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Linguistics . Morphology: Word Formation Processes (Yule, 2003 & Jarvie, 1993). M.C. Rafael Velasco Argente. Spring 2012. What’s Morphology?. Morphology refers to the study of how words are created in a language There are two processes involved in Morphology: Inflection and Word Formation.
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Linguistics Morphology:Word Formation Processes(Yule, 2003 & Jarvie, 1993) M.C. Rafael Velasco Argente Spring 2012
What’s Morphology? • Morphology refers to the study of how words are created in a language • There are two processes involved in Morphology: Inflection and Word Formation
What are Inflection and Word Formation? • Inflection refers to the change in the base form of a word (root or stem) • The base form of a noun is the singular form (e.g. cat); for an adjective the base form (old) and for a verb the base form is the infinitive or imperative (speak)
Examples of Inflection • Apple apples • House houses • Sad sadder saddest • Big bigger biggest • Learn learned learning
What about word formation? • The word formation processes consists on the following ones: • Etymology • Coinage • Borrowing • Compounding • Blending • Clipping • Backformation • Conversion • Acronyms • Affixation (prefixes, suffixes and infixes) • Compound processes
Coinage • This refers to the creation of totally new terms into a language. Most of them come from the name of the inventors, the products’ names or the company’s name. • Kleenex • Nylon • Zipper • Aspirin • Rotoplas
Borrowing • This process refers, as the name claims, when a language ‘borrows’ terms from other languages. • Alcohol (Arabic) • Boss (Dutch) • Piano (Italian) • Yoghurt (Turkish) • Robot (Czech)
Compounding • It It refers to the joining of two separate words to produce a single word. The two words don’t lose their individual sounds. • Bookcase • Fingerprint • Sunburn • Doorknob • Basketball
Blending • Similar to compounding, blending refers to the joining of two terms; however, in this case one (or both) word(s) lose a sound. • Motel (motor-hotel) • Telecast (television-broadcast) • Spanglish (Spanish-English) • Modem (Modulator-demodulator)
Clipping • Clipping a synonym of reduction. In this process a word that has more than one syllable is reduced to a shorter form • Celular (cel) • Brassiere (bra) • Fanatic (fan) • Situation Comedy (sitcom) • Facebook (el Face)
Backformation • This occurs when a word of one type (usually a noun) is changed to another different type of word (usually a verb) • Donation(n) -donate (v) • Option(n) -Opt (v) • Babysitter(n) -Babysit (v) Hypocorisms: the reduction of a long word to a single syllable and the –y and –ie are added to the end. Television-telly Barbecue-barbie Breakfast -breakie
Conversion • This is the change of the function of the word. For example when a noun comes to be used as a verb. • Butter • Bottle • Water • Print out (a printout) • Want to be (wannabe)
Etymology • Etymology refers to the origin of several words. Usually these words are originated from Latin or Greek. • Some of them are not necessarily complete words but prefixes or part of blendings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_and_Latin_roots_in_English
Affixation • Affixation is the process where we take a base form word and we add a prefix, infix or suffix. • A prefix is an affixation process that includes adding a morpheme at the beginning of the word • A suffix is a segment that we add at the end of the words. • An infix is what goes between the prefix and the root
Prefixes (examples) http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/prefixtext.htm
Suffixes • These are the responsible for making words change their function. • There are: • Noun suffixes • Adjective Suffixes • Verb Suffixes • Adverb Suffixes • As a reading, writing or listening recognition strategy, despite of not having the exact meaning of a word, just by looking at the suffix we now the function of the word.
Suffixes (Examples) • http://www.scribd.com/doc/441225/English-suffixes
Infixes They are not very common in English. When they appear is because they are usually in an exclamation word. Unfuckingbelievable! Absogoddamlutely!
Acronyms • Sometimes words are created because of acronyms. Acronyms are abbreviations pronounced as if they were words. They have proloferated. • Spanish • SIDA (Sindrome de Inmuno-Deficiencia Adquirida) • OVNI (Objeto Volador No Identificado) • English • Radar (Radio Detecting and ranging) • UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization)
Analogies • It’s when you use a word to compare the person. • Technobabble • Telethon • Smart cookie
Compound Processes • Sometimes in order to form a word we can combine some of the previous processes. • For example: • Deli (borrowing from German Delicatessen/Clipping) • Yuppie (Young Urban Professional (Acronym+ie(hypocorsim)
Morphemes • A morpheme is the minimal unit of a word. • There are different types of morphemes • Free Morphemes • Bound Morphemes • Lexical • Functional • Derivational • Inflectional • Allomorphs
Free Morphemes • These are morphemes that stand by themselves as single words, for example • Open • Tour • Teach
Bound morphemes • The bound morphemes are those that are attached to a free morpheme to have a meaning. • All prefixes and suffixes are bound morphemes. • Un-dress-ed care-less-ness • Ex: reduce, receive and repeat (bound stems)
Free Morphemes-Lexical & Functional • Lexical morphemes are usually free morphemes. They carry their full meaning in the word itself. • Nouns, adjectives and verbs • Functional Morphemes are words that bring a function inside of them. They assist lexical morphemes to add details to the meaning. • Conjunctions (and...) prepositions, articles, pronuouns
Bound morphemes-Derivational and inflectional Morphemes • Derivational morphemes: They refer to those bound morphemes that create new words out of/with a free morpheme. • Pay-ment • Quick-ly • God-ess
Bound morphemes-Derivational and inflectional Morphemes • Inflectional morphemes. These are morphemes that help the words to change their grammatical function. They are suffixes • Car-cars • Do-Done • Cold-Coldest
Morph and Allomorphs • A morph is a modification of a morpheme. The basic example of it is the plural ‘s’. • Bus-Buses • Girl-Girls • Baby-babies • Sheep-sheep The allomorph is the set of morphs