MORPHOLOGY

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Focus:
n Internal structure of words: un-friend-ly,
farm-er-s
n Rules of formation of words: unfriendly,
(*)unfriend, *lyunfriend, *likelyun
n Total list of words: lexicon
n What kind of rules account for structure of
words?
n How is the lexicon organized?

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Knowing a word:
n Form + meaning: cannot have one
without the other
n (word with no form?)
n (word with no meaning? laptop 30 years ago,
biketop now; fedeb in Hungarian :-)
n Same meaning, diff. forms:
AmE sofa, couch, davenport
n Same form, diff. meanings: bear [n], bear
[vb], bare -- phonological form!
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Form:
n Phonological info: pronunciation
n Exc. geographical names: Arkansas
n Morphological info: structure
un-friend-li-ness
n Syntactic info: type of word = part of
speech
That book/man/house/idea is
great/bad/nice/terrible.

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Meaning:
n Semantic meaning:
n Basic meaning: He is my father.
n Broadened meaning: He is like a father to
me; hungry for love; digest an idea
n Pragmatic meaning: Oh, boy!

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Categorizing words:
n Parts of speech / Grammatical categories
n Words of same part of speech can
replace each other
n English: part of speech can be
determined by word order and types of
endings

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Example:
‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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Example:
‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Jabberwocky” from Alice in Wonderland

by Lewis Carrol :-)

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Example:
‘Twas brillig[n] and the slithy[adj] tove-s[n, pl]
Did gyre[vb] and gimble[vb] in the wabe[n];
All mimsy[adj] were the borogrove-s[n, pl]
And the mome[adj] rath-s[n, pl] outgrabe[vb, past].

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Parts of speech:
n Open class ~ Content word

n Closed class ~ Function words

(=grammatical words)

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Content words:
n Nouns: woman, bridge, idea, beauty
n Verbs: walk, save, think, sleep, beautify
n Adjectives: big, red, beautiful, smart
n Adverbs: fast, nicely, beautifully
Open class: new words easily added:
laptop, to xerox, selfie (H. fullos)

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Function words:
n Prepositions: in, after, despite, against
n Determiners: this, that, these, those
n Conjunctions: and, but, however, although
n Articles: a, the
n Pronouns: he, her, themselves, each other
n Interjections: ouch!, gee!, wow!

Closed class: new ones rarely added

recent exception: singular they
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The structure of words:
n Units smaller than words have meanings:
un-friend-ly ≠ friend-ly, --> un- has a meaning
n Morpheme: smallest meaningful unit.
n Can be 1 phoneme: a book, a-symptomatic
n Can be 1 syllable: girl, me, un-friend-ly
n Can be more than 1 syllable: aardvark, Mississippi
n If it looks like a morpheme but doesn’t have a
meaning, it’s NOT a morpheme:
*alligat-or: detect-or, but *to alligate
*re-ly: re-write, but *to ly (≠ to lie)

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Morphemes:
n Free ~: can stand by themselves, e.g. car, race,
beauty, in, this, over
n Bound ~: cannot appear alone; affix
Types of affixes:
n Prefixes: un-, dis-, re- in unable, disappear, relive
n Suffixes: -er, -ist, -s, -ing in farmer, pianist, farmers,
farming
n Infixes: only in ‘Expletive insertion’ in English
alli-bloody-gator, Missi-fucking-ssippi
Rule: take a word of 3+ syllables with stress on 1st syll, insert
expletive after 2nd syll :-)

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Cranberry morphemes:
n Morphemes that are separable but do not have
a meaning of their own
n Constitute an exception!
n Berry names: goose-berry, straw-berry, blue-berry,
black-berry, but cran-berry
cran-apple jouice
n Latinate verbs:
re-ceive, con-ceive, per-ceive, de-ceive
re-mit, com-mit, per-mit
etc.

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More terms:
n Root: morpheme stripped of all affixes,
farm-er, re-ceive, ling-uist, a-moral
n Stem: lexical item without inflection,
n farm-er-s, ling-uist-s, re-ceive-d, a-moral

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Rules of word formation:
n Structure of words is rule governed:
- un+happy, but *happy+un: ordering!
*un+go, *un+table: un- attaches to adjectives
- read+able, drink+able, email+able, walk+able
but *die+able, *go+able, *sleep+able:
-able attaches to transitive verbs

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Kinds of affixes by function:
n Derivational morphemes
n Create a new word: farm+er, alcohol+ic
n Often change grammatical class: boy+ish, quick+ly
although not always: ex+husband, re+print, farm+er
n Vary in how productive they are: -able vs. un-
n Occur closer to the stem: farm+er+s
n Inflectional morphemes:
n Do not create new word, only add grammatical meaning:
farm+s, walk+ed, boy+’s, great+er
n Do not change grammatical class
n Very productive
n Occur at edges of words: un+kind+ness+es

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English inflections:
Only 8 altogether!
n Third person -s
n Past tense -ed
n Progressive -ing
n Past participle -en
n Plural -s
n Genitive ‘s
n Comparative -er
n Superlative -est

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Inflections in other languages,
e.g. Hungarian:
n Mood: imperative állj, conditional állna
n Case: ablakban, házon, gyerekestül
n Definite object: látja
etc.

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Allomorphy:
n Morphemes have allomorphs!
n English plural:
n spelled the same, but pronounced diff.
cabs, bags, pads: [z] -- after voiced
caps, backs, pats: [s] -- after voiceless
buses, buzzes, bushes, matches:
[əz]/ [ɪz] -- after sibilants

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Other examples of allomorphy:
n English prefix in-:
inexcusable, inattentive
intolerable, indefinite
impossible, imbalance
incomplete, inglorious
irregular, illegal
n Rule:
[in] before vowels and alveolars
[im] before labials
[iŋ] before velars
completely assimilates before liquids

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Hungarian examples of
allomorphy:
n bokor, bokr-ok
n ló, lov-ak, lov-at
n isz-ol, it-tál, i-hat
n pehely, pelyh-et, pelyh-ek
n London-ban, Helsinki-ben
n mond-tok, men-tek, ül-tök

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New words in a language:
n Borrow from other languages:
E. chocolate <-- (Spanish) <-- Nahuatl;
E. coach <-- Hung. kocsi ‘cart’

n Create: through word coinage

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Word coinage:
n Compounding:
girlfriend, paper clip, elevator operator (N+N)
icy-cold, red-hot (Adj+Adj)
pickpocket (V+N), headstrong (N+Adj) -- if two diff. parts of speech,
rightmost member determines part of speech of compound
Exc.: rightmost (Adj), captain-general (N)
Stress on first member:
‘greenhouse vs. ‘green ‘house, ‘sit-in vs. ‘sit ‘in
Meaning is not always compositional (=sum of parts):
greenhouse, cat call, houseboat
Regular inflectional morphology cannot appear inside:
*rats eater but mice eater

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More methods of coinage:
n Acronyms:
radio detecting and ranging --> radar
International Business Machines --> IBM
situation normal, all fucked up --> snafu
young urban professional --> yuppie
IMHO, brb, BTW; YOLO, FOMO, OMG, BFF
n Blends:
smoke + fog --> smog
motorist hotel --> motel
breakfast + lunch --> brunch
Covid + idiot à Covidiot
man + explaining à mansplaining

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Yet more methods of coinage:
n Clipping:
bicycle --> bike gymnasium --> gym
mathematics --> math obituary --> obit
doctor --> doc legitimate --> legit
gasoline --> gas weblog à blog
n Folk etymology:
hamburger (=hamburg+er) as ham+burger --> burger, cheeseburger
alcoholic (=alcohol+ic) as al+coholic --> -coholic, workaholic, shopoholic,
chocoholic, sleepaholic, Tweetaholic
n From names:
Earl of Sandwich --> sandwich
Hoover --> hoover
Kleenex --> kleenex
Xerox --> xerox, to xerox
Joule --> joule

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