Morphology, Part 2

1. Morphology, Part 2 January 26, 2012

2. In Our Last Episode • Words and morphemes (meaningful “word parts”) • Free and bound morphemes • Simple and complex words • Affixes and roots • Word-formation rules • Affixes attach to a root (or base) of a particular lexical category… • and create a new word.

3. Layers of Words • Words that are formed through the addition of multiple affixes have a layered, or hierarchical structure. • One (ugly) way to represent this structure is through bracket notation: • [root] [construct] • [[affix] + [root]] [[re-] + [construct]] (=base) • [[base] + [affix]] [[[re-] + [construct]] + [-ion]] • WORD reconstruction

4. Tree Structures • In this class, we’ll primarily stick with tree diagrams to represent word structure. • (because they look better and are easier to read) • re construct ion un desire able • Tree terminology: branches • nodes: where two branches meet • nodes represent constituents of the word

5. Building the Perfect Beasts • To accurately capture all of the facts of word formation… • tree structures should represent the lexical categories of all constituents at each node in the tree. • Noun Adj • Verb Adj • Aff Verb Aff Aff Verb Aff • [re-] [construct] [-ion] [un-] [desire] [-able]

6. Ambiguity • Some complex words can have more than one interpretation • Different derivations can result in different interpretations • Example: “unlockable” Note: [un-] can attach to both adjectives and verbs [-able] attaches to verbs and creatives adjectives

7. Unlockable, part 1 • Adj • Adj • Aff Verb Aff • [un-] [lock] [-able] • = not able to be locked

8. Unlockable, part 2 • Adj • Verb • Aff Verb Aff • [un-] [lock] [-able] • = able to be unlocked

9. Inflections vs. Derivations • Linguists draw another distinction among affixes: • Inflectional affixes: • mark grammatical properties • (person, number, gender, tense, aspect) • don’t change other aspects of meaning • are required by rules of sentence structure • create a new “word form” • Derivational affixes: • change meaning • create a new word • (typically) have clear semantic content • may change the lexical category of the word

10. Inflectional Affixes • There are precisely eight inflectional affixes in English: • -s 3rd person wait --> waits • -ing progressive wait --> waiting • -ed past tense wait --> waited • -en past participle eat --> eaten • -s plural card --> cards • -’s possessive dad --> dad’s • -er comparative tall --> taller • -est superlative weak --> weakest • All of these are suffixes.

11. Inflectional Affixes • Other languages can have a lot more inflectional affixes. • Examples from French: parler “to speak” • 1st person, plural: parlons “We speak” • 2nd person, plural: parlez “You guys speak” • Past tense: • 1st person, singular: parlais “I spoke” • 1st person, plural: parlions “We spoke” • 2nd person, plural: parliez “You guys spoke” • Plus many, many more.

12. Derivational Affixes • In contrast to inflectional affixes, derivational affixes: • Create new words when they’re attached to roots • Examples: • re- cycle --> recycle • de- code --> decode • -y fish --> fishy • -ize vandal --> vandalize • Also: English has far more derivational affixes than inflectional affixes.

13. A Note on Word Forms • Morphologists use the term lexeme to refer to a group of related word forms. • wait, waits, waited, waiting, etc. • The canonical form of the lexeme is called the lemma. • = the “headword” in a dictionary. lemma word forms different lexeme • Inflectional affixes relate a lexeme to its various forms. • Derivational affixes relate one lexeme to another lexeme.

14. The Class System • In English, there are two types of derivational affixes: 1. Class 1 (or Level 1) • Often cause phonological (sound) changes in the root • Also cause more profound semantic (meaning) changes to the root • Can combine with bound roots, too. • Ex: -ity, -y, -ion • For instance: • Electric  electricity; stupid  stupidity • democrat  democracy; nation

15. The Class System • Class 2 (or Level 2) • Don’t cause phonological (sound) changes in root. • Less of a semantic (meaning) effect, too. • Ex: -ness, -less, -er, -ish • Normally, Class 1 affixes attach to the root before Class 2 affixes. • relational -ion (1), -al (1) • divisiveness -ive (1), -ness (2) • *fearlessity -less (2), -ity (1) • fearlessness -less (2), -ness (2)

16. Productivity • Productivity = the extent to which a word-formation rule can be applied to new morphemes, to form new words • Class 2 affixes tend to be more productive than Class 1 affixes. • -ness vs. -ity • both attach to: adjectives • both form: nouns • both mean: the quality of the adjective • blindness stupidity • happiness validity • goodness complexity

17. Productiveness • -ness is very productive, so it can expand its reach to other words: • stupidness, validness, complexness • The same is not true of -ity: • *blindity, *happity, *goodity • -ness is so productive, it can also be affixed to new words: • truthy + -ness  truthiness • chair + -ness  chairness • productive + -ness  productiveness

18. Unproductivity • -able is another very productive morpheme: • make-fun-of-able • Other morphemes are not so lucky: • -th: warm + -th = warmth • wide + -th = width • deep + -th = depth • cool + -th = *coolth • -en: moist + -en = moisten • red + -en = redden • cute + -en = ?cuten • abstract + -en = *abstracten

19. An Intermediate Case • -ify attaches to adjectives to form verbs • just + -ify = justify • pure + -ify = purify • quick + -ify = ?quickify • smart + -ify = ?smartify • An anecdotal case • busy + -ify = busify • ugly + -ify = uglify • -ify has limited productivity

20. Blocking • Productivity can sometimes be limited by the existence of other words • intelligent + -ness = *intelligentness • “intelligence” gets in the way • it blocks intelligentness from existence • true + -ness = *trueness (truth) • inhabit + -er = *inhabiter (inhabitant) • guide + -er = *guider (guide) • In other cases, a new word gets created anyway: • pride + -ful = prideful (proud)

21. Content and Function Words • One last distinction: there are both content and function words. • Content words = • have some semantic content (meaning) • nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs • ex: politics, baseball, socks, green, create • Function words = • specify grammatical relations • have little or no semantic content • prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions

22. Content and Function Words • Content words are an “open class”-- • we can add new members anytime we want. • Function words are a “closed class”-- • it’s not easy (or possible?) to add new members. • When was the last time you heard a new pronoun? Or new preposition? • (thoughts on the quick write?) • Our minds also process function words differently from content words.