Morphology

1. Morphology Language & Mind Summer 2011

2. Words • Perhaps the most conspicuous, most easily extractable aspect of language. • Cf. phone, phoneme, syllable • NB word vis a visspeech stream (a la figure-groundin cognition), i.e. word’s are prominent are thus given primacy in common considerations of language; they’re also exalted (in religion, as well as in academia). • Words are minimal free forms: independent from others in sentence; + no smaller bit has such freedom.

3. The structure of words • Simple words • Have no internal structure • Farm, kill, duck • Complex words • Can be divided into smaller pieces AKA morphemes • Farmer, kills, duckling • English complex words are made up of relatively few morphemes. Cf. Yu’pik: kai-pia-llru-llini-u-k (‘the two of them were apparently really hungry’)

4. Morphemes & allomorphs • Morphemes • The smallest meaningful linguistic unit • Allomorphs • One of the alternative phonemic forms of a morpheme. • The prefix ‘in-’ has 4 allomorphs • 3rd person sg present tense: kills, pats, touches • Indefinite article: a,an

5. Allomorphs • ‘allos’ don’t contrast (allo- = Greek for ‘other’) • Complementary distribution • a & an • Cf. /p/ at beginning vs. end of word • Free variation • Cf. alternate realizations of ‘exit’ and ‘off’ • However, cf. ‘exist’ vs. ‘excel’ (near minimal pairs)

6. Allomorphs • E.g. Plural ‘s’ and he/she/it verb+’s’ • Both have the same three phonological forms: • …resulting in 6 morphs • E.g. cap,bud,bush; fit,tag,kiss • …which form 2 sets of allomorphs • …of 2 morphemes

7. Morpheme types: by occurrence • Free morphemes • Simple words consist of a single morpheme, and thus they are free morphemes. • ‘a potential to occur independently’ • NB not all free morphemes in sentences are words. • Bound morphemes (-er, -s, -ing, un-, re-…) • Affixes: prefixes, suffixes, infixes • A morpheme can have free & bound allomorphs: • E.g. not - …n’t ‘deride’-’derision’

8. Morpheme types: by function • Lexical morphemes • Convey major content of message; • Open set; • Free lexical morphemes = Free roots (May serve as base for bound morphemes) • Bound: Lexical roots & Derivational affixes • Grammatical morphemes (‘function morphemes’) • Mainly give info about grammatical structure; • Closed set • Free & Bound grammatical morphemes • Bound: inflectional & clitics

9. Lexical morphemes • Bound roots • E.g. derision, submit, receive…(Latinate, ‘academic’ words) • Derivational affixes • Attach to a lexical root and make a new word (a complex lexeme called a ‘stem’) • E.g. baker (-er), tearful (-ful), childish (-ish)… • A new meaning and (sometimes) a new part of speech are derived

10. Grammatical morphemes • ‘function morphemes’ • Mainly give info about grammatical structure • Generally demanded by the grammar • Give abstract schematic meanings concerning the functions of lexical items • Free grammatical morphemes • Articles, pron, preps, conj, aux verbs • And, but, if, or, the, on, that… • Bound grammatical morphemes • Inflectional affixes (8: -s, -s, -s, -ed, -ing, -en, -er, -est) • They don’t change the meaning (much)

11. Grammatical morphemes • Bound grammatical morphemes • Inflectional affixes: give grammatical info relevant to the interpretation of sentence. • Don’t give rise to new lexical words, but to diff forms of a single word, different forms appropriate for use of that word a sentence. • Serviconsulemaudiunt vs. Consul servos audit • The slaves hear the consul The consul hears the slaves • noun+ /i/ = subject-pl; n+/em/=obj-sg; …-verb+/unt/; verb+/t/

12. Allomorphic conditioning • Types of allomorphs • Phonological allomorphs • E.g. possessive and plural ‘s’ • Suppletiveallomorphs • E.g. good, better, best; go,went,gone

13. Allomorphic conditioning • Types of conditioning factors • Phonological conditioning • Indefinite article • Possesive • Lexical conditioning • Depends on word: irregular plural nouns, past tense : irregular plural

14. Allomorphic conditioning • Morphological rules • Like identifying abstract phonemic forms that are realized by phones, it can be descriptively and conceptually useful to identify abstract forms for morphemes that are realized by different phonological allomorphs. • Thus the Eng. regular past suffix has 3 allomorphs, which are in complementary distribution. • We can presume they are alternative realizations of a more abstract form of the morpheme (cf. phonemes)

15. Morphological description • Locative case in Turkish • Four allomorphs – each influenced by its phonological environment

16. Morphological analysis • Hungarian verbs p 72 • Suppletive allomorphs • 3rdperssg – unmarked (not uncommon) • Nb zero morphs

17. Morphological analysis by speakers • Kids learn L1 starting w/ words or larger units as unanalyzed wholes. • Each word is a separate sign, unrelated to others • By 4 yrs kids’ vocabularies = 1000+ words • i.e. ‘too many’ to treat as unique entities • Thus they divide them into meaningful parts • NB ‘regularizing’ irregular words (pl & past tense)

18. Morphological analysis by speakers • We continue to abstract elements of words throughout adulthood, performing ad hoc analyses • At times we abstract ‘meaningless’ elements and imbue them with meaning (cf. faux etymology) • At times we abstract ‘meaningful’ elements and create new ‘valid’ words (cf. etymology  any new academic term from ‘atom’ to ‘zoophobia’ • NB: every word was made up at some point: what words are being made up now?