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Morphology

Learn about the different categories and subclasses of nouns, including countable and uncountable nouns. Explore the morphological features and characteristics that define these nouns.

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Morphology

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  1. Morphology Morphology 1

  2. a morpheme • the smallest unit of grammatical analysis. Morphology 1

  3. MORPHEMES • inflectional work – work(-s) work – work (-ed) • paradigm • derivational read + -er un- + tie Morphology 1

  4. inflectional rules - relate different forms of the same lexeme (an abstract kind of word of which the word forms are all inflectional variants) • word-formation - relates two different lexemes. Morphology 1

  5. word-formation: • derivation and compounding Morphology 1

  6. DERIVATION • different words with a shared base. • WORD CLASSES (primary grammatical categories) • CONVERSION (or ZERO DERIVATION): • word passing from one word class to another (or several others) without taking any affix Morphology 1

  7. NOUNS Morphology 1

  8. What is a noun? Morphology 1

  9. A noun tells us what someone or something is called. • a noun can be: the name of a person (John) a job title ( a doctor) the name of a thing ( radio) the name of a place ( London) the name of a quality (courage) the name of an action (laughter/laughing). • Nouns are the names we give to people, things, places etc. in order to identify them Morphology 1

  10. Nouns are designators used to refer to objects (referents) of extralinguistic reality. Morphology 1

  11. The word class of nouns may be characterized by a set of • a/ syntactic • b/morphological • c/ semantic criteria. Morphology 1

  12. morphological point of view: • nouns are characterized by grammatical categories (sometimes called secondary grammatical categories) which are actually certain generalizations which are made about the properties that nouns exhibit. Morphology 1

  13. These generalizations are such that they should be applicable to all items, yet some tolerance (exceptions to the rule) is admissible. Morphology 1

  14. English nouns exhibit categories of countability number determination gender case Morphology 1

  15. SUBCLASSES OF NOUNS A / represent unique specimens (examples) or classes of entities – PROPER vs. COMMON nouns B/ refer to concrete (perceivable by senses) objects or abstract concepts – CONCRETE vs ABSTRACT nouns. C/ denote individual countable things or undifferentiated substances that represent continuums – COUNTABLE vs UNCOUNTABLE nouns. Morphology 1

  16. PROPER NOUNS COUNT ABSTRACT COMMON CONCRETE UNCOUNT/ MASS ABSTRACT CONCRETE Morphology 1

  17. NOUN CATEGORIES: COUNTABILITY : Morphology 1

  18. The category of countability is defined by the presence of the binary opposition of countability vs. uncountability which English nouns manifest. Morphology 1

  19. COUNT (COUNTABLE) • UNCOUNT (UNCOUNTABLE, non-count, mass). Morphology 1

  20. The entities which count nouns refer to are characterized by discreteness (separateness),disccontinuity and articulateness, while things which are referred to by the uncount nouns are characterized by continuity (connectedness) and non-articulateness. Morphology 1

  21. The discontinuity of count nouns allows for their quantitative differentiation, hence they offer themselves a countable use. • The continuity of uncount (mass)nouns allows for their qualitative differentiation only. Morphology 1

  22. two subclasses have different grammatical features • – count nouns - take plural forms (bottle –bottles) - combine freely with quantifiers and a/an (three bottles, each bottle, a bottle) • uncountnouns - do not Morphology 1

  23. Count and uncount nouns can be differentiated according to the following criteria: Morphology 1

  24. Morphology 1

  25. There are three subclasses of nouns, which do not have strict boundaries between them but rather tend to overlap in some areas: Morphology 1

  26. nouns which are in principle count (chair, idea) Morphology 1

  27. nouns which are as a rule uncount (luck, the beautiful) • some of them (when modified)may be accompanied by a determiner (a fair knowledge of English Morphology 1

  28. 2. Nouns which can be systematically used as uncount or count: Morphology 1

  29. a material substance vs. an item of that substancecoal/ a coal • (with abstract nouns ) an activity, quality, state as such vs. their individual occurrenceslife/lives • A matter vs a type (sort) of that matter (food/foods) • A quality vs a bearer of the quality (love/ a love) • Many nouns have quite different meanings in the two uses (glass/glasses) Morphology 1

  30. Although uncount nouns are themselves invariable for plural contrast, they may combine with some auxiliary expressions(unit nouns), which thus subdivide masses into separate pieces which can then be counted (an act of mercy, a lump of sugar.) Morphology 1

  31. These unit nouns (partitives) are of several types: Morphology 1

  32. a/ general-purpose unit nouns (bit,piece) combinable with most mass nouns (a piece of cake) • b/ unit nouns typical for particular mass nouns (a blade of grass, a speck of dust, a fit of anger) • c/ nouns of measure-depth (a foot of water), length (a yard of cloth), weight (an ounce of tobacco), area (an acre of land), volume (a pint of beer) • d/ species nouns (a type of wood, a make of car, a kind of behaviour) Morphology 1

  33. NUMBER • The grammatical category of number is distinguished only in count nouns (VARIABLES) • They are either in the singular or in the plural. • The marked member of the opposition is the plural. Morphology 1

  34. The plural normally indicates that the objects referred to can be counted and that their number is higher than one. • The singular either has the meaning of one-ness, or, as the unmarked member of the opposition, is generally used when counting is irrelevant. Morphology 1

  35. Pairs like the singular and plural are called asymmetric oppositions. One member of such an opposition carries a sign which is not present in the other member. Morphology 1

  36. : VARIABLE NOUNS: Morphology 1

  37. a/ Regular plurals -(e) s – the only productive, hence predictable, plural ending • /iz/ - horse, glass (after sibilants) - • /z/ - boy, hill, leg – after voiced consonants (except z, ž, dž ) and vowels • /s/ - cat, book– after voiceless consonants (except s, š and tč) Morphology 1

  38. b/ Irregular plurals - unproductive Morphology 1

  39. 1. Voicing – change of voiceless fricatives (not after short vowels or consonants : cloths, months) and f (also the spelling change) into the corresponding voiced fricatives • House – houses • Bath – baths • Life – lives • In some nouns, both regular and voicing may alternate • Truths • Dwarfs/dwarves • Some nouns ending in –f have regular ending • Safe – safes Morphology 1

  40. 2. Mutation (umlaut) applies to only seven nouns and their compounds • Man- men • Foot – feet • Goose – geese • Louse – lice • Mouse – mice • Tooth – teeth • Woman – women Morphology 1

  41. 3. –en pluralis restricted to three nouns • Brother - brethren • Ox – oxen • Child – children Morphology 1

  42. 4. Zero pluralcases include animal names, esp. in the context of sport or hunting • Trout are scarce in the creek (sheep) • nationality names ending in – ese (Japanese, Chinese) • some quantitative nouns – (fifty head of buffalo) • miscellaneous examples with equivocal number (data, series, species) Morphology 1

  43. 5. Foreign plural – some nouns of Latin, Greek, French origin have retained their original plural endings. Where both foreign an regular – s plurals are available, the former is used in specialized, technical contexts, and the latter in everyday language (cacti/cactuses). Foreign nouns which are in common use tend to have – s plural. Morphology 1

  44. - us -i, -ora, -era ( radius, corpus, genus) • - a -ae ( larva) • - um - a (stratum) • -ex/ix - ices (matrix) • -is - es (thesis) • -on - a (criterion) • - eau - eaux (tableau) • - o - i (tempo) • Base + im (cherub) Morphology 1

  45. B: INVARIABLE NOUNS- uncount (mass) nouns, along with proper nouns Morphology 1

  46. a/ singular invariables Morphology 1

  47. 1. mass nouns concrete (gold) • 2. mass nouns abstract (music) • - Some uncount nouns may be pluralized when expressing intensity or extent (This is one of the heavies snows this winter). • 3.Proper nouns (personal and geographical ) denote unique entities and behave like uncount nouns, though surnames may be pluralized (the Kennedys) • 4.Some nouns ending in –s include the names of diseases (shingles), games (skittlers), subjects in –ics (linguistics) and some proper nouns (Brussels) • 5.Abstract adjectival heads denoting abstract qualities (the ridiculous,)) are partially converted adjectives to nouns Morphology 1

  48. SINGULARIA TANTUM - have only singular form and usually singular concord with the verb Morphology 1

  49. b/ Plural invariables Morphology 1

  50. Summation plurals – denote objects (instruments, articles of dress)which consist of two equal parts (scissors, briefs) Morphology 1

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