Chapter 3 Morphology

2. Chapter 3 Morphology

3. Aims • To get a general idea of some features of word； • To understand word-formation processes; • To get a general idea of morphology and morphemes; • To understand morphological description.

4. Think back how the elementary students or ten-year-old children memorize the following English words? What about you, a university English major? sharpeners, legitimate, respectively, transcription, other-worldly, unsuccessful, antidisestablishmentariansim

5. Basic Theories of Morphology Morphology, as a branch of linguistics, is the study of the internal structure, forms and classes of words.

6. What is Word? • Lexicon-----Vocanbulary----Word • Lexicon in linguistics refers to vocabulary contrasted with grammar. • Vocabulary is the total number of words that make up a language.

7. Three senses of “word” • A physically definable unit : a cluster of sound segments or letters between two pauses or blanks, e.g. • Phonological: [it iz ‵wVndEfEl] • Orthographic: It is wonderful. • Three words are recognized.

8. Three senses of “word” • However, in casual speech or writing, it often becomes: • Phonological: [its ‵wVndEfEl] • Orthographic: It’s wonderful. • Are they two words or three?

9. Three senses of “word” • The common factor underlying a set of forms. • walk, walks, walking, walked

10. Three senses of “word” • A grammatical unit: a comparably abstract unit to be set up to show how words work in the grammar of a language sentence clause phrase word morpheme • Problem: blackboard

11. What is Word? a. Word is the smallest meaningful unit in the language which can be used independently. (戚雨村，1999) b. Word is the unit that unifies the sound, sense and grammar. It is the basic structural unit of a sentence. (陆国强，1983) c. Word is a unit of expression that has universal intuitive recognition by native speakers, whether it is expressed in spoken or written form. (胡壮麟)

12. What is Word? • Every word has a fixed sound form and a certain meaning. In other words, a word has two aspects: the external aspect (sound), the internal aspect (meaning). • A word is a unity of sound and meaning. • A word is a fundamental structure unit of a sentence. • The relation between the meaning of a word and its sound is arbitrary or conventional.

13. Identification of Words • Stability Words are the most stable of all linguistics units, that is the constituent parts of a complex word have potential for rearrangement. • Relative uninterruptibility By uninterruptibility, we mean new elements are not to be inserted a word even when there are several parts.

14. Identification of Words • A minimum free form This was first suggested by Leonard Bloomfield. He advocated treating sentence as the maximum free form and word the minimum free form. Word is the smallest unit that can constitute, by itself, a complete utterance. e.g. —Is Jane coming tonight? —Possibly. — Hi. — Wonderful.

15. In the grammar course, words can be classified into A and B. What’s A? What’s B?

16. Classification of Words • Variable and invariable words Words can be classified according to their variability. Variable words refer to those having different inflections, whereas invariable words refer to those having no inflective forms, e.g. care look before careful looks rarely careless looking always carefulness looked for carelessness since

17. Classification of Words • Grammatical words and lexical words • In terms of meaning expressed by words, they can be classified into grammatical words and lexical words. • Grammatical words are those express grammatical meaning, such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns. These words serve to link different parts together, so they are also known as functional words.

18. Classification of Words • Lexical words are those have lexical meanings, those refer to substance, action and quality, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. There words carry the main content of a language, so they are also known as content words.

19. Classification of Words • Closed-class words and open-class words • A closed-class word is one whose membership is fixed or limited. • New members are not regularly added. Conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns etc., are all closed items.

20. Classification of Words • An open-class word is one whose membership is in principle infinite or unlimited. • With the emergence of new ideas, inventions, new expressions are continually and constantly being added to the lexicon. Nouns, verb, adjectives, adverbs are all open-class items.

21. Classification of Words • Word Class (PARTS OF SPEECH in traditional grammar) • PARTICLES: • the infinitive marker ”to”, • the negative marker “not”, • the subordinate unites in phrasal verb, such as “get by(to continue) ”do up(to fasten) ”...

22. Classification of Words • AUXILIARIES • AUXILIARIES used to be regarded as verbs because of their unique properties, nowadays, linguists tend to define them as separate word class. • Negation: I can’t come. • Inversion: Is he coming? • Emphasis: He ‘has come

23. Classification of Words • PRO-FORM • In order to refer collectively to the items in a sentence which substitute for other items or constructions, linguists define them as a separate word class. • Your pen is red. So is hers.(pro-adjective) • He knows English better than he did.(pro-verb) • She hopes her mother will win and I hope so.(pro-adverb) • Tom is hiding there, behind the door.(pro-locative)

24. iv. Determiners

25. The following phrases are incorrect. Please correct them in pairs. • *their all trouble • *five the all boys • *all this boy • *five all girls

26. Morpheme • Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language for grammatical analysis. • A morpheme is the basic unit in the study of morphology. • Every morpheme has meaning, either lexical or grammatical. • A single word may consist of one or more morphemes.

27. Morpheme • A morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function. • E.g. Tourists: -tour (one minimal unit) -ist (meaning “person who does something”) -s (a third unit of grammatical function indicating plurality)

28. Example: • boyish boy: a young, male human being -ish: having the quality of boyish: having the quality of a young, male human being • a word over 5 morphemes Antdisestablishmentarianism Anti+dis+establish+ment+ari+an+ism (国家对教会不予承认论, 国教废除论)

29. Morphemes that can stand alone as words are called Free Morphemes. • Morphemes that must be attached to another one are called Bound Morphemes. • Now, in the word “boys” 1) which morpheme is free? 2) which one is bound?

30. Root: the base form of a word that cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity, e.g. friend as in unfriendliness. • Roots may be • free: those that can stand by themselves, e.g. black+board; nation+-al; or • bound: those that cannot stand by themselves, e.g. -ceive in receive, perceive, conceive.

31. Base: a morpheme to which an affix is added, e.g. • friend root = base • friendly root/base + suffix > base • unfriendly prefix + base > base • unfriendliness prefix + base + suffix > base

32. Stem: a morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix may be added, e.g. friend+-s; write+-ing, possibility+-es. • Inflection: grammatical endings, e.g. plural, tense, comparative, etc. • Derivation: combination of a base and an affix to form a new word, e.g. friend+-ly > friendly.

33. Affix: the type of formative that can be used only when added to another morpheme. Normally divided into • prefix (dis-, un-) • suffix (-en, -ify). • Infix (feet)

34. Bound morphemes can be classified into two categories: • Derivational morphemes recite---recitation---recital • Inflectional morphemes boy’s, toys, walked

35. Eight inflectional morphemes • –‘s (possessive) • –s (plural) • –s (3rd person present singular) • –ing (present participle) • –ed (past tense) • –ed (past participle) • –en (past participle) • –est and –er (superlative and comparative degree)

36. Lexicalmorphemes are called an open class of words because we can create new lexical morphemes . • Functional morphemes are called a closed class of words.

37. The chart of the different categories of morphemes • Lexical morphemes (work, house, kind) • Free morphemes • Functional morphemes (and, if, or, but) • Derivational morphemes (-er, -ness, -ly) • Bound morphemes • Inflectional morphemes (-ed, -er, -est)

39. Morphological rules of word formation • The ways words are formed are called morphological rules. Ex: un + inhabit + able (un + adj = not – adjective) un + decided (un + adj form derived from a verb) • Some morphological rules can be productive but some are less.

40. Compounds: stringing words together • Same category: landlady, blue-black, icy-cold • Category changed keeping the grammatical category of the final word: head-strong, pickpocket • Compounds have different stress patterns from the noncompounded word sequence, `redcoat, `greenhouse; red `coat, green `house

41. The meaning of a compound is not always the sum of the meanings of its parts. For example, redcoat (在美国独立战争中服役的英国士兵), bigwig (有重大影响的人), highbrow, jack-in-a-box (a tropical tree), turncoat (a tractor) • Compounding is then a very common and frequent process for enlarging the vocabulary of the English language.

42. Lexical Change • Lexical change proper（特有词汇变化） • Phonological change • Morpho-syntactical change • Semantic change

43. Give examples of English words are borrowed from other languages?

44. Lexical Change • Invention With the development of economy and science and technology, new words spring up like mushrooms, e.g. clone, e-mail, plasma television, VCD, DVD, DJ, skyscraper, dry-wash, shampoo, digital watch, digital television, broad band, modem, basic language, multimedia resource centers, computer support services, disk, UFO etc.

45. Lexical Change • Invention/Coinage • Mostly brand names: • Kodak, Coke, nylon, Band-aid, Xerox, Lycra

46. Lexical Change • Blending（拼缀法） Blending is a relatively complex form of compounding, in which two words are blended by joining the initial part of the first word and the final part of the second word, or by joining the initial parts of the two words.

47. Blending • transfer+resistor>transistor • smoke+fog>smog • motorist+hotel>motel • breakfast+lunch>brunch • modulator+demodulator>modem • dance+exercise>dancercise • advertisement+editorial>advertorial • education+entertainment>edutainment • information+commercial>infomercial

48. Lexical Change Abbreviation: also called clipping, a new word is created by • cutting the final part. advertisement ad bicycle bike brassiere bra delicatessen deli professor prof television telly

49. cutting the initial part areoplane plane helicopter copter caravan van omnibus bus telephone phone • cutting both the initial and final parts influenza flu refrigerator fridge detective tec

50. Lexical Change • Acronym（缩略语） Acronym is made up from the first letters of the name of an organization, which has a heavily modified headword. e.g. BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation VOA: Voice of America GMT: Greenwich Mean time IOC: International Olympic Committee ISBN: International Standard Book Number UN: the United Nations OPEC: Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries