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Words and their parts

Words and their parts. Morphology. Objectives. To introduce key concepts in the study of complex word analysis To provide a description of some of the morphological phenomena To illustrate methods used to derive and support linguistic generalizations about word structure.

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Words and their parts

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  1. Wordsandtheirparts Morphology

  2. Objectives To introducekeyconceptsinthestudyofcomplex word analysis To provide a descriptionof some ofthemorphologicalphenomena To illustratemethodsusedtoderiveandsupportlinguisticgeneralizationsabout word structure

  3. What is a word? Thetaskofanylanguagelearner, includingyoungchildrenacquiringtheirlanguage, is to figure out how to segment andanalyzethetalkingnoisearoundthemintomeaningfulunits – namely, wordsandtheirmeaningfulparts Webster’s UnabridgedDictionary: “word is thesmallestindependentunitoflanguage, or one thatcanbeseparatedfromothersuchunitsinanutterance”

  4. Example: independenceofthe word tea A. Which do you like better – cofee or tea? B. Tea.

  5. Example Wordscan enter intogrammaticalconstructions: phrases or sentences: A. Tea is good for you. B. Shedoesn’t drinktea. C. There are beneficialantioxidantsintea.

  6. What is a word? Words are “usuallyseparatedbyspacesinwritinganddistinguishedphonologically, as byaccent” Chinesedoesn’t insert spacesbetweenwordsinwriting People who can’t readandspeakersoflanguageswithoutwriting systems knowwhatwords are intheirlanguages

  7. What is a word? Phonology –animportant role inidentifyingtheboundariesbewteenwords A. Theywalked past a GREENhouse B. Theywalked past a green HOUSE

  8. What is a word? Examples Isphonologyenough to disambiguate a word? A. Tea’s good for you. B. Thatshopsellsteasfromaroundthe world. C. I askedhimnot to teasethecat.

  9. What is a word? Webster: words are “typicallythoughtof as representinganindivisibleconcept, action, or feeling, or as having a single referent” Tease – different referent thanteas Teas: -s – notanindependent word – must beattacheddirectly to anindependent word whosebasicmeaning it is modifying (plural) Teas is one word, the –sendingcontributes some additionalinformation to itsmeaning

  10. What is a word? Word – meaning, grammar, phonology Word – thesmallestgrammaticallyindependentunitoflanguage Signs – arbitrary (e.g. water, acqua, eau, voda, Wasser, mizu(Jap.)

  11. What is a word? Thewordsof one’s languagemakeupitslexicon Lexicon– a kindofmentaldictionarywherewords are stored

  12. What is a word? Each word: severalkindsofinformation (e.g. sleep) How it is pronounced /sli:p/ What it means Grammaticalcontextsinwhichthe word canbeused: sleep – intransitiveverb; canbefoundincompoundwords (e.g. sleepwalkingandinidiomse.g. let sleepingdogslie) Irregular: sleep/slept

  13. What is a word? New words – continutallyadded Meaningsmight change over time

  14. What is a word? Studyof word formation - not as muchaboutthestudyofexisting, listeddictionarywords but thestudyofpossiblewordsin one’s languageandthementalrules for constructingandunderstandingthem Not all words are listedinthelexiconbecausethenumberofpossiblewords is infinite Assignment: find new wordsin a magazine youhavereadrecently

  15. Morphology Thebranchoflinguisticsthatstudiestherelationbetweenmeaningandform, withinwordsandbetweenwords Morphologistsdescribetheconstituentpartsofwords, whattheymeanand how theymay (andmaynot) becombinedinthe world’s languages Thepairingofmeaningwith a formapplies to wholewords, like sleep, as wellas to partsofwords like the ‘past’ meaningassociatedwiththeending -ed

  16. Morphology Morphologyapplieswithinwords (cat > cats) but it alsoappliesacrosswords, as whenwealtertheformof one word sothat some partof it matches, or agreeswith, some featureofanother word: A.Thatcatsleeps all day. B. Thosecatssleep all day.

  17. Morphology Alllanguagesneed a way to signal grammaticalrolessuch as subjectanddirectobject A. BrutuskilledCaesar B. CaesarkilledBrutus Lat. BrutusCaesaremoccidit. CaesaremocciditBrutus OcciditCaesaremBrutus.

  18. Morphemes Morphemes – thesmallestunitsoflanguagethatcombineboth a formandameaning Words – madeupofmorphemes Simplewords – singlemorpheme (cat) Complexwords – two or more morphemes (cats; unfriendly)

  19. Morphemes Lexical (contentwords, open-classwords) Grammatical (functionwords, closed-classwords)

  20. Lexicalmorphemes (lexemes) Lexical m. (lexemes): refer to things, qualitiesandactions Nouns (N), verbs (V), adjectives (A) Simplelexemesmayserve as therootof more complexwords

  21. Grammaticalmorphemes Thegluethatholdsthelexemesin a sentence together, showstheirrelations to eachother, andalsohelpsidentifyreferentswithin a particularconversationalcontext E.g. Theirmaniacallittledogattemptedto bite themailman.

  22. Morphemes Bothlexemesandgrammaticalmorphemescanbeeitherfree or bound Boundmorphemes must beattachedeither to a root or anothermorpheme (-ed, -s; -al); freemorphemescanstandalone (dog, bite)

  23. Morphemes A morphemeperformingaparticulargrammaticalfunctionmaybefreein one languageandboundinanother (e.g. English infinitive marker to (to win) – a free m.; Frenchgagner: gagn- + -er)

  24. Canyouidentifythemorphemes? Themusiciansreconsideredtheirdirector’s unusualproposal.

  25. Theformsofmorphemes Sometimestheformof a morphemesystematicallyvariesundercertainconditions One ofthe most commonfactorsinfluencingtheformsmorphemestake – phonology, or some aspectofthelocalphonologicalenvironment -s; peas, puffs, peaches 3 possibleformsofthe plural suffix for regularnounsinEnglish; thesevariants are incomplementarydistributionandarecalledallomorphs

  26. Theformsofmorphemes Allomorphy – maybeconditionedbyfactorsotherthanphonology Manylanguages - differentverbclasseswhichconditiontheformofaffixes Italian: lavorare, scrivere, dormire. 3 differentconjugationclasses (lavoro, scrivo, dormo; lavoratescrivetedormite)

  27. Theformsofmorphemes Semanticfactorsmayplay a role indetermining how morphemescanberealized Prefixun- canattach to adjectivesinthe first column but notthesecond Unwellunill Unlovedunhated Unhappyunsad Unwiseunfoolish Uncleanundirty

  28. Theformsofmorphemes In a pairofwordsrepresentingoppositepolesofasemanticcontrast (happy, sad) thepositivevalue is usuallytheunmarked (or more neutral or normalquality), fromwhichthe more marked negative valuecanbederivedbyaddingtheaffixun- Lexemesalreadycontainingthe negative valueoftencannottake a negative affix

  29. Neologisms: how are new wordscreated? Acronyms: AIDS < acquiredimmunitydeficiencysyndrome Alphabeticabbreviations: CD< compact disk Clippings: prof < professor Blends: camcorder < camera + recorder Generifiedwords: xerox (<thenameofthecorporationthatproducesphotocopyingmachines) Propernouns(guillotine – namedafteritsinventor, Dr. JosephGuillotin)

  30. Neologisms: how are new wordscreated? Borrowings: Direct (avocado – Aztec word) Borrowings: Indirect(grattacielo<skyscraper) Changingthemeaningofwords

  31. Changingthemeaningofwords Changeinpartofspeech(people (N) > to peoplean island (V) Semanticextension(shipused for spacevehicles; to digestanidea – one realm (ideas) describedintermsofwordsfromanotherrealm (food) Semanticrestriction(Narrowing) (meat = solidfood) Semanticdrift(lady<hlaf+dighe ‘kneaderofbread’ Reversalofmeaning(bad = ‘verygood’ in Am. slang; terrific)

  32. Some morphologicaloperationsin world’s languages Affixation Reduplication Root change Suprasegmental change

  33. Affixation Theadditionof a discretemorphemeeitherbefore, after, insideof, or around a root or anotheraffix Most languages use some kindofaffixing to indicategrammaticalinformationabout a word or itsrelation to otherwords Anyformanaffixattaches to - a base (or a stem) Affixeswhichattach to theleft, or front, of a base – prefixes Thesimplestway to build word structure – to addsuffixes or prefixes to derive a more complex word (e.g. uninterpretability)

  34. Othertypesofaffixation Infix– anaffixthat is insertedinside a lexicalroot (Croatianbalati – balavati; prokuhati < prokuhavati) Circumfixing– a two-part or discontinuousmorphemesurrounds a root (e.g. past participlesin German: ge-kann-t (‘known’): a one-to-one correspondencebetween a morphemeandagrammaticalfunction

  35. Reduplication Copying: sometimes, anentire word is copied, or justpartof a word andsometimespartoftheroot is copiedalongwith a fixed or prespecifiedmorpheme Ilokano (Phillipines): Singpet ‘virtue’ agin-si-singpet ‘pretend to bevirtuous’

  36. Root change: Ablaut andsuppletion Ablaut – a grammatical change bysubstituting one vowel for anotherin a lexicalroot: fallfell; givegave Suppletion – nearlytheentirerootappears to havebeenreplacedby a completelydifferentform, leavingonlythe original rootonsets: catchcaught Gowent- total suppletion – wentsharesnothing at all withgo

  37. Tone andstress Some languages use changesinsyllablestress to indicategrammaticalinformation VerbNoun con’vict ‘convict per’mit ‘permit

  38. Twopurposesofmorphology: derivationandinflection Derivationalmorphologycreates new lexemesfromexistingones, oftenwith a change inmeaning Inflectionalmorphologyaddsgrammaticalinformation to a lexemeinaccordancewiththeparticularsyntacticrequirementsofalanguage Derivationandinflectionoftenco-occurwithinthe same word (e.g. dehumidifiers: 3 derivationaloperationsand 1 inflectionaloperation (humid – humidify – dehumidify – dehumidifier – dehumidifiers)

  39. Derivation Derivationalaffixes German: erb-lich (‘hereditary’) Frenchfaibl-esse (‘weakness’) Englishsing-er Often: a category change: in German, -ungapplies to verbstoderive a nounindicatingaresult (zerstör- ‘destroy’ > Zerstörung ‘destruction’)

  40. Derivation Not all affixescanattach to anyroot: -ercanonlyattach to verbs (to write > writer), -istattachesalso to nouns or adjectives (to type > typist) , -ianattachesonly to nouns, especiallyofGreekorigin (politician) Some affixes – veryproductive(-able: read>readable)) Some occurinonly a smallnumberofwordsand are notproductive: -dom (kingdom, wisdom, boredom)

  41. Themeaningofcomplexwords readable - wellwritten, good style A bill is payable– doesn’t meanthat it canbepaid but it must bepayed If a theory is questionable, it doesn’t meanthat it canbequestioned but that it is dubiousandsuspect Meaningsofmanycomplexwords – notmerelycompositesofthemeaningsoftheirparts (semanticdrift)

  42. Compounding Concatenationoftwo or more lexemes to form a new lexeme English: greenhouse, moonlight, download Identifying element: thehead; itsmeaningandpart-ofspeechcategorydeterminethatoftheentirecompound Englishcompounds – right-headed N+Ntoenail; N+A headstrong A+V blacklist

  43. Zero derivation + compounding Payoff, drawback, breakdown, pullover Sinceneitherlexemeinthecompounddeterminesitsoverallgrammaticalcategory or meaning, thesecompounds are consideredunheaded

  44. Compounding: writingconventions Often, thehyphen is usedwhen a compoundhasbeenrecentlycreated (black-board) When it hasgained a certaincurrency or permanence, spelledwithout a hyphen (blackboard) Spelled as one word (blackboard)

  45. Inflection Person Gender Case Tense Aspect Mood

  46. Person Distinguishesentitiesreferred to inanutterance 1st person: speaker 2nd person: addressee 3rd person: a defaultcategorythatrefers to everythingelse Person – oftencombinedwithnumber

  47. Person Agreementrelations (most often S – V agreement) Languageswhichdistinguishgrammaticalpersonsrequirethat a verbagreewithitssubject’s personfeature, andoccasionallywiththatofitsobject as well Subject-verbagreementhelps to indicatewhichnounin a sentence is “doing” what; valuableinlanguageswithfree word order; English: fixedwordorder – only 1 inflectionalagreement marker: 3sg -s

  48. Number A grammaticalpropertyofnouns Singular – plural (some languagesalso dual) Uncountablenounscannotbepluralized (abstractnouns: carelessness, peace; non-individualmaterial: milk, rice); a massnounin one languagemaybecountableinanother: furniture – meuble/meubles

  49. Gender Genus ‘kind, sort’ Genderagreementhelps to indicatewhichadjectives, determinersetc. are associatedwith a particularnoun Inlanguagesthatmarkgrammaticalgender, everynoun is assigned to a class Masculine, feminine, neuter Sometimes: genderindicated on thenounitself: Sp. amigo – amiga; formsoftheindefinitearticleun/unaandtheadjectiveamericano/aagreewiththegenderofthenoun

  50. Gender In Bantu languages: 10-20 nounclasses (humanness, sex, animacy, bodyparts, size, shape) A nounacquiresitsgendereither on thebasisofitsmeaning or form

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