1 / 15

Morphology I

Morphology I. Linguistics 101 Gareth Price Duke University. Morphology. Morph + ology Morphe = shape/form Ology = study, science of Study of the formation (v, n) of words?. How many words in the English language?

pabla
Download Presentation

Morphology I

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Morphology I Linguistics 101 Gareth Price Duke University

  2. Morphology • Morph + ology • Morphe = shape/form • Ology = study, science of • Study of the formation (v, n) of words?

  3. How many words in the English language? • Accidental gaps: words which follow the phonological rules of a language, but which don’t actually exist • How many words do you know? • Not easy to answer – linguists rarely agree. • College educated: 10,000 to 60,000 • Why is it difficult to know? • Mental lexicon

  4. plinkling • grimoulously • klints • twongier • pendy • thrustling • stangliness • centomer • splimly • centome • stribble • plinkleable • decentome • plinkler • stribbling • klintish • liggeted • pendierr • pentful • glosselstrop • thrustle • stromp • grimulous • acturously • ponymous • brimney • stang • parples • stribbled • klint • unplinkleableness • twength • parple • sloke • pendiest • fustered • twong • restribble • sloken • klintly • acturous • stangs • strissed • twongest • liggets

  5. Word Classes • Lexical Words • Nouns / Adjectives / Verbs / Adverbs • ‘Open class’ • Semantic content • Easily added to and modified • Most words are lexical words • Function Words • Determiners (a, the, an) • Pronouns (I, you, she, his, theirs) • Conjunctions (and, but) • Prepositions (to, in, without, for) • Intensifiers (very, too) • Auxiliary/Modal verbs (must, may, will) • ‘Closed class’ • Grammatical content • Tend not to be easily changed or added to

  6. Morphemes • Smallest unit of words which have: • semantic content (meaning) • grammaticality (function) • un (semantic) + build (semantic) • magic (semantic) + ician (grammaticality) • cat (semantic) + s (grammaticality) • cat = four legged, furry, feline • s = plural

  7. Morphemes Words with one morpheme: simple “ two or more morphemes: complex

  8. Free vs. Bound Morphemes • birds •  bird / *-s • undo  do / *un- • Hare (Athapaskan) • *fi ‘head’  sefi ‘my head’ • *be ‘belly’  nebe ‘your belly’ • *dze ‘heart’  ?edze ‘someone’s heart / a heart’ • Thai: • Boon thaankhaawleew • Boon eat rice – past tense marker • ‘Boon ate rice’

  9. Allomorphs • a / an • pots • pigs • bridges • Turkish: • lokanta ‘a restaurant’ – lokantada ‘in/at a restaurant’ • kapi ‘a door’ – kapida ‘in/at a door’ • kitap ‘a book’ – kitapta ‘in/at a book’ • koltuk ‘a chair’ – koltukta ‘in/at a chair’ • taraf ‘a side’ ? • randevu ‘an appointment’  ? • Note: the morphology of a word is the study of its shape and meaning – but shape can be writing or sound

  10. Roots, Stems and Affixes • Root + affix = complex word • Black + en = blacken (root + suffix) • adjective + suffix = verb • blacken + ed = blackened • verb + suffix = past tense verb • black = root and stem for blacken • black = root & blacken = stem for blackened • unblackened = prefix + root + suffix + suffix • but ... unhappiness? • un + happy + ness? • un + knowledge? / un + ability?

  11. Infixes • Tagalog: • takbuh ‘run’ – t-um-akbuh ‘ran’ • lakad ‘walk’ – l-um-akad ‘walked’ • Insertion of an affix within a base: in this case before the first vowel. • Arabic: • katab ‘write’ kutib ‘have been written’ aktub ‘be writing’ uktab ‘being written’ • Insertion of two vowels sounds among the three consonants which comprise the root

  12. Internal Change • Internal Change • Changes in an internal non-morphemic segment to illustrate grammatical contrast. • sing – sang – sung • sink – sank – sunk • foot – feet • goose – geese • In English, there is a vowel change (ablaut) to mark past tense. • Umlaut: ‘fronting’ of vowel in response to front vowel in following syllable • go:s go:iz  gi:iz  gi:s • Not infixing, however, as not changing the base *gs or *sngor *ft • no such morpheme as ‘oo’/‘ee’ or ‘i’/‘a’

  13. Suppletion • Can be completely different morph (sound): • French: avoir ‘to have’  eu ‘had’ • Spanish: ir ‘to go’  fue ‘(he) went’ • German: ist ‘is’  sind ‘are’ • English: to be/is/are/we/were / to go/went

  14. Suppletion or Internal Change? • But ... think / thought seek / sought catch / caught • Probably extreme forms of internal change – sometimes called partial suppletion

  15. Summary ... • How many words in a language? How many do you know?

More Related