LIN 1310B Introduction to Linguistics

1. CLASS 7, Jan 26, 2007 LIN 1310BIntroduction to Linguistics Prof: Nikolay Slavkov TA: Qinghua Tang

2. Today • Announcements and Reminders: -finish reading Chapter 4. -assignment 1 due next Tuesday, January 30, before class. -assignment 1: preferably typed (trees handwritten). -Test 1 is on Tuesday, Feb 6. It will cover basic linguistic concepts and morphology. • Today’s Lecture: -Review from last time -Continue with morphology

3. Review from last time • Compounding: definition, headedness, properties. • NB! compounds have heads (a head is a word). the individual words that make up the compound have roots. • Compounds are words! They are just made up of other words. • Inflection: English inflection; other languages; stem vs. base vs. root.

4. Inflection vs. derivation Three criteria for distinguishing between inflection and derivation: 1) category change; 2) order; 3) productivity. Criterion I Category change • Inflection does not change the meaning and results in category change: E.g. book + s = books N N walk + ed = walked V  V smart + er = smarter A  A

5. Inflection vs. derivation • Derivation changes the meaning and may (but does not have to) result in category change: E.g. agree + able = agreeable V  A continent + al = continental N  A govern + ment = government V  N yellow + ish = yellowish A  A king + dom = kingdom N  N un+do = undo V  V re+work = rewodk V  V in-consistent = inconsistent A  A • So we cannot distinguish 100% between derivation and inflection based on category change only. However, the point to remember is that inflection does not change the category. • Note that we are talking about the category of the STEM to which inflection applies: E.g. modernizaton + s (modernizaion = stem = N).

6. Inflection vs. derivation Criterion II Order: Inflectional affixes always apply after derivational affixes. E.g. king + dom + s = kingdoms king + s + dom = *kingsdom re-group-ing-s = regroupings re-group-s-ing = *regroupsing

7. Inflection vs. derivation Criterion III Productivity: • Inflection is much more productive than derivation. That is, derivational suffixes are subject to more constraints and apply to fewer bases. Inflectional suffixes, typically apply across the board (with a few exceptions though).

8. Inflection vs. derivation Productivity: let’s compare -ment and pl. -s government books, chairs, laptops, governments, accompaniment tables, folders, printer, screens, fingers, procurement offices, managers, universities, labs, shipment dogs, cats, clouds, keyboards, etc. *walkment *mouses, *mans, *womens, *foots, *teachment *leafs, *tooths, *gooses, etc. *sufficement *modernizement, etc. • While there are some exceptions, inflectional suffixes apply much more productively than derivational suffixes. I.e. derivational suffixes are “picky” with regard to the base they attach to. • N.B.! By saying that inflectional suffixes are productive, we don’t mean to say that they can attach to different lexical categories! They still attach to a particular lexical category, but are very productive in attaching to that category.

9. How inflection is marked • In English, inflection is typically marked by affixation (suffixation to be precise). However, there are some other ways in which English marks inflection as well. Also, other languages may have many different ways of marking inflection.

10. How inflection is marked • Internal change: a process in which a segment of a morpheme changes (usually a vowel) to mark a grammatical contrast. E.g. sing – sang drink – drank drive – drove foot – feet goose – geese Note that internal change is different from infixation (p. 116 of text)!

11. How inflection is marked • Suppletion: a morpheme is replaced by an entirely different morpheme to mark a grammatical contrast. E.g. be – am – are - is – was, etc. good – better bad – worse

12. How inflection is marked Suppletion in some European languages (p. 117 of text)

13. How inflection is marked • Suppletion or Internal change??? think – thought sink – sought bring – brought -Only one or two segments of the original morpheme are preserved in the past tense. With internal change, usually, the change is not so drastic. -So perhaps, we have a case of suppletion? But at the same time, in suppletion, usually, an entirely new morpheme is used, whereas in the examples above there is some resemblance between the pairs of morphemes. => Typically these forms are considered an extreme form of internal change. However, some linguists also use the term partial suppletion.

14. How inflection is marked • Reduplication: a morphological process in which part of the base, or the whole base is repeated to indicate a grammatical or semantic contrast. • Partial reduplication copies only part of the base. Full reduplication copies the whole base.

15. How inflection is marked Examples of reduplication (p. 117 of text) English: itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny ??? (see p. 118 of text)

16. How inflection is marked • Tone placement

17. Other inflectional phenomena: Case and Agreement • Case: Change in a word’s form to indicate its role in the sentence (subject, direct object, indirect object) or some specific meaning (e.g. possession, direction of movement, instrument or means, etc.)

18. Some common cases and their meaning/function English does not have morphological case marking except for GEN ’s and pronouns.

19. Cases in Latin

20. Case and Word Order Russian: Ivanø zakrivaet knigu Knigu zakrivaet Ivanø Ivan.nom close.3sg book.acc book.acc close.3sg. I.nom ‘Ivan closes the book’ Lit: Book closes Ivan ‘Ivan closes the book’ • Russian can ‘afford’ to switch the place of the subject (‘doer’) and the object (‘sufferer’) with the sentence remaining grammatical and the original meaning preserved. English cannot ‘afford’ this because it doesn’t have case marking: John closed the book vs. The book closed John John hit Mary vs. Mary hit John

21. Case in English pronouns I hit her vs. *I hit she She hit John vs. *Her hit John This is my book vs. *This is I book mine, yours ??? => The ungrammatical examples show that English pronouns are case-marked. I.e. if the wrong case is inserted in a given position, the sentence becomes ungrammatical.

22. Other inflectional phenomena: Agreement • Agreement: one word is inflected to match the properties of another word in a phrase or sentence. E.g. He walks every day vs. *He walk every day. => English 3rd sg -s is an agreement marker. Without it the sentence becomes ungrammatical.

23. Agreement • French verbs agree with the subject: Je mange, nous mangeons, etc. • Agreement does not have to be only on verbs. E.g. French adjectives: • un grand homme, deux grands hommes • une grande femme, deux grandes femmes - un grand homme

24. Agreement Swahili. Describe the agreement pattern in the data below: mtoto mtoto mmoja mdogo ‘child’ ‘one small child’ watoto watoto watatu wadogo ‘children’ ‘three small children’ => Number agreement: m- sg; wa- pl.