Morphology Introduction

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Morphology Introduction
LING 3340 - GRAMMAR AND MORPHOLOGY Spring 2008

• Class 2 (Bickford Ch 2-3)

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Morph-ology

• Mondays Swahili problem
• From Jensen, John T. 1990. Morphology Word
  Structure in Generative Grammar in Current Issues
  in Linguistic Theory, 70. John Benjamins

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Morph-ology

• modern day use of morphology
• (cartoon part 1)

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Morph-ology

• modern day use of morphology
• (cartoon part 2)

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Morph-ology

• Haspelmath 2002. Understanding Morphology
• Morphology is the study of the
• internal structure of words.
• one of the oldest sub-disciplines of grammar
• as far as we know, the first linguists were
  primarily morphologists. The earliest
  grammatical texts are well-structured lists of
  morpological forms of Sumerian words. (from
  Ancient Mesopotamia 1600 BC.

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Morph-ology

• Morphology is also one of the newest
• Generally until the 19th century, Western
  linguists often thought of grammar as consisting
  primarily of word structure.
• Possibly because the classical languages e.g.
  Greek and Latin were very morphologically rich

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Morph-ology

• The sub-discipline of Morphology is also one of
  the newest in Linguistics because previously
  there was not a term for it as the study itself
  was just considered the study of grammar.
• grammar mostly evoked word structure
• phonology ? sound structure
• syntax ? sentence structure had been around for
  centuries before the term morphology was
  introduced.

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Morph-ology

• Qualification of initial definitions
• words have internal structure in two very
  different senses.
• they are made up of sequences of sounds (or
  gestures as in sign language)
• internal phonological structure
• nuts nts contrast with guts, shuts, (also
  nets, notes, nights, etc.)
• the segments n or t cannot be assigned a
  specific meaning but are purely contrastive
• However these all (except shuts) share the -s
  that gives them a related meaning of plural

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Morph-ology

• Words made of multiple morphemes are called
  (morphologically) complex words
• compare nut-s with lapse
• thus morpological structure exitsts if there are
  groups fo words that show identical partial
  resemblances in both form and meaning

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Morph-ology

• Def 1
• Morphology is the study of systematic
  co-variation in the form and meaning of words.
• (co-variation must exists in groups
• so a pair such as hear and ear are not
  morphologically structured or related
• h-ear ? h ear where h the act of doing
  something with a body part.
• h eye ! see/look/ etc
• h elbow ! to use an elbow to jab a person
  sitting next to you.

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Morph-ology

• Morphological analysis typically consists of the
  identification of parts of words, or, more
  technically, constituents of words.
• nuts two constituents the stem nut and the
  element s
• The smallest meaningful constituents of words
  that can be identified are called morphemes.
• break-ing hope-less re-write, ear-plug-s,
• morpho-logic-ally

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Morph-ology

• Def 2
• Morphology is the study of the combination of
  morphemes to yield words.
• (NOTE this more simplistic definition does not
  always work as well as Def 1.)

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Morph-ology

• Haspelmath p8
• possible descriptive architecture for grammar

syntax fronting rules word combination rules
morphology morpheme-combination rules
phonology pronunciation rules
meanings
sound
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Morph-ology

• Bickford 1998. Tools for Analyzing the Worlds
  Languages
• CH 2 Standard Grammatical Terminology
• handout
• Ch 3 Morphemes and Hypotheses
• Jerebo / Swahili / examples from Chichewa

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Morph-ology

• modern day use of morphology (commercials)
• Kia
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vZbpNHhgQg6c
• Target More less
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vnIngBoWdLBw
• Target hello goodbuy
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v3jYyXVcU5OM

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Morph-ology

• In class practice
• Jerebo (Peru)
• nunsa a little canoe
• nunsawek my little canoe
• wilasa a little child
• tulapen your leg
• pideknen his house
• pideklusa houses
• pidekpenlusa your houses

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Morph-ology

• Linguistic analysis involves forming a hypothesis
  (or precise educated guess) about the data.
• The hypothesis must be checked against all the
  data.
• Further data may confirm or contradict the
  hypothesis
• consider Swahili

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Morph-ology

• consider Swahili below
• ana-taka he is wanting
• ana-jaribu he is trying
• ana-kuja he is coming
• ana-piga he is beating (someone)
• from this data set it would appear that ana-
  could be the 3rdP Sg morpheme.
• However, lets look at more data.

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Morph-ology

• ana-taka he is wanting
• ana-jaribu he is trying
• ana-kuja he is coming
• ana-piga he is beating (someone)
• However, lets look at more data.
• ninakuja I am coming
• alitaka he wanted
• now we see that our original hypothesis might be
  incorrect

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Morph-ology

• lets look at some examples of a highly
  morphologically rich language Chichewa
• A Bantu Language
• Spoken in South East Africa
• Is a national language in Malawi

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Verb Morphology 1

• uses both inflectional and derivational affixes
• typically PFX are inflectional SFX are
  derivational.
• General PFX ordering for main (root) clause
• VERB sitidzangomumeny
• NEG SUBJagrMkr TNS ASP OBJagrMkr Vstem
• si ti dza ngo
  mu meny
• not we FUT modal
  him hit
• we will not just hit him (tone
  removed)
• PFX ordering does not seem to change (in cases
  were Verb is in subordinate clause SUBJ precedes
  NEG)

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Mental Schemas
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Verb Morphology 2

• Dissection of the Chichewa Verb
• PFX - -ObjMkr- ROOT -EXT FVstem macro stem
• only root and fv are obligatory
• PFX (NEG- SuMkr- NEG- TnsMkr- ASP-)
• there can be more than one EXT or ASP affix
• -EXT extension or derivational SFX
• FV all verbs end with a Final Vowel
• (usually -a, for subjunctive it is -é)
• All verbs must be 2 syllable minimum
• ex -ph- kill ? i - ph - a kill!
  imperative
• (epenthetic i STEM FV)

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Verb Morphology 3

• Examples of PFX and SFX (tone removed)
• Mkango sunakangowaphwanya maungo
• Mkango s-u-na-ka-ngo-wa-phwany-a maungoThe
  lion did not just go and smash them, the
  pumpkins
• Mikango imamenyanirana pa chulu
• Mikango i-ma-meny-an-ir-an-a pa chulu
• The lions hit each other on an anthill

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Verb Morphology 3

• Examples of PFX and SFX (tone removed)
• Mkango s-u-na-ka-ngo-wa-phwany-a maungo
• 3-lion NEG-3SM-PST-just-go-6OM-smash-fv
  6-pumpkins
• The lion did not just go and smash them, the
  pumpkins
• ASP
• V-root EXT
• Mikango i-ma-meny-an-ir-an-a pa chulu
• 4-lions 4SM-hab-hit-recip-appl-recip-fv 16-on
  7-anthill
• The lions hit each other on an anthill

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Suffixes

• causative -its (-ets)
• applicative -ir (-er)
• instrumental-applicative
• locative-applicative
• passive -idw (-edw)
• stative -ik (-ek)
• reciprocal -an
• reversive -ul (is no longer productive)

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Examples Of Extensions 1

• CAUSITIVE
• Makanto u-ku-phwany-its-a chigawenga maungu.
• 3-lion 3SM-pres-smash-caus-fv 7-terrorist
  6-pumpkins
• The lion is making the terrorist smash
  pumpkins
• APPLICATIVE (FOR ben, WITH inst, ON loc)
• Kalulu a-ku-phik-ir-a mkango maungu.
• 1a-hare 1SM-pres-cook-appl-fv 3-lion 6-pumpkins
• The hare is cooking (for) the lion some
  pumpkins

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Examples Of Extensions 2

• RECPRICAL
• Mikanto i-ku-phwany-an-a.
• 4-lions 4SM-pres-smash-recip-fv
• The lions are smashing each other
• PASSIVE
• Maungu a-ku-phik-idw-a (ndi Kalulu).
• 6-pumpkins 6SM-pres-cook-pass-fv (by 1a-hare)
• The pumpkins are being cooked (for) (by the
  hare)

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Reversive No Longer Productive

• tesk-a shut tsek-ul-a open
• v-al-a dress up v-ul-a undress
• mat-a stick (verb) mat-ul-a to remove
  from surface
• kwer-a climb up kwer-ul-a climb down
• gwed-a gwed-ul-a dismantle
• gum-a gum-ul-a demolish

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Morph-ology

• Table 1.1 Noun classes in Chichewa
• Class Prefix Subj marker Obj marker rough
  description
• SG PL SG PL SG PL SG PL
• 1 2 m(u)- a- a- a- m(u) wa animate
• 3 4 m(u)- mi- u- i- u i less animate
• 5 6 li- ma- li- a- li wa nature
• 7 8 chi- zi- chi- zi- chi zi Adjectives?
• 9 10 N- N- i- zi- i zi things/traits
• 12 13 ka- ti- ka- ti- ka ti dim/loc
• 14 6 u- ma- u a u wa
• 15 ku- ku ku INF
• 16 pa- pa pa preposition
• 17 ku- ku ku prep
• 18 m(u)- m(u) m(u)
• 1a (those things found in one but whose nouns
  lack m(u) pfx
• (ex kalulu sg hare akalulu pl hares)

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Abstract Nouns

• Adjectives Abstract Nouns
• wisi unripe u-wisi unripe-ness
• kulu big u-kalu magnitude
• modzi one u-modzi unity
• kali fierce u-kali ferocity

/X/adj being x
/uX/n state of being x
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Compounding

• Generally done by combining a verb and its
  unmodified object noun or locative noun plus he
  appropriate noun prefix
• ph-a dzuwa kill the sun ?
• ch-phadzuwa beautiful woman
• tol-a nkhani pick up news ?
• m-tolankhani reporter
• pal-a matabwa scrape timber ?
• m-palamatabwa carpenter
• gon-a mbawa sleep in bar ?
• chi-gonambawa a drunk

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Chichewa Sources

• Hyman, Larry. Suffix Ordering in Bantu A
  morphocentric Approach (online version 2002)
• Mchombo, Sam.Chichewa (Bantu)Chapter 25 Spencer
  and Zwicky. The Handbook of Morphology
• Hyman Mtenje Prosodic Morphology and tone the
  case for Chichewa Chapter 4. from Kager, van der
  Hulst, Zonneveld. The Prosody Morphology
  Interface