Introduction to
Linguistics
Introduction to Morphology
Lecture 6 Part 1
What is Morphology?
Morphology is usually described as the study
of the smallest meaningful units in a language. Another way of looking at
morphology is the study of the basic meaning-related components of words, or the
structure of words.
Morphemes and Words
A Morpheme
is considered as a category of semantically identical smallest units of meaning
in a language. Some morphemes are identical to words, but many morphemes are
smaller than words. {cat}, {past tense} and {plural}are all morphemes, even
though each may be represented in several different ways phonetically
A Morph
is an instance or an utterance of a morpheme. house, -ed (in washed) and
un (in undo) are all morphs
Words
A Word
is a complete linguistic unit that is meaningful on its own and can be
freely reordered into new phrases and sentences. A word produces an immediate
association with a particular meaning to speakers of a language. Words may be
simple, containing 1 morpheme, or complex, containing 2 or more morphemes
The Difference Between a Morph and a
Morpheme?
A morph
is an actual occurrence or instance of smallest meaningful units, while a
morpheme
is a class or category of similar morphs. For example, if you say “house” 20
times, you have articulated 20 morphs, or smallest meaningful units. However,
those 20 morphs all have the same meaning, so they are all members of the same
morpheme, or category of smallest units of meaning.
Lexical & Grammatical Morphemes
A Lexical Morpheme
is a morpheme that has an easily definable sense in and of itself, such as a
noun, verb, adjective or adverb,, identifying an item, action, or concept that
could be described with words or pictures, such as {cat}, {happy}, {red}
A Grammatical Morpheme
is a morpheme that does not have a sense in and of itself but is used to explain
relationships between lexical morphemes, signaling a relationship between a word
and the context in which it is used, such as {of}, {and}, {re}, {full}
Bound and Free Morphemes
A Bound Morpheme is a morpheme that can not
occur by itself, but must be attached to at least one other morpheme, such an
{un} in unhappy and {ly} in kindly
A Free Morpheme is a morpheme that is a word
in its own right and can be freely reordered into new phrases and sentences,
such as {fat}, {cat}, {tree}
Inflectional & Derivational Morphemes
Inflectional morphemes
are affixes that, when added to a word, will not chance the part of speech but
does change the grammatical features such as tense or plurality. E.g. the [s]
in desks, the {ed} or [t] in walked. There are 8 classes of inflectional
morphemes in English – {plural}, {possessive}, {present tense},{past tense},
{present participle}, {past participle}, {comparative} and {superlative}
A Derivational Morpheme
is an affix that when added to a word, may change the word’s part of speech, but
does not affect functional meaning. E.g. the {ize} or [aIz] in hospitalize, the
{un} or [ n] in unhappy
Distinguishing Morphemes
Morphemes are not always easy to
distinguish when they occur in the context of complex, or multi-morphemic
words.
Consider the word woman. Man
is easily identified as a morpheme, so what is the relationship of wo?
1500 years ago, woman was spelled wifmann. As you probably noticed,
there is an obvious morphemic relationship in this version of the word wife. In
this case, the morphemic identity of the segments wo in the word woman
has been obscured by 1500 years of sound and spelling change
Distinguishing Morphemes continued…
Another example is the word cranberry.
Again, you might suspect that berry is a separate morph, but if that
is the case, what does cran mean? The original spelling of cran
was crane. Craneberries were so called because they were a favorite food
of the cranes that lived in the marshes where they grew. Over time, the morph
crane became shortened to cran. Again, history and the inevitable
changes in spelling and pronunciation have obscured the meaning.
Word Structure
Morphemes and words can be extended and
modified in a variety of ways, primarily by adding additional morphemes.
Most complex words consist of a root and one
or more affixes. This process of adding an affix is called affixation
A root caries the major component of meaning
and it is typically a lexical morpheme (a noun, verb, adjective or preposition
Bases
A Base
is the morphological element that a prefix or suffix is attaches to
In many cases, the the base is also a root
(plural as in cats)
Often, the base is larger than the root. (in
darkened, the past tense affix is added to the verbal base darken,
which consists of a root dark morpheme and the suffix en. dark
is the root for the entire word and the base for en, while darken is the
base for ed
Extending & Modifying Words
Words can be extended, modified and
manipulated in a number of ways, including:
–
Affixes
–
Compounding
–
Clitization
–
Substitution, or Internal Changes
–
Suppletion
–
Reduplication
–
Stress and Tone
Affixes
An affix
is always a bound morpheme, and is never a member of a lexical category.
There are thousands of affixes in English.
Native speakers instinctively recognize these affixial units of meaning, which
allows then to construct new and novel ways of expressing ideas
E.g. antidisestablishmentarianism
n
(anti = against), (dis = not),
(establish = root), (ment = a state or condition of), (arian = )
, (ism = doctrine or belief system)
Suffixes, Prefixes & Infixes
Prefixes
are affixes, or bound morphemes that are added before a root, or at the
beginning of a word
Suffixes
are affixes, or bound morphemes that are added after a root, or at the beginning
of a word
Infixes
are affixes that occur within its base or within
a single morpheme
Infixes
In some languages, infixes are added within
the base morpheme to mark or indicate a special relationship.
In Tagalog, the infix in is inserted after
the first consonant of the base to mark a completed event.
–
bili means buy. b-in-ili means bought
–
basa means read. b-in-asa means read
–
sulat means write. s-in-ulat means wrote
In English, infixes most often function as
emphatics, usually with expletives
Derivation & Derivational Affixes
As we have seen, derivation is a very common
process in English, wherein the addition of an affix to a base causes a change
in meaning and/or category
For example, in the following examples, the
addition of the affix er changes a verb base to a noun and changes
the meaning from an describing action to describing “one who does something”
sell/seller, write/writer, teach/teacher
Multi-Morphemic Suffixes
A close look demonstrates that the suffix
er can produce other meaning relationships besides the
verb/noun relationship just described.
If the root is a noun, the derivation will
remain a noun, but the contextual meaning will change… island/islander
If the root is an adjective, the derivation
will produce a change in meaning, indicating a superlative relationship…
smart/smarter, big/bigger, tall/taller, fat/fatter
Lexical Independence
Once formed, derived words take on lexically
independent meanings. In write vs. writer, writer is often associated with “one
who writes for a living”. Compare means to assess or contrast vs. comparable
means similar. Profess means to declare vs. profession refers to a career.
Note: handout, 150 common affixes in English
Compounding
Compounding
is an important word building process in English, dating back to the earliest
level of development in Old English
Compounding involves the combining of 2 or
more existing words from the lexical category to create a new word. Compounding
usually involves the combining of a verb, adjective or preposition with a noun,
and will usually produce a noun.
Noun + noun adj. + noun
verb + noun prep. + noun
Campsite bluebird
playpen overload
Housefly highchair
washcloth outhouse
Bookcase happy-hour
workload underwear
Cliticization
Clitics
are morphemes that behave like words in terms of their function and meaning, but
can not stand alone as independent forms. Clitics must be attached to another
word, referred to as a host.
English demonstrates a limited range of
clitics, including verb forms with reduced varients, such as the m in
I’m, the re in they’re and the s in Mary’s
(Mary’s leaving for France)
French uses clitics fairly extensively:
Suzanne les voit = Suzanne them sees (Suzanne sees them)
Clitics that are attached to the end of
the host are called enclitics
Clitics that are attached to the front of
the host are called proclitics
Substitution, or Internal Changes
Substitution
refers to Internal changes where one non-morphemic segment substitutes for
another in order to make grammatical contrast
The process where verbs use vowel change to
form the past tense is referred to as ablaut
The process where nouns use vowel change to
form the plural is referred to as umlaut
E.g. of ablaut: sing/sang, sink/sank,
drive/drove
E.g. of umlaut: foot/feet, goose/geese
Following the Process of Change
As we have seen, irregular nouns use vowel
change to form the plural. The historical transition of this process followed
this pattern
Old singular form of goose /gos/ (as in
go)
Old plural form of goose /gosi/
Umlaut singular form /g Is/ (as in
oyster)
Umlaut plural form /g Isi/
Loss of plural suffix /gus/ (as in
ooze)
Later changes /ges/ (gas) and then /gis/
(geese
Suppletion
Substitution
is a replacement process where an entirely different morpheme has evolved to
produce grammatical contrast E.g. go/went, be/was/were
Consider think/thought, seek/sought,
catch/caught, wreak/wrought. The initial phonemes if these verbs remains
unchanged, so this particular class is usually treated as internal change with
partial suppletion
Reduplication
Reduplication
is the process by which grammatical or semantic content is achieved by repeating
all or part of the base to which it applies
Full reduplication
yields a repetition of the entire base
Partial reduplication
yields the repetition of a sequential portion of the base
Reduplication in English is limited, but the
following are examples… isty-bitsy, teeny-weenie
Reduplication continued…
Other languages use reduplication
extensively…
In Turkish
/tSabuk/
= quickly, /tSabuk-
tSabuk/
= very quickly
/iji/
= well, /iji-iji/ = very well
In Indonesian
/taktuh/ = man, /taktuh-tktuh/ =
many men
/maNga/
= mango, / maNga-maNga/
= many mangos
In Tagalog
/lakad/ = walk, /lakad-lakad/ =
will walk
/pipi/ = choose, /pili-pili/ =
will choose
Stress and Tone
A word base can undergo change in the
placement of stress and tone which can reflect changes in semantic content
In the following examples, placing the
stress on the final syllable vs. the first syllable changes the semantic content
and part of speech. The syllabic element in each word is underlined
verb noun
implant implant
present present
subject subject
contest contest
Other Types of Word Formation
While compounding and derivation are the two
most common methods of word formation in English, there are a few other methods
of creating new words we will consider…
n
Conversion
n
Clipping
n
Blends
n
Backformation
n
Acronyms
n
Onomatopoeia
Conversion
Conversion is the process that assigns an
already existing word to a new semantic category. There is no obvious affix or
derivation, but because there is often a change in category, it is sometimes
referred to as “zero derivation”
Conversion refers to meaning-related change
–
noun to verb – butter (the bread), ship (the
box)
–
verb to noun – (a big) contest, (a building
permit)
–
prep to verb – down (a beer), up (the price)
–
adj to noun – (the) poor, (the) illiterate
Clipping
Clipping is the process of shortening a
multi-syllabic (polysyllabic) word by deleting one or more syllables
This is a common practice with names: Liz
for Elizabeth, Rob for Robert
Common examples - prof for professor,
phys.ed for physical education, burger for hamburger, fax for facsimili, zoo for
zoological garden
Other exampled – doc, ad, auto, lab, deli,
porn, demo
Blends
Blends are words that are formed from
non-morphemic parts of two separate words that, when combined, form a new word
with a new meaning
–
Breakfast from break and fast
–
Smog from smoke and fog
–
Spam from spiced and ham
–
Bit from binary digit
–
Motel from motor and hotel
Backformation
Backformation is a method or word formation
in which the end of the word is shortened (a supposed affix is deleted). The
result is a new word that appears to be the source of the original word, but is
actually a new,modified word.
Baby-sit is back-formed from babysitter,
even though babysitter appears to be the product of baby-sit + er
Self-destruct is back-formed from
self-destruction, even though self-destruction appears to be the product of
self-destruct + ion
Acronyms
Acronyms are words that are formed by
combining the initial letters of all or most of the words in a phrase
NATO, UNICEF are examples of names
Radar- radio detecting and ranging
Scuba – self-contained underwater
breathing apparatus
Laser – light amplification by stimulated
emission radiation
Onomatopoeia
All languages contain words that sound
like the thing they name. Their form can be different from language to
language, but they share a common level of identification
E.g. buzz, hiss, sizzle, cuckoo
The Athapaskan language Slavey, spoken in
the North West Territories of Canada has onomatopoeic words for “the sound of a
bear walking close to camp (sah-sah-sah); “the sound of a knife hitting a tree”
(oik); and ‘the sound of an egg splattering” ((tloosh)
References
Murray, Thomas. The Structure of
English. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995.
O’grady, Wiliam, and John Archibald.
Contemporary Linguistic Analysis.
4th ed. Toronto: Addison, 2000.
Fromkin, Victoria. Linguistics, An
Introduction to Linguistic Theory. Malden: Blackwell, 2000.
THE END
Lecture 6
Introduction To Linguistics
Dr. Robert Schwab, TESOL at Hanyang University, 2002
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