Topic 2: Morphology

1. Topic 2: Morphology Wu Heping MA Program in Linguistics and Language teaching Northwest Normal University Wuhpnet.googlepages.com/linguistics Group.google.com/group/linguistics_nwnu Lanzhou 2006

2. Knowledge of words: what do we mean by knowing a word? • Open and closed class • Definitions of key notion • The hierarchical architecture of words • English word formation • Morphology and lexicon

3. Knowledge of Words • A child of 6 knows 13,000 words. • Average high school graduate knows about 60,000 words. • Webster’s Third International Dictionary of the English Language has over 450,000 entries. • One can learn thousands of words in a language and still not know the language. • To know a word means to know aspects of a word: sound, meaning, spelling, grammatical properties, collocations, connotations, context, etymology, etc. • But what is crucial is to segment from a string of sounds a basic unit of meaning, like Isleptfortenhoursyesterday. • To know a word thus means the ability to map a string of sounds with a particular meaning and specific grammatical properties.

4. Two classes of words • Open class: lexical categories • Closed class: grammatical categories • Definitions of the key notions: • Morphology, morpheme, lexicon, inflection, derivation

5. Types of words: open class Lexical categories-"name" things and describe actions and ideas

6. Types of words: closed class Grammatical categories- express relations

7. Definitions • Morphology: The study of words and the rules for word formation in (a) language. • Central Issue: how people make up and understand words they have never encountered before.

8. Definitions • Morpheme: The smallest part of a word that carries meaning. • Lexicon: A dictionary. Speakers have a "mental lexicon" in which the phonological form of a word is represented associated with its lexical category.

9. Definitions "content" morphemes… words that "name" things and describe actions and ideas ex: "sing, purse, rabbit ...”, or any morpheme we add to a word to change it into a different part of speech “-ly, -er, ...” like “happy (adj.)  happily (adv.)”, drive (v.)  driver (n.)” "function" morphemes… grammatical words -- words that help us construct sentences and phrases which join words into ideas, like prepositions ('in', 'of', 'on') articles ('the', 'an'),

10. Morphemes • …the smallest part of a word with independent meaning. • apple • here • there • help • helped • helps • helping • unhelpful help + ed help + s help + ing un + help + ful

11. Morphemes Productivity one morpheme: taste two morphemes: taste+ful three morphemes: dis+taste+ful four morphemes: dis+taste+ful+ly

12. Definitions • Bound morpheme: morphemes that cannot stand alone, but must be attached to other morphemes. They can be further classified according to • 1). where they attach, • prefixation • suffixation • 2). what function they perform • derivational (changes the part of speech and • attaches to a root) • inflectional (modifies the grammatical form • and attaches to a stem) • Free morphemes: morphemes that can occur as an • independent word. • e.g. careless, lesser, lesson • probable, possible

13. Definitions • Affix: The general term for morphemes attached to a word. Four kinds of affixes: • Prefix -- beginning of word • Infix -- internal to the word • Suffix -- end of word • Circumfix -- "around" a word (both ends)

14. Definitions • Root, Stem, or base: the free morpheme to which an affix is attached. • -- root: cannot be analyzed into smaller parts • (system, cran, boy, Chomsky) • --stem: root combined with a bound, derivational affix • (Chomskyite, believeable)

15. Affixes Prefixes English: in+, dis+, un+, etc. in+ability dis+ability un+able in+consistent dis+member un+tangle in+sufficient dis+place un+happy Isthmus Zapotec: ka+ zigi "chin" ka+zigi "chins" zike "shoulder” ka+zige "shoulders" diaga "ear" ka+diaga "ears"

16. Affixes Infixes Tagalog: +um+ bili b+um+ili "buy" "to buy" sulat s+um+ulat "write" "to write" kuha k+um+uha "take” "to take”

17. Affixes • Suffixes • English: +ment, +ly, +stance • judg+ment brief+ly clock+wise • establish+ment happi+ly method+wise • abandon+ment angri+ly • In English, the roles played the prefix and suffix are different • Prefix: change the semantic content of the word • Suffix: change the grammatical category of the word

18. Affixes • Circumfixes • Chickasaw: ik+…+o • chokma ik+chokm+o • "he is good” "he isn't good" • lakna ik+lakn+o • "it is yellow” "it isn't yellow" • palli ik+pall+o • "it is hot” "it isn't hot” • tiwwi ik+tiww+o • "he opens (it)” "he doesn't open (it)"

19. The hierarchical architecture of words • Morphological rules: rules about how a new word is derived. • Adj+ify=verb • V+ment=noun • Rules can be represented by a tree diagram, which shows the hierarchical structure of a word

20. Rules can be represented by a tree diagram, which shows the hierarchical structure of a word • V+-tion=N • De-+V=V • Adj+-ize=v • N+-al=adj • …

21. English word-formation • Affixation, derivation: examination, decontextualize • Compounding: green back, green line, green hand, greenhouse • Conversion: take a walk, to dog sb, to father a child. • Backformation: edit, beg • Clipping: exam, bus • Blending: • Coinage: Xerox • Borrowing: Kungfu, kowtow,

22. Definitions Derivational morphemes: morphemes which make or "derive" a new word, sometimes changing the lexical category of the word. (e.g., count+able, re+produce) Inflectional morphemes: morphemes that indicate grammatical roles, not changing the lexical meaning of the word. (e.g., walk+s, walk+ing)

23. Inflectional Morphemes • Grammatical markers (tense, number, gender, case) • Always attached to complete words

24. Inflectional Morphemes English Inflectional Morphemes -s third person singular present -ed past tense -ing progressive -en past participle -s plural -’s possessive -er comparative -est superlative

25. Hierarchical Structure of Words

26. Hierarchical Structure of Words Derivational affixes: English adjective  noun [happy] Adj + [ness]  [happiness]N [active] Adj + [ity]  [activity] N noun  adjective … adverb [beauty] N + [ful][beautiful] Adj [[beautiful] Adj+[ly ][beautifully]Adv

27. Affixation as a word-formation process Other word-formation processes: • Eponymy: words are derived from proper names (e.g., sandwich, jumbo) • Blending: a single word is derived from the combination, with deletion, of two words (smog=smoke+fog) • Compounding: a single word is derived by combining two words, without deletion (girlfriend, paperclip)

28. Affixation as a word-formation process Other word-formation processes: • Acronym: words are derived from the initials of several words (UNESCO = United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) • Back-formation: Words are derived from incorrect morphological analysis (enthuse from “enthusiasm”) • Abbreviation:Words are shortened forms of longer words (gasoline-->gas)

29. Morphology problem-solving • By finding repeated forms and using the process of elimination, identify and divide up words into morphemes. • Determine the meaning of the morphemes isolated in step 1.) • Describe rules for allomorph occurrence, if any. • Describe the rules for forming nouns, verbs, etc. and the ordering of morphemes.

30. Example Problem (Isthmus Zapotec) [palu] “stick” [spalube] “his stick” [spalulu] “your stick” [ku˘ba] “dough” [sku˘babe] “his dough” [sku˘balu] “your dough” [tapa] “four” [stapabe] “his four” [stapalu] “your four” [geta] “tortilla” [sketabe] “his tortilla” [sketalu] “your tortilla” [bere] “chicken” [sperebe] “his chicken” [sperelu] “your chicken” [do?o] “rope” [sto?obe] “his rope” [sto?olu] “ your rope”

31. Example Problem (Isthmus Zapotec) [palu] “stick” [spalube] “his stick” [spalulu] “your stick” [ku˘ba] “dough” [sku˘babe] “his dough” [sku˘balu] “your dough” [tapa] “four” [stapabe] “his four” [stapalu] “your four” [geta] “tortilla” [sketabe] “his tortilla” [sketalu] “your tortilla” [bere] “chicken” [sperebe] “his chicken” [sperelu] “your chicken” [do?o] “rope” [sto?obe] “his rope” [sto?olu] “ your rope” Isolate Morphemes: s+__,__+be, __+lu, and stems Figure out meanings: s=possion, be=3rd sg., lu=2nd sg. Note allomorphs: geta/s+keta, bere/s+pere, do?o/s+to?o, Describe the phonology: Stem initial voiced stops become voiceles when preceded by [s]

32. Example Problem (Zoque) [kenu] “he looked” [kenpa] “he looks” [sihku] “he laughed” [sikpa] “he laughs” [wihtu] “he walked” [witpa] “he walks” [ka?u] “he died” [ka?pa] “he dies” [cihcu] “it tore”* [cicpa] “it tears” [sohsu] “it cooked” [sospa] “it cooks” * [c] = voiceless palatal stop

33. Example Problem (Zoque) [kenu] “he looked” [kenpa] “he looks” [sihku] “he laughed” [sikpa] “he laughs” [wihtu] “he walked” [witpa] “he walks” [ka?u] “he died” [ka?pa] “he dies” [cihcu] “it tore”* [cicpa] “it tears” [sohsu] “it cooked” [sospa] “it cooks” Isolate Morphemes: __+u, __+pa, and stems Figure out meanings: u=3rd. sg. past, pa=3rd sg.pres Allomorphs:cihc+u/cic+pa, sihk+u/sik+pa, sohs+u / sos+pa,... Describe the phonology: [h] is deleted when [pa] is added (cluster simplification through deletion).

34. Example Problem (Samoan) Reduplication in Samoan verbs ma.na.o "he wishes” ma.na.na.o "they wish" ma.tu.a "he is old " ma.tu.tu.a "they are old" ma.lo.si"he is strong" ma.lo.lo.si "they are strong" pu.no.u "he bends" pu.no.no.u "they bend" a.ta.ma.ki "he is wise” a.ta.ma.ma.ki "they’re wise" sa.va.li "he travels" pe.pe.se "they sing" la.ga "he weaves"

35. Example Problem (Samoan) 1.) What is Samoan for: a.) "they weave", b.) "they travel", "he sings"? 2.) What kind of morpheme is the reduplicated form? bound/free derivational/inflectional 3.) What is the morphological rule for forming the plural verb form from the singular verb form?

36. Morphology and Lexicon • Mental Lexicon: how are words represented in the mind. • The role of phonology • The role of word meaning • Localist and distributed representation • Lexical neighbours • Lexical categories • Lexical variables

37. Mental Lexicon: how are words represented in the mind.

38. Morphology and mental lexicon • The role of phonology • The role of word meaning • Localist and distributed representation • Lexical neighbours • Lexical categories • Lexical variables

39. The role of phonology • The phonological form of words determines the functional structure of the mental lexicon. • Evidence: in malapropisms the target word (e.g. monotony) and its erroneous substitute (e.g. monogamy) tend to resemble each other in their initial segments, number of syllables and stress pattern. • Based on this evidence, it can be inferred that there is a single mental lexicon organised for speech perception and “cross-wired” for production.

40. The role of word meaning • Category specific impairments, in which the processing of a particular semantic class of words such as tools, furniture, or fruit may be disproportionately impaired evidence concerning the organisation of the lexical and conceptual knowledge.

41. Localist and distributed representation • Localist lexical representations: a word was stored at an individual address or node. • The lexicon has also been modelled in terms of distributed mappings between orthographic, phonological and semantic representations. Such connectionist models involve superpositional storage: all the lexical information of a particular type is stored across the same representational substrate. In this sense, an individual word’s role in the lexicon is constrained by all of the rest of the words in the lexicon.

42. Orthographic Phonological syntactic-semantic • access file access file access file • master file pig /pig/ PIG cow pig

43. Lexical neighbours • Words in close relationships are more likely to be interfered, such as might exist by changing one segment in a spoken word or one letter in a written word. • Sometimes these neighbours have shared a rime, a word beginning, or a sequence of segments representing the whole of the smaller word, but the two words in each relationship have typically sounded similar in a clear, intuitive sense.

44. Lexical categories • The lexical categories fall into two broader types: • function words • content words. • function words and content words may be differentially impaired, as in Broca’s aphasia, and differentially processed in normal speaking and listening and reading. • Such differences may partly depend on physical distinctions between the two word types • in English, function words tend to be shorter, more frequent and less acoustically prominent than content words. • However, function words are also seen as being more closely involved in the articulation of syntactic structure, and seem to be better processed in the left hemisphere. • Significant distinctions in typical phonological form have also been observed between different types of content word: for instance, in English, nouns tend to contain more nasals than verbs, whereas verbs tend to contain more front vowels than nouns. • All of these differences between lexical categories suggest possible large-scale distinctions in the functional and even the physical architecture of the mental lexicon.

45. Cohort Model (交股模型） • Marslen-Wilson • Proposed for autditory word recognition • Recognition speed and recognition point • Hypothesis • 1st stage: auditory/phonetic information activates words similar: bottom-up processing • 2nd stage: all information effective in excluding words • 3rd stage: selected item integrated • Development • Word frequency into consideration • Marslen-Wilson: activation level • Advantages: more sensitive to the left-to-right nature of speech

46. Automatic activation sport figure sing door carry turf turtlegold turk turkey water turn turbo turquoise turnip turmoil TURN

47. Lateral inhibition sport figure sing door carry turf turtle gold turk turkey water turn turbo turquoise turnip turmoil TURN

48. M350 = 1st component sensitive to lexical factors but not affected by competition M350 Activation Competition Selection/Recognition TURN TURNIP level of activation TURF TURTLE resting level time Stimulus: TURN