323 Morphology

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323 Morphology

• The Structure of Words
• 1.1 What is Morphology?

Morphology is the internal structure of words. V
walk, walks, walked, walking N dog, dogs A
cold, colder, coldest
Grammar syntax morphology conceptual (logical)
form (meaning within grammar) argument
structure lexicon One morpheme or two tax
/tæks/ one morpheme tacks /tæks/ two
morphemes tacks lapse /læps/ one
morpheme laps /læps/ two morpheme laps Words
containing two or more morphemes are called
complex words.
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1.1 What is Morphology?
Definition 1 (Haspelmath) Morphology is the
systematic covariation in the form and meaning of
words. Definition 1 (DeArmond) Morphology is the
systematic covariation in the form, function and
sign of words. Form refers to whether a
morpheme is a root, base, stem, affix or
clitic. Function includes meaning. Some
morphemes have no meaning. Sign refers to the
phonological representation of a
morpheme. Definition 2 (Haspelmath
DeArmond) Morphology is the study of the
combination of morphemes to yield words This
definition does not work in all cases. The term
morphology is ambiguous in that it may refer to
the study of morphology as a discipline or to the
morphology of a specific language such as
Sanskrit.
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1.2 Morphology in Different Languages
A particular language may express a certain
function through morphology the use of
inflectional or derivational affixes English
plural affix (suffix) book, books Or
plurality may be expressed by a distinct
word Yoruba okùnrin man, àwon okùnrin
men. Actually, English uses both methods to form
the comparative and superlative of
adjectives red, redder, reddest (positive,
comparative, superlative) stupid, more stupid,
most stupid. Today, many younger speakers tend to
use both methods more redder (or sometimes more
red) Synthetic, Analytic and Isolating These
terms refer to the degree which affixes are
used Synthetic refers to systems where
affixation is used frequently to express
certain functions Russian, Czech, Sanskrit,
Latin, German, Japanese Analytic refers to
systems where affixation is modestly used
English, Dutch, Frisian, Swedish. Polysynthe
tic refers to systems where there is frequent
affixation and perhaps compounding and phrasal
incorporation Greenlandic Eskimo (Inuit),
Turkish, Salishan languages.
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1.3 The Goals of Morphological Research

• The goal of morphological research is to observe
  (account for all data), describe (determine the
  best analysis) and to explain the morphological
  patterns of human languages.
• Elegant description
• all languages should be described in an elegant
  and intuitively satisfactory way
• the past tense is formed by adding the suffix
  ed to the left of the stem (basic form of verb)
  elegant
• many computer programs list the present tense
  form and then the past tense form play, played
  walk, walked punch, punched inelegant.
• elegant includes simplicity.
• elegant includes generality.
• Cognitive realistic description
• A description should be related to a speakers
  cognitive apparatus that the speaker has
  unconsciously arrived at.
• In English, speakers subconsciously add -ed to
  new verbs, e.g. tomb -gt tombed in the past
  tense. This can be done consciously, but not
  necessarily.

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1.3 The Goals of Morphological Research

• A computer that lists the present and the past
  forms cannot produce the past tense of tomb.
  However, it possible to write a computer program
  that will do it. The hard part is writing the
  program. The easy part is feeding the information
  to the computer to compute. E.g. tombpast -gt
  tombed. (Ive tried it.)
• System-external explanation
• This trying to explain certain phenomena that
  occur outside the language system. H. mentions
  the case of plural forms. Whatever the language,
  the forms are the result of historical accidence,
  not by any universal property of language. We can
  also cite the past tense morpheme of languages.
  English has four variants of the morpheme the
  default (regular) form -ed, the non-default
  forms -t, -d. and the past tense of verbs
  marked by a change in the vowel sing, sang,
  sung. All these variants are the result of
  historical accidence.
• H. mentions a possible universal citing Corbett
• If a language has morphological plural forms of
  nouns at all, it will have plurals of nouns
  denoting people.
• One must be careful of the proposed universals.
  It is common for a universal to be disproved by
  languages which who them not to be true. This one
  could be true, and it seems to make sense, as
  people are the most important things in all
  human languages.

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1.4 The Goals of Morphological Research
A restrictive architecture for description Constr
aints are developed for a grammatical description
(grammar). For example, in syntax phrases and in
some languages words may or must be fronted to
the beginning of the sentence John bought a
new car. What did John buy? However, parts of
a word (morphemes and words making up a compound
word) may not be fronted leaving the rest of the
word behind John bought books. S John
bought book. Book John bought s. John
slept in the doghouse. The doghouse John slept
in. House John slept in the dog. Dog John
slept in the house. H suggests that the
following may be a possible architecture
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1.4 The Goals of Morphological Research
I consider Hs architecture inadequate. I prefer
the following
The right arrow indicates the projection of sound
from meaning (to the listener) and the left arrow
indicates the interpretation of the sound to
determine the meaning. The lexicon plays a very
important role in the architecture of grammar.
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1.4 The Goals of Morphological Research