EL1101E – Problem Set 4: Morphology

1. Examine the following data from Serbo-Croatian and answer the questions that
follow.
svirati ‘to play’ (infinitive) kupovati ‘to buy’ (infinitive)
diram ‘I touch’ dirati ‘to touch’ (infinitive)
ɡledanje ‘the watching’ sviranje ‘the playing’
ɡledaju ‘they watch’ sviraju ‘they play’
stanujem ‘I live’ diraju ‘they touch’
stanovati ‘to live’ (infinitive) nazivanje ‘the calling’
kupuju ‘they buy’ ɡladovati ‘to starve’ (infinitive)
kupujem ‘I buy’ ɡladovanje ‘the starving’
kupovanje ‘the buying’ ɡladujem ‘I starve’
nazivati ‘to call’ (infinitive) ɡladuju ‘they starve’
sviram ‘I play’ stanovanje ‘the living’
ɡledam ‘I watch’ nazivam ‘I call’
ɡledati ‘to watch’ (infinitive) nazivaju ‘they call’
stanuju ‘they live’ diranje ‘the touching’

a) List all of the allomorphs corresponding to each of the following:

‘play’ ‘touch’ ‘watch’ ‘live’ ‘buy
‘call’ ‘starve’ ‘I’ ‘they’
the affix that creates the infinitival form of the verb
the affix that turns verbal stems into deverbal nouns like the living or the calling

b) For those stems with more than one allomorph, describe the pattern determining
when each allomorph occurs.

c) For those affixes with more than one allomorph, describe the pattern
determining when each allomorph occurs.
 d) Predict the Serbo-Croatian forms that correspond to the following.
darovati ‘to give a present’ ______ ‘they give a present’
darujem ‘I give a present’ ______ ‘the giving of a present’

razaram ‘I destroy’ ______ ‘to destroy’

razaranje ‘the destruction’ ______ ‘they destroy’

stvarati ‘to create’ ______ ‘they create’

______ ‘I create’ ______ ‘the creation’

ratuju ‘they wage a war’ ______ ‘the waging of a war’

______ ‘to wage a war’ ______ ‘I wage a war’

2. Track the word formation history of each of the following words, and identify the
morphological process that takes place at each stage, e.g.
replaces:
place > replace (derivation) > replaces (inflection)
If a word is structurally ambiguous, indicate both structures and briefly explain the
meaning associated with each structure.
a) befriended
b) unpalatable
c) grandmother
d) deactivation
e) airsickness
f) ungentlemanly
g) undressed