MORPHOLOGY – Scientific study of the internal structure of words

Syntax - deals with the way words, phrases and clauses are combined in a language

Morphosyntax covers the relationship between syntax and morphology

Word – the smallest independent unit of language

 Simple words – e.g. work

 Complex words – e.g. worker

Morpheme - the smallest element of a language which carries a meaning.

 Free morpheme – a simple word consisting of one single morpheme (house, work)
 Bound morpheme – a morpheme attached to another morpheme to receive meaning
(unkindness, un+kind+ness)

Bound morphemes can be derivational (lexical) or inflectional.

Derivational morphology – formation of words out of combinations of elements. Derivational

morphemes change either the semantic meaning or word class of the affected word.

Affix – morpheme attached to the base. Four types: prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes.

Base – form of a word to which affixes are added to create new words.

Inflectional morphology – studies the way in which words vary in their form in order to express a
grammatical contrast. Inflectional morphemes express grammatical relations by changing word forms.
They don't change the meaning or class of a word.

Eight English inflectional morphemes:

 Plural – s
 Genitive – 's
 Third person present – (s)
 Past tense – (e)d
 Past part. – (e)d
 Present part. – ing
 Comparative – er
 Superlative – est

Morph - actual realization of the morpheme

Allomorphs – variations in form, same meaning (e.g. im-penetrable, in-edible, ir-regular)

Morpheme 'plural'

Cat + plural = cats

Sheep + plural = sheep (zero morph)

Four main processes of word formation: prefixation, suffixation, conversion, compounding

 Prefixation – adding a prefix to a base (un-tidy)

 Suffixation – adding a suffix to a base (free-dom)
 Conversion- changing a word from one class to another (The film is an absolute must for
lovers of westerns)
  Compounding – involves linking together two or more bases to create a word (headache,
postcard)

THE FORMATION OF DERIVED NOUNS

Derivational prefixes do not normally alter the word class of the base word:

 Arch-bishop
 Auto-biography
 Bi-sexuality

Derivational suffixes usually change both the meaning and the word class:

 Arrive + al – arrival
 Croat + ian – Croatian
 Resemble + ance – resemblance

Conversion (zero derivation) – the base is converted into a different word class

 Adj. to noun – white – the whites of his eyes

 Verb to noun – catch – a fine catch
 Noun to verb – butter – to butter bread

Compounding:

 Noun+noun – chairman
 Noun+verb/noun – gunfire
 Noun+verb-er – dishwasher
 Noun+verb-ing – fire-fighting
 Verb/noun+noun – playboy
 Self+noun – self-control
 Verb-ing+noun – mockingbird
 Adj+noun – highway
 Verb+particle – shortcut
 Particle+verb/noun – bystander

THE FORMATION OF VERBS

Prefixes usually do not change the word class.

 Re-write
 Dis-please
 Over-do
 Un-couple
 Mis-understand

Suffix:

 Computer-ise
 Awoke-en
 Active-ate
 Beauty-ify
Compound verbs:

 Noun+verb –hand-wash
 Adj+verb – highlight
 Preposition+verb – underestimate

THE FORMATION OF ADJECTIVES

Participial forms – ing, ed (amazing, complicated)

Adding derivational suffixes

 Noun + suffix
o Card-less
o Effect-ive
 Verb + suffix
o Continue-ous
o Act-ive

Adjectival compounds

 Adj + adj – greyish-blue

 Adj + noun – full-time
 Noun + adj – life-long
 Noun + past.part. – wind-powered
 Noun + pres.part. – mouth-watering

FORMATION OF ADVERBS

Simple adverbs – well, too, quite

Compound adverbs – anyway, nowhere

Suffixation – clearly, homewards

Fixed phrases – of course, kind of, at last

Neo-classical compound – a compound where at least one of the component bases is a combining
form. They are usually of Greek or Latin origin. E.g. astronaut, psychology.

 Initial combining forms – eco, geo, tele

 Final combining forms – ectomy, emia, icide

Some combining forms can stand alone as words, such as mania, phobia. Some have arisen as
informal clippings: homo, pseudo, psycho, physic.

One of the components can be an ordinary free base rather than a combining form: aerospace, auto-
suggestion, insecticide, jazzophile.

OTHER TYPES OF WORD FORMATION

Initialism – a base is formed by combining the initial letters of a sequence of words.

 Abbreviations are pronounced as sequences of letters (BBC, FBI)

 Acronyms are pronounced as words (NATO, UNESCO)

Clipping – cutting off part of an existing word (ad from advertisement)

 Original – word that is the source of the clipping (advertisement)

 Surplus – the phonological material that is cut away (vertisement)
 Residue – the remaining material that forms the new base (ad)

- They may wholly or largely replace the original (movie)

- They can also develop different meanings (curio – curiosity, fan – fanatic)

Two types of clipping:

 Plain clipping – consists of just the residue from clipping

o Back-clipping: surplus removed from the back (doctor – doc)
o Foreclipping: surplus removed from the front (telephone – phone)
o Ambiclipping: surplus removed from both front and back (influenza – flu)
 Embellished clipping – other operations apply to the residue to produce a longer word.
Clipping followed by a suffix (soccer – association football, barbie –barbecue)

Blending – parts of 2 or more words combine to create a new word. (telebanking – telephone +
banking)

Back-formation – an actual or supposed derivational affix detaches from the base to create a new
word (source: bartender, babysitter -- back-formation: bartend, babysit)

Coinages (neologisms) – a new word is created either deliberately or accidentally without using the
other word formation processes and often from seemingly nothing (Frisbee, Kleenex)

Nonce words – new words formed through any number of word formation processes with the
resulting word not expected to recur. Jabberwocky – incoherent or nonsensical expression. Touch-me-
not-ishness, twi-thought.

Borrowing – a word from one language is borrowed directly into another language (algebra, bagel,
cherub, chow mein)

Calquing – a borrowed word or phrase is translated from one language to another (blue-blood from
Spanish sangre azul)

MORPHOPHONOLOGICAL ALTERNATION

Affixes can affect the phonological form of the base to which they are attached.

Morphophonological alternants – different forms an element takes in different morphological

environments.

Stress shifts – parent, parental

Vowel alternations

One group of alternations were brought about by changes in the vowel system known as the Great
Vowel Shift:
  /aɪ/ - /ɪ/ malign – malignant
 /i:/ - /e/ obscene – obscenity
 /eɪ/ - /æ/ profane – profanity
 /aʊ/ - /ʌ/ abound – abundant

Consonant alterations

Velar softening -- /k/ - /s/; /g/ - /ʤ/, electric, electricity; analogue, analogy

Alveolar plosive versus fricative -- /t/ - /ʃ/ or /s/, hesitate – hesitation; /d/ - /ʒ/ or /z/, invade – invasion

Absence versus presence of plosive with nasal – 0 - /g/ or /b/, paradigm – paradigmatic, iamb –
iambic

Spelling alternations

Consonant doubling – a base ending in a simple vowel followed by a simple consonant has the last
letter doubled before a vowel; bag – baggage, dog – doggie.

E-deletion – mute e is generally deleted before a vowel-initial suffix (abuse – abusive, believe –
believable, drive – driver

- Mute e can be deleted before a consonant-initial suffix (due – duly, true – truly, whole –
wholly)

Y-replacement -- base-final y is normally replaced by i before suffixes that do not begin with i (apply
– applicant, carry – carriage, glory – glorious

WORD CLASSES
Open classes (lexical words) – constantly changing their membership

 Noun
 Lexical verb
 Adjective
 Adverb

Closed classes (grammatical words, function words) – relatively stable and unchanging in the
language

 Pronoun (she)
 Determiner (the)
 Auxiliary verb (be, can)
 Modal (may)
 Preposition (in)
 Conjunction (and)
 Quantifier (some)

Nouns – denote people, animals, inanimate things, places, events, qualities, states. Main types:
common and proper

Common countable nouns

Indefinite:

 singular: a cow
 plural: cows
Definite:
 singular: the cow
 plural: the cows

Common uncountable nouns

Indefinite: milk
Definite: the milk

Proper: Matthew

Countable Concrete: pig

Common Abstract: difficulty

Nouns Uncountable
Concrete: butter

Proper Abstract: music

Nouns with dual class membership:

 He’s had several such experiences

 He hasn’t had much experience
 The lambs were eating quietly
 There’s lamb on the menu today

Proper nouns:

 Personal names
 Place names
 Organization names
 Time names

Definite article + proper noun:

 multi-word expressions (the White House)

 Single proper noun (the Vatican, The Hague)
 Geographical names (the Nile)
 Plural geographical names (the Himalayas)
 Hotels, restaurants, theatres, museums, libraries (the Ritz)
 Names of ships (the Titanic)
 Newspapers and periodicals (the New York Times)
Syntactic characteristics of nouns:

 Preceded by determiners (a house)

 Modified by adjectives (a large house)
 Premodified by other nouns (a country house)
 As a subject agrees in person and number with the verb (his house was redecorated)

Verbs

Lexical verbs – open class, denote type of action, state or event. They can occur as multi-word units
(He turned on the lights; I looked at him again)

Auxiliary verbs – closed class. Consisting of be, have and do. Indicate clause type (interrogative,
negative), tense, aspect, passive voice.

Modal verbs – closed class consisting of:

 Core modal verbs (can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must)
 Semi-modal verbs (dare, need, ought to, used to)
 Modal expressions (be able to, have (got) to)

Main verbs v. auxiliary verbs

 Lexical verbs function only as main verbs

 Primary auxiliary verbs (be, have and do) can function as both auxiliary and main verbs
 Modal verbs function only as auxiliary verbs

Adjectives describe properties, qualities, or states attributed to a noun or pronoun

Descriptives describe color, size, age, emotion etc.

Classifiers limit or restrict a noun’s referent (left, Chinese, legal, political)
Characteristics of adjectives:
 Attributive function – An ugly painting
 Predicative function – The painting is ugly. He thought the painting ugly
 Intensifier – very – They are very happy
 Comparative and superlative forms
 Gradable

Central adjectives – adjectives which can occur attributively and predicatively, have comparative
and superlative forms and are gradable (happy)
Peripheral adjectives – adjectives that do not fulfill the criteria of central adjectives (utter, afraid)

Participal adjectives:

 Predicative use: His views were very surprising. The man seemed very offended.
 Attributive use: His surprising views. The offended man

Forms in -ed that have no corresponding verbs:

 The unexpected results – to unexpect

 His talented friends – to talent
Adjectives:

 Her views were very alarming

 The man was very offended

Verbs:

 Her views were alarming her audience

 The man was offended by the policeman

Adverbs – indicate the time, manner, place, degree and frequency of an event, action or process.

Function:

 Modify adjectives (utterly, hopelessly, terribly depressed)

 Enough and ago are postposed (She was pleased enough to see me; That seems long ago)
 Modify other adverbs (They’ll figure it out really fast)
 Function as adverbials (He did it slowly)

Adjective and adverb homomorphs:

 Bill has a fast car. Bill drove fast

 I arrived in the late afternoon. I arrived late in the afternoon
 That was a kindly gesture. Will you kindly refrain from smoking?

- Words denoting time (daily, hourly, monthly, weekly)

- Adjectives can be used instead of adverbs in informal usage (She’s a real nice girl. I have a really
good video with a real good soundtrack)

CLOSED CLASSES – grammatical words, function words or structure words.

Determiners – indicate the kind of reference a particular noun phrase has. Occur before the noun
acting as head of the noun phrase.

Determiners occur in a fixed order: I predeterminers, II central determiners, III postdeterminers

(I) Predeterminers:

 all, both, half,

 such (a), what (a),
 multipliers: double, one third, three quarters, twice…

(II) Central determiners:

 the articles the, a/an,

  demonstrative determiners – this, that, these, those
 possessive determiners – my, his
 wh- determiners – which, whose
 negative determiners – no
 universal determiners – every, each
 dual determiners – either, neither
 general determiners – some, any
 quantitative determiners - enough

(III) Postdeterminers:

 Ordinals – first, fourth, last, other

 Quantifiers – seven, many, much, a few, a little

Pronouns – fill the position of a noun

 Personal -you, it
 Reflexive – myself
 Possessive – mine, yours, his
 Demonstrative – this, that, these, those
 Reciprocal – each other
 Indefinite – everybody, somebody, anyone, nothing, all, some, many…
 Relative – who, whom, which, whose, that
 Interrogative – who, whom, which, whose, what (What did he say?)

Quantifiers – quantifying determiners. All, some, any. (All the students were accepted)

All were accepted – indefinite pronoun.

Prepositions – have short invariable forms (at, in, on, to, with, of, from, inside, within)

- linking words that introduce prepositional phrases

Complex prepositions

 a simple preposition preceded by a participle, adjective, adverb or conjunction (owing to,

devoid of, away from, because of)
 a simple preposition followed by a noun and then a further simple preposition (in charge of, in
addition to)

Conjunctions:

Coordinators: and but or

Subordinators introduce dependent clauses – as, although, because, if, that, while, in order that,
assuming that…

Interjections – Exclamative utterances consisting of single words. They express positive or negative
emotional reactions. (hooray, yeah, jeez, damn, oh no, ouch…)
NOUN PHRASE

(determiner) + (premodifier) + head + (postmodifier)

 His bristly short hair

 Her below the knee skirt

Noun phrase can be headed by :

a) proper noun – Dan lives in London

b) pronoun – Have you got (everything you need)
c) adjective – Show me how the impossible can be possible

Complex noun phrases

a) The head
a. That (determiner) tall (premodifier) girl standing in the centre (postmodifier)
is…
b. Those tall girls standing in the corner are…
b) The premodifier
a. Some (determiner) very (intensifier for expensive) expensive (general) office
(noun premodifier) furniture
c) The postmodifier
a. Prepositional phrase
i. The chair by the wall (prepositional phrase, postmodifier)
ii. Action in case of fire (prep. phrase, postmodifier)
b. Non-finite clauses
i. All the boys playing in the garden (non-f. clause, postmod.)
c. Relative clauses
i. The car which she bought recently (rel. clause, postmod.)

Types of premodifying items

a) Adjective – I visited his delightful cottage

b) Participle – I visited his crumbling/completed cottage
c) –‘s genitive - I visited his fisherman's cottage
d) Noun – I visited his country cottage
e) Adverbial – I visited his far-away cottage
f) Clause – I visited his pop-down-for-the-weekend cottage

Premodification by noun – logical relationship between noun1 and noun2

  Composition: satin dress
 Purpose: pencil case
 Identity: women algebraists
 Content: algebra text
 Objective: taxi driver
 Subjective: child development
 Time: summer conditions
 Location: Paris conference
 Institutive: insurance company
 Partitive: family member
 Specialization: finance director

Adjectives as heads of noun phrases

 Do not inflect for number or genitive

 Require 'the'
 Plural and generic reference