(Verbal'slip attributed to the movie magnate, Samuel Goldwyn)!

W. now turn our attention to the study of the internal structure of words,
which is known as morphology. We will use the term word loosely, in its familiar
sense, because a strict definition will not be necessary till later.

A. Definition of Morpheme

Before we can examine the structure of words, we must become acquainted with an
entity known as the morpheme. A morpheme is a short segment of language that
meets three criteria:

1. It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning.

2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its
meaning or without meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in differing verbal environments with a relatively stable meaning.
Let us examine the word straight /stret/ in the light of these criteria. First, we rec-
ognize it as a word and can find it listed as such in any dictionary. Second, it cannot
be divided without violation of meaning. For example, we can, by dividing straight
/stret/, get the smaller meaningful forms of trait /tret/, rate /ret/, and ate /et/, but the
meanings of these violate the meaning of straight. Furthermore, when we divide it in
these ways we get the meaningless remainders of /s-/,./st-/, and /str-/. Third, straight
recurs with a relatively stable meaning in such environments as straightedge,
straighten, and a straight line. Thus straight meets all of the criteria of a morpheme.
As a second example.let us compare the morpheme bright (= light) with the
word brighten (= make light). In sound the only difference between the two words
is the added /-on/ of brighten, and in meaning the difference is the added sense of
“make” in brighten. This leads us to conclude that /-on/ means “make.” Thus we

*FromrAlva Johnston’s The Great Goldwyn as quoted in Familiar Quotations, 15* edition, by John Bartlett, ed. by
Emily Morison Beck. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980, p. 777.

87
 88 Morphemes

see that /-an/ is a part of a word that has meaning. We also know that it cantiot be
divided into smaller meaningful units and that it recurs with a stable meaning in -
words such as cheapen, darken, deepen, soften, and stiffen. It is therefore obvious
that /-on/ must be considered a morpheme. So brighten contains two morphemes:
bright and -en. :

After each word write a number showing how many morphemes it contains. . 4
1. play 1 11. keeper 2 |i
2. replay 2 12. able 1
3. date 1 13. unable 2
4. antedate 2 14, miniskirt 2
5. hygiene 1 15. rain 1
6. weak 1 16. rainy 2

Suc 2
7. weaken 2 17. cheap 1
8. man | 18. cheaply 2

rl asin Hi oLtda bitoni caballo

1
9. manly 2 19. cheaper 2
10. keep 1 20. cover 1
MENGKCISS 2 Bw Darecarsnarcner ee aN EL TE OI TSI TY :

Write the meaning of the italicized morphemes.

stowleiiacaneseasiteied so
. antedate prior : earlier
SOeNInnawnnm

replay again
manly like in appearance, manner, or nature : having the characteristics of
keeper one that does or performs (a specified action)
unable not : IN-, NON- —in adjectives formed from adjectives
rainy characterized by : full of
cheapest used to form the superlative degree of adjectives and adverbs of one syllable
. inactive not - before other sounds
.. impossible not - before b, m, or p
malfunction (noun) abnormal
-

B. Free and Bound Morphemes

Morphemes are of two kinds, free and bound. A free morpheme is one that can be
uttered alone with meaning, such as the words straight or bright that we saw earlier.
A bound morpheme, unlike the free, cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It is al- |
ways annexed to one or more morphemes to form a word. The italicized morphemes
in exercise 8-2 are all bound, for one would not utter in isolation such forms as ante-,
re-, -ly, -er, and un-, Here are a few more examples: preview, played, activity, su-
pervise, inter-, -vene. ‘
 Underline the bound morphemes. It is possible for a word to consist entirely of
bound morphemes.,
"1. speaker _ 6. biomass
2. kingdom BT 7. intervene
3. peirodollar 8. remake
4, idolize 9. dreamed
5. selective ‘10. undo
Tame

C. Bases

Another classification of morphemes puts them into two classes: bases and affixes
(such as prefixes and suffixes). A base morpheme is the part of a word that has the
principal meaning.” The italicized morphemes in these words are bases: denial, lov-
able, annoyance, re-enter. Bases ate very numerous, and most of them in English are
free morphemes; but some are bound, such as -sent in consent, dissent and assent. A
word may contain’ one base and one or more affixes. Readability, for example, con-
tains the free base read and the two suffixes -abil- and -ity; and unmistakabie has the
free base take and the prefixes un- and mis-, as well as the suffix -able.

Underline the bases in these words.

_ 1. womanly 6. lighten 11. unlikely
2. endear ‘ 7. enlighten . 12, prewar -
3. failure 8. friendship 13. subway
4, famous 9. befriend 14, falsify
5. infamous - 10. Bostonian ‘15. unenlivened
SLE LEE RR EE RI ETAL PR EP a BER ECTS ARE IS
PN RI RRO

All the bases in the preceding exercise are free bases. Now we will look at
bound bases, to which it is sometimes hard to attach a precise meaning. A good
number of bound bases in English come from Latin and Greek, such as the -sent-
in sentiment, sentient, consent, assent, dissent, resent,
7 The standard way to pin
‘

2This ad hoc definition will do for our present purpose. A more exact definition, which requires terms that you will not
meet until later, would go something like this: A base is a linguistic form that meets one or more of these requirements;
1. It can occur as an immediate constituent of a word whose only other immediate constituent is a prefix or suffix.
Examples: react, active, Jertilize
2. Itisan allomorph of amorpheme which has anotherallomerph that
@ is a free form.
Examples: depth (deep), wolves (wolf)
3, Iti is a borrowing from another language in which it is a free form or a base,
Examples: biometrics, microcosm, phraseology :
The third point is open to the theoretical objection that it imports diachroniclore to clarify a synchronic description.
90 Morphemes

down the meaning is to search for the meaning common to all the words that contain
the base (in these words, -seni- means “feel”). A base may have more than one
phonemic form. In the above list it has these forms: /sentt-/, /sen8-/, /-sent/, and
/-zent/. Here is an exercise in this method.

EXEL CIS OQ eh aac serene MRS LFA BI TILSEN

Write in the blanks the meaning of the italicized bound bases. To be exact, we should
write these words below in phonemic script to show the various forms of the base,
but this would involve a complication that will be explained later. So here we must
be content to indicate the base in a loose way with spelling. ,
. audience, audible, audition, auditory
. suicide, patricide, matricide, infanticide
PWN

. oral, oration, oracle, oratory

. aquaplane, aquatic, aquarium, aquanaut
. photography, biography, calligraphy
OomrnnAUM

. Corps,.corpse, corporation, corporeal

. monochrome, monologue, monorail, monogamy
. pendulum, pendant, suspenders, impending ‘Ss
. manual, manicure, manuscript, manacle
10. eject, inject, project, reject
SSSA ARES TA A a

This method can be difficult and baffling. An easier way that often works is to
look up in your dictionary the word in question, like consent, and in the etymology
find out the Latin or Greek meaning of the base. Under consent you will find that
-sent means “feel” in Latin, and this area of meaning seems to have been retained for
the base of all the words in the -sent list. Also, you will find some of the more com-
mon base morphemes listed as separate entries. The following, for example, are all
separately entered in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:
phot-, photo- (light); xer-, xero- (dry); bi-, bio- (life); mis-, miso- (hatred); ge-, geo-
(earth); biblio- (book); -meter (measuring device); tele-, tel- (distance; distant).

Look up in your desk dictionary the meanings of the bound bases italicized in the
words below. Write the meanings of these bound bases in the first column. In the
second column write another English word that contains the same base.
. geo graphy
OrAAMABRWH

. bio logy
. biblio phile
. intervene :
. comprehend
recur
. Inspect
. oppose
 Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis 9

9. inspire
10. rodent .
11. portable “
12. rupture |
13. annual
14. carnal
15. bigamy

D. Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis

Let us now digress long enough to point out that the identification of morphemes is.
not as tidy a business as may appear in these exercises and that there are serious,
pethaps insoluble, difficulties in morphemic analysis.
’ The first difficulty is that you have your own individual stock of morphemes
just as you have a vocabulary that is peculiarly your own. An example will make
this clear. Tom may think of automobile as one morpheme meaning “car,”
whereas Dick may know the morphemes auto- (self) and mobile (moving), and
recognize them in other such words as autograph and mobilize. Dick, on the other
hand, may consider chronometer to be a single morpheme, a fancy term for
“watch,” but Harry sees in this word two morphemes, chrono- (time) and meter
(measure), which he also finds in chronology and photometer, and Sadie finds a
third morpheme -er in it, as in heater; thus, mefe (verb) to measure, + ~ er, one
who, or that which:
The second difficulty is that persons may know a given morpheme but differ in
the degree to which they are aware of its presence in various words. It is likely, for
instance, that most speakers of English know the agentive suffix /-or/ (spelled -er,
-or, ~ar) meaning “one who, that which,” and recognize it in countless words such as
singer and actor. But many may only dimly sense this morpheme in professor and
completely overlook it in voucher, cracker, and tumbler. Thus, can we say that
sweater has enough pulse in its -er to be considered a two-morpheme word? This
will vary with the awareness of different individuals. A less simple case is seen in
this group: nose, noseful, nosey, nasal, nuzzle, nozzle, nostril, nasturtium. Only a
linguistically knowledgeable person would see the morpheme nose in each of these
-words. Others will show considerable differences in awareness.
Thus, we conclude that one individual’s morphemes are not those of another.
This is no cause for deep concern, though it may be.a source of controversy in the
classroom, for we are dealing with the morphemes of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, not
merely with the individual morpheme inventories of Tom, Dick, Harry, and Sadie.
But in the language itself there are problems of morphemic analysis because the
' languageis constantly changing. One problem is that of obsolescence.
Morphemes may slowly fade away into disuse as the decades and centuries roll
by, affecting our view of their morphemehood. For instance; we can be sure that
 92 Morphemes

troublesome, burdensome, lonesome, and cuddlesome are two-~morpheme words

consisting of a base morpheme plus the suffixal morpheme -some. Winsome, how- .
ever, has an obsolete base (Old English wynn, pleasure, joy), so that the word is now
monomorphemic. Between these two extremes are words like ungainly. This means
of course “not gainly,” but what does gainly mean? Certainly it is not in common
use. In current dictionaries it is called “rare” or “obsolete” or “dialectal,” or is unla-
beled. Then should we call ungainly a word of one or. two or even three morphemes?
Another problem results from the fact that metaphors die as language changes.
Let us take the morpheme -prehend- (seize) as an example. In apprehend (= to arrest
or seize) and prehensile it clearly retains its meaning, but in comprehend the metaphor
(seize mentally) seems to be dead, and the meaning of the word today is merely “un-
derstand.” Does it then still contain the morpheme -prehend-? Another case is seen in
bankrupt (bench broken). The morpheme bank, in the sense of a bench, may be obso-
lete, but -rupt is alive today in rupture and interrupt. The original metaphor is dead,
_ however, and the meaning of these two morphemes does not add up at all to the cur-
rent meaning of bankrupt. Is the word then a single morpheme?
This last matter, additive meanings, is a problem in itself. Meaning is very elusive,
and when morphemes combine in a word, their meanings tend to be unstable and
evanescent; they may even disappear altogether. Consider, for example, the morpheme
pose (place). In “pose a question” the meaning is clear, and it is probably retained in in-
terpose (place between). But in suppose and repose the meaning appears to have evap-
orated. Between these extremes are words like compose, depose, impose, propose, and.
transpose, in which the sense of pose seems to acquire special nuances in combination.
Which of all these words, then, may be said to contain the morpheme pose (place)?
Such are some of the problems in morphemic analysis that have plagued linguists.

This exercise is an excursus into dead metaphor, simply to show you a fascinating
aspect of words that many people are unaware of. Look up the etymology of the fol-
lowing words in your desk dictionary and note the original meaning that underlies
the words. A little thought will show you the connection between the original mean-
ing and the present sense.
1. daisy 6. hazard
2. muscle 7. calculate
3. supercilious 8. spurn
4, window 9. stimulate
5. easel 10. stagnate

As a practical measure, when we perform morphological analysis, we will work

synchronically rather than diachronically. In other words, we will identify mor-
phemes on the basis of what they mean and how they function within our language
now, rather than identifying them on the basis of earlier meanings or functions. The
reason for a synchronic approach to morphological analysis, especially in an intro-
 Affixes 93.

ductory course, becomes apparent if we consider the complications that might arise
from a diachronic consideration. The examples in Exercise 8-7 make this quite clear.
For example, in the case of the word daisy, it would be unreasonable to expect most
people to spot the three morphemes whose historical presence in that word are now
barely discernible in its current form and whose historical meanings are no longer a
factor in our current perception about the word’s meaning.

E. Affixes

An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before or within or after a base. There are
three kinds: prefixes, infixes, and suffixes, two of which you have already met in
passing. Now we will deal with them in greater detail.
Prefixes ate those bound morphemes that occur before a base, as in import, pre-
fix, reconsider, Prefixes in English are a small class of morphemes, numbering about
seventy-five. Their meanings are often those of English prepositions and adverbials.

Look up in your desk dictionary each italicized prefix. (Be careful here. If you are -
looking up the prefix in- in a dictionary, you will find various entries for in, includ-
ing the word ini itself, which you don’t want. Prefixes will be indicated as such by a
hyphen after the morpheme; thus, in-.) Sometimes, when you have located the exact
entry you want, you will find several meanings for it. From the meanings given for
the prefix, choose the one that fits the word and write it in the first column. In the
second column write another word containing the same prefix with the same mean-
ing. Numbers 3, 7, 8, and 11 contain variants of a prefixal morpheme.
1, antifreeze
2, circumvent
3, copilot
collapse
compact
convene
corrode
. contradict
devitalize
NMDA

. disagreeable
insecure
imperfect
illegible
irreverent
8. inspire
imbibe
_ 9. intervene
10. intramural
 94 Morphemes

11. obstruct
oppose
12: prewar
13. postwar
14. proceed
15. retroactive
16. semiprofessional
17. subway
18. superabundant

pi
19. unlikely

se Hans
20. undress
>See na mca ee aa mete
nr ea

abba
Infixes are bound morphemes that have been inserted within a word. As a gen-

co lh Sarg
eral rule, English does not have infixes, though we should acknowledge a few ex-
ceptional cases. Consider, for example, what we find in un get at able, where the
preposition at of get at is kept as an infix in the -able adjective, though the preposi-
tion is usually dropped in similar words, like reliable (from rely on) and accountable
(from account for). It might be tempting to consider as infixes the replacive vowels
that occur in a few noun plurals, like the -ee- in geese, replacing the -oo- of goose,
or those that occur in the past tense and past participles of some verbs, like the -o-
of chose and chosen replacing the -oo- of choose. But these are more precisely “re-
placive allomorphs” and will not be considered to be infixes. These allomorphs will
be examined later.
Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base, such as shrinkage, fail-
ure, noisy, realize, nails, dreamed. Suffixes may pile up to the number of three or
four, whereas prefixes are commonly single, except for the negative un- before an-
other prefix. In normalizers we perhaps reach the limit with four suffixes*: the base
norm plus the four suffixes -ai, -ize, -er, ~s. When suffixes multiply like this, their
order is fixed: there is one and only one order in which they occur.

xExercise:8=9«
In these words the base is italicized. After each word write the number of suffixes it
contains.

lL, organists 6. contradictorily

2. personalities 7. trusteeship
3. flirtatiously 8. greasier
4. atomizers ee 9. countrified
5. friendliest 10. responsibilities
SSAA ERNE SL HISAR SE I OST ST AE NT RN ET TNS
: v

3 There is, however, the widely noted though highly contrived example of the word antidisestablishment aarian ism s,
which contains five suffixes and two prefixes. . :
 inflectional Suffixes 95.

e:
Or sssmanan
G44CIS
“aE YOK samnmemnsnenR

Each group contains a base and suffixes. Make each into a word. In each case see if
more than one order of suffixes is possible. '
. ed, live, -en
. -ing,.-ate, termin
. “ef, ~8, mor, -al, -ize
provine, -s, -ism, -ial _
. vly, -some, grue |
. ity, work, -able
in, -most, -er
. inarry, -age, ~ity, -abil
. -dom, -ster, gang
. -ly, -ion, -ate, affect
=

F. Inflectional Suffixes

The inflectional suffixes can be schematized as follows:

inflectional
Suffix Examples Name

1. {-spl} - dogs, bushes noun plural

2. {-s-sg ps} boy’s noun singular possessive
3. {-s pl ps} boys’, men’s noun plural possessive
4. {-s3d} - runs, catches present third-person singular
5. {-1NG vb} discussing ~ present participle
6. {-ppt} chewed past tense
7. {-p pp} chewed, caten past participle
8 {-ER cp} bolder, sooner, nearer comparative
9. {-ssr sp} boldest, soonest, nearest superlative
The words to which these suffixes are attached are called stems. The stem in-
cludes the base or bases and all the derivational affixes. Thus, the stem of cowboys
is cowboy and that of beautified is beautify.
The above chart should be accompanied by a few observations. The chart does
not contain alternate forms that are sometimes used for the plural, past tense, or past
participle. Thus although the plural inflection -s as in dogs is listed, there are some
exceptional plural forms such as the -en of oxen (once a common. inflection in En-
glish) and the non-inflectional inner vowel change of mice, which are not included
in the chart. Similarly, although most past tense and past participle forms end in the
inflectional -ed, there are some non-inflected forms that alter the vowel of the verb
- base, as happens in the forms sang and sung. Rather than list the kinds of excep-
tional forms that ocour in addition to the typical inflectional forms that characterize
 96 Morphemes

such notions as plural or past, we have listed only the inflectional suffixes that typi-
cally characterize such notions and noted here that there are alternate forms that
sometimes occur.
The overlapping form -ed for both the past tense and past participle does not nor-
mally cause a problem for interpretation, because the grammatical context of the two
is different. For example, compare the difference between the past tense usage in
“Jane composed the song” and the past participle usage in “Jane has composed the
song” or “The music was composed (by Jane).” Furthermore, although -ed is the in-
flectional past participle form with regular verbs, the suffix -en occurs in the past par-
ticiple with a number of irregular verbs such as driven, written, eaten. Because of
this and because the inflectional -en can in some cases serve to distinguish the past .
participle from the past tense, we will list it as an alternate inflectional suffix form for
the past participle. But we caution the reader to remernber that past participles come
in a variety of forms, some of which do not even utilize the -ed or -en suffixes.
Inflectional suffixes are not the only kind of suffix. English also has derivational
‘suffixes such as the -ish in the word childish. Before looking at derivational suffixes
in greater detail, we will first consider those ways in which the inflectional suffixes
are different from derivational suffixes.
The inflectional suffixes differ from the derivational suffixes i in the following
ways, to which there are few exceptions.
1. They do not change the part of speech.
Examples: sled, sleds (both nouns)
cough, coughed (both verbs)
cald, colder (both adjectives)
2, They come last in a word when they are present.
Examples: waited, villainies, industrializing
3. They go with all stems of a given part of speech.
' Examples: He eats, drinks, dreams, entertains, motivates.
4. They do not pile up; only one ends a word.
Examples: flakes, working, higher, written
An exception here isi {s pl ps}, the plural possessive of the noun, as in “the students’
worries,”

Exercise: fofessunssesnsnemacconne eee RSET

Write the morpbemic symbol and name for each italicized inflectional suffix below.
-The flagpole remained in front of Main Hall.
Four pledges were initiated.
Shirley pledges to do her best.
RW

The pledge’s shirt was torn.

The pledges’ shirts were torn.
AAW

We were discussing the editorial.

. The novel was shorter than I had expected.
 Derivational Suffixes 97-

&. They waited at the dock.

9. Which is the longest route?
_ 10. Have you taken calculus yet? :
11. Chris played well in the second set.
12. The dealer weighed the poultry.
13. Would you mind repeating the question?
14. The sheets were soon ironed.
15. He never locks the door.

G. Derivational Suffixes
As has been noted, in addition to the short list of inflectional suffixes, English has a
large supply of another kind of suffix, called derivational suffixes. These consist of
all the suffixes that are not inflectional. Among the characteristics of derivational
suffixes there are three that will be our immediate concern.
1. The words with which derivational suffixes combine is an arbitrary matter, To
make a noun from the verb adorn we must add -ment—no other suffix will
do—whereas the verb fail combines only with -ure to make a noun, failure.

The left-hand column contains ten words. The right-hand column contains thirteen
derivational suffixes used to make nouns and ‘having the general meanings of “state,
condition, quality, or act of” By combining these suffixes with the words listed,
make as many nouns as you can,
1. happy 1, -hood 11. -ance
2. friend 2. -acy: 12. -th
3. boy 3. -ism 13, -ure
4. compose 4, -ness
5. shrink 5, -ment
6. active 6. -age
7. supreme 7. -y
8. true — 8. -ation
9. pagan 9, -ship
10. discover 10. -ity
Nouns:
98 _Morphemes :

2. In many cases, but not all, a derivational suffix changes the part of speech of .
. the word to which it is added. The noun act becomes an adjective by the addi-
tion of -ive, and to the adjective active we can add -ate, making it a verb, ac-
tivate. Although we have not yet taken up the parts of speech, you probably
know enough about them to distinguish between nouns, verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs, as you are asked to do in the next exercise.

The words in the second column are formed by the addition of a derivational suffix
to those in the first column. After every word in both columns indicate its part-of-
speech classification by N (noun), V (verb), Aj (adjective), or Av (adverb). Some of
the words may belong to more than one part of speech.
1. break breakage oe
"2. desire desirable
3. conspire conspiracy _ |
4, rehearse rehearsal _
5. ideal idealize oe
6. false falsify neon
7. sweet sweetly ee
8. doubt doubtful
9. mouth mouthful
10. sing singer _
11. familiarize familiarization !
12. passion passionate :
13. host hostess _
14, gloom gloomy —_
15. martyr martyrdom
16, novel novelist _
17. day daily . :
18. prohibit prohibitory
19. excel excellent
20. create ‘ creative
21. vision visionary
22. cube cubic
23. ripe ripen.
24, real - realism —_——
25: accept acceptance

3. Derivational suffixes usually do not close off a word; that is, after a deriva-
tional suffix one can sometimes add another derivational suffix and can fre-
quently add an inflectional suffix. For example, to the word fertilize, which
ends in a derivational suffix, one can add another one, -er, and to fertilizer
one can add the inflectional suffix -s, closing off the word.
 Derivational Suffixes 99

mExercise:G=}decesmnamannemnene

Add a derivational suffix to each of these words, which already end in a derivational
. suffix.
. reasonable
formal
Wh
. organize
purify
Wp

. realist

BE KOreis es Gx FG ss scesser erence ean A TRE TSE LS EIST

Add an inflectional suffix, one of those listed on page 95, to each of these words, which
end in derivational suffixes, In the third column put any words you can think of that are
formed by asuffix following the inflectional suffix you added in the second column.
. kindness
WeOAIDNAPWN

. beautify
. quarterly
. popularize
depth
pressure
arrival
.- orlentate
. friendly
10. funny

A glance in the dictionary will reveal that many words have relatives, close and
distant, and in grammatical study it is often necessary to examine families of related
words. To label such families we employ the word paradigm. There are two kinds of
paradigms, inflectional and derivational. The inflectional will be explained in greater
detail later. The derivational paradigm is a set of related words composed of the
same base morpheme and all the derivational affixes that can go with this base. Here
is an example: man, manly, mannish, manjul, manhood, manikin, unman, manliness,
manward, manfully, mannishly.

Exercise 8-16
You are given here five bases, or words with their bases italicized. Give all the words
in the derivational paradigm of each. Do not include words with two bases, like
manhunt or manpower. (Use other paper for this exercise.)
1. sin
2. kind.
3. live /layv/
4. transport (-port = carry)
’ §. audible (aud- = hear)
RD SASS ERS SRS ERR EE Ae a Uttara
 100 Morohemes

H. Suffixal Homophones

Some suffixes, both inflectional and derivational, have homophonous forms.

The inflectional morpheme {-&r cp} has two homophones. The first is the de-
rivational suffix {-er n}, which is attached to verbs to form nouns. This is a highly
productive suffix, that is, it is used to produce hundreds of English nouns, such as
hunter, fisher, camper, golfer, lover. It is often called the agent -er and conveys a
meaning of “that which performs the action of the verb stem,” as in thriller and
teacher. It may also be attached to nonverbal stems, such as probationer, New Yorker,
teenager, freighter. The -er on such words could be said to convey a more general
meaning of “that which is related to”; and because this meaning is inclusive of the
previous one, both these -er suffixes can be considered to belong to {-er n}.
.The second derivational -er morpheme appears at the end of such words as chat-
ter, mutter, flicker, glitter, patter. This {-er rp} conveys the meaning of repetition.
The acceptance of this {-er rp}, however, is problematic and raises questions about
the analysis of the remainders in words of this class. For example, if the -er in glitter
is a morpheme meaning repetition, we are left with the remainder glitt-, whose mor-
phemic status is dubious.

EKO PCISE Gad Piaccnceanasesscrcensessarea racer ee BNL LL EN OST TTI TT ENT

Identify the italicized-er as

. {-2R cp} inflectional suffix, as in bigger,
wry

. {-eR n} derivational suffix, as in singer’

ie
. {-ER rp} derivational suffix, as in flutter

se jaar
. This is a heavier tennis racket than I want.
Ne

. We watched the shimmer of the evening light on the waves.

.. The fighter weighed in at 180 pounds.
BW

. He was tougher than he looked.

. The jabber of voices came through the open door.
WMA

AAs EET RO LE ae AS LED BIT

The verbal inflectional suffix {-nvc vb} has two homophones in -ing. The first
one is the nominal derivational suffix {-2mc nm}, which is found in words such as
meetings, weddings, readings. This nominal {-1%c nm} is obviously derivational,
because it permits the addition of an inflectional suffix to close it off, the noun plural
{-s pl}. When such a word occurs alone without the inflectional suffix, e.g., meet-
ing, the -ing is ambiguous, for it could be either {-mvc vb}, as in “He was meeting
the train” or {-mvG nm}, as in “He attended the meeting.”
The second homophone of {-2vc vb} is the adjectival morpheme {-1Ne aj}, as in
a charming woman. There.are two tests by which the verbal {ine vb} can be distin-
guished from the adjectival {-1c aj}.
The verbal {-mc vb} can usually occur after as well as before the noun it modi-
fies, for example,
 Suffixal Homophones 101,

I saw a burning house.

I saw a house burning.
The adjectival {-mic aj} can be preceded by a qualifier such as very, rather, quite,
or by the comparative and superlative words more and most, as in
It is a very comforting thought.
‘This is a more exciting movie.
but not
*I saw a rather burning house.
- Also, compare
that interesting snake
that crawling snake. |
The adjectival {-1we aj} can occur after seems:
That snake seems interesting, ,
whereas the verbal {-1ne vb} cannot:
*That snake seems crawling.
. Here and throughout the next chapters treating morphology and syntax, we will fol-
low the conventional practice of using an asterisk (*), as we have done in the exam-
ples above, to indicate that a following phrase or clause is “ungrammatical.” In this
context, the term “ungrammatical” means that a native speaker of the language
would normally not produce such an utterance and would not consider it to be well-
formed. —

Identify the -ing’s of the italicized words by these symbols:

V-al = verbal {-1na vb}
N-al = nominal {-nwc nm}
Aj-al = adjectival -mnc aj}
1. It was a charming spot.
2. Jira lost both fillings from his tooth.
3. She saw the waiting cab.
4. It was exciting to watch the flight.
5. Old sayings are often half-true.
6. From the bridge we watched the running water. _
7. That barking dog keeps everyone awake,
8. He told a convincing tale.
9. The shining sun gilded the forest floor.
0. Matisse’s drawings are magnificently simple.
1. “A refreshing shower poured down.
102 Morphemes

12, The attorney made a moving appeal.

13. A moving elephant is a picture of grace.
14, What an obliging fellow he is!
15. That was a touching scene.

OrakExercise 8%) eae rer a EN

There is an old joke that plays off the verbal versus adjectival sense of a word using
the inflectional suffix -ing. In the joke, a mother of a student asks a teacher whether
the student is trying. The teacher responds, “Yes. Very!” In this joke the qualifier
very plays a critical role in triggering the punchline and changing our interpretation
of how the word trying is being used. Explain the two interpretations of trying and
how the use of very triggers a punchline with a specific interpretation. |
EESTI

The verbal inflectional {-p pp} has a homophone in the adjectival derivational
{-p aj}, as in
Helen was excited about her new job.
She was a devoted mother.‘
The adjectival {-p aj} is characterized by its capacity for modification by qualifiers
such as very, rather, quite, and by more and most.
Example: A rather faded tapestry hung over the fireplace.
The verbal {-p pp}, on the other hand, does not accept such modifiers. We would
not, for example, say
*The very departed guests had forgotten their dog.
The seems test for adjectival {-1we aj} is applicable to adjectival {-p aj}; for ex-
ample, “The tapestry seems faded” but not *“The guests seem departed. ”

==EXercise:G=4:9 en ene

Identify the suffixes of the italicized words with these symbols: V-al= {-p we};
Aj-al= {-p aj}.
. You should read the printed statement.
Oh BW he

. Merle was a neglected child.

. This is a complicated question.
SA

. His chosen bride had lived in India.

. He bought a stolen picture.
. The invited guests all came. °
. We had a reserved seat,

4 {-p aj} is considered derivational because it often can be followed by another suffix, e.g., excitedly, devotedness.
 Suffixal Homophones 103.

8. The skipper was a reserved (= quiet) man.

9. A celebrated painter visited the campus.
10. A worried look crossed his face. ’

Ambiguity occurs when the -ed suffix can be interpreted as either {-p pp} or
{-p aj}. This exercise will illustrate. For each sentence below write two meanings. °
1. He had a finished table.
a.
b. :
2. The animal was spotted.

The adverbial derivational suffix {-ry av} is added to most adjectives to form
adverbs of manner, as in rich, richly; kind, kindly; formal, formally; happy, happily.
A small group of adjectives does not take this {-1y av}, among them big, small, lit-
tle, tall, long, fast.
This adverbial {-ty av} has as a homophone the derivational suffix {-vy aji}, an
adjectival morpheme that is distributed as follows:
1. Itis added to monosyllabic nouns to form adjectives that are inflected with
-eF, -eSt.
Examples: love, lovely; friend, friendly; man, manly
2. Itis added to nouns to form adjectives that are not inflected with -er, -est.
Examples: king, kingly; beast, beastly; scholar, scholarly; mother, motherly;
leisure, leisurely
3. It is added to a few adjectives, giving alternate adjectival forms that are also
inflected with -er, -est.
Examples: dead, deadly; live, lively; kind, kindly; sick, sickly
Here the adjectives kindly and lively are homophonous with the adverbs
kindly and lively, which end in {-Ly av}. For example, we see the adverb in
“She spoke kindly to the children,” and the adjective in “She was a kindly
woman; in fact, she was the kindliest woman in the village.”
4. It is added to a short list of “time” nouns to form adjectives.
Examples: day, daily; hour, hourly; month, monthly
These are not inflected with -er, -est, and some of them undergo functional shift to
become nouns, e.g., “He subscribes to two dailies and three quarterlies.”

- Identify the italicized -ly as either (1) {-Ly av} adverbial derivational suffix, as in
glumly; of (2) {-cy aj} adjectival derivational suffix, as in fatherly.
104 Morphemes

. The witness testified falsely. . =

. Grace has a deadly wit.
SGoorinnbWne

. Janet always behaved with a maiden/y demeanor.

. He tiptoes softly into the room.
Jimmy receives a weekly allowance.
. The dear old lady has a heaven/y disposition.
She spoke quietly to her grandson.
What a timely suggestion!
What a mannerly child!
. It was a cowardly act.
—

mExercise:G+22acmmcimammamsrsseesaress f

This is ati exercise reviewing the inflectional and derivational suffixes. Label the
italicized suffixes as DS (derivational suffix), IS (inflectional suffix), or Amb (am-
biguous between a derivational or inflectional suffix).
1. princes 11. quickly 3
2. princess 12. rectify |
3. findings 13. brotherly :
4. friendlier 14. respectable E
5. shows | 15. younger :
6. weaver ' 16. hearing :
7. leaner 17. drier
8. satirize '18. grievance j
9. sputter 19. droppings 4
10. brighten 20. sunny '

I. Noun Feminine Forms

English has a small group of nouns with feminine derivational suffixes. All but one
of these feminizing suffixes (-ster) are of foreign origin. They have been added to a
masculine form or to a base morpheme. Here is a list of most of them, with exam-
ples of the feminine nouns to which they have been attached and the corresponding _ ad
masculine forms.
Suffix Masculine Feminine

1. -e fiancé fiancée .
2. -enne comedian comedienne
3. -e88 patron patroness :
4, -etta Henry Henrietta“ , 7
5. -ette usher usherette®

5 The suflix.-effe is now more commonly used as a diminutive, as in Aitchenette.

 Noun Dimunitive Forms 105,

6. -cuse masseur masseuse

7, -ina George Georgina
8.-ine hero heroine
9, -ster ° spinner spinster
10. -stress seamster seamstress (=ster + ~€ss)
1i.-ix - aviator - aviatrix

These suffixes vary in vitality from -ess, the most productive, to -stress, which
as a feminine suffix is completely dead, that is to say, it is no longer used to form
new words. Two of them, -enne and -euse, occur only in words borrowed from
French. The -e, also from French, is merely orthographic and is not heard in the spo-
ken word. The -ster' is no longer a feminizing suffix; it now indicates any person,
whether male or female: gangster, youngster, prankster:
The feminine suffixes listed above and the words they help form must be used
judiciously. This caution applies not only to obviously offensive words such as spin-
ster, but even to such seemingly harmless forms as poetess. Although some individ-
uals are unconcerned about morphological forms that distinguish women from men,
others see such distinctions as unnecessary and perhaps even demeaning to women.
But because feminine endings are still in use and common in earlier texts, it is still
important for us to be familiar with them.
In addition to what has been discussed the above, English also has about fifty
pairs of words with separate forms for ‘the masculine and the feminine, e.g., bull,
_ cow; uncle, aunt; gander, goose. But these-are a matter of lexicography rather than
morphology, and we will pass them by.

Consulting a dictionary and the suffix list above, write the feminine form (or erst-
while feminine form) of these words.
1. Paul 9. Carol
2. chanteur - . 10. emperor
3. protégé . 11. launderer
4. ozar - 12. executor
5. songster _ 13. proprietor
6. major _. 4, waiter
7. heir 15. tragedian
8. equestrian

J. Noun Diminutive Forms

In English six diminutive suffixes can be found. There are morphemes that convey a
meaning of smallness or endearment or both. They are the following:
106 Morphemes

1. -ie, -i, -y _ as in auntie, Betty, sweetie, Willy -

2. -ette as in dinette, towelette
. 3, -kin, -ikin, -kins as in babykins ©
4, -ling as in duckling, darling (= little dear)
5. -et : me as in circlet ,
6. -let as in booklet, starlet
The vowels of these diminutive suffixes are three front vowels: /i/, /1/, and /e/.
The first suffix, pronounced /i/ and spelled -ie, -i, and -), is highly productive. It
is frequently attached to one-syllable first names to suggest endearment and inti-
macy, or smallness, as in Johnny, Janey, Jackie, and Mikey. Similarly, it is attached
to common nouns, sometimes indicating a diminutive notion about a participant in a
discourse more than about the person or thing being referred to, as in doggie,
sweetie, birdie, or mommy.®
The second suffix is also in active use, generally to indicate smallness. Thus, a
dinette is a small dining area, and a roomette is a small room.
The other four diminutive suffixes exist in the language as diminutives but are
rarely if ever added to new nouns. In short, they are unproductive, inactive. Further-
more, in some words, such as cabinet and toilet, the meaning of the diminutive suf-
fix has faded away to little or no significance.

STRE NIELS LAD A See LIEN REA EL Oe ERR SH

Consulting a dictionary and the suffix list above, give a noun diminutive form for
each of the following words. ‘
1, Bob — 6. lamb —“S—sCYXSZCTL.- hntchn.
2. goose 7. pack 12. drop
3. statue 8. pup 13. lad
4. pig 9. eagle _ 1A. disk
5. dear 10. Ann 15. cigar
sera EEE ss LEER LEST Se aaa TI aap EEE eT ELD OTE SS PI OS NN LS DE LN

Tn addition to these six diminutives, many others have come into English as a
part of borrowed words. These were diminutives in their own or parent language but
are nonmorphemic in English. For illustration, here is a handful of them.
mosquito panel Venezuela
bambino morsel "quartet
armadillo damse/ bulletin (two successive
diminutives here)

SWarning to students: Some of these diminutive suffixes have homophones that can be a source of confusion. Here, for
instance, are four of them: ‘
1. ~ an adjective-forming suffix added to a noun, as in cloudy.
2. -ie, a noun-forming suffix added to an adjective, as in smartie, toughie.
3. -etie, a feminine suffix, as in majoreite,
4. -ling, a noun suffix denoting a particular characteristic or affiliation, as in weakling or earthiing.
 Immediate Constituents 107

peccadilio — scalpel falsetto

flotilia satchel stiletto
Priscilla touscle Maureen
' cookie : particle lochan
colonel pupil formula
" citadel violin _ capsule
violoncello
novel (noun) puppet calculus
Most of these borrowed diminutive endings, you will observe, contain the vowels
Ail, (tf, and /e/, though these vowels have often been reduced to /o/ in English be-
cause of lack of stress. Only the last four do not have a front vowel or /a/ in the
diminutive suffix. Furthermore, nearly all these suffixes have lost the diminutive
sense that was once alive in them.

K. Immediate Constituents

Up to this point we have scrutinized the four sorts of morphemes—hases, prefixes,

infixes, and suffixes—of which words are composed. Now we will see how these are
put together to build the structure that we call a word.
A word of one morpheme, like blaze, has, of course, just one unitary part. A
word of two morphemes, like cheerfiil, is obviously composed of two parts, with the
division between them:

cheer ful

But a word of three or more morphemes is not made up of a string of individual parts;
it is built with a hierarchy of twosomes. As an illustration let us examine the formation
of gentlemanly, a word of three morphemes. We might say that man and
-ly were combined to form manly and that gentle and manly were then put together to
produce the form gentlemanly. But the total meaning of gentlemanly does not seem to
be composed of the meanings of its two parts gentle and manly, so we reject this pos-
sibility. Let’s try again. This time we’ll say that gentle and man were put together to
give gentleman. And if we remember that gentle has the meanings of “distinguished,”
“belonging to a high social station,” we see that the meaning of gentleman is a com-
posite of those of its two constituents. Now we add -ly, meaning “like,” and get gentle-
manly, like a gentleman. This manner of forming gentlemanly seems to make sense.
Now when we analyze a word we show this process but in reverse. We usually
divide a word into two parts of which it seems to have been composed. Thus

gentleman = ly
We continue in this way, cutting every part into two more until we have reduced the
word to its ultimate constituents, that is, to the unit morphemes of which it is com-
posed. Our analysis of gentlemanly would iook like this:
 108 Morphemes

. gentle § man ly

Next, let us suppose that the word to be analyzed is ungentlemanly. If we make the
same first cut as before, cutting off the -h, we get ungentleman plus -ly. But as En-
glish contains no such word as ungentleman, our word could not be composed of the
two parts ungentleman and -ly, Instead, let’s cut after the un-. This gives un- plus
gentlemanly, a common English negative prefix plus a recognizable English word.
This seems to be the right way to begin, and as we continue we get this analysis.

un gentle man i tly

" We have now shown the layers of structure by which the word has been composed,
down to the ultimate constituents—un-, gentle, man, and -ly.
In doing word diagrams like those above to show layers of structure, we make
successive divisions into two parts, each of which is called an immediate constituent,
abbreviated IC. The process is continued until all component morphemes of a word,
the ultimate constituents, have been isolated.
Here are three recommendations on IC division that will assist you in the exer-

sateen bbe:
cise to follow:

1. Ifa word ends in an inflectional suffix, the first cut is between thissuffix and
the rest of the word. So:

AN
pre conceived mal formation

2.. One of thé ICs should be, if possible, a free form. A free form is one that can
be uttered alone with meaning, e.g., enlarge, dependent, supportable. Here ©
ate examples of wrong and right first cuts:

Wrong: Right:

en _ large ment en. large ment

in depend ent in depend — ent

 \ immediate Constituents 109,

in’ support able _ . in support able.

3. The meanings of the ICs should be related to the meaning of the word, It
would be wrong to cut restrain like this:

rest = rain

because neither rest nor rain has a semantic connection with restrain. Nor
would a division of starchy as

star chy -

be right because this would give an unrelated morpheme and a meaningless

fragment. The two examples are properly cut in this way:

‘re. strain = starchy}

The ultimate constituents are the morphemes of which the word is composed.

=EXercise:G=2h:scesuamaas oct SESS TE EN RE TE

One of the following IC diagrams showing the layers of structure is wrong. “Which
one is it and why? —

° help Jess Su di
ment .

in

LN OA
im burse ment s

Te fertil ize start ed

fe less ness aN
. cleric
 110 | Morphemes

9. 10. AN. “

: favor it ism un law ful .

SEM OCIS BaD Gaseacam nna sane ee RE TI SN ETE IE I IO

Diagram these words to show the layers of structure.

1. item ize d | 9. Ice land ic

2. pre pro fess ion al 10. super natur al

3. news paper dom 11. un com fort able

4, counter de clar ation 12. fest iv al

5, mal con struc tion 13. en gag ing

6. contra dict ory "14, ex press ion ism

7, dis en throne 15. mis judg ment

8. mid after noon

L. Allomorphs

It is now time to sharpen and extend our understanding of the morpheme: So far we
have been treating the morpheme as if it were invariable in phonemic form, that is,
in the way it is pronounced. But in the preceding exercises you may have noticed oc-
casional variations in phonemic form. In a word such as pressure, the morpheme
{press} ends in /S/, whereas the same morpheme standing alone as the word press
 Alomorphs 411,

. ends in /s/. Likewise, the first morpheme in depth is pronounced /dep/, but the same
morpheme occurring as the word deep has the phonemic form of /dip/. So we see
that a morpheme may have more than one phonemic form.
Next we'll go back to the past-tense ending, the morpheme {-p pt}. We learned
in exercise 2-3 of the phonology section that this morpheme has three phonemic
forms, the choice depending on the preceding sound. After an alveolar stop, /t/ or
/d/, the sound is /ad/, as in partied /partad/ and faded /fedad/. After a voiceless con-
sonant other than /i/ itis /t/, as in passed /peest/ and laughed /\eeft/. After a voiced
sound other than /d/ it is /d/, as in seemed /simd/and begged /begd/. Furthermore,
these three phonemic forms of {-p pt} are not interchangeable. The occurrence of
- one or another of them depends on its phonological environment, in this case, the
preceding sound. This pattern of occurrence of related forms, according to which
each form occupies its own territory and does not trespass on the domain of another,
is called complementary distribution. When the related forms of a set, like the three
forms of {-p pt}, have the same meaning and are in complementary distribution,
they are called allomorphs, or positional variants, and belong to the same morpheme.
So we say that the morpheme {-p pt} has three allomorphs: /-od/, /-t/, and /-d/. This
is expressed in the formula:
{-p pt} = /-od/ ~ /-t/ ~ /-d/
Braces are used for morphemes and slants for allomorphs; a tilde (~) means “in al-
ternation with.” It must be emphasized that many morphemes in English have only
one phonemic form, that is, one allomorph—for example, the morphemes {boy}
and {-hood} each have one allomorph-—-/boy/ and /-hud/—as in boyhood.
Now we are in a position to refine our understanding of free and bound mor-
phemes. It is really not the morpheme but the allomorph that is free or bound.
Consider, for example, the morpheme {louse}. This has two allomorphs: the free
allomorph /laws/ as a singular noun and the bound allomorph /lawz-/ in the adjec-
tive lousy.

Each pair of words here contains one free and one bound allomorph of the same
morpheme. Indicate the morpheme in braces and write each allomorph between _
slants in phonemic script.
‘Morpheme Free allomorph Bound allomorph
Example: long, length {long} /[lany/ (or /lon/) Aen-/
. strong, strength .
MmMPWDd

. chaste, chastity
. courage, courageous
. Bible, Biblical _
. wife, wives

Explain why a/an are allomorphs of one morpheme.

112 Morphemes

| |
|

wEyerciseGo2 9: scsnmsmscommam cs LAG EOP TIO RELATE

Write the base morpheme and its allomorphs for each group. Supply primary - | :
stresses in answers that contain varying stress. 4
Examples: steal, stealth {steal} = /stil/ ~ /stel-/
. wide, width
. broad, breadth
SOMNAARWH

. wolf, wolves 1
. able, ability
supreme, supremacy |
divine, divinity |
fame, famous, infamy, infamous 4
- vision, televise, revise
sun, sunny, suttward
Atom, atémic
—_

=Bxercise:G=3 Osesesssen meses ume Ena RSET

This exercise, related to exercise 2—2, concerns the plural morpheme {-s pl}, which
(well say for the moment) has three allomorphs. Write out each plural word in
phonemic script. Then, using these as evidence, list theallomorphs of {-s pl} and
describe their complementary distribution.
1. sons 6. fizzes iL. churches : i
2. naps 7. dishes __. . 12. gorges ;
3. passes 8. garages 13. sums |
4. hogs. 9. hoes 14. heaths
5. sacks 10. staffs 15. gongs

Allomorphs and complementary distribution:

M. Conditioning: Phonological and Morphological

In examining the past-tense morpheme {-p pt}, we saw that the three allomorphs
/-ad ~ -d ~ -t/ were in complementary distribution and that this distribution was de-
termined by the phonological environment, in this case by the preceding sound. The
same was true of the plural morpheme {-s pl}, where the addition of /-az/, /-z/, or
/-s/ was also determined by the sound immediately preceding the suffix. In these and.
similar cases, when the phonological environment determines which allomorph is
used, we say that the selection of allomorphs is phonologically conditioned.
 Replacive Allomorphs 113.

But the plural morpheme {-s pl} has further allomorphs, as shown by the /-an/ of
ox-oxen and by the /Q/ (zero) suffix of sheep-sheep. These two, /-an/ and /@/, are in com-
plementary distribution with all the others in that they stay in their own territory, asso-
ciate only with specific words, and do not overlap in positions where /-92/, /-z/, and /-s/
are found. But the positions in which they occur—that is, the words they attach them-
selves to—have nothing to do with their phonological environment. Instead the use of ~
/-on/ as the plural of ox is determined by the specific morpheme ox; in other words, ox
simply takes /-on/ and that’s that. Likewise, the occurrence of the plural allomorph in
a few words—swine, deer, sheep, trout, pike, quail, grouse, and others—-is determined
by the fact that these special morphemes require a @ plural. In such cases, when we can
describe the environment that requires a certain allomorph only by identifying specific
morphemes, we say that the selection of allomorphs is morphologically conditioned.
To describe by formula these five allomorphs of {-s pl} we write
{-s pl} =/-a2/ ~ /-2/ ~ /-s/ 00 /-an/ 0° /G/
The~ refers to a phonologically conditioned alternation and the co to a morphologi-
cally conditioned alternation. |

=Bxercises8-O semen ISTEP StS RASS EST

TS OO AS a SS ARN ICES

Write the formula to express the fact that the past-tense morpheme {-p pt} has, in
the verb be, the two morphologically conditioned allomorphs was and were.

ESSERE NT PUP ERIE MS TREO eee NS

N. Replacive Allomorphs

Most of the allomorphs we have been dealing with have been additive; that is, we
have been forming words by adding prefixes and suffixes to bases. Now we must
look at an allomorph of a different kind, the replacive, which can be illustrated by
going back to the past-tense {~p pt}. We noted that this morpheme has three allo-
morphs, /-od ~ -t ~ -d/. But if this is all, how do we account for forms like sang? It _
would appear to contain an allomorph of {-p pt}, because it is a parallel formation
with regular past-tense forms:
Yesterday we parted /partad/
Yesterday we laughed /left/
Yesterday we played /pled/
Yesterday we sang /sen/ (or /szen/)
What happens is that there is a replacement here instead of an additive. The /1/ of
sing is replaced by the /e/ (or lel ) of sang to signal the© past tense. This is symbolized
as follows:
_ dsen/ =/sty/ + > ef

7The symbol > means “becomes.”

114 Morphemes

Here the /1 > e/ is another allomorph of {-p pt}, and you can readily see how it is in
complementary distribution with the others. Sometimes replacive allomorphs are
called “infixes,” because they are positioned within a word, as opposed to prefixes
and suffixes, as in sang and rode. But we will refer to them as replacive allomorphs
rather than infixes. a ,

=ExerciseO=32== AEC RUDRA

Write the allomorphic formula for each of the following past-tense forms.
Examples: spin, spun =: /spon/ = /spin/ + /1> a/
. SCC, SAW ~
. begin, began
SOMmIHUAWNE

. bite, bit
. give, gave
grow, grew
tide, rode
. grind, ground
. take, took
. tear, fore
. speak, spoke

O. Homophones

You are acquainted with many pairs, trios, and even foursomes of words in English
that sound alike but differ in meaning: heir, air; pare, pair, pear. Such words are
called homophones. In morphology it must be remembered that words like these are
different morphemes.
Examples: Did you like the meet? /mit/ (track meet)
Did you like the meat? /mit/ (roast beef)
The same is true“of bound forms. Compare
Verbal inflectional suffix: It feels /-z/ good .
Noun plural inflectional suffix: Those frogs /-z/
Noun possessive inflectional suffix: John’s /-z/ book
These three homophonous /-z/s are three different morphemes.

Write the morphemes to which éach of these homophonous allomorphs belongs.

Examples: /et/ = {ate}
/et! = {eight}
 Phonesthemes 115

(In a couple of the sets below, some homophones will be spelled the same.)
1. /mnit/ 4. /pex/
/mit/ . fper/ _
/rnit/ fpex/
2. /mayt! | 5. /pel/
/mayt/ /pel/
/mayt/ 6. /tu/
3. /yu/ fta/
fywe /tu/
fywe ‘tus
SRAM ISR RU NS ON LRT RES I NL PO EN NOTE ETE LTT

P. Phonesthemes

Phonesthemes are speech sounds that in themselves express, elicit, or. suggest mean-
ing. For instance, let us consider a minimal pair, the Chinese words ch ’ing /Exp/ and
chung /Cay/. One of these means “heavy,” the other “light.” The question for you is
“Which meaning goes with which word?” If you, like most respondents, say that
ch’ing means “light” and ch’ung means “heavy,” you are correct. And because the
two words differ only in their vowels, it must be these vowels that elicit the two
meanings. These vowels, then, are phonesthemes.
Two of the most common phonesthemes in English are the pair of high front
vowels, /i/ and /1/, suggesting smallness. These appear in many words that have
smallness asa part of their meaning. Here are a few: wee, peep, squeak, seep, bit,
Jiffy, clink, teeny, giggle, dwindle, and whimper. They are also two of the three
diminutive vowels in English, as exemplified in birdie and lambkin.
The presence of the “small” phonesthemes /i/ and /1/ in English is not only
known by language students but sensed by the average person. Witness two cases.:
One cartoon employed these two vowels to make its point. It showed an auto me-
chanic in a garage talking with an unhappy car owner whose engine had been mal-
functioning. The mechanic pointed out, “In car language ‘clunk, rattle, thump’
means ‘too bad you didn’t listen when I said “ping, ping, squeak”! And a radio co- -
median presented a large public with this gag: “What do you call a large pipsqueak?”
“A poopsquawk.”
Another common English phonestheme is the vowel /a/, as in dung, drudgery,
flunk. Professor F. W. Householder, in a study of over six hundred English monosyl-
lables, found that the vowel /o/ has, in a large majority of cases, the general meaning
of “undesirable’® These monosyllables will illustrate: muck, gunk, dump, slum,
grunt, dud, klutz, glum, grudge. And in words of more than one syllable the meaning
of “undesirable” seenis to be present in such terms as these: grumpy, grumble, blun-
der, clumsy, humdrum, muddle, slovenly, puddle, lunkhead.

®On the Problem of Sound Meaning, an English Phonestheme,” Word, 2:83-84, 1946,
‘416 ~~ Morphemes

At the beginning of words, a number of consonant clusters appear to- have

phonesthematic value. Among them are these:
/gl-/ = light. Examples: glow, glare, glint, gleam, glisten, glitter, glaze
/fi-/= moving light. Examples: flame, flash, flare, flicker*
/sp-/= point. Examples: spire, spark, spot, spout, spade
/si-/= movement, Examples: slide, slink, slosh, slither, slouch, slump
At the ends of one-syllable words, the voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ are expres-
sive of an abrupt stoppage of movement. Examples of these are slap, pat, flick, tap,
hit, crack. In contrast with these, a final voiceless fricative /S/ suggests an unabrupt
stoppage of movement, as in mash and squash, The expressiveness of these sounds
becomes especially noticeable when we observe contrasts like these: clap vs. clash;

ios
bat vs. bash; smack vs. smash; crack vs. crash.

bg seed
At the ends of two-syllable words, we find the phonesthemes /-9l/ and /-or/, each
having the meaning of “repetition.” The repetition may be of auditory or visual de-
tails. Examples:
/-ox/ chatter, clatter, gibber, patter, sputter, mutter, jabber, twitter, litter, shatter,
flutter, shimmer, stammer
/-al/ babble, giggle, twinkle, waggle, freckle, dribble, juggle, crackle, chuckle,
rattle, sparkle, stipple, prattle, wriggle, drizzle
_ A speech sound is a phonestheme only when its imputed sense is related to the
sense of the word of which it is a part. Thus, as the sense of /i/ and /1/ is related to
the sense of wee and drizzle, these two vowels are phonesthemes in these words. But
in words whose meaning does not include smallness, the /i/ and // are merely mean-
ingless vowels. Thus seat and sit and countless others with /i/ and // do not contain
phonesthemes. Some words are doubtful cases. For example, does whisper really
contain the phonesthemes /1/ for smallness and /-ar/ for repetition?
The existence of phonesthemes is now generally accepted, and although they re-
semble morphemes in their behavior, they do not satisfy all of the conditions that we
proposed at the beginning of this chapter for something to qualify as a morpheme.
Therefore we will treat them as a different linguistic feature.

SORES TSR RASS reo Se PNAC RR A ARTA rt OR RE TEM RE

The phonesthenies in the following words are underlined. Give the meaning of each.

1, spike LD glossy a
2. flicker 12. spatter
3. glimmer : 13. shrink
4. nibble 14. warble
5. erud 15. ugly
6. sulky. - 16. kid
7. snap . . 17. tack
8. splash 18. sniffle
9. sip 19, slit
10. sefiorita 20, jangle
cee ee er a EN Ee a NE eS ee
 Some Observations and Applications 117

The eminent grammarian Otto Jespersen recounts this incident: “One summer, when
_ there was.a great drought in Fredriksstad (Norway), the following words were posted
in a W.C. [= toilet]: Don’t pull the string for bimmelin, only for bummelum.’ This
was immediately understood.”?
_ With regard to phonesthemes, explain why this was immediately understood.
See ‘SOD : URE SRI RGAE SS A TNE EA ON NR ITN AR

_Some Observations and Applications

The reality of morphemes as a minimal unit of meaning is found in the attention
that they receive from wordsmiths whose livelihood depends on careful attention to
language. Some years ago 7UP had a highly successful advertising campaign that
referred to its product as the “Uncola.” The label or nickname was memorable at
least in part because un- is normally combined with adjectives and verbs, not simple
nouns. It is, of course, to an advertiser’s advantage to use forms or expressions that
will be memorable. The 7UP company coined a memorable nickname for its prod-
uct through a creative use of morphology.
In an article published in American Speech, Genine Lentine and Roger Shuy de-
scribe their role in defending a business from a trademark infringement lawsuit lodged
by McDonald’s. The business had tried to use the morpheme Mc- in its business name.
The McDonald’s Corporation asserted ownership of the morpheme, explaining that
McDonald’s had promoted the morpheme in their advertising and marketing of such
food items as McShakes and MoFries. Lentine and Shuy, however, argued against Mc-
Donald’s exclusive ownership of the morpheme, pointing out that Mc- has a number
of different uses in contemporary American English. In this legal dispute it is clear
that the importance of morphemes extends beyond mere academic considerations and
can. occasionally become an important issue in the legal and business communities.'°
Morphological analysis can also be helpful in learning vocabulary for special
purposes, such as for medical school. Whether you need to learn many specific terms
for a class or for a graduate school entrance exam, your ability to learn vocabulary
is greatly enhanced if you can intelligently recognize recurring morphemes in a va- |
riety of words, rather than approaching each new word as something entirely unre-
lated to others.
Teachers who are more aware of morphology might also help students who are
struggling with spelling to make better choices about how to spell troublesome
words. Elizabeth Grubgeld indicates that a student who might spell the word major
like “majer” because of its pronunciation, would be less likely to misspell the vowel
if he or she understood that major is part of the word majority, in which the pronun-
ciation of the vowel before r more clearly reveals the appropriate spelling. Although

> “Symbolic Value of the Vowel I” (1922) in Linguistica (Cop enhagen: Levin and Munksgard, 1933), p. 284.
10 “tfc. Meaning in the Marketplace” by Genine Lentine and Roger W. Shuy in American Speech 65:4 (1990): 349-366.
118 Morphemes

she acknowledges that students with a.speliing problem may not be skilled in antici-
pating what other forms of a given word might be, she believes that “with practice
and considerable drill on syllabification, compounding, and affixation, they may be-
come more adept at the task.”!! Some teachers already spend time teaching mor-
phology because of the insights it can bring to students as they learn to decode word
meanings. But it could be argued that some morphological instruction, if carefully
directed, might also have the additional application to spelling instruction.
This chapter has discussed phonesthemes such as g/- and even p-. The phenome-
non of meaning associated with phonesthemes, sometimes known as “sound sym-
bolism,” has also proven to be uséful in the business world. One entrepreneur has
identified important aspects of sound symbolism and formed a business that helps
companies to develop product names based on the meaning that people associate
with particular sounds.!”

11 “Helping the Problem Speller Without Suppressing the Writer” by Elizabeth Grubgeld in English Journal (Feb. 1986)
as reprinted in Linguistics for Teachers, eds. Linda Miller Cleary and Michael D, Linn, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993.
12«“There’s More to a Name” by Bob Cohen in the Stanford Business School Magazine 63:3 (1995): 9.
 is. not predictable ihrough examining their individual word parts, We learn |
the meaning of compounds as a unit. Of course, if we already know the
meaning of a compound, we can understand how the parts of the com-
“pound add up to its meaning. The problematic nature of compounds can
be illustrated by the fact that although a redhead is a person with red hair, a
blackhead is not a person with black hair.’ Humor can, of course, be cre-
ated around possible contrived meanings of compounds as the following
_ joke illustrates: ,
Cannibal Chief to Victim: What, did you do for a living?
Victim: | was an associate editor.
Chief: Cheer up, after tonight you'll be editor-in-chief.?

A. Definition of “Word”

That the word is a genuine linguistic unit is scarcely questioned, and everyone
seems to know what it is. Teachers have no difficulty in making up spelling lists,
which consist of words. Lexicographers produce dictionaries, whose entries are
mainly words. When we read, we recognize words by the white spaces between them.
Occasionally, however, we are puzzled by printed forms of words that are inconsis-
tent with one another, Here are several examples from one page of a scholarly desk
dictionary, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. This book on the same page
lists woodchuck and woodcock as one word and woed duck and wood louse each as
two words. All four words have the same stress pattern, and no formal criteria are
evident for differences in the printed form. Such moot cases apart, however, we
commonly have no doubt about the identity of words..

'This example of contrasting meanings from words that appear similar on the surface is taken fromA Basic Grammar of
_ Modern English, 2nd e4., by Bruce L.. Liles. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987, p. 91.
2 Jokes for Children by Marguerite Kohl and Frederica Young. New York: Hill & Wang, 1963, p. 37.

119
420 Words ~

But all these instances are concerned ‘with written words, whereas in linguistic
analysis our main interest is in the spoken word. Here again the isolation of the unit .
called a word appears easy. If one asks “What does ___ mean?” or “How do you
pronounce ?” the blank usually represents 2 word. And there is a high correla-
tion between the written and the spoken forms of words. Yet the task of devising an
exact definition of word is a prickly one that has engendered much controversy. In
this book we will define a word as a free morpheme or a combination of morphemes
that together form a basic segment of speech. The first part of this definition thus ex-
cludes single bound morphemes such as pre-, -ceive, or -ful. But it allows for a single
free morpheme such as bird or a combination of morphemes such as incredible.
One way to identify words is through the way that they are treated in speech.
When people are speaking, they often pause—formulating their thoughts, getting
the sentence structure in order, and groping for the right word. Such pauses do not
occur within words, but between words. This is our cue, and it leads us to another
useful definition of word, that of Professor Charles F, Hockett: “A word is... any
segment.of a sentence bounded by successive points at which pausing is possible’?
This pausing can be either silent or vocalized by “u-u-u-h.” The following sentence
wiil illustrate:

pop ip PP PP PPP p*
Since the streetlamp is out, I must call up our councilman.
In this sentence the positions of possible pauses are marked by ps, and every segment
between two ps is a word. Note that call up is considered a word. Call up belongs to.a
special class of two-part verbs—such as keep on (continue), take off (depart), butt in
(interrupt), and show up (appear)—that speakers of English seem to sense as single
words. Hence there would normally be no pause between the two parts.

=Exercise:O=formemamzrensee
In this exercise let us apply the foregoing desctiption of pause behavior to ascertain
the number of words in the following sentences. In the first blank write the num-
bered position or positions where a pause would nor be possible, or likely. In the
second blank write the number of words in the sentence.
123 #445 «67
Example: Colien gave his brother
a power-of-attorney. = 6,7 6
i 2 3 .45 6.7
1. Little Jimmy plays with a big soft ball.
1 2 3 45 .6 7.
2. His older brother likes to play softball.
12 34 5
3. Will you look up the address?

34 Course in Modern Linguistics (New York: Macniillan, £958), p. 167.

4Each p marks not only a point where pausing is possible, but also positions where the insertion of other words is possible.
 Compound Words 121,

1 2 3. 45 67 8
4. He has always been a Johnny-on-the-spot.
1 2 34, 5 6
5. A dark room is conducive.to sleep.
1 2 34 5 6 7
6. He develops films in the darkroom upstairs.

B. Simple and. Complex Words :

English words may be classified on the basis of the kinds and combinations of mor-
phemes of which they are composed. We will adopt a classification of three main
classes: simple, complex, and compound words.
1. Simple words consist of a single free morpheme.
Examples: slay, flea, long, spirit
2. Complex words contain, as their immediate constituents (ICs), either two
bound forms or a bound and a free form.
Examples of two bound forms as ICs:
matri | cide tele | vise
ex. | clude cosmo | nant
Examples of bound and free forms as ICs:
dipso | mania _lion | ess
tele|phone _—eras | er

Make the first IC cut in the words below that permit such cutting. Then sini each
word, using S for simple and Cx for complex.
1. knave 8. purist 15. enable
2. knavish 9. oyster : 16. mete
3. graph 10. misanthrope 17. meter
4. telegraph 11. philosophy 18. hydrometer
5. aquanaut 12. cannibal 19, discography
6. bicycle 13. refusal 20. shiny
7, pure 14, dental

C. Compound Words
The third class of words is compound words. These have free forms, usually two, as
their immediate constituents.
122 Words

Examples: ~ |
, . green | house out | side no | show \
under | go over | ripe attorney | general
A small mimber of compound words have three or four free forms as coordinate ICs.
Examples: ,
happy |-go|-lucky —spic | and | span
Compound words resemble grammatical structures in that they imply, though they
do not state, a. grammatical relationship. Here are a few of the structures implied:
{Implied Grammatical Structures Examples

L. subject + verb éarthquake (.’. . earth quakes)

; . crybaby (. . . baby cries)
2. verb + object killjoy (. . . kills joy)
3. verb + adverbial stopover (. . . stops over)
déwapour (. . . pours down)
stay-at-home (.. . stays at home) -
underéstimate (. . . estimates under)
4. subject + be + adjectival high chair (. . . chair is high)
5. subject + be + nominal girl friend (. . . friend is a girl)
6. subject + be + adverbial ingroup (.. . group is in)
7. prepositional phrase extrasénsory (beyond the senses)
8. adjective modified by a
-prepositional phrase carefree (. . . free from care) 4
9. coordination give-and-take ’

mE KEFECISe Qa curse rsane sree TOLLE EOP SNR SEES ABTS I AIH

Using the nine numbers given above, indicate-the number of the grammatical struc-
ture implied by each compound word. .
1. workman 7. praiseworthy
2. afternoon ; 8. outgo
3. pickpocket 9. fly-by-night
4, quicksand : 10, student teacher
5. knockdown Ss. oveerthecaatt
6. airtight 12. rough-and-ready

Compound words can be distinguished from grammatical structures in three ways.

1. Compound words cannot be divided by the insertion of intervening material
between the two parts, but grammatical structures can be so divided. As illus-
tration, let us compare two sentences:
a. She is-a sweetheart.
b. She has a sweet heart.
E-
Compound Words 123.

In the first the compound word sweetheart is indivisible: you cannot insert
anything between sweet and heart. But in the second sentence you could say
She has a sweeter heart than her sister.
She has a sweet, Aind heart.
She has a sweet, sweet heart.
thereby dividing the components sweet and heart. Thus sentence contains a
grammatical structure, not a compound word. Following this principle of di-
visibility, we find that the next sentence is ambiguous:
‘
She loves sweet potatoes.
When sweet potatoes means the yellow kind, the expression cannot be di-
vided and is therefore a compound word. But when the words refer to white
potatoes that are sweet, then division is possible, as in
She loves sweet, fresh potatoes.
and we have a grammatical structure.
2. A member of a compound word cannot participate in a grammatical struc-
ture. Compare hard ball and bdsebail. Hard bail is a grammatical structure
of modifier plus noun, and its first member, hard, can participate in the struc-
ture very hard:
Jt was a very hard ball.
But one cannot say
*It was a very baseball,
as baseball is a covapound word. Ambiguous cases can occur in sentences like

He is fond of sparkling water.

When sparkling water refers to ordinary water that sparkles, the first mem-
ber, sparkling, can participate in a grammatical structure, e.g., brightly
a sparkling water. So sparkling water with this meaning is a grammatical struc-
% ture. But when the expression refers to carbonated water, such participation -
cannot occur and we have a. compound word.
3. Some compound nouns, you may recall, have the stress pattern {}, as in blue-
bird, that distinguishes them from a modifier plus a noun, as in ble bird, which
structure carries the stress pattern {“"}. For the same reason, a swimming
téacher is different from a swimming téacher. You should also remember that
you cannot depend on the printed form of words to reveal this distinction. For
example, the compound noun high chair (a chair for children) and the modifier
plus noun high chdir (a chair that is high) are both written as two words.

*Remember that an asterisk before a sentence or a phrase means that the sentence or phrase is ungrammatical.
 Indicate whether each italicized expression is a compound word (Cd) or a grammat- -
ical structure (Gs). Pay no attention to spaces, for they can be deceptive.
. Jim’s new car is a hardtop. -
SPOKSNAARWNS

. This jar has a rather haxd top.

. It was a jack-in-the-box.
There was a plant in the box.

PY TTETTT ETT
A héi dog is not a hét dég.
He has a dog in the manger attitude.
. She has a strong hold on him.
. She has a stronghold in the Women’s Club.
George found his father-in-law.
George found his father in trouble.
. They bought it on the black market.
ee
ne

. The electricity went off, and we were caught in a black,

—

completely lightless, market.

13. Henry is a designing teacher.
14. Henry is a designing téacher.

For a review of the three classes of words, identify the following items with these
symbols:

SS Simple word Cd Compound word |

Cx Complex word Gs Grammatical structure 4
Make the IC cuts for Cx and Cd.
1. sharpshooter ‘12. rat-a-tat d
2. sharp shdéoter 13. beauty j
3. act 14, beautify
4. react 15. geometry 4
5. rattlesnake ~ 16. bull’s eye
6. passbook (of target) .
7. apparatus * 17. biall’s éye |
8. glowworm (of bull) ‘
9, import 18. outlast .
10. ripcord 19. biochemical
11. unearth 20. inaccessible
URSA
TET AN a TH TT SUREMENT Sterne aT

Some Observations and Applications

One of the skills you practiced in this chapter was the ability to distinguish between
compound words such as a sweet potato and grammatical structures such as sweet
 Some Observations and Applications 125.

story. This skill relates to the important usage issue of how to appropriately repre-
sent compound nouns in writing. Of course the first step is to recognize whether a
construction is a compound word or a grammatical structure. If you determine that a
word or set of words constitutes a compound word, then there are further decisions
to make about how to represent that compound. The Chicago Manual of Style, which
provides direction on a variety of matters for editors and writers, outlines the three
forms that compound words may take. They may be an “open compound” such as
sweet potato, a “hyphenated compound” such as mother-in-law, or a “closed com-
pound” such as airtight, Determining which type of form should be used with a
compound is often difficult without checking a dictionary, though The Chicago Man-
ual of Style provides some useful guidelines.* If you write or edit others’ writing,
the ability to recognize compounds will help you make informed decisions about
how to represent those compounds or will alert you to forms about which you should
consult a dictionary or reliable style guide.

5The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 202-203.
 One of the best illustrations of multiple processes of word formation sur-
rounds the word hamburger. The word originated from a name, the city of
Hamburg, Germany. After establishing itself as the word for a type of sand-
wich, the word hamburger begar! to be falsely interpreted as a compound,
with burger acquiring its own’status as a morpheme. This reanalysis of
hamburger as a compound then led to the development of a number of
new words such as baconburger, fishburger, and cheeseburger.’ The word
hamburger thus illustrates processes that we will discuss in this chapter
such as antonomasia, compounding, and folk etymology. .

i. has been estimated that the English language contains more than a million
words, of which fewer than half are included in unabridged dictionaries. It is natural
to wonder where all these words came from. The answer is not difficult to find.
First, our language contains a core of words that have been a part of it as far
back as we can trace its history, 5,000-plus years. A few examples are these words:
sun, man, foot, father, eat, fire, I, he, with, of.
Second, English has been a prodigious borrower of words from other languages _
throughout its history, and a vast number of borrowed words are now in our lan-
guage. This has come about through invasions, immigration, exploration, trade, and
other avenues of contact between English and some foreign language. Below are a
few examples of these borrowings. In many cases a word may pass, by borrowing,
through one or more languages before it enters English. A case in point is the Arabic
plural noun hashshashin, hashish eaters, which entered French in the form assassin,
and from French was borrowed into English.

'For a discussion of the development of hamburger and other related words, as well as further examples of words that
- have been developed from names, see The Play of Words by Richard Lederer. New York: Pocket Books, 1990, pp.
200-204, 216. , ‘

127
128 Processes of Word Formation

English Word Source Language Meaning in Source Lariguage

1. chauffeur French stoker of train engine, driver

2. campus Latin field, plain
3. guru Hindi spiritual leader
4, sheikh Arabic old man, chief
5. alligator Spanish the lizard
6. window Old Norse wind eye
7. agnostic Greek unknowable
8. bazaar Persian market
9. chow mein Chinese fried noodles
10. sake Japanese rice wine
11. macho Spanish male

A look at the etymologies in your desk dictionary—they are the part of each
entry enclosed in brackets—will give you an idea of the amount of borrowing that
has taken place in English and of the many languages that have contributed to make
the English word-stock rich and full.
Apart from borrowing, English gets new words by means of easily definable —
processes employed by users of English. It is to these that we will now turn our
attention. -

A. Compounding
Compounding is simply the joining of two or more words into a single word, as in
hang glider, airstrip, cornflakes, busybody, downpour, cutoff, skydive, alongside,
breakfast, long-haired, devil-may-care, high school. As the foregoing examples
show, compounds may be.written as one wotd, as a hyphenated word, or as two
words. Occasionally it is hard to say whether or not a word is a compound; compare,
for instance, despite with in spite of and instead of with in place of

B. Derivation

Derivation is the forming of new words by combining derivational affixes or bound

bases with existing words, as in disadvise, emplane, deplane, teleplay, ecosystem,
coachdom, counselorship, re-ask. Words like these, some of which you have never
heard before, are often formed in the heat of speaking or writing. You will note that
they are immediately understandable because you know the meaning of the parts.

C. Invention

Now and then new words are totally invented such as Kodak, nylon, dingbat, goof,
and blurb, but few of these find their way into the common vocabulary.
a
Be
an

Clipping 129,

D. Echoism

. Echoism is the formation of words whose sound suggests their meaning, such as
hiss and peewee. The meaning is usually a sound, either natural such as the roar of
a waterfall or artificial such as the clang of a bell. But the meaning may also be
the creature that produces the sound, such as bobwhite. Examples: moan, click,
murmur, quack, thunder, whisper, lisp, chickadee, bobolink. In literary studies, es-
pecially those related to poetry, you will probably see this process referred to as
“onomatopoeia.”

For each of the words below, indicate which process of formation (compounding,
derivation, invention, or echoism) is represented. Abbreviate your answers by using
just the first letter of the formation process.
1. roughneck 6. pop
2. codgerhood. . ‘ 7, cream pulf
3. clink (of glasses) ve -8, wheeze
4. doodad 9, weirdoism
5. dacron. 10 . extux

E. Clipping

Clipping means cutting off the beginning or the end of a word, or both, leaving a
part to stand for the whole. The resultant form is called a clipped word. The jargon
of the campus is filled with clipped words: lab, dorm, prof, exam, gym, prom, math,
psych, mike, and countless others. As these examples suggest, the clipping of the’
end of a word is the most common, and it is mostly nouns thatundergo this process,
Clipping results in new free forms in the language.

Give the original words from which these clipped words were formed. Consult a
dictionary as necessary.

1. ad ; 9. curio
2. disco 10. memo
3, taxi 11. Fred
4, cab 12. Al ©
5. deli : 13. Tom
6. vibes . 14. Joe
7. ZOO ~ 15, Phil
"8. fan (sports)
 130 Processes of Word Formation

Less common than the back-clipped words, like the foregoing, are thosé words
that lose their forepart, such as plane and phone.

Give the original words from which these clipped words were formed. Consult a
dictionary as needed.
1. gator 6. wig
2. pike (road) 7. cute
3. bus 8. Gene
4. van 9. Beth
5. chute 10. Tony

Only a very few words have been formed by both front and back clipping. Four
common ones ate flu, Liz, still (apparatus for distilling hard liquor), and fridge.
Clipped words are formed not only from individual words but also from gram-
matical units, such as modifier plus noun. Paratrooper, for example, is a clipped
form of parachutist trooper. In cases like this it is often the first part that is short-
ened while the second part remains intact. Also, two successive words may be
clipped to form one new word, as in sitcom (= situation comedy).

nExercise:t0ag ecm ENED sence EN A

et NE a a I a NRE ES eI HN TC

Give the originals of these clipped words

. Amerindian.
. Taaitre d’ /metor di/
NAV RYN

contrail 4
taxicab pi
moped
comsat
. agribusiness
Saar earaeormedervemag
en Mtn is

F. Acronymy

Acronymy is the process whereby a word is formed from the initials or beginning
segments of a succession of words. In some cases the initials are pronounced, as in
MP (military police, or Member of Parliament). In others the initials and/or begin-
ning segments are pronounced as the spelled word would be. For example, NATO
(North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is pronounced as /neto/ and radar (radio de-
tecting and ranging) as /redar/. In the word radar we have an example of an acronym
that has evolved to the point that it is written in lowercase letters and its acronymic
origin is even unknown by most speakers.
 Blending 131.

=Exercise:t Oss RC
ER EROROEN OTR sre CAN eA ARAN

Pronounce these acronyms and give their originals,

. RV

YT
NOW
PNnAYMArYH
MADD
OK
scuba
OPEC
WASP
ICBM
. laser '
ree

FDIC
i

. IRS
SEAS uate memes ee sora enntae

During the latter part of the twentieth century there has been a great increase
in the use of acronyms. They tend to/abound in large organizations—for instance,
in the army, in government, and in big business—where they offer neat ways of
expressing long and cumbersome terms. The very names of some businesses have
been acronymized, such as Nabisco, Texaco, and Aleoa. Many acronyms are used
and understood only by initiates in a given field, like the medical terms PRN,
AR, and OR, whereas others gain general currency, such as CPR, IV and AIDS. It
is likely that you employ some campus acronyms that would not be understood
elsewhere.

Blending is the fusion of two words into one, usually the first part of one word with
the last part of another, as in gasohol, from gasoline and alcohol. The resultant blend
partakes of both original meanings. Many blends are nonce words, here today and
gone tomorrow, and relatively few become part of the standard lexicon. The two ~
classes, blends and clipped words, are not sharply separated, and some words may
be put into either class.

nkxercise:t 0-= Do ene reareantian enseserearerse seer

Give the originals of these blends.

brunch
. happenstance
. stagflation
. simulcast
motel
smog
. dumbfound
 132 Processes of Word Formation

8. telecast
9. fiustrated
10. splatter

mExercisert (Sean Per eieeee seme = pre ae

Give the blends that result from fusing these words.

l. transfer + resistor
2. automobile + omnibus
3. escalade + elevator
4. blare or blow + spurt
5. squall + squeak =

H. Back-formation

If someone should ask you, “What does a feeper do?” you would probably answer,
“He feeps, of course.” You would answer thus because there exist in your mind such
word-pairs as tell-teller, reap-reaper, write-writer, sing-singer; and you would reason,
perhaps unconsciously, that on the analogy of these forms the word feeper must have
a parallel verb feep. Likewise, in the past, with the introduction of the nouns peddler,
beggar, swindler, and editor into our language, speakers followed the same analogy
and created the previously nonexistent verbs peddle, beg, swindle, and edit. This
process is just the reverse of our customary method of word formation, whereby we
begin with a verb such as speak and, by adding the agent morpheme {rr n}, form the
noun speaker. The process is called back-formation. It may be defined as the forma-
tion of a word from one that looks like its derivative. An example is hedgehop, from
the noun hedgehopper. Back-formation is anagtive source of new words today.

=Exercise:t 0-Q2eassmeees % LS ETNa ON AL

1. The noun greed is a back-formation from the adjective greedy. Write four pairs
of words that constitute an analogy for the creation of greed.

2. The pairs revise-revision and supervise-supervision are in common use in En-

glish. From this analogy what verb is back-formed from television?
3. English has many pairs on the pattern of create-creation, separate-separation,
and deviate-deviation. On this analogy what back-formations would you expect
from donation and oration? and
SOS SRE NS
 Folk Etymology 133 -

These verbs are back- formations. Write the words from which they are back~formed.
1. housekeep 9. sidle
2. typewrite 10. escalate
3. administrate 11. reminisce
4, resurrect 12. deficit-spend
5. baby-sit 13. emote
6. enthuse 14. burgle
7. laze 15. party-poop
8. lase

I. Folk Etymology

The tennis term Jet bail affords a good illustration of our next process, folk etymol-
ogy. In the term Jez ball, the word.fet has retained the obsolete meaning of “pre-
vented,” common in the language of Shakespeare.” A let ball is one that has been
prevented from taking its true course by touching the top of the net. It is an entirely
different word from the det that means “allow.” But aneophyte, hearing the word on
the tennis court, may understand it as net, because /1/ and /n/ are not far apart in
sound and net makes sense to him whereas let does not. Thus he may use the term
. net bail until corrected by a more knowledgeable player.
Such a process—changing a word, in part or in whole, to make it more under-
standable and more like familiar words, though based on an inaccurate view of its
origin—is known as folk etymology.

ee RFT ESTA LTT TRI ITERATE

Look up in your desk dictionary the following examples of folk etymology and write
the source of each in the blanks. Usually the reason for the change will be apparent.
1. female - 6. coleslaw
2. carryall . 7. bridegroom
3. cockroach 8. helpmate
4, hangnail 9, woodchuck
5. Welsh rarebit

2In Hamlet, Act I, scene 4, Hamiet says to his two friends who are holding him back from following his father’s ghost:
“Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.” .
Here /ets means “prevents.” A modern reader, understanding lets as “allows.” would get exactly the opposite meaning
" from that which Shakespeare intended.
The obsolete meaning of let survives also in the legal: phrase “without let or hindrance.”
134 Processes of Word Formation —

Some folk etymologies become established in the speech of particular individu-

als but are not widespread enough among speakers of a language to necessitaté
changes within a dictionary. Still, such forms are interesting for what they reveal
about how some speakers perceive particular words. Consider, for example, the use
of “Verging” instead of “Virgin” in the place name “The Virgin Islands, ” or those
people who speak of “very close veins” instead of “varicose veins.”

J. Antonomasia

Antonomasia means the formation of a common noun, a verb, or an adjective from

the name of a person or place. For example, the word frisbee comes from the Frisbie
Bakery in Bridgewater, Connecticut, whose pie tins were used for a throwing game.
The term, vandal derives from the Vandals, a Germanic people who overran southern
Europe fifteen hundred years ago and sacked and looted Rome in the fifth century.
Names from history and literature have given us many common nouns. A lover,
for instance, may be called a romeo, a don juan, or a casanova. If he is too quixotic,
he may meet his waterloo at the hands of some sheba or jezebel.

ati ten ee ed cine

Look up in your desk dictionary the foliowing instances of antonomasia and write
the origin of each in the blanks.

ole
iets
1. sandwich 6. jeans
2. frankfurter : 7. leotard

ed Oe uate tg Sn aa
3. baloney, bologna _ : 8. guy
4, denim 9. lynch
5. cashmere ¢“ 10. boycott
ry
Ba SIN See ESOL A SDS LT IN eS NSIS LARS Oe ee
Sn

K. Reduplication
aided diviUaeete
e

Reduplication is the process of forming a new word by doubling a morpheme, usu-

ally with a change of vowel or initial consonant, as in pooh-pooh, tiptop, and hanky-
panky. The basic, originating morpheme is most frequently the second half, like
cing Snead

dilly-dally, but it may be the first half, like ticktock, or both halves, like singsong,
or
neither half, like boogie-woogie.
Because the word reduplication has three meanings relevant to our : discussion —
the process, the result of the process (that is, the new word), and the element rre-
Cosi

peated—let us avoid cofifusion by calling these words “twin-words.”

Selah whotsd ae siaceteabibied aid

ae FE SHH DRTC AUNT

Underline the originating morpheme in each of these twin-words.

 Some Observations and Applications 135

1. wiggle-waggle 4, super-duper
2. pitter-patter 5.. silly-willy
. 3. nitwit 6. lovey-dovéy

Twin-words can be divided into three classes, leaving only a small residue of ir-
regular forms.
1. The base morpheme is repeated without change.
Examples: clop-clop, tick-tick
The twin-words in this group are-often onomatopoetic—that is,
i they represent
sounds, such as gobble-gobble and chug-chug. This class of morphemes is
commonly used when speaking with small children, and it sometimes involves
repetition of an already clipped form such as dada (dad) or baba (bottle).
2. The base morpheme is repeated with a change of initial consonant.
Examples: fuddy-duddy, tootsie-wootsie, razzle-dazzle, roly-poly, teeny-
weeny, heebie-jeebies, hootchy- ‘kootchy
3. The base morpheme is repeated with a change of vowel.
Examples: chitchat, tiptop, criss-cross
The first vowel is usually the high front lax vowel hi, and the second is alow
a
vowel /ze/, /a/, or /o/.
Examples: zigzag, ticktock, pingpong

=Exercise:1O0=4 Gennes
Identify the class of twin-word ty one of these numbers:
: l. Repetition without change
i. 2. Repetition with change of initial consonant
3. Repetition with change of vowel
__.1. knick-knack __.. 6. hotsy-totsy
fe ___2. ding-dong ___ 7. hocus-pocus
€ ___3. wishy-washy . __ 8. flipflop
__.4. quack-quack _ 9. humdrum
___5. rowdy-dowdy ___ 10, nitty-gritty

Some Observations and Applications.

In an earlier chapter we mentioned a business that creates product names by taking

into account the meanings that people associate with particular sounds. Here we will
. note.the importance of morphological awareness in the generation of clever and ef-
fective product names. With the dramatic increase of inventions, new technologies,
136 —Processes of Word Formation

consumer products, and companies, it has become necessary to coin many new terms
and names. Those who wish to market new products or services are very involved in.
creating new words and must use some of the processes of word formation that you
have studied in this chapter. Consider, for example, such product or company names
as Papermate (compounding), Listerine (antonomasia and derivation), Coke (clip-
ping), EPT (acronymy-—Early Pregnancy Test), Nicorette (blending of nicotine and
cigarette), and Fiddle-Faddle (reduplication).
Let us consider another type of application of the word formation material that
you have studied. A knowledge of back-formations and their development can help
you to make more informed word choices in your writing. Back-formations require
some time within a language before they achieve respectability in formal writing.
Some back-formations that were once stigmatized are now completely acceptable
in careful writing. But if you are doing careful writing that you wish others to re-
gard as “correct,” then you will certainly want to exercise caution in using words
that seem to be relatively recent back-formations. Just being aware of what back-
formations are and some of the kinds of forms they take will help you to be more
suspicious of a word that you might otherwise want to use. For example, you have
seen that a common type of back-formation results when someone assumes that a
word ending in -or, -ar, or -er has a corresponding verb without that suffix. Your
knowledge of back-formations should make you more cautious about assuming
that a particular verb must exist based on a noun form that you are familiar with. If
the verb you are thinking of using sounds a little strange to you (such as perhaps
the word burgle), even if you have heard, others use it, that might be a good indica-
tion that you are dealing with arelatively new back-formation. You can check on
your suspicion by consulting a dictionary, particularly a usage dictionary.
 goose, “two geese—so one moose, two meese? One index, two in-
dices—one Kleenex, two Kleenices? If people ring a bell today and rang
a bell yesterday, why don’t we say that they flang a ball? If they wrote a
letter, perhaps they also bote their tongue. If the teacher taught, why isn’t
it also true that the preacher praught? Why is it that the sun shone yes-
terday while | shined my shoes, that | treaded water and then trod on
soil, and that | flew out to seé a World Series game in which my favorite
player flied out?! .
Z

A paradigm is a set of related forms having the same stem but different af-
fixes. As a reminder, here is a derivational paradigm with the stem head: ahead, be-
head, header, headlong, headship, heady, subhead.
Paradigms are also formed by the words to which the inflectional affixes are at-
tached. These are called inflectional paradigms. There are three of them, which are
listed below.

NOUN PARADIGM .
Forms: Stem Plural Possessive Plural+Possessive

Inflectional
suffixes: , {s- pl} {-s ps} {-s pl ps}
Models: doctor doctors. — doctor’s doctors’
woman women. woman's women’s

‘Excerpt from “English Is a Crazy Language” in Crazy English by Richard Lederer. New York: Pocket Books, 1989,
p. 13.

137
 138 inflectional Paradigms .

VERB PARADIGM
Present .
. Third-Person © Present Past. Past
Forms: Stem Singular Participle Tense Participle
Inflectional
suffixes: {s 3d} {-nc vb} {ppt} {ppp}
Medels: show shows showing showed showed (also shown)
ring rings _ ringing rang rung
cut cuts cutting cut cut

COMPARABLE PARADIGM
Forms: Stem Comparative Superlative

Inflectional suffixes: {-gr cp} {-EsT sp}

Models sweet sweeter sweetest
lively livelier liveliest
friendly friendlier friendliest
soon sooner soonest
near nearer nearest

In addition, there is a pronoun paradigm which differs from the previous three in
that it is not a stem-and-affix group but a small and closed set of words of fixed
form. Such a closed set of words is called a structure class. We will take up the
personal pronouns in chapter 13, together with the other structure classes.
In the paradigms above, the meaning of the stem remains constant; the suffixes
produce the differences in meaning among the forms of each paradigm. Member-
ship in one of these inflectional paradigms is 6ne of the signals that enable us to
group words into four of the major parts of speech—nouns, verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs. We will take up this matter in chapter 12. Now we will examine the inflec-
tional paradigms one by one.

A. The Noun Paradigm .

The noun paradigm is as follows:

Forms: Stem _— wPlural Possessive Plural + Possessive

Inflectional suffixes: {s- pl} {-s ps} {-s pl ps}

Models: doctor doctors doctor’s doctors’
man men man’s men’s

This four-form paradigm is maximal, and not all nouns have all the four forms.
Many nouns do not take the possessive forms because an of structure often takes the
 Noun Plurals 139-

place of the {-s ps} morpheme. For example, one is more likely to say “the ceiling
of the room” than “the room’s ceiling.” In the spoken language we cannot always be
sure which s morpheme we are hearing, because the possessive and the plural have
_ identical forms—/-s/,/-z/, and /~az/—-except in the case of irregular plurals. If, for
instance, you were to hear /Oa daktorz semimar/, it could mean, “the doctor’s semi-
nar,” “the doctors’ seminar,” or “the doctors seminar.”
A few groups of so-called nouns have only one form of this paradigm. The words
in one group—such as tennis, courage, and haste—have the form of the stem. An-
other group does not have a singular form but only that of the -s plural: clothes, en-
virons, trousers, and others. These take they/them as a pronoun substitute and go
with the plural form of the verb, e.g., “My clothes [they] are cléan.” Still another
group ends in an -s, ‘words such as economics, linguistics, mathematics, physics, but
these take it as a pronoun substitute and go with a singular form of the verb, e.g.,
“Linguistics [it] is an exacting discipline.” Words in a certain ill-defined group end
in -s, such as ethics, oats, pliers, suds, meastes, but may be either singular or plural,
depending on the context in which they occur or on the meaning expressed.
Examples: a Na
Singular: Measles (= a malady) is a contagious disease,
Plural: Have you ever had them, the measles? Gs a malady)
Singular: Ethics (= a philosophic discipline) is a clfallenging subject.
Plural: His ethics are beyond reproach (-beliefs and actions).

mExercise
Write the paradigmatic forms of these nouns. For some slots you may have two
forms or none.
Stem Plural Possessive Plural + Possessive

. carpenter
SOPNANRWH YE

woman
. brother
cloud
cattle
. duck
Japanese
means
. athletics
. SCISSOTS
—

Noun Plurals

- At this point it is convenient to set forth the ways of distinguishing singular from
plural nouns. For many nouns the long-used meaning test will do: a noun is singular
140 inflectional Paradigms

if it means one and plural if it means-more than one. But meaning does not always
work as a test of number. Take for instance this sentence: “T like your hair.” Is hair -
singular or plural, assuming it means not a single strand but the coiffure or thatch on
someone’s head? Nor will form always do because some nouns ending in an -s seem
to be singular, e.g., physics, and others without an -s plural seem to be plural, e.g.,
several salmon.
There remain three useful tests for number in the noun.
1. A noun is singular if it can take one of these substitutes: he/him, she/her, it,
this, or that. It is plural if it can take as a substitute they/them, these, or those.
Examples: The beach was covered with white sand. (= it)
Have you studied phonetics? (= it)
Where did you hang my trousers? (= them)
2. The number of a noun may be signaled by a modifier such as several, many,
this, that, these, those, fifteen, or by a pronoun reference such as his/her/its,
their.
Examples: We saw many fish swimming under the bridge. -
In returning to the fold, the sheep changed its direction.
In returning to the fold the sheep changed their direction.
Be careful not to apply your test using a modifier such as some, which can be
used with a singular or plural noun.
Examples: He bought some cake. |
He bought some cakes.’
3. When a noun functions as subject of a verb, its number is sometimes shown
by the form of the verb. It is the singular noun that goes with the {-s 3d} form
of the verb, as in

Measles is a contagious disease. f

. . a

The fish swims in the pond. .

Contrast these with
The goods are on the way.
The fish swim in the pond.
in which the verb form are or swim shows that goods and Jish are plural.
If the verb has a form that does not change for singular and plural (e.g., a
past tense form other than was or were) one can usually substitute a present
tense form, or the present or past tense of be, e.g.,
The goods came (substitute present tense, come) late.
The goods came (substitute present tense of be, are) late.
The goods came (substitute past tense of be, namely, were) late.

Each of these substitutions shows that goods is plural.

 Noun Plurals = 144.

In the blanks of the first column provide it, they, or them as the appropriate pro-
noun substitute for the italicized word. In the blanks of the second column write
Sg (singular) or Pl (plural) to show the number of the italicized noun.
— . Miss Shen is wearing panty hose today.
. What did they do with the molasses?
. The summons came in the mail.
MN KW
DNA

. Why doesn’t she call the police?

. Jack likes to fish for pike..
The firm transported the goods to Australia.
. The jar is filled, with sugar.
. Have you ever had the mumps?
. She became fond of mathematics.
OO

. Does your brother eat soap?

. The poor among us needed assistance.
—
me

Circle the noun modifier or pronown reference that reveals the number of the itali-
cized noun. me
1. The hunting party saw few deer this season. -/

2. That news delighted her.

3. He studied poetics in all its complications.
4. My scissors lost their sharpness.
5. She shot both quail on the wing.

oExercise:tt=daasnes
Circle the verb that reveals the number of the italicized noun.
1. The Chinese was preparing the dinner.
2. The Chinese were preparing the dinner.
3. Oats is his best crop.
4. The bass are biting today.
5. The species has become extinct.

Some nouns, known as collective nouns, may be either singular or plural in

meaning when they are singular in form. These are nouns that represent a collection
or unit of individuals, such as tribe, family, team, committee, faculty, choir. Speakers
are likely to use singular forms (verbs, pronouns, determiners) in connection with
such nouns when thinking of the unit as a single whole, but they will use-plural
forms when intending the separate individuals within the unit.
Examples: Singular: The family (= it, the unit) és sitting at the dinner table.
Plural: The family ( = they, the individuals) have gathered from
many parts of the country.
142 _Inflectional Paradigms

Indicate in the blanks by Sg or Pl whether the italicized collective nouns are singular"
or plural. Decide by using the tests for number that you have learned.
. The band. is playing well today.
. The band are playing well today.
DHuswne

. The choir became dissatisfied with their robes.

. The choir became dissatisfied with its singing.
. The staff of the college paper was a high-quality group.
The staff of the college paper were assembled to discuss their
last edition.
7. The éribe were on the warpath.
8, The sribe was the owner of the river bottom.
9. The congregation rose to its feet.
0. The congregation have all helped with the fund-raising drive.

The plural form of the noun signals the meaning of more than one. The most
frequently employed plural forms are the three allomorphs of {-s pl}, such as we
hear in hats /-s/, fads /-z/, and kisses /-oz/. These -s plurals are customarily consid-
ered the regular forms, not only because of their numerical preponderance but also
because new nouns, either from other languages ( pizzeria) or composed from exist-
ing morphemes (astronaut), tend to follow the -s plural.
_ In addition to the regular -s piural there are several small groups of irregular plurals.
1. Three nouns stil) retain an -en plural—oxen, children, and brethren—the last
two having in addition a replacive stem vowel and a suffixal -r.
2. Another group has a @ (zero) suffixal plyral. This is a convenient way of say-
ing thai the plural is the same as the sifgular. It is shown in this way:

deer /dir/ (pl.) = /dir/ + /8/

The @ plural allomorph refers to a significant absence of suffix. The words
in this group are the names of edible animals, game animals, fish, and birds.
Among them are deer, sheep, swine, antelope, bass, pike, carp, perch, pickerel,
quail, grouse. Beside these we may set similar words with a regular plural: pigs,
' goats, suckers, muskies, bullheads, pheasants, ducks. Some have both forms; a
farmer, for example, who has ducks on his pond may go out hunting duck.
3. Seven common nouns form their plural by a replacive allomorph; for
instance,

/[gis/ = /gus/ + ha > i/

These are man, woman, goose, tooth, foot, louse, and mouse. In women there
-are two replacives:
/wimin/ = /womoen/ + lu>V+le> /
 Noun Plurals 143

4. One set of nouns has as the stem of the plural an allomorph that is different
from the stem of the singular. The morpheme {calf}, for example, has /keef/
as the singular allomorph but /kaev-/ as the plural allomorph, and the plural
suffix /-z/ conforms to the voiced sound /v/. Changes in the phonemic form
of allomorphs as they are grouped into words, or as they appear in different
forms of a word, are called morphophonemic changes. Among the morpho-
phonemic changes we have already noted for the plural are these:
calf > calves /keff/ > /keev-/
child > children RBayld/ > /érld-/
Each of these changes in an allomorph is an example of a morphophonemic
change. Nouns in this group end in /-f/ or /-6/.2 Here are two examples:
knife > knives /nayval = /naiff + /£> v/ + /-2/
mouth > mouths /mawédz/= /mau0/+ /0 > 5/ + /-2/
Other examples include half loaf, self, wife, bath, path, oath. Some nouns
ending in /-f/ or /-G/ do not make a morphophonemic change, such as chiefs;
others may have two forms ofthe plural, such as /yu@s/ or /yudz/.

Write in phonemic script theallomorphic formula for the formation of the plural of
these words.
_ Example: brother brethren
/bredran/ = /bradar/ + /a > e/ + /ar > ron/
. child
AAPWNe

, moose
foot
leaf:
wolf
. path

Exercises pa Zruncx seers

Divide these words into two groups: () those thatat undergo no change of the base allo-
morph in the plural, e.g., “those two coughs”; (2) those that have two forms of the plural,
e.g., hoofs, hooves. The words are grief, scarf, chief, truth, wharf, sheath, belief, wreath,
waif, staff, Respond according to pronunciation. The spelling does not vary in all cases.
One Allomorph Two Allomorphs .

- 2Some-speakers may add the consonant /-s/ to their list, because they change the final stem in house from /-s/ to /-z/
when adding the plural suffix. The resulting form of the word in this case is /hawzez/.
 144. inflectional Paradigms

Every language has its own ways of signaling plurality in nouns. In the Germanic
tongues the suffixal consonants /-s/, /-n/, and /-r/ are common for this purpose. In -
Ttalian, on the other hand, the suffixal vowels /-i/ and /-e/ are employed, Chinese, an
exception, does not signal plurality at all, except in the personal pronouns.
When foreign words are borrowed into English, their pronunciation becomes as-
similated more or less to the phonemic system of English. This means that we fol-
low our own native pronunciation habits as we utter these foreign words, Take, for
example, the Italian noun soprano /soprano/. This is pronounced /sepreeno/ by most
Americans. We replace the first Italian /o/ by /a/ because this accords with our way
of pronouncing countless three-syllable words that have a primary stress on the me-
dial syllable: /poteto/, bateentk/, /konekSon/, /molignont/. And the Italian /a/ be-
comes /é/ because it is our habit to pronounce az as /een/ in many words, such as
abandon, mechanic, outlandish, pedantic, titanic.
Now, what happens to the pluralizing morpheme of foreign nouns that are iraported
into English? Frequently this pluralizer is completely abandoned, and the adopted noun
is made to conform to the allomorphic pattern of the English plural {-s pl}. An instance
is the Italian soprano, which has lost its native plural of /soprani/ and is pluralized like
any English word ending in a vowel /sapreenoz/. And this has been the fate of many
such Italian imports in -o: piano, cello, solo, rondo, casino, studio, canto. Spanish plu-
rals—/-s/ after a vowel and /-es/ after a consonant—are so similar to the English that
they seem to assimilate to the English plural pattern without exception. Witness such
borrowings from Spanish as patio, mosquito, barbecue, cafeteria, guitar, cigar, lariat,
canyon, alligator, tornado.
_On other occasions the foreign spelling i is retained but the pronunciation, with
occasional exceptions, is niodified. Thus the Latin singular and plural forms, datum-
data, keep in English tKe original spelling, but the Latin plural /-a/ becomes /-9/,
whereas the Greek-Latin plural phenomena, with its classical /-a/ plural, may re-
main unchanged in English, though some speakers change it to /-o/,
- Many borrowed nouns have both pluralstheir foreign ones, often modified,
and the English plural, such as concerti and concertos, curricula and curriculums,
syllabi and syllabuses. The tendency is for such words to adopt the English {-s pl},
but some have proved resistant to change, such as alumni.
= EXOFCISe file Gemesenaasa cere OA OT NSO

Look up the plurals of these words in your desk dictionary. Then write in phonemic
script the pluralizing allomorph of each. If there are two pluralizers, write both.
Examples: criterion 1. /-z/or/-on>-o/
thesis * f-as/ > /-iz/
. alumna
formula
WN

opus
. appendix
AAR

stratum
. hypothesis
 Noun Plurals 145-

7. kibbutz
8. apparatus
9, medium 7 ot
10. stimulus
11. memorandum
12. graffito
13. nucleus
14. analysis
15. fedayee

Noun Possessive
The noun possessive morpheme {-s ps} has the same phonologically conditioned al-
jomorphs as the plural: /-s/, /-z/, and /-o2z/, plus a zero allomorph as in students’.
The term possessive is not a satisfactory label for this morpheme because a variety
of different semantic relationships,¢an exist between the possessive noun and the
one that follows. The following cases will illustrate.
Relationship Example /
1, Possession or belongingness : John’s hat ‘
- Judy’s home
_ 2, Characterization or description a cowboy’s walk
men’s coats
3. Origin Raphael’s paintings
Cary’s novels
4. Measure (time, value, space) an hour’s wait
a dollar’s worth
a stone’s throw
5. Subject of act John’s flight (John flew)
the judge’s decision
‘(the judge decided)
6. Object of act -Eliot’s critics were many.
(They criticized Eliot.)

Using the numbers above, indicate the relation shown between the italicized posses- _
sive and its following noun.
. We missed the other car by a hair 5 breadth.
NmARWND

. A wren’ song floated through the window.

. They were playing children’s games.
. The police provided for Richard’s protection.
. The boy's jump saved his life. —
. The moon’s beams were brilliant that night.
 146 = Inflectional Paradigms

7. Willard’s arrival was a surprise. ~.

8.. He has never done a day's work.
9. She met Manuel father.
10. He was happy about Janes winning.

A noun possessive is ambiguous when it expresses more than one of the above
relationships at the same time. For example, “His son’s loss grieved him” has two
possible meanings: (1) He lost his son (object of underlying verb), and this grieved
him; or (2) His son (subject of underlying verb) lost something, perhaps a family
heirloom, and this grieved him.

As in the previous exercise, use the numbers 1 to 6 to indicate the relationships ex-
pressed by each ambiguous possessive.
1. Dr. MeCoy’s examination was a long one.
2. That is my father’s photograph.
3. He was carrying a woman’s coat on his arm.
4. We bought one of Rutherford’s paintings.
5. The case was about his wife’s fatal. shooting.
PRE TS SLT STIPE TEA ES TTS EE OR ET RIT

In making a choice between the inflected possessive (student's) and the

periphrastic of structure (of the student), there is no hard-and-fast guideline, and
often the form chosen depends on personal taste. The tendency, however, is to use
the inflected form with animate nouns and the of structure with inanimate nouns;
thus, the dog's leg, but the leg of the table.

This is an exercise to investigate the usage of the class in regard to the inflected pos-
sessive {-s ps} and the of structure. You will be given pairs of sentences like this: |
a. The garage’s cement floor is cracking.
b. The cement floor of the garage is cracking.
If you would use only one of these forms, put a chéck mark only after the sentence con-
taining that one. If you would use either one of the two, put a check mark in both blanks.
If you would. give preference to one of the two, circle the check mark that corresponds -
to your preferred choice. For this exercise, there are no right or wrong answers.
la. The building’s roof was blown off by the wind.
b. The roof ofthe building was blown off by the wind.
2a. The soldier’ rifle had been thoroughly cleaned.
b. The tifle of the soldier had been thoroughly cleaned,
3a. The lawn ’s color had become brown.
b. The color of the lawn had become brown..
 The Verb Paradigm 147

4a. We admired the dog’s silky coat.

b. We admired the silky coat of the dog.
. 5a. The hats brim was torn. ,
b, The brim of the hat was torn.
A quick tabulation on the board will show the extent to which the members of
the class make a distinction between animate nouns (soldier and dog) and inanimate |
nouns (building, lawn, and hat) in their use of {-s ps} and the of structure.
The following exercise concludes our look at the forms of the noun paradigm.
We will return to them again in our study of syntax. There our knowledge of the
noun paradigm will help us to single out nouns in this simple way; If a word has two
or more forms of the paradigm, we will label it a noun, e.g.,
daughter § daughter’s daughters § daughters’
But ifit has only one form, such as bravery; it is not a noun by this paradigmatic
test, although it may be shown to be 2 noun by other tests.
A

Write N after every word that is a noun according to theparadigmatic test described
above.

1. player 6. nation 1 il. chéss

2. pray 7. uncle ‘12. field:
3. sidewalk 8. discovery 13. pocket
4. chaos 9. together 14. game
(in playground context)
5. relax 10. bus 15. game
(in hunting context) .

B. The Verb Paradigm

The next set of forms we will examine is the verb paradigm. Verbs have three, four,
or five forms. Those with four, such as learn below, are the most common. The verb
paradigm goes as follows:
Present :
Third-Person Present Past _ Past
- Forms: Stem Singular Participle ‘Tense Participle

Inflectional ; —
suffixes: " {ag 3d} {-1sc vb} {-p pt} {-p pp}
Models: learn ~ Jearns learning learned learned
choose chooses choosing chose chosen.
set sets , setting. set set
148 Inflectional Paradigms

Each of these five forms has its own uses, which we will now run through. ~
1. The first form is the stem. This occurs after to, after auxiliaries such as can
and will, and in the present tense, except for the third-person singular.
Examples: to sit, can go, we eat
. The present third-person singular is the form used with the pronouns he, she
it, and with singular words or with word groups for which these pronouns

Tittak Seca.
will substitute.
Examples: That freshman cuts his class every Wednesday.
He cuts his class every Wednesday.
Each is expected to do his duty.
Somebody has left a note for you.
Winning the championship cuts no ice with me.
The morpheme {-s 3d} has the same allomorphs in the same distribution as
the plural and possessive forms of the noun: /-s/, /-z/, and /-ez/, as in cuts, begs,
and buzzes. .
3. The present participle is the {-nvc vb] form. Although it is called the “pres-
ent participle,” it isn’t actually a present-tense form, so the name is a little
misleading. But we will continue to use the term because it is the term most
commonly used for this form. The present participle combines with seven
of the eight forms of be—am, is, are, was, were, be, been—to make verb
phrases. :
Examples: They/were writing letters.
She must have been sleeping.
It is also used as a subjectless verbal, that is, when it is not the main verb
and does not have a subject, as in a

His passion used to be playing golf.

A few verbs—mostly referring to mental activities— are seldom heard in
the {-mvc vb} form as main verbs in the sentence. These verbs include own,
need, préfer, know, hear, like, remember, and understand, The following
sentences, for instance, are ungrammatical:
*Jake is owning a cabin in the north woods.
*She was not knowing what to say.
But they are in common use as subjectless verbals, as in
Owning a cabin in the north woods, Jake was very popular during the
summer vacation period.
Not knowing what to say, Marilyn maintained a discreet silence.
This present-participle verbal {-1nc vb} morpheme should not be confused
with the nominal {-ivc nm} morpheme or the adjectival {-mnc aj} morpheme.
 The Verb Paradigm 149

4. The past tense takes on numerous forms, e.g., jumped, shrunk, kept, led,
began, rode, built, found, knew, swore, shook. The most usual ones end in the
allomorphs /-t/, /-d/, and /-ad/, as in passed, pleased, and parted.
5. The term past participle, like the term present participle, is also a little mis-
leading because it is not used to convey a past-tense notion. But once again,
we will follow convention and continue to use this term. The past participle
also has numerous forms. Those most frequently occurring end in the same
three sounds mentioned above in connection with the past tense, but here they
are allomorphs of {-p pp}. The past participle is used with have, has, had,
having to fortn verbal phrases. -
Examples: , She has selected a stunning gown.
He had never flown in a helicopter.
It is also used. with the forms of be to form the passive.
Examples: The orchestra was selected by the committee.
By night the missing lad had been found.
This past-participle verbal 4-p pp} morpheme should not be confused with
the adjectival {-p aj} morpheme, described earlier.

EXO Cise=t feufQenscnecmmssemsa ‘ i

Fill out the following verb paradigms. Then indicate by a 3, 4, or 5 whether the verbs
are three-form, four-form, or five-form. ,
Stem Pres. 3d Sg. Pres. P. Past T. - PastP. Number

walk
SeEenInanAwWnNe

bite
. keep
. freeze
set
sell
put
rise
> tease
. sleep
REIT ea SR
EE SLSR SEE S A EP eI ORIATES

Most verbs follow faithfully the first three forms—the stem, the present third-
person singular, and the present participle—with occasional exceptions like does
and says, which have replacive allomorphs in the stem:
/daz/ = fdu/ + fa > 9 / + /-2/
Isez/ = /se/ + le > ef + f-2/
And in the past tense and past participle most verbs have identical forms, as in
» learned, have learned; batted, have batted; cried, have cried. Such are commonly
 150 inflectional Paradigms

known as regular verbs. It is because of the influence of this large number of verbs
having this same pattern in the past tense and past participle that children utter such
forms as knowed, runned, drinked. The child is simply following the pattern he
knows best and in so doing he creates what we call an analogical form.? The process
of analogy has operated historically in the language and has derived forms that are
now used, even in the standard dialect. For example, the past tense of the verb help
used to be formed very differently but has now been regularized and takes the past-
tense suffix -ed.
There still remain, however, numerous verbs, many of them of high frequency,
that form their past tense and past participle in various ways. If we should classify
_ all English verbs according to the phonemic changes and patterns of change in the
past tense and past participle, the total would amount to about fifty classes. This is
hardly worth our time; an exercise in such classification will show you four of these
classes as samples of the patterns of change in the past tense and past participle.

Exercised:
t<1 drcs:
Write in phonemic symbols the past tense and past participle of each verb. Then
classify the verbs into four classes according to the phonemic forms they have in
common.
Past Tense Past Participle
Examples: 1. blow blu blon
2. freeze froz , _ frozen
3. grow gre gron
4. speak ye _ spok spokan
Class 1: blowand grow. {-p pt} =/o>w/
{-D pp} = /-n/
Class 2: freeze and speak. {-p pt}=fi>o/ 4“
{-p pp} =/i> o/ + /on/
1. sting
2. creep
3. drive

3In language, analogy is the process by which a new form or pattern is created on the basis of existing forms or patterns.
For example, the pattern ring, rang and sing, sang is the basis for bring, brang. And other nonstandard forms in the past
tense are created analogically from other patterns. Pairs such as fling, flung and sting, stung are responsible for bring, -
brung, whereas the widespread use of the allomorph /-d/ following a voiced sound to signal past tense, as in wing,
winged, long, longed, seem, seemed, mow, mowed, rob, robbed, results in bring, bringed, heard in children’s speech. The
suffixal morpheme /-ize/ added to adjectives to form such verbs as legalize and rationalize has brought about the analog-
ical finalize, With nouns the child or foreign speaker who knows years, fears, and peers is likely to use the analogical
plural deers. Both standard and nonstandard forms are brought into being by analogy.
New grammatical patterns as well as new forms are also created by analogy. The foreign learner of English who
has heard “I want to tell you something” is likely to say “I want to explain you something.” Among native speakers the
high frequency of object pronouns like me after the verb, as in “The man saw me,” “The man found me,” and “The man
met me,” has produced the analogical pattern “The right man for the job is me” and “It is me.”
Analogy is an important and widely operative process in language change.
 The Verb Paradigm 151-

4. sing
5.. ride
6. write
7. cling
8. ring
9. keep
10. deal
11. swim
12. spin
13. win
Class 1:
Class 2:
Class 3:
Class 4:

Suppletion
As part of our discussion of verb forms, it would be useful to consider another
process that has affected some of the forms within the paradigm of particular verbs.
We previously noted the role of analogy. One other process is suppletion, which we
will introduce through an example. Let’s look at the five-part verb go. —
go goes going went gone
In this paradigm one form, went, seems out of place. It ought to be *goed, or at least
a word that begins with /g/. But the entire stem /go-/ has been replaced by a wholly
different stem /wen-/. Such a total change within a paradigm is called suppletion,
and the new form is a suppletive form. The suppletion here can be simply expressed
by this diagram: ,
/went/ =/ go > wen/ + /t/
One English verb, be, is unique in that it has eight paradigmatic forms:
be am/is/are being § was/were _ been
The stem is obviously be, and the alien forms that have intruded themselves into the
patadigm—am, is, are, was, were—are suppletive forms.
Despite some of the differences we have noted among verbs with regard to their
paradigmatic forms, knowledge of the verb paradigm is helpful in determining
whether or not a given word should be classified as a verb. If a word can fit into three
or more slots of the paradigm, we comfortably classify it as a verb. The word begin
fits into all five positions ,
begin begins _— beginning began. . begun
152 Inflectional Paradigms

and therefore is given the classification of verb.

With cut, however, the case iss different. It does have three of the five possible \i
forms:
cut |
cut cuts cutting = cut_—
But it also fits partially into the noun paradigm . ;
cut (singular) cuts (plural) i

i
So we are faced with two homophonous cu?’s, one a verb and the other a noun, and
we cannot classify the isolated word. When it occurs in context, however, the matter

sorte
is simple: “She is cutting the bread.” Cutting is one verb form, and we can make

hobs eigen
substitutions showing the other verb forms:
She cuts the bread.
She cut the bread yesterday.

we
Obviously cut in this context is a verb. Likewise, in “He has a cut on his finger,’ we
can substitute a plural form
He has several cuts on his finger.
showing that cut here is a noun.

Sosa is
tadrc
oBxe e:
sesncnre md emer LIARS
SNS TTI

Take a quick look again at the noun and verb paradigms. Then, using membership in
a paradigm as a criterion, classify these words as N (noun), V (verb), or NV (both
noun and verb). /
1. driver 11. bird
2. compliment 12. join
3. appear 13. end
4, world 14. morning
5, agency 15. variety = _.
6. agonize 16. mother
7, truck . 17. grammar
8. decide | = 18. melt
9. emotion 19. note
10. book _ 20. carve

Aspect in the Verb Phrase

As you consider verb phrases and their various forms, you should realize that they
convey not only time but also aspect. Aspect is the expression of meanings con- .
cerned with the continuity or distribution of events in time. Here are a few such
MEANINGS, expressed in various ways in English:
 The Verb Paradigm 153.

1. Beginning of event
He began to sweat.
2. End of event ’
He stopped sweating.
3. Frequency of event
She sang often.
4. Repetition of event
Jim pounded on the door.
5. Habitual performance of event (called habitual aspect)
They used to eat dinner early.
6. Single occurrence of event in time (called indefinite aspect)
T ate my lunch.
He stepped down.
7. Progression or duration of event in time (called progressive or durative aspect)
I was eating my lunch.
8. Completion of event (called perfective aspect)
I have eaten my lunch. :
In many languages such meanings are Clearly signaled by the form of the verb
itself rather than through a combination of verbs. In Russian, for example, if one
adds to the verb /pisal/ ( = wrote) the prefix /na/, the meaning becomes “has fin-
ished writing,” the perfective aspect, number 8 above. In standard French, which
has three past tenses, one can choose a form that signals both past time and either
of two aspects simultaneously. An example is
Tl travaillait.

Here the suffix -ait enables the verb to be translated in either of two ways:

He was working. (progressive aspect, number 7 above)

He used to work. (habitual aspect, number 5 above)

In English, aspectual meanings are expressed in many different ways. For in-
stance, aspectual meaning may be implicit.in the meaning of the verb itself. We can
illustrate this by contrasting two verbs that both mean “hit” but differ in their aspec- _
tual meaning. Consider strike (single event in time, indefinite aspect, number 6) and
beat (progressive aspect, number 7; or repetitive aspect, number 4). Aspectual mean-
ing may also be determined by the context in which the verb is embedded. Often the
' aspectual meaning of a verb phrase is signaled by adverbials that answer the ques-
‘tion of “when?” or “how long?” Examples:
He wrote a letter this morning. (single event, indefinite aspect, number 6)
She wrote in her diary every morning. (habitual aspect, number 5)
He wrote all morning to finish his report. (progressive aspect, number 7)

Although English expresses aspectual meanings in many various ways, English

- may be said to have only two aspects that are structurally signaled by a distinctive
verb combination: progressive and perfective. ..
154 Inflectional Paradigms

1. Progressive or durative aspect, as in

She was writing a letter.
The form of the progressive is be + verb + ing. The be may occur in any of its
forms, for example:
They may be sleeping.
She is driving the car.
She had been practicing law.
In the progressive aspect the event is thought of as progressing, going on,
without any indication of an end. This aspect may show something going on
over a period in which other events happen, as in
She was writing a letter when J entered.
The progressive aspect is generally employed with verbs whose meaning
is capable of noticeable extension, in time; these are verbs of activity and
process, such as walk, throw, grow, change. It tends not to be used with verbs
of mental activity and feeling, such as know, understand, remember, prefer,
want, need, like, or with verbs of nonaction such as own, consist of, and seem.

2. Perfective aspect, as in
He has written a letter.
The form is have (in any of its forms) + past participle. The perfective aspect.
_ presents us with two ways of interpreting the continuity of time. First, the
event began in the past and has been completed, as in
Jane has attended college.
Second, the event continues up to the presegt, as in
Jane has attended college since last September.
In a sentence like this, with the present-tense has or have before the verb, the
time adverbial is one of duration—since last Sunday, for two months, the
whole evening—answering the question “How long?” But an adverbial of
definite time (answering the question “When?”) is not commonly used with
the perfective aspect, For example, this sentence is ungrammatical:
*Jane has attended college last year.

Cross out the adverbials that are improperly used.

1. Ihave practiced my piano lesson yesterday afternoon.
2. I practiced my piano lesson yesterday afternoon.
3. Her roommate received an award last Wednesday.
4. Her roommate has received an award last Wednesday.
 The Verb Paradigm 155-

Two years ago I have visited Spain.

She stayed in the hospital fifteen days.

NNN
She has stayed in the hospital fifteen days. ’
It has rained since one o’clock.
She has played tennis last night.
©
10. I have worked in the garden for three days.
SSE LRAT MY I PS TC RE TES

Thus far we have discussed the perfective aspect only in its has/have form (tra-
ditionally called the “present perfect tense”). It also has a past form (“past perfect”)
They had studied.
and a seldom-heard future form (“future perfect”)
They will have studied.
Each of these bears.a sense of comipletion, as in
They had studied hard before the'exam was canceled.
They will have read eleven novels by the end of the semester.
The perfective aspect combines with the progressive in yerb phrases such as
’
’
George has been working.
This verb phrase is perfective for three reasons. First, it has the form of have +
past participle-—in this case, been. Second, it cannot take an adverbial of definite
time, like yesterday. And finally, it can take an adverbial of duration, as in
George has been working all week.
On the other hand it is progressive because the form includes be + verb + -ing, been
working, and in meaning it expresses the going-on of an event. So we can say that
such verb phrases carry a compound aspect, perfective-progressive.

Label the aspect of the underlined verb phrases according to whether they are pro- -
gressive, perfective, or perfective-progressive.
. Hans was building a doghouse.
. Charlotie had been sick.
PWN

. Miss Garcia had been lecturing on water pollution.

LIT TT |

She was preparing for an exam.

. They have been practicing the whole day.
DUA

. Have you done your homework?

. The student is taking a test.
Om

. We've been preparing for the worst.

156 inflectional Paradigms

Mood in the Verb Phrase

Sometimes the form of a verb does not tell us so much about the time of an event as
it does about an attitude of the speaker in relation to what is being said. Such infor-
mation corresponds to what has traditionally been called “mood.” English has three
moods: indicative, imperative, and subjunctive. Up to this point, we have considered
verb forms in relation to the indicative mood. The indicative mood is primarily con-
cemed with the exchange of factual information and is the mood we use in most of
our daily communication. It is perhaps easier to understand what the indicative mood
is by contrasting it with the imperative and subjunctive moods.
The imperative mood is used in conveying commands such as “Play outside!”
or “Bring me the book.” By its nature, the imperative is usually used in the sec-
ond person, though the actual pronoun you is rarely used. The imperative mood
uses the stem forrh of the verb paradigm. This is also frequently the same form as
the second person present indicative. But, of course, this latter generalization
‘does not apply to the be verb, which has a greater variety of forms. In an impera-
tive involving the be verb, we don’t use a form resembling the second person in-
dicative form but rather the stem form be itself. Thus, although the verb form of
a second person present indicative statement (e.g., “You work hard”) is essen-
tially the same as the second person imperative (“Work hard”) with most verbs,
we can see a difference when we use the be verb and compare the second person
indicative (“You are quiet”) with the imperative (“Be quiet”).
The subjunctive mood with its distinctive forms is not as commonly used as it
once was. In fact, we could say that it is one part of the language that is dying a slow
death. But it is still an important part of the Standard dialect, especially in writing.
There are two uses of the’subjunctive that you should be familiar with.
First, it is sometimes used with particular verbs to express some kind of desired
course or outcome. This use is common in a few fixed expressions such as “Long
live the queen!” or “God bless America!” Let’s J6ok at how this is different from the
indicative and imperative moods. When we say'“Long live the queen,” we are speak-
ing of the queen in the third person, If we were in the indicative mood and merely
making a statement to say that the queen lives a long time, then we would have in-
flected the verb Jive with the third person singular present-tense inflection -s. But as
you can see, the.verb form is not inflected with -s, because it is not making a state-
ment about the queen but is rather an expression of a wish or hope. The subjunctive
expression “Long live the queen” might initially appear like an imperative, espe-
cially because it uses the stem form of the verb. But you will recall that the impera-
tive is used for the second person (telling someone what to do) tather than for the
third person (speaking about someone or something).
Sometimes the expression of a desired course or outcome is found in clauses
following such verbs as request, ask, and insist, or following such adjectives as nec-
essary and essential. In the examples below you will notice© that the subjunctive
mood uses the stem form of the verb.
Examples: She suggested that I be the cook.
We request that you be appropriately dressed.
 The Verb Paradigm 157

The boss insisted that Willard arrive at eight sharp.

It is necessary that she go at once.
It is imperative that they be ontime. ‘
The second major use of the subjunctive mood is to express something that is
contrary to fact. For example, when I say something like “If I were you I would buy
that,” I am-posing a situation that is contrary to fact because I am not you. This use
of the subjunctive employs a form that appears to be past tense but in fact has noth-
ing to do with past time.
Examples: I wish I were in Italy.
Betty looks as if she were exhausted.
If he were really my friend, he would get me a ticket.
Sometimes the subjunctive is replaced by other forms or structures.
Examples: It is necessary for her to go at once.
It is necessary that she should go at once.
If he was really my friend, he would get me a ticket. (informal usage)
I wish I was in Italy. (informal usage)

1. Ifshe (was were ) home, she would answer the phone.

2. wish he (was were ) with me now.
3. God (save saves ) the King! ;
4. The director asked that Elizabeth (stands stand _) in the front row.
5. Itis traditional that the table (is be ) decorated.
6. Itis advisable that a lawyer (writes write ) the contract.
7. Rubinstein plays Chopin as though he (was were ) inspired.
8. The rules required that they (are be ) in uniform.
9. If 1 (was - were ) the pilot, I'd avoid that thunderstorm.
0. The invitation requested that she (answers answer ) promptly.

For each of the sentences below, indicate whether the italicized verb represents the
indicative, imperative, or subjunctive mood.
Jl . Tell us what you want now.
2 . We spoke to your friend yesterday.
3 . Don’t expect me to agree.
4 . She insisted that he meet with her.
5 . I don’t know if he is coming.
6 . Ifhe were a good student, he could get a scholarship.
7 . Be a good example.
8 . The athletes were not happy with the game.
158 —= inflectional Paradigms

9. Walk softly when you go past their dog.

10. I walk softly when I go past their dog.
RTE D SSS SOR
ERS PS Aa ENTS

C. The Comparabie Paradigm

The comparable paradigm is as follows:

Forms: Stem Comparative Superlative

Inflectional suffixes: {-er cp} {-EsT sp}

Models: ‘ sweet sweeter sweetest
deadly deadlier deadliest
friendly friendlier friendliest
soon, _ - sooner soonest

This paradigm furnishes the pattern for these groups:

1. Nearly all one-syllable adjectives, e.g., hot, smail, proud.

2. Some two-syllable adjectives, especially those ending in -/y and -y, such as
lovely, funny, polite.
3. A few adverbials of one or two syllables, e.g., fast, early.
4, One preposition, near, as in “She sat nearest the door.”
. ¢ . a.
Other adjectives and adverbs usually take a preceding more or most in lieu of the
inflectional -er and -est to indicate the comparative or superlative.

eExercise=:14=20=scumsemmmmmaae RSA ERR eC Fe ci rnc D

Here is a list of two-syllable adjectives. Write the comparative and superlative forms,
-er and -est, of those that you would inflect in this way.
1. angry . 11. quiet _
2. healthy 12. remote
3. bitter 13. severe
4, common 14. solid
5. cruel 15. stupid
6. foolish 16. noble
7. handsome 17. dusty
8. honest . 18. dirty
9. mellow 19. lively
10. pleasant 20. gentle
 The Comparable Paradigm 159 _

SE KET CIS a2 decncenmmesrnemen manenresaniere erent as NR REA EES oto one TBR

Here is a list of adverbials of one and two syllables. Write out the comparative and
superlative forms of those that you might inflect with -er and est. Write no after the
adverbials that you would not use with these inflectional endings.
1. often 11. under
2. seldom. — 12. near
3. already 13. upward
4, gently . 14, far
5. late : 15. quick
6. ahead 16. above
7. weekly 17. loud
8. perhaps 18. quickly
9. sidewise 19. high.
10. slow 20. low
SUA ES EE NaSSe ees

. . A .

A few adjectives have suppletivg,and irregular forms in the comparative and su-
perlative, such as good:
good better —_— best /
?
Thus the morpheme {good} has three allomorphs: /gud/,/bet-/, and /be-/. The allo-
morphic diagrams of better and best go like this:
/betor/ = /gud > bet-/ + /-at/
/best/ = /gud > be-/ + /-st/
In the last one the /-st/ is an allomorph of {-est}, spelled -esz.

= eTORs G2 m2 essen neni reir

rT Ee TO

Write the forms of the comparative and superlative of these words.

1. well 4. little
2. bad, ill, badly 5. much, many
3. old 6. few
EES
OR ainencenisats car beeraneattetrmmseamS

The capacity to take the inflectional suffixes -er and -est is one of the signals —
that enables us to distinguish adjectives from nouns in the position. of modifier pre-
ceding a noun. In the cluster a stone fence the stone is not an adjective because we
would never say a stoner fence or the stonest fence. Thus, although the word stone
_ may function like an adjective, it still retains its identity as a noun.

In the blanks write Aj (adjective) or NA (nonadjective) to label the italicized

- words.
160 = inflectional Paracigms

1. the light plane 6. that clay pot

2. the night plane 7. her red davenport
3. a strange idea _ 8. adull volume —
4, a glass vase 9. a sound conclusion
5. his steel file 10. my close friend

Even this inflectional test, however, must be applied judiciously because, as you
have seen, some adjectives, particularly those with multiple syllables, may not take
an inflectional ending.

Some Observations and Applications

One of the features that distinguishes nonstandard dialects from standard ones is the
treatment of the inflectional paradigm. As a college student, you are not so likely to
say or write something like “It don’t matter that he seen the geeses.” But in this
chapter we have looked at linguistic items such as collective nouns and the plural
forms of foreign borrowings, which might be useful information for you as you edit
and proofread your writing to maintain grammatical number agreement between
subjects and their verbs, or between pronouns and the nouns they refer to. We have
also noted that the choice between using the inflectional possessive or the of posses-
sive tends to correspond with whether a particular noun is animate or not. A con-
scious awareness of this stylistic tendency may help you in choices you make in
your own writing. “
All of this is not to say that usage and stylistic decisions must slavishly adhere to
the prescriptive norms set down by traditional grammarians. With many usage is-
sues, writers and editors must make informed choices that take into account the na-
ture of the writing task and the audience. But’ writers who are better informed so
that they can make conscious decisions will be more resourceful than writers who
are not even aware that a particular usage is an issue. It is of course tne that atten-
tion to a grammatical issue such as number agreement is not as important within a
writing task as developing ideas and organizing information effectively, but it can
help in proofreading and editing your own writing for forms that might otherwise
distract some readers from seeing the value of your ideas.
In another application, those who teach non-native speakers of English to ac-
quire the language must have a clear understanding of how the language is put to-
gether. And an important part of this is found not only in the inflectional paradigms,
but also in the forms and uses of the verb aspects such as the perfective and progres-
sive constructions that we examined in this chapter.
An understanding of the inflectional paradigm is not just a matter of interest
for those seeking to monitor or teach written and spoken English. For example,
some law enforcement agencies have consulted with linguists who examine fea-
tures of discourse in the writing or speech produced by unknown or anonymous
suspects. Among the important features that can be examined are characteristic
 Some Observations and Applications 161

patterns involving a person’s handling of inflectional or paradigmatic forms. Be-

cause people have distinctive ways of expressing themselves, such linguistic analy-
sis can help narrow down a list of suspects.*

“For an example of forensic linguistics, see “Forensic Analysis of Personal Written Texts: A Case Study” by Robert
Eagleson in Language and the Law, ed. John Gibbons. London: Longman, 1994, pp. 362-73. This article has also been
reprinted in Linguistics at Work: A Reader of Applications, ed,Dallin D, Oaks, Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Pub-
lishers, 1998, pp. 30-39.