Morphology

1. Morphology 5.1, 5.3 (Ex. p 154 #0, 1) Homework: 5.2 (due 3/19)

2. Morphology • Up to this point we have studied the sounds of English and how they interact in systematic ways • The next step: Strings of language sounds form units of meaning

3. Morphology • Morphology is the study of how units of meaning are formed

4. Morphology • How many units of meaning are present in the following sentence: my shoes are untied

5. Morphology Or in this sentence: I waited for her all morning

6. Morphology Or in this sentence: those socks are smelly

7. Morphology • *Morpheme — the smallest unit of meaning in a language • i.e., it cannot be subdivided into smaller units of meaning

8. Morphology • We usually think of morphemes as bases/stems affixes

9. Stem • *Base / stem — the meaning unit that affixes attach to This is the core of the word, which has the lexical meaning that is added to in some way by an affix

10. Morphology • *Affixes – attach to bases/stems

11. Affixes • Prefixes attach to the front of a stems or words (in-)sight (dis-)arm (un-)aware

12. Affixes • Suffixes — attach to the end of stems or words try(-ing) examin(-ation) navig(-ate) rect(-ify)

13. Affixes • Infixes – attach in the middle of a word • Karl (-the mailman-) Malone, etc. fan(-f…-)tastic a(-whole-)nother thing

14. Morphology • Through the systematic interaction of morphemes, the units of meaning of a language are formed • Part of what we know when we know a language is how morphemes interact

15. Morphology Some morphemes show variation in use • Colder More beautiful

16. Morphology Adjectives / Adverbs • (-er) ‘more’ slower • (-est) ‘most’ slowest Can we make a descriptive rule for this variation?

17. Morphology • *Allomorph: Variants of morphemes That is, variations in the form of the morpheme, with each form having the same meaning

18. Allomorphs • Plural (-s) morpheme /z/ /əz/ /s/ beds sashes hats • Question: Which is basic plural in English?

19. Allomorphs • Possessive (-s) • /z/ Bill’s • /əz / Marcus’s • /s/ Clark’s

20. Allomorphs • 3Person Singular • /z/ reads • /əz/ watches • /s/ hits

21. Allomorphs *RULE: • after voiced sounds, /z/ • after sibilants, /əz/ • after other voiceless sounds /s/ [sound familiar?]

22. More Allomorphs • Past tense (–ed): /d/ feared, burned, cried /t/ wished, kissed [for some, burnt, learnt] /əd/ heated, mended

23. More Allomorphs RULE: after voiced sounds, /d/ after voiceless sounds, /t/ after alveolar stops, /ed/

24. Allomorphs • We can see that many allomorphs in English are phonologically conditioned — Their form is determined by neighboring sounds • Cf. Spanish: amigos (in Spanish, no such conditioning)

25. Allomorphs Other allomorphs in English: • pres. part. (-ing) [ən], [iŋ] ‘playing’ free variation (only stylistic variation)

26. Allomorphs • Unlike • Inactive • Impossible • Illogical • Irreversible • What rule produced these allomorphs?

27. Morphology • Lexical categories: I. Content words: have lexical meaning II. Grammar words: provide primarily grammatical information

28. Lexical categories • I. *Content words (form class words) Content (form class) words changeform to fit into the grammar — pitch (V.) → pitcher (n.)

29. Content words 1. Constitute most of vocabulary — by far the greatest number of words

30. Content words (form class words) 2. Have lexical meaning — that is, they mean something — table, floor, eat (Nouns, Verbs, Ajs., Avs.)

31. Content words (form class words) 3. Open category: New ones can come into the language at any time — CDRom; mouse; blog; google; mcjob

32. Lexical categories • II. *Grammatical (function class) words • Smallest part of vocabulary — only a small fraction of words

33. Grammatical (function class) words • Primarily grammatical meaning — and, but, on, under, who, etc. These not so much mean things as signify grammatical relationships

34. Grammatical (function class) words • Closed class — unchanging grammatical structure words No new ones

35. Morphology • Content (Form Class) words in English may take inflectional morphemes or derivational morphemes

36. *Inflectional morphemes • Contain grammatical information • Do not change word class • Suffixes only

37. Inflectional morphemes Inflectional morphemes of English: N — pl. (-s) two shoes • p possessive (-s) a dog’s breakfast

38. Inflectional morphemes V — 3 person sing. –s She eats at noon. • pres. participle –ing are eating • past tense (-ed) earned $20 • past participle (–en) has eaten [includes (-ed), vowel change]

39. Inflectional morphemes Adj / Adv— (-er) slower (-est) slowest English has these 8 exactly

40. Derivational morphemes • *Derivational morphemes of English participate in deriving new words • Change word meaning — (im-) port (un-) do

41. Derivational morphemes 2. Can change word class • (-er) driv-er, can open-er noun making • (-ation) inform-ation noun making • (-ize) real-ize verb making • (-al) individu-al adjective making • (-ious) delic-ious adj. making

42. Derivational morphemes 3. May be suffix or prefix (un-)like(-ly) (im-)practic(-al)

43. Morphology *Word Formation — • Note sequence in which morphemes are attached to stems and words: Smell-y Tie → un-tie → un-tie-d form → re-form → re-form-ation Veri-fy → veri-fi-able → un-veri-fi-able

44. Word formation Native speakers of a language know which combinations are possible and which are actual ?saltish crackers ?sugary cookies ?three-years-old girl

45. Inflection vs. Suppletion Contrast Spanish and English verb patterns: • Spanish ser conjugation Yo soy nosotros somos Tu eres (vosotros sois) ustedes son El es ellos son

46. Suppletion • The English be verb paradigm: • I am we are • You are you are • He / she / it is they are demonstrates suppletion — separate items used to produce forms in a grammatical pattern

47. Suppletion More examples in English: go / went person / people good / better bad / worse

48. Word formation • These elements of word formation are an important component of the fundamental, complex knowledge we have of our language