds I A systematic exception to Kiparsky’s

generalization: Most humans allow irregular plurals only in plural

compounds teeth mark 786 : tooth marks 13,400 : teeth marks 39,700 women writers vs *women writer

This appears to be an instance of saturative affixation…

Saturative affixationSaturative affixation eye poker outer, quicker picker upper…

Always involves verb + particle constructions blew dried, didn’t used to (294K google hits) Your guys’(s), George’s and my book Preferred with exocentric constituents?

Barbie of Swan Lake: Plush Lila the Unicorn with Magical

Glowing Horn

"Well the annual list of Most Dangerous Holiday Toys is out, Number one this year: Mattel's new toy 'Eye Poker Outer'."

From Eugene O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon

An interesting case study An interesting case study What is the plural of freshman adviser?

Irregular plurals in Irregular plurals in compounds IIcompounds II Toronto Maple Leafs c. 4.4 million : Leaves 240 Flew out to third 6 : Flied out to third 57 Again exocentricity appears to be involved

Morphological features can percolate down to head, but (typically) not to non-head

Typology of feature Typology of feature percolationpercolation When there’s a constituent head:

percolation to head (snowmen) When there’s no head:

No percolation (Maple Leafs, flied out) Saturation (blew dried, women writers)

ConclusionsConclusions There is ample evidence in English for

hierarchical organization of morphological structure, parallel to what we find in syntax and phonology.

Morphological headedness, a central component of this hierarchical structure, appears to play an important role in explaining a number of oddities of English morphology.

Residual questionsResidual questions Do selectional restrictions hold only

over the head of a compound? ?unrulier

Bracketing paradoxes Transformational grammarian Can’t be analogy: cf *substandard grammarian

We will hopefully deal with these in the M-P lecture

ReferencesReferencesBerent, I., Pinker, S., Ghavami, G., Murphy, S.

(under review) The Dislike of Regular Plurals in Compounds: Phonological Familiarity or Morphological Constraint?

Chomsky, Noam, Morris Halle, and F. Lukoff. 1956. On accent and juncture in English. In For Roman Jakobson. The Hague: Mouton.

Blew driedBlew dried 223 hits on Google So we went inside, had a party in the bathroom, some girls blew dried

their hair, then just went into my room and blasted ....March of Flames and then the boys took over the bathroom and blew dried their hair, taking much longer than we did, haha madness! www.livejournal.com/users/ablurredreality/44161.html

2pl possessive2pl possessive From my dialect survey (www3.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/linguistics/survey):

Google as of 12/10/06: You guys(‘) place 11,500 Your guys(’) place 583 Your guys’s place 43 You guys’s place 3

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you guys's you guys' your guys's your guys' nothing

Used e.g. in Napoleon Dynamite