Introduction to linguistics

1
Introduction to linguistics

• morphology

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Morphology

• deals with morphemes
• the minimal units of linguistic form and meaning,
  
• and how they make up words.

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units in morphology

• units of sound (form) and
• units of meaning in a word
• are not the same
• sound syllables par-son
• but parson cannot be divided into smaller units
  of meaning
• meaning morphemes part-ing

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Morphemes

• So what does "minimal unit of form and meaning"
  mean?

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Some English words

• dog
• dogs
• bulldog
• walk
• walks
• walked
• walking
• moonwalk

• red
• reddish
• redden
• reddens
• redder

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Morphemes

• dog s
• cf. hands, cats, books
• walk ing
• cf. talking, running, singing
• redd en
• cf. blacken, whiten, shorten
• These are morphemes minimal segments with
  recurring meaning (contrast)
• redd-en-s

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types of morphemes

• free part
• bound ing
• free morphemes can occur as separate words
• dog
• walk
• berry
• yes
• bound morphemes cannot occur on their own as
  full words
• -s in dogs
• de- in detoxify
• -ness in happiness
• cran- in cranberry
• isms and ologies

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Morphemes types

• In a word
• one constituent the basic one,
• the others being added on.
• The basic morpheme is the base (stem or root),
• the add-ons are affixes.
• Affixes that precede the stem are prefixes,
• those that follow the stem are suffixes.

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Example

• rearranged
• re-
• prefix,
• arrange
• stem
• -d
• suffix

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Infixes

• In some languages there are infixes
• an affix in the base
• Sanskrit -n-
• vindami I know
• contrasted with vid to know
• English ?
• Germano-American
• absobloodylutely

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morphemes

• It is important to remember that
• morphemes are abstract
• what has concrete existence is morphs
• Un- un- un- un- these are morphs
• but there are more complex cases

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allomorphs/morphemes
ICBASE IL IN IM IR How do we know which to use?

• accurate
• not accurate
• ??
• inaccurate
• legal
• illegal
• mature
• immature
• responsible
• irresponsible

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morpheme

• The morpheme is IN
• the allomorphs are
• in, im, il, ir
• The morpheme is
• -ed /id/
• the allomorphs are
• /id/ /d/ /t/
• parted pulled pushed

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Morphans

• unkempt
• un?? kempt???
• gruesome
• ruthless
• Words with bound bases.
• niezly, niedobry, niemy??
• nieobyty, nieczysty, niestety??

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Morphans explanation

• only on historical grounds
• unkempt
• un p.p. kemb
• gruesome
• inspiring repugnance and horror ghastly
• grue
• -some
• suffix forming adjectives characterized by
  tending to awesome tiresome

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Types of morphological processes

• derivation/inflection
• inflection
• bound (grammatical) morphemes with free
  morphemes,
• do not produce new lexical items
• categorially productive
• derivation
• bound (lexical) morphemes with free morphemes
• new lexical items
• idiosyncratic

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Inflection

• dog dogs
• boy boys
• girl girls
• man men
• child children

• love loved
• hate hated
• walk walked
• show showd
• go went
• make made

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Inflection

• Do not change basic meaning or part of speech,
• big, bigg-er, bigg-est are all adjectives.
• Express
• grammatical features or
• indicate relations between words in the sentence.
  
• The girl loves the boy.
• Are categorially productive.
• combine with all members of a large category,
• with predictable effects on usage/meaning.
• Occur after (outside) any morphemes.
• ration-al-iz-ation-s the final -s is inflectional
• (In English, are suffixes only).

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Inflection

• inflectional morphology in English is entirely
  productive,
• there are not arbitrary restrictions on how the
  affixes are combined with stems.
• Productivity
• reflected in the fact that new words
• such as download
• participate in these inflections, as well as
• completely made-up words,
• such as gimble from the Jabberwocky,
• "to make holes like a gimlet."

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Inflection productivity
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Inflection paradigm

• the chart is called the paradigm

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Derivation

• May change the part of speech or the basic
  meaning of a word.
• -ment (judg-ment), re-activate means "activate
  again."
• Are not required by syntactic relations in the
  sentence.
• un-kind - he is unkindhe is kindthey are
  unkindthey are kind
• Idiosyncratic, often not productive
• selective about what they combine with
• hood brotherhood friendhood
• may also have erratic effects on meaning.
• prison prisoner jail -- jailer
• occur between the stem and any inflectional
  affixes
• In English, either prefixes or suffixes

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Derivation

• The ability to change category is one of
• the best diagnostics for derivational morphology,
  
• since inflectional affixes simply
• create a new form of the same word
• retaining its original category

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Derivational gaps
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Derivational gaps

• The chart is not a paradigm of forms of the
  "same" word, but rather just
• an array of related but "different" words.
• It's often not even clear what should count as
  filling the slot. There may be several possible
  candidates
• Should the adjective for cat be catty or feline?
• One is closer in form (i.e. it shares the same
  root),
• the other is closer in meaning (it refers to cats
  rather than the behavior of humans).
• There's also not a consistent relationship
  between the related forms.
• The relation of talk talked is exactly that of
  run ran, i.e. past tense.
• to befriend doesn't mean "to sprinkle with
  friends."

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inflectional/derivational affixes
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derivation/inflection summary
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border cases

• English
• -ly
• not with colour names
• redly??
• Polish
• -anie/-enie (kochanie, pielenie)
• not with some verbs
• byc -- bycianie (bytowanie)
• móc (??)

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Constituent structure

• The constituent morphemes of a word can be
  organized into
• a hierarchical structure.
• unusable.
• It contains three morphemes
• prefix un-
• verb stem use
• suffix -able
• What is the structure?
• Is it first use able to make usable, then
  combined with un- to make unusable?
• Or is it first un use to make unuse, then
  combined with -able to make unusable?
• Since unuse doesn't exist in English, while
  usable does, the first structure is correct.

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Compounding

• formed by the combination of stems
• rather than a single stem with an affix.
• Although often with spaces between the elements
  they function as single words.
• lawnmower
• classroom
• shoptalk
• pickpocket
• pushup
• half-life
• spoil-sport
• sit-up

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Compounding

• in German
• consistently without spaces, making them easier
  to identify.
• Kreditkarte
• "credit card"
• Grenzkontrolloffizier
• "border control officer"
• Donauschiffahrtskapitänsmützenquaste
• "Danube shipping captain's cap tassel
• Polish?

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Compounding English

• the most common type of compound
• two or more nouns forming a single complex noun,
• olive oil, credit card, or employee training
  manual.
• "single" nouns
• syntactically they can substitute in a sentence
  for a one-word noun
• I put olive oil on the bread.
• I put butter on the bread.
• I lost my credit card.
• I lost my wallet.
• Affixation plural
• a single -s is added (not one for each element).
• credit cards (credits cards)

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compounding stress

• in syntactic phrases
• (such as adjective noun),
• stress normally falls on the rightmost word
• in a compound
• (such as noun noun),
• stress falls further to the left.
• a funny cárd, an expensive cárd
• a bírthday card, a crédit card
• a really boring mánual
• an employee tráining manual

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compounding

• other types of compound exist
• adjective noun noun
• blackbird
• verb particle verb
• make up, give up, come across
• nouning-verb ?
• record-breaking

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longer compounds

• understanding the meaning requires figuring out
  what the structure is.
• structural ambiguities become possible.
• French history teacher
• French (history teacher)
• a French teacher of history
• (French history) teacher
• a teacher of French history
• Enron document shredder
• ??

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longer compounds

• S.U.V. Business Tax Loophole Closure Act
• ??

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longer compounds

• SIX NOUNS
• One kind of tax is a
• ( business tax ).
• Corporations can avoid them by means of a
• ( ( business tax ) loophole ).
• When based on the purchase of certain
  gas-guzzling vehicles, it's more specifically an
• ( S.U.V. ( ( business tax ) loophole ) ).
• Someone who thinks that corporations shouldn't be
  able to do this would favor closing the loophole,
  i.e. they would support
• ( ( S.U.V. ( ( business tax ) loophole ) )
  closure ).
• Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced legislation with
  this goal in mind, called the
• ( ( ( S.U.V. ( ( Business Tax ) Loophole ) )
  Closure ) Act ).

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Conversion

• I must bottle some plums.
• Noun bottle ? Verb to bottle
• the noun is primary
• conversion changes the grammatical properties of
  a stem
• it does not change its pronunciation or spelling
• this is quite important in English

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Constituent structure of words

• UN-
• two uses
• added to a verb yields another verb.
• tie, un-tie
• cover, un-cover
• button, un-button
• cage, un-cage
• the verbs describe a change in state
• the form with un- denoting the undoing (!) of
  that change