Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Slides Morpho Lectures
Slides Morpho Lectures
Slides Morpho Lectures
1- Morphology (6 days)
Reference Books
Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2002). An
Introduction to English Morphology: Words
and their Structure. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press Ltd.
Burton-Roberts, N. (1997). Analysing
Sentences: An Introduction to English
Syntax (second edition). New York: Addison
Wesley Longman Ltd.
1. Booij, G. (2007). The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to
Linguistic Morphology (second edition). New York: Oxford
University Press.
2. Fromkin, V. et al. (2005). An Introduction to Language
(Australian edition). Melbourne: Nelson Thomson Learning
Pty Limited.
3. Jackson, H. (1982). Analyzing English: An Introduction to
Descriptive Linguistics (second edition). Oxford: Pergamon
Morphology: basic
notions
MORPHEME
the smallest unit of linguistic meaning.
A single word may be composed of one or
more morphemes.
Example: un+system+atic+al+ly ( the
word unsystematically can be analyzed
into 5 separate morphemes)
A grammatical unit in which there is an
arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning
that cannot be further analyzed.
Every word in every language is composed
of one or more morphemes.
One morpheme
boy (one syllable)
desire, lady, water (two syllables)
Two morphemes
boy + ish
desire + able
Three morphemes
boy + ish + ness
Four morphemes
gentle + man + li + ness
Free Morphemes
Morphemes which can be used as a
word on its own (without the need for
further elements, i.e. affixes)
Example: girl, system, desire,
hope, act, phone, happy..
Bound Morphemes
Morphemes which cannot occur on
its own as an independent (or
separate) word.
Affixes (prefix, suffix, infix and
circumfix) are all bound morphemes.
Stem
uncount, uncouth,
nonchalant, etc.
What is an allomorph?
Definition
An allomorph is an alternative
manifestation of a morpheme (a set of
meaningful linguistic units). Allomorphs
vary in shape or pronunciation according
to their conditions of use, but not as to
meaning.
Examples: In English, the negative prefix in
has several allomorphs:
In-capable
Il-logical
Im-probable
Ir-reverent
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
law
do
talk
delight
predict
year
Prefer, preferable, prefered,
preferential
8. soft
9. rotate
10.history
Word characteristics
unpredictable and so must be listed
in dictionaries
building-blocks for words and
phrases.
EX:
1- I keep tabs on all my expenditure.
2- Too many cooks spoil the broth.
3- A stitch in time saves nine.
4- Its no use crying over spilt milk.
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
-> Morphological analysisrefers to the
analysis ofmorphologyin any of the many
fields to use the term.
EX: unreasonable
- un-: prefix, negative bound morpheme.
- reason: stem, free morp., verb
- able: suffix, bound morp., adj, ability to
do sth
- restrain -> rest rain / re strain?
- children -> child r en ?
DERIVATION &
INFLECTION
Inflection and derivation are the two
main processes of word formation.
They are two kinds of
morphosyntactic operation.
What is inflection?
Definition:
Inflection is variation in the form of a
word, typically by means of an affix,
that expresses a grammatical
contrast which is obligatory for the
stems word class in some given
grammatical context.
Examples:
pianist -> pianists (plural)
talk -> talks (third person , singular)
decide -> decided (simple past, pp)
give -> giving (present part.,
gerund)
green -> greener (comparative)
green -> greenest (superlative)
her -> hers (possessive)
What is derivation?
Definition:
Derivation is the formation of a new
word or inflectable stem from
another word or stem. It typically
occurs by the addition of an affix.
The derived word is often of a
different word class from the original.
It may thus take the inflectional
affixes of the new word class.
Examples
Inflection
Derivation
Often change
derivational affixes.
the root
Contribute lexical
meaning
Affixes
used
Grounding
Morphological
operations
Practice
Identify the morphemes for each of the
following words, classify whether they are
derivation or inflection
1.antedate
2.portable
3.disagreement
4.readings
5.unloosened
6.ungentlemanly
7.misjudgement
8.Persian
9.Researchers
10. oxen
Un avoid able
un: bound / allomorph, derivational,
prefix, means without or not
avoid : free morpheme, verb
- able
: bound morpheme, derivational,
adjective forming suffix, means may/ ability
Plural noun
1. -um -> -a: datum-> data, bacterium -> bacteria
2. - -> -es: orange -> oranges
-s: pen
-> pens, books
3. -oo- -> -ee-: tooth -> teeth
4. -o -> es: potato -> potatoes
5. -fe -> -ves: wife -> wives, leaf -> leaves (proof ->
proofs)
6. -y -> ies: candy -> candies
7. -a- -> -e-: man -> men
8. -us -> -i: cactus -> cacti
Add prefixes
Re
repaint, rewrite
Dis
disagree, disbelieve
Prepredict, pretalk
Dedecrease, debug
Add suffixes
- al:
national, agricultural
arrival, refusal
- ly:
actively, regularly
friendly, manly
- er:
teacher, lawyer
speaker, ruler
Phrases
a green house
black board
silk worm
white house
toy factory
Compound verbs
Verbs less formed by compounding
than verbs derived by affixation.
verbverb (VV): stir-fry, freeze-dry
nounverb (NV): hand-wash, aircondition, steam-clean
adjectiveverb (AV): dry-clean,
whitewash
prepositionverb (PV):
underestimate, outrun, overcook
Compound adjectives
-> right-headed compound adjectives:
nounadjective (NA): sky-high, coalblack, oil-rich
adjectiveadjective (AA): greygreen, squeaky-clean, red-hot
prepositionadjective (PA):
underfull, overactive, oversmooth
Compound nouns
verbnoun (VN): swearword,
drophammer, playtime
nounnoun (NN): hairnet, mosquito net,
butterfly net, hair restorer
adjectivenoun (AN): blackboard,
greenstone, faintheart
prepositionnoun (PN): in-group,
outpost, overcoat
(N-V-suffix): sign-writer, slum clearance,
crime prevention, wish-fulfilment
Types
Endocentric compound: a type of compound
in which one member functions as the head
and the other as its modifier
EX: postman, milk deliver, taxi driver
Exocentric Compound: a term used to refer
to a particular type of compound that lacks a
head.
EX: white collar, pickpocket, killjoy
Copulative compounds:compounds which
have two semantic heads.
EX: bittersweet, sleepwalk
Phrasal words
brother-in-law behaves as a word
brothers-in-law (plural, head =
brothers)
Affixes as heads
greenhouse -> -house = head
teacher -> -er = head
helpful -> help / -ful = head
Prefixes rarely change the word class
(enlarge, enslave)
Suffixes change the word class
Prefixed words are right-headed
Lexeme formation
Words are divided into two kinds of
lexical classes: open & closed
Open: lexical words: verbs, nouns,
adjectives, adverbs
Closed: functional words:
determiners, conjunctions, pronouns,
articles, pre - & post-positions
Templates and
Idiosyncrasies
Lexical & functional
EX: It rains heavily.
morphological templates:
morphological form
Ex: actress, waitress -> -ess: noun,
human, female
semantic idiosyncrasy: semantic
feature
Ex: teacher, worker -> -er: person
doing an action
Multiple affixation,
Compounds within compounds
multiple affixation:
EX: unhelpfulness , helplessness.
(1) help (n) + -ful helpful (a)
un- + helpful unhelpful (a)
unhelpful + -ness unhelpfulness (n)
(2) help (n) + -less helpless (a)
helpless + -ness helplessness (n)
Form
morphology + article = morphology
article
EX: house + boat =houseboat.
->The right-hand member is the
head of the compound,
determiningthe syntactic category
and meaning of the whole
EX: a houseboat = a kind of boat
a boathouse = a kind of house
-> The left-hand member is the
modifier.
Types
Endocentric compound: a type of
compound in which one member functions
as the head and the other as its modifier
EX: postman, milk deliver, taxi driver
Exocentric Compound: a term used to
refer to a particular type of compound that
lacks a head.
EX: white collar, pickpocket
Copulative compounds:compounds
which have two semantic heads.
EX: bittersweet, sleepwalk
Inflection
Inflection: grammatical words are the inflected
forms of thelexeme and the process of
constructing inflected forms
EX: write-> writes, written, writing, wrote
The meanings of the inflected form are
predictable(plural of noun, past tense of verb, or
whatever)
The shape ofinflected forms is generally
determined by affixation to the stem form of
thelexeme.
Inflections express grammatical or functional
categories
Definition and
Characteristics
Definition:
- The basic unit of language
- The smallest linguistic unit which can occur on its
own in speech or writing.
- The smallest unit of meaning. A word may consist
of only one morpheme (e.g. wolf), but a single
morpheme may not be able to exist as a free
form (e.g. the English plural morpheme -s).
- Typically, a word will consist of a root or stem,
and zero or more affixes. Words can be combined
to create other units of language, such as phrases
, clauses, and/or sentences.
Characteristics
1. Indivisibility: structurally
impermeable -> nothing can be
inserted b/w its elements
2. Internal stability: uninterruptability
-> having freedom to move within a
sentence without destroying their
meaning
- the bus/ comes/ here/ on time
- he/ walked/ slowly/ down/ the street