Lec. II The Morphology of English

1. Lec. IIThe Morphology of English

2. Morphology • The study of the internal structure of words. • We will use the term word loosely.

3. Definition of Morpheme • A Morpheme is a short segment of langauge that meets three criteria: • 1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning. • It cannot be dividede into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or witout meaningless remainders. • It recurs in differing verbal environments with a relatively stable meaning.

4. For example, • 1. • The word straight • raight---rate • aight---ate • 2. • Brighten = make light • Excercise 8-1 p 88

5. Free and Bound Morphemes • A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning • A bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning. • It is always annexed to one or more morphemes to form a word • It is possible for a word to consist entirely of bound morphemes. • Excercise 8-3 P 89

6. Bases • another classification of morphemesputsthemintotwo classes: bases and affixes • A base morphemeis the part of the wordthat has the principal meaning. • Ex. denial, lovable • Bases are verynumerousiandmost of them are free morphemes, but some are bound, such as –sent in dissent, consent. • A wordmaycontain one base and one or more affixes. Ex. readability • Excercise 8-4 P.89

7. Bound Bases • Bound bases are sometimes hard to attach a precise meaning. • A number of the bases in english come from Latin and Greek. • Ex. –sent- • Sentiment, consent, resent • -sent here means ‘feel’ • A a base may have more than one phonetic form. Look at the previous examples of –sent. • Excercise 8-5 P. 90

8. The American heritage Dictionary has these enties, phot, photo (light)-biblio- (book)- -meter (measuring device)- tele-tel- (distance)-mis-, miso- (hatred)-bio- (life) • Excercise 8-6 P. 90

9. Affixes • An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before or within or affter a base. • There are three kinds: prefixes, infixes and suffixes • Prefixes are bound morphmes that occur before a base. They are a small class numbering a bout 75. ex. ? • There meanings are often those of english adverbials and prepositions. • Excercise 8-8

10. Infixes are bound morphemes that have been inserted within a word. • English does not have infixes • There are few exceptions • Un get at able • Also might be considered as infixes the replacive vowels in some noun plurals or pt and pp forms. (replacive allomorphs)

11. Suffixes • Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base. • Ex. ? • Suffixes may pile up to the number of 3 or 4, whreas prefixes are commonly single except for the negative un- before another prefix. • Normalizers • Excercises 8-9, 8-10

12. Inflectional suffixes • {-s pl} • {- sg ps} • {-s pl ps} • {-s 3d} • {-ing vb} • {-D pt} • {D pp} • { -er cp} • {-est sp}

13. The words to which these suffixes are attached are called stems. • The stem includes the base or bases and all the derivational affixes. • The chart of IN suffixes does not contain alternate forms that are sometimes used for the plural, past tense, or past participle. • Ex. Oxen—mice—sang—sung.

14. The overlapping form –ed for both the pt and pp does not normally cause a problem for interpretation. • WHY? THE GRAMMATICAL CONTEXT OF THE TWO IS DIFFERENT. • The IN suffix –en is listed here as an alternate for pp –ed • because it occurs with a number of irregular verbs, and because it serves to distinguish the pt from the pp.

15. The inflectional suffixes differ from the derivational suffixes in the following ways, to which there are exceptions. • They do not change the part of speech. Ex. Long-longer • They come last in a word. Ex. waited. • They go with all stems of a given part of speech. Ex. He eats, drinks, plays..etc. • They do not pile up. ##--An exception here is the {-s pl ps}

16. Derivational Suffixes • English has a large supply of derivational suffixes. • DS consist of all the suffixes that are not inflectional.

17. The Most Important Characteristics of DS: • 1. The wordswithwhichderivational suffixes combine is an arbitrarymatter. • Ex. adorn—adornment • Fail-failure • 2. aderivationalsuffix changes the part of speech of the word to whichitisadded. • Ex. act-active – activate • 3. Derivational suffixes do not usually close off a word. Ex. norm—normal-normalize—normalizer--normalizers

18. The Derivational Paradigm • The derivationalparadigmis a set relatedwordscomposed of the same base morpheme and all the derivational affixes thatcan go withit. • Ex. man-manly-manhood-manikin-manliness-manful.

19. SUFFIXAL HOMOPHONES 1. The inflectional morpheme {-er cp} has two homophones: • {-er n} • {-er rp} 2. the inflectional suffix {-ing vb} has two homophones: • {-ing nm} • {-er aj}

20. There are two tests by which the verbal suffix {-ingvb} canbedistinguishedfrom the adjectival {-ingaj} • 1. the {-ingvb} canoccurafter as well as before the nounit modifies, ex. • I saw a burning house • I saw the house burning • 2. the {-ingaj} canbepreceded by a quantifier such as very, quite, by the cp or spwords more ad most, or by seemsEx. itis a verycomfortingthought. • That snakeseemsinteresting.

21. The derivationalsuffix {-ly av} has the homophone {-lyaj}. • The derivationalsuffix {-lyaj} isdistributed as follows: • 1. itisadded to monosyllabicnouns to form adjectives that are inflectedwith –er or –est. Ex. lovely, friendly • 2. itisadded to nouns to form adjectives that are not inflectedwith –er or –est. Ex. kingly, motherly

22. 3. itisadded to few adj, givingalternate adjectival formsthat are inflectedwith –er or –est. Ex. deadly, lively 4. itisadded to a short list of ‘time’ nouns to form adj. Ex. daily, hourly.

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