Morphology, Part 3: Word-Formation Processes

1. Morphology, Part 3: Word-Formation Processes October 1, 2012

2. Some Announcements • #1: There will be no office hours this afternoon. • Set up an appointment with me, if you need to chat. • #2: The Morphology homework will be due on Wednesday of next week. • I will probably post the homework to the course web page on Wednesday afternoon. • Note that I have posted the practice exercises (and answers) from last Friday’s class, for reference’s sake. • Let’s walk through the last two sets of problems…

3. 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

4. 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)

5. 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

6. 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

7. Finiteness • Note that “finitude” is the (awkward?) alternative. • Another (formerly?) productive affix: -age • wordage, sleepage, etc.

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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)

11. 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

12. 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. • For instance, how many ‘F’s are in the following passage?…

13. Check This Out FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS. You might want to read through it again.

14. More Word Formation Processes • So far, we’ve only looked at one type of word-formation process: affixation • = concatenating morphemes in a row • Prefixation, suffixation, infixation, circumfixation… • There are many different ways to make new words without concatenating morphemes together. • compounding • internal change • reduplication • blending, etc.

15. Compounding • In compounding, two or more free morphemes combine to make a new word • Ex: baseball, blackboard, lightbulb, podcast • Compounding is very common in the world’s languages. • German is particularly fond of compounding: • Donaudampfschiffahrtgesellschaft • Donau “danube” • Dampf “steam” • Schiff “ship” • Fahrt “excursion” • Gesellschaft “company”

16. Compounding Tests • Stress Shifts • blackbird vs. black bird • lightbulb vs. light bulb • Adverbs can’t modify compound nouns: • *extremely gentleman vs. extremely gentle man • *the very White House vs. the very white house • Note: it’s also possible to form verb and adjective compounds: • Verbs: dropkick, spoonfeed, whitewash… • Adjectives: nationwide, redhot…

17. Back Formations • Back formations: removal of an (incorrectly perceived) affix to form a new word • Ex: “edit” • “editor” perceived as /edit/ + /-er/ • Other examples: • peddle (from peddler) swindle (from swindler) • burgle (from burglar) pea (from pease) • laze (from lazy) liaise (from liaison) • A “reverse” backformation: • Chinese (from Chinee + /-s/)

18. A Sipid Story of Requited Love • “It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella...when I saw her...She was a descript person...Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.” • --from “How I Met My Wife”, by Jack Winter • Check out more at: http://www.matefl.org/_mgxroot/page_10679.html • Or consider:

19. Reduplication • Reduplication: repetition of all or part of the stem • Indonesian: (total reduplication) • rumah ‘house’ rumahrumah ‘houses’ • ibu ‘mother’ ibuibu ‘mothers’ • lalat ‘fly’ lalatlalat ‘flies’ • Tagalog: (partial reduplication) • bili ‘buy’ bibili ‘will buy’ • kain ‘eat’ kakain ‘will eat’ • pasok ‘enter’ papasok ‘will enter’

20. Reduplication in English? • There are a few examples of reduplication in English. • Can you think of any? • Individual words/phrases: “bling bling”, “very very”, “teeny weeny”, “a little somethin’ somethin’”… • There is also one reduplicative process in English… • schm- reduplication: • fancy schmancy • tired schmired • football schmootball • Nobel Prize schmobel prize • ...etc.

21. Internal Change • A (slightly) more common word-formation process in English is internal change. • = changing sounds inside a root creates a new word. • Also known as alternations • sing ~ sang present/past • drive ~ drove present/past • foot ~ feet singular/plural • mouse ~ mice singular/plural • import ~ import noun/verb • present ~ present noun/verb

22. By the way... • Some internal change processes have (limited) productivity in English • What’s the past tense of “sing”? • sang sung • ring? • rang rung • bring? • brang? brung? • brought? brought?