HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH PRU A UAAn Introduction to Morphology Morphemes Words Four Processes of Word Formation . Morphophonemic Changes Inflectional Paradigms BIBLIOGRAPHY EXERCISES. DOCUMENTS APPENDIXChapter I An Introduction to Morphology 1, WHAT IS LANGUAGE ? Edward Sapir, the great philologist, defined language as "a purely human and nén-instinctive method of communcating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols" (Sapir, Language, P.7). ~The phrase "method of communicating ideas"... suggests that communication is the primary function of language — Besides, the qualification “purely human and non-in- stinctive" illustrates the social nature of language. = The definition also indicates the important characteristic of language, the system of symbols. This system consists of different levels from sound systems to meaning: The various levels are shown in the following chart : Semantic level deals with meaning t ey Syntactic level deals with sentence structure fb : Morphological level deals with word-structure Phonology(or phonemics) — deals with sound syste These levels were assumed to be ordered in a hierarchy with phonology at the bottom and semantics at the top.Linguistics, the science of language, studies not only sounds and word-structures, but also the arrangement of words in the formation of utterances as well. Language, thus, consists of four constituent parts : he phonological system, the morphological system, the syntactic system and the semantic system. Only the unity of these parts forms a language. Hl. STRUCTURALISM AND MORPHOLOGY 1. When structuralism was in its prime, especially between 1940 and 1960, the study of morphology occupied centre stage. Many major structuralists investigated issues in the theory of word-structure (Bloomfield ; Harris ; Hockett...). Nida’s course- book entitled Morphology, which was published in 1946, codified structuralist theory and practice: It introduced genera- tions of linguists to the descriptive analysis of words. The structuralists recognized that words may have intricate internal structures. Traditional linguistics had treated the word as the basic unit of grammatical theory and lexicography, whereas American structuralists showed that words are ana- lysable in terms of morphemes. These are the smallest units of meaning and grammatical function. Previously, word-structure had been treated togetiter with sentence-structure under grammar. (F. Katamba. ».4-5) 2. In structuralism grammar covers both morphology and syntax, whereas in generative linguistics the term grammar is employed in a much wider sense. It covers not only morphology and syntax, but-also semantics, lexicon and phonology. Hence, there are rules of grammar in every linguistic module. Phonologi- cal rules, morphological rules, syntactic rules and semantic rules are all regarded.as rules of grammar. 63. Morphology is the study and description of word-struc- ture. Italso studies word-formation. Morphology is a Greek term : Morpho (Morphe means form) and logy (logos means study). Hence, morphology is the study of form. This term is taken from biology In linguistics, morphology, according to Eugene A Nida, is the study of morphemes and their arrangements in forming words. Syntax is the study of the arrangement of words into larger units stich as phrases, sentences, sentence groups. 3 Such: arrangements are also vital parts of the, system of communicating meanings. Ill, GENERATIVE GRAMMAR AND MORPHOLOGY : Generative grammar (1957) was inithited by Noam Chomsky (1928...). It has been the dominant schvol of linguistics, after structural linguistics, in the second half of this century. Though the review of the theory is necessary, here we focus our attention on the place of morphology in generative grammar. After the time when structuralism peaked in the 1950s, morphology was at first eclipsed when generative grammar came on the scene. Generative grammarians rejected the validity of the separate morphological module. From the point of view of advancing our understanding of word structure, this stance was unfortunate. The study of word-structure was in the shadows for more than a decade. Morphology did not re-emerge from oblivion until the mid — 1970s.Fortunately, the eclipse was Hot total. A few isolated scholars such as Robins (1959) and Matthew (1972, 1974) made important contributions to morphology at this time. Today, the place of morphology is secure. In generative grammar, words are central dimensions of language. They have certain unique properties that they do not share with other elements of linguistic structure like sentences and speech sounds. (F. Katamba, 1993) 1, The. Morphology ~ Phonology Interaction. e.g. "ed". is pronounced // after voiceless sounds Jd after voiced sounds fid/ after and d is pronounced —/s/_ after voiceless sounds 12] after voiced sounds Jurf after sibilants and affricates 8.2, fo 3 fs dS 2. The morphology - Syntax Interaction. I practise playing the piano once a day. * My ster practises playing the piano twice a day. Yesterday my sister practised playing the piano once a day. Chomsky (1959 : 29) deals with the phrase stricture rules : S in the context NP sing - cs @ in the context NP pl — ] pst |Notes : (1) stands for “expand” or “rewrite as" (2) C stands for the various suffixes that may be realized as {-s}, {@) (i.e. zero) and (-ed}. 3. The lexicon and phonology. : — Phéne, phénic, phonétic, phonétics, _ phondlogy, phonetician, phonoldgical, éuphony, télephone — Démocrat, demédcracy, democratic — Long — longer — longest Noy /langal Nongis permit (n) //4\/ ; permit (v) Jv +11. 4. In. semantics, the connection between morphology and the lexicon on the one hand with the meaning on the other hand is obvious because the major rule of the lexicon or dictionary is to list the meanings of words. This is beacause normally the relationship between a word and its meaning is arbitrary. There is no reason why a word has the particular meaning that it has. (F. Katamba, 1993 : 14)Chapter II MORPHEMES 1. Morphemes : the smallest units of meaning. Morphology is the study of word-structure. 1. According to Eugene A Nida, "morphemes are the minimal meaningful units which may constitute words or parts of words” (Nida, 1946: 1). Structuralists defined morphemes as units of semantic content or grammatical function. eg : redo, girlish, darkness, books, walked. Lego provides an analogy. Morphemes can be compared to pieces of lego that can be used again and again as building blocks to form different words eg : unwell, unsafe, unclean, unhappy, unfit, uneven... Most of morphemes are clear in meaning. eg: {-er} : caller {ness} : goodness {ex} : ex-wife, ex-minister. {pre} : preface. Sometimes a morpheme may be restricted to relatively few words 10es fetie} © bishopric {berry} + cranberry, strawberry, huckleberry, blackberry, boysenberry, gooseberry. Sometimes some “unanalysable” parts are not morphemes at all e.g. : worker has two morphemes (work} and {-er}, whereas butcher, grocer are unanalysable parts. >. F. Katamba, a generative grammarian defined that "The morpheme is the smallest difference in the shape of a word that correlates with the smallest difference in word or sentence meaning or in grammatical structure” (Katamba, 1993 : 24) ‘The main principle of generative grammar in the analysis of words is the principle of contrast. We contrast forms that differ : (i) in phonological shape due to the sounds used to and (ii) in meaning. broadly defined to cover both lexical meaning and grammatical function. af The phonological difference between /bai/ and /gs:V correlates with a semantic meaning. The boy plays The girl plays The difference in meaning is attributable to the difference in lexical meaning between boy and gicl. b/ The girl plays The girl played. There is the difference in grammatical function between play-s and play-ed. 3, Difference between morphemes, words, syllables. Now consitler the example : the forms see, sees, seeing, saw, seen are different realizations (or representations ormanifestations) of the lexeme SEE (Lexeme is the sbstrac bulary item). These form er to are called word-forms or w. rs Is, We can rel different words. ing, saw and se are tiv Syllable is # unit in speech which is often longer than sound and smaller than a whole word, For example, 1 vocabulary consists of five syllables: vo-ca-bu-la-ry Word Morpheme Syllable cat 1 1 1 cats 1 2 1 teachers 1 3 2 uncivilized 1 4 4 Il. Morphs and Allomorphs A. Morphs The analysis of words into morphemes begins with the isolation of morphs. A morph is a physical form representing some morpheme in a language. It is a recurrent distinctive sound (phoneme) or sequence of sounds (phonemes). Morphemes are the abstract physical entities nities. whereas morphs. the cg. Morph Recurs in Jal J park a car ; 1 parked the car hi: He parks the car ; He parked the car Ipa:rkd Payk is found in all the exwnples1. Allomorphs (allo = other ; morph = form) 1. Debniton : Iv dflerent morphs represent the same morpheme, they are groped together and. they are called allomorphs of that worpheme morpheme {-ed} all morph: allomorph allomorph morph morph morph "0 ] Nw \ddomorphs are the various phonemic shapes that represent the same orpheni, The morpheme {a} hi that are dis-ribincd as follows + two allomorphs {a} occurs beroe a werd beginning with a consonant or Fl ov ves a unters ty one eyed man, a ear, a young man {ar} occurs be‘ore a werd beginning with a vowel or mute he an aim, an hen st man, an hour An allomor pit i structure which is semantically similar but phenologic diy alter -nt. These allomorphs are” in com- plen -nuary disr bu en, ¢ they have the same, meaning but oce: py differe wen a ommeats : We classi’) oF morphs as altomorphs of the same morpheme ftiey are in complementary distribution. (CD). Morph. are saiet to bem CD if 4) They represent the same meaning or serve the same arimmaticai Tunetion 1B(ii) They are never found in dentical contexts So, the three morphs /-td/, /-d/ and /V which represent th. English regular past tense morpheme are in CD. They are in different linguistic environment, 2. Four kinds of allomorphs (a) The allomorph is phonologically-conditioned, when its Phonological properties are similar to those sounds found in neighboring allomorph of some other morpheme. e.g. The nasal consonant /n/ in the various allimorphs of the negative morpheme {in-} is pronounced in a variety of ways depending on the nature of the sound that immediately follows The three allomorphs of morpheme {in-} are a [Im} before a labial consonant (¢.g.g,b.f.m) as in lim] possible, impatient, immovable, imbalance. b/ [In] before a velar consonant (e.g.kg) as in Unjcompliance, [Ip}gratitude cf [In] elsewhere, ic. before an alveolar consonant like (1,4, 8, 2, n) asin [In] tolerable, [In}tangible, [In]uecent... or before a vowel as in [InJactive, [InJelegance. So, [Im], [17], [In] are in CD, This means that selecting one precludes selecting the others. No two of them can occur in identical enviromments. (b) The allomorph may be [exically-conditioned. ie. use of @ particular allomorph may be obligatory if a certain word is present, There are cases where for no apparent reason the regular rule inexplicably fails to apply e.g. sheep = sheep + {0} (deer, salmon) put = put + (O} (hit, cut, hurt MWoxen = ox + {en} (child-children) The choice of the zero allomorph, or the allomorph-cn, is lexically-conditioned. (c) The allomorph may be grammatically-conditioned, i it may be dependent on the presence of a particular grammatical element. A. special allomorph may be required in a given grammatical context although there might not be any good phonological reason for its selection. The replacive allomorph Iv > v/ is granimatically-conditioned. eg. Present tense Past tense airwemtess ee a) walk Iwa:k/ walked dwa:k/ kiss Tkis/ kissed Jkis/ grasp /gra:sp/ grasped — /gra:spv/ b) weep — /witp/ wept Jwepv sweep ~ /swizp! swep-t — /swepty c) shake — /fetk/ shook /fuk/ take Nerks took Muk/ In the example of (a), the presence of thie past tense morpheme in the majority of cases has no effect on the selection of the allomorph. But, as (b) and (c) show, in certain verbs presence of the past tense morpheme requires the selection of a special allomorph of the verb. 15eg, wep-+t swep-t there is a choice of the /wep/ and /swep/ allomorphs suk there is a choice of allomorphs shook tuk and took 4) Finally, there exist a few morphemes whose allomorphs show no phonetic similarity. An example is the forms good/betier which both represent the lexeme GOOD despite the fact that they do not have even a single sound in common. Where allomorphs of a morpheme are phonetically unrelated we speak of suppletion. eg. bad ~ worse go ~ went. The Nature of Morphemes. At first, it might seem reasonable to assume that the relationship between morphemes and morphs, strings of phomenes is one of composition. In that case, the morpheme book /buk/ is made up of the phonemes /b/, ful, /k/ and the primary stress /* / However, it is preferable to view morphemés as being fepresented or realised or manifested by morphs. For example the same phoneme /a/ (spelled-er) can represent cither the comparative degree of adjectives, as in Kinder and the noun-forming suffix-er as in worker. Clearly, it is the morphs rather than morphemes that are made up of phonemes. 162. The relationship bewween sound and meaning in language is arbitrary, i.e. that is no good reason why a particular sound or string of sounds has a particular meaning ‘As we saw above, the morph /0/ may be used ( represent different morphemes. Now consider the phonological form /satt/ has three orthographic representations, each one of which repre- sents a different morpheme. The phonological form Jratt/ has four spellings which represent four separate morphem| Isa : sight site cite frau: right write wright rite What we sce here are homophones. They are words which sound the same but differ in their meaning or grammatical function. e.g. It feels good {83} /2/ John’s heart {Si} /2/ cars {S2} /2/ These three homophonous /z/s having different grammatical functions are allomorphs of three different morphemes. 3, The same string of sounds may represent several morphemes. The term portmanteau morph is used to refer to cases where a single morph ‘simultancously represent a bundle of several different grammatical elements. c.g. the -s ending in English verbs (e.g. walk-s) signals three morphemes, namely third person, present ten: and singular number. va]In addition to different morphemes being represented by the same morph we can also have a situation where different grammitical words are represented by the same word forms, This is called syncretism. It is a result of neutralization, eB in regular verbs, the same word-form represents wo disunet grammatical words : e.g. walk + [past] walk as in T walked. and walk + (past participle] walked isin T have walked. Irregular verbs like see and take exibit no syncretism. They have distinct past tense and past participle forms : see + [past] saw ; see + [past participle} seen, 4+. In general, cach different morph represents a separate morpheme c.g. fail represents 1 Sometimes different morphs may represent the same mor- pheme. ©. the past tense of regular verbs in English which is spelled-ed is realised in speech by Ad/, /d/ or /V. In other words, different morphs /id/, /d/ ot /V/ represent the morpheme-ed. A one-to-one correspondence between morphemes and morphs encounters difficulties when there is simply no match between morpheme and morph. The past tense of regular verbs in English is represent by-ed Whereas in many cases there is no change in the form of the verb, This case is called zero allomorph. €-g. Last week the farmer sowed the corn Yesterday Jane painted the roof, the past tense is expressed by morpheme {-ed)}, whereasLast week I cut the grass { put those carnations in the vase yesterday Yesterday they shut the factory down. The mob hit him last week. cut, put, shit hit are past tense morphemes realised by a zero allomorph. : 6. The number of morphs that can be isolated may exceed the number of morphemes represented. In-other-words, there may be a surplus word- building element which does not realise any morpheme. Such an element is usually called an empty morph eg. Adjective medicine medrsin’ | medicin al /me’drsinal/ person Ipa:sanl person-al _/p3:sanal/ b) sense Isens/ sensu-al Isensjual/ fact Heck factu-al /faektjual/ In (b) there is an empty morph, -u- /ju/ that does not represent any morpheme which is inserted immediately before al. Iv. TYPES OF MORPHEMES In the analysis of any language we are concerned with two primary features = (1) the morphemic inventory (i-e the morphemes which exist) and (2) their distribution (i-e, the way of combining morphemes). Each language has a different system for the combining of morphemes, and within each system there are rigid restrictions. In morphology of most languages the order is fixed. In English 19wwe find rather complex structures, e.g. the word formalizers consisting of five morphemes. The shift in order of one morpheme makes the word quite unintclligible, eg. formizalers. The distribution of morphemes differentiates a great many classes of morphemes and combinations of morphemes : 1. Free morphemes and bound morpheme: - readers: read .. free morpheme rls +» bound morpheme wanted want .. free morpheme ed bound morpheme ~ Connecticut .» free morpheme ~ thinoceros = thino ; ceros ... bound morphemes Paragus .. free morpheme Morphemes are of two kinds : free morphemes and bound morphemes. (1) A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning. (2) A bound morpheme is one that cannot be ultered alone with meaning. It is always annexed to one or More morphemes to form a word. relixes. suffixes, infixes, suprafixes roots lov | able J annoy | ance re | enter ~ Roots constitute the nuclei (or cores) of all words. There may be more than one root in a single word, e.g. blackbird, catfish and he goat and some roots may have unique occurrences, ©.8, the unique element cran — in cranberry. 20— A root is the morpheme in a word that has the principal mneaning. Roots are very numerous and most of them in English are free morphemes but some are bound morphemes. e.g. {ceive} in receive, deceive, perceive root. root root (bound morpheme) {-sent} in consent, assent, di root ~ Affixes are bound morphemes that occur before or behind 4 root and somewhat modify the basic meaning of the root Affixes include prefix, suffix, infixes and suprafix (supraseg- mental). eg. root {possible}, suffix (ity) fim-}, (in-} ~ Prefixes are bound morphemes which precede the root. Prefixes don’t change the grammatical class of words. c.g. ex-wile, ex-minister pre-war, pre-school mono-plane, monopoly. — Suffixes are bound morphemes which follow the root. Suffixes change the word-class, though some suffixes don’t. g. _ play-er, paint-er, law-yer free-dom, martyrdom, wis-dom go-es, make-s, work-s ~ Suffixes may pile up to a number of 3 or 4 after the root Whereas prefixes are commonly single except for the negative prefix (un-} before another prefix. 21©. uncivilizational (3 suffixes) unmistakability : suffixes (-uble}, (-i'y} prefixes {un-), {miis-} - Infixes occur within the root, eg. The root ~ cub = to lie in, on or upon, occurs without /m/ before the /b/'in some words containing that root, eg. incubate, incubus, succubus... But /nv is infixed before that same root in some other words like incumbent, succumb, decumbent. In fact, infixation of sorts still happens in contemporary English. Consider the examples : a) Kalamazoo (place name) > Kalama ~ goddam ~ z00 instantiate (verb) — in ~ fuckin ~ stantiate b) Kangaroo — Kanga — bloody ~ roo Impossible > im ~ fuckin — possible guarantee — guaran ~ friggin — tee (Note : The arrow means "becomes" or “is rewritten as” ~Suprafixes are morphemes which consist of suprasegmental morphemes and which are added to the root or stem 3. Bases and Stems a/ Bases : A base is any unit whatsoever to which affixes of any kind can be added. The affixes attached to a base may be inflectional affixes selected for syntactic reasons or deriva- ional affixes which alter the meaning or grammatical category of the base. e.g. boy can he a hase, because it can take inflectional affixes like = x to form the plural hoys and derivational affixes like ~ish to turn the noun buy into the adjective boyish 22b/ Stems : The stem is that part of a word that is in existence belore any inflectional affixes have been added. ee Noun stem Plural cat s worker ¥ happi er ats, the plural inflectional suffix = s is attached to the simple stem cat, which is a bare root In workers the same inflectional -s suffix comes after a slightly more complex stem consisting of the root work plus the suffix -er which is used to form nouns from verbs. Here work is the root, but worker is the stem to which —s is attached. 1 is attached ). s. Bases are called stems In happier, the comparative degree suffix to the stem happi ~ (there is a change from happy to happi In other words, all roots are bi only in the context of inflectional morphology. LEXICAL MORPHEMES AND GRAMMATICAL MOR- PHEMES 1. According to functionalists, there are two kinds of morphemes : lexical morphemes and grammatical morphemes. a. Lexical morphemes are morphemes forming units of vocabulary. They occur in a limited number in the text. In lexicology they aré called lexemes. A lexeme is an abstract unit. It can occur in many different forms in actual spoken and writien sentences, and is regarded as the same lexeme even when inflected. e.g, in English, all, inflected forms such as give, gives, giving, gave, given would belong to the one lexeme give. 23b. Grammatical morphemes are morphemes that detesin a the grammatical function of words. For example, the plural morpheme {-s} and the alone pis Isl, 71, Ni2l, the simple past tense morpheme { ed} ai the allomorphs //, /d/, /td/. The morphemes of compurison of short adjectives are {-er}, {-est} Root + ulfixes Frefixes at [2a aa] 5 Lexical morphemes | [Derivational ] | tnflectional He Suffixes Suffixes | Lexical morphemes | | Gramma cal monphemes] 2. Suffixes : derivational suffixes and inflectional suffixes. Suffixes are divided into derivational suffixes and intlee- tional suffixes. a A derivational suffix is only applied t any morpheme that adds up to the root to form a word It influences the meaning of a word, A derivational suffix changes the part of speech of the- word to which it is added. Cg Verb Noun discover discovery fail failure 24adorn adornment Noun Adjective act active © month monthly hope hopeful week weekly man manlike dj, (Noun! Verb beauty beautify hard harden black blacken civil civilize The study of derivation is in the scope of lexicology. especially the arca of derivation that forms different parts of speech c.g. write, writing, wrote, written (inflectional) writer (n), writing (n) (derivational) b/ An inflectional suffix. or “ending” is only applied to any morpheme serving to derive a grammatical form and having no lexical meaning of its own. The inflectional suffixes are : — The noun possessive morpheme ; {-S1) : Bill's = The noun plural morpheme : (-S2}.: ears — The verb present third person flies ngular morpheme : {-S3 — The verb present participle morpheme : {-ing1} : singing — The verb past tense morpheme : {-edi} : ended _ = The verb past participle morpheme : {-ed2} : worked 25= Comparative morpheme + {-er} + nicer = Superlative morpheme : {-est) + nicest VI. IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENTS (IC DIVISION) There are three kinds of morphemes : roots, prefixes and suffixes of which words are composed. Now we shall see how these are put together to build the structure that we call a word. c.g. “blaze” has just one part, “cheerful” is composed of two parts with the division between them. But a word of three or more morphemes is not made up by a string of individual parts. It is built with a hierarchy of twosomes. Each twosome is the layer of structure by which a word has been composed. We can make successive divisions into two parts, each of which is called immediate constituent. This division 1s called 1C division. ¢g. ungentlemanly, a word of 4 morphemes, can be divided into parts as follows : ma | gentle | man | ly We shall obtain only (wo constituents at each cut, the ultimate constituent, however, can he arranged according to their sequence in the word : un- + gentle + -man + -ly 2 un- + {[gentle + -man] + -ly} Here are three recommendations on IC division : 1. If a word ends in an inflectional suffix, the first cut is between this suffix and the rest of the word Preconceiv | ed malformation | s 262. One of the IC free form is one that can be uttered alone with meaning, cg, enlarge, supportable. Here are examples of right first cuts. should be, if possible a free form. A enlarge | ment in | dependent in| supportable 3, The meanings of the IC’s 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 @ semantic connection with restrait. Nor woulda division of starchy as star |chy be right, because this woul.) give an unrelated morpheme and a meaningless + fragment, The two examples are properly cut in this way : re | strain starch | y Thus the ultimate constituents are the morphemes of which the word is composed. 27Chapter III WORDS I. WHAT IS A WORD ? The assumption that languages contain words is taken for granted by most people. Even illiterate speakers know that there are words in their language. True, sometimes there are differences of opinion as to what units are to be treated as words. 1. The lexeme : However, closer examination of the nature of the "word" reveals a somewhat more complex picture than we have seen. If we were reading a book and we encountered the "word" pockled for the first time in this context “He went to the pub for a pint and then pockled off" We would probably look up that unfamiliar word in a dictionary, not under pockled, but under pockle. This is because we know that pockled is not going to be listed in the dictionary. We also know that the word pockling and pockles will also exist. Furthermore, we know that pockling and pockle, pockles and pockled are all in a sense different manifestations of the same abstract vocabulary item. That is lexeme. Lexemes are the vocabulary items that are listed in the dictionary. 28The forms pockling, pockle, pockles and pockled are different realisations (or representations ‘or manifestations) of the lexeme POCKLE. They all share a core meaning although they are spelled and pronounced differently 2. Word form : ‘As we have just seen above, sometimes when we use the term "word" it is not the abstract vocabulary item with acommon core of meaning to the lexeme. Word form (or word) is a particular physical realisation of that lexeme in speech or writing, Thus, we can refer to see, secs, seeing, saw and seen as five different words. The word, which is different from the morpheme, is a directly nominative unit of language : it names things or their relations. = Since words are built up by morphemes, the shortest word consists of one explicit morpheme only, e.g. : book, car, I, see. The problem of words, however, is not a simple ond because not all words consist of one explicit morpheme. For example : redo, servant, impossible... —It seems to us that the printed forms of words are sometimes inconsistent with each other, e.g.” : woodcut,. wood block, woodcock and wood duck. The fact of the matter is, of course, that words are units of speech. But all of these previous examples are concerned with written words, whereas in linguistic analysis our main interest is in the spoken words. From this viewpoint, we include the notion of the superfix as a part of words (/ + \) 29- According to Bloomfield, "A word is a minimum free form" also according to Bloomfield, "A free form is any segment of speech that can be spoken alone with meaning in normal speech" For practical purposes, we accept the definition of words : "A word.is a free form that cannot be divided wholly into smaller free forms". 3. The Grammatical Word The “word” ca also be seen as a representation of a lexeme that is associated with certain morphe-synta ctic properties (ie. parly morphological and partly syntactic properties) such as noun, adjective, verb. tense, gender, number, etc. We shall use the term grammatical word to refer to the “word” in this sense eg. a, Usually I cut the bread on the table. b. Yesterday I cut the bread in the sink Thg same word-form cut, belonging to the verbal lexeme CUT, can represent two different grammatical words. In [a], cut represents the grammatical word cut/verh, present, non 3rd per- sou, 1. the present tense, non third person form of the verb CUT. But in [b] it represents the grammatical word cutt/yerb past} Which realises the past tense of CUT. Besides the two grammatical words realised by the word- form cut which we have mentioned above, there is a third one which you can observe in Jane has a cut on her'finger. This grammatical word is cut/noun, singular}. It belongs to a separate lexeme CUT, the noun. Obviously, CUT, the noun, is related in meaning to CUT, the verb. However, CUT, the noun, is a separate lexeme from CUT, the verb, because it belongs to a different word-class 30The nature of the grammatical word is important in the discussion of the relationship between words and sentences and the boundary between morphology and syntax Il. TYPES OF WORDS 1. Simple words and complex words English words may be classified on the basis of the Kinds and combinations of morphemes of which they are comr: ‘There are 2 kinds of words : simple words and complex v a, Simple words : consist of a single free form and a superfix with or without an inflectional suffix, eg. school, nice, take, takes, took, taken, taking, Mea, spirit, eucalyptus. b. Complex words : contain at least one bound morpheme as an LC. (immediate constituent) and a superlix with or without an inflectional suffix They fall into 2 subclasses — Complex words — BB (bound base) have a bound, form for each LC. e.g. ; consent, assent, rupture, matricide terminate: i — Complex words — EB (free base) have one free form as an LC. eg. : liar, driver, uncertain, impossibility, dipso- mania. In these words, the base is a fee morpheme 32. Word compounds a. Now consider a few examples : bluebell, highway, upset. These combinations consist of 2 bases and the superfix WALLA None of these is a word, according to the definition of words, because each of them can be divided wholly into smaller free forms. e.g. blue + bell (n), high + way (n), up + set (Vv). Such combinations occupy an intermediate position between words and grammatical structures. They are wordlike in two respects : + They are distributed like words (free forms) eg. Mary is picking flowers (bluebells) He sat near (outside) the door. + They take some of these inflectional suffixes. eg. The highways are crowded. He is upsetting the boat. Also, they have a resemblance to grammatical structures in the way that they imply a grammatical relationship. e.g. washing machine, high chair. Combinations like these, which are composed of free forms as their L. C.’s, we shall call word compounds. eg. headstrong (adj.), to overcome, blackbird, bluebird, payday, housefly. b. Of the various ways of identifying word -compounas, here are 3 criteria that will prove useful in distinguishing word compounds from grammatical structures : — Word compounds cannot be divided by the insertion of intervening material between the two parts or two elements, while grammatical structures can 32eg. She is my swécthért (word compound) She has a swéet héart (grammatical structure) She loves swéet potiitoes (or compound) She loves swéet, frésh potatoes (grammatical structure) = A member of word compounds cannot participate in a grammatical structure. e.g. hard ball (grammatical structure) baseball (word compound) (We can use "very" with hard ball, but we cannot use "very" with baseball). — Some word compounds are differentiated from gram- matical structures by superfixes as you have already learned. The superfixes //+V and A+// enable grammatical structures of “modifier + noun” : 6ld schol or-bliie béll. Il. Inflectional and Derivational morphemes in Word- Formation. Affix morphemes can be divided into two major functional categories, namely derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes. This reflects two principal word-building processes : in- flection and derivation (ref. word-formation) + Derivation is the formation of new words by adding affixes to other words or morphemes eg. the noun insanity is derived from the adjective sane by the addition of the negative prefix in — and the noun — forming suffix — ity 33+ Inflection is the process of adding an affix to a word or changing it in some other way according to the rules of the grammar of language. eg. In English, verbs are inflected for third-person singular I work ; he/she works. and for the past tense 1 worked Most nouns may’ be inflected for plural : horse ~ horses ; flower — flowers... 1. Deri ional morphemes. a/ Derivational morphemes form new words either ; (i) by changing the meaning of the base to which they are attached. Meaning — input output eg: Prefix un: not kind (Adj) unkind (Adj Prefix dis- opposite obey (v) disobey (v) or (ii) by changing the word-class that a base belong to Meaning — Input output eg : Suffix-ly: of inanner_kind (Adj) kindly (Adv simple (Adj) simply (Adv (iii) As a rule, it is possible to derive an adverb by adding the suffix-ly to an adjective base. The presence of DS causes a major grammatical change, involving moving the base from‘one word-class into another : eg: humour (n) —- ——_humourless (Adj) sheep (n) = sheepish M4In other cases, the change caused by D. It may shift a base to a different sub- may be minor. s within the sate broader word-class, eg : duck (n) — duckling (n) (meaning small duck) book (n) — booklet (n) (meaning small book) pig (n) ~~ piglet (n) (meaning small pig) Derivational suffix-ship is used to change a coneret noun base into an abstract noun (meaning "state, condition") eg : friend (n)_ — friendship (abstract noun) leader (n) — leadership (abstract noun) lord (n) = lordship (abstract noun) Derivational suffix-dom or -hood has the same characteristic. eg : martyr (n) ' martyrdom (n) (meaning “state, being, condition...) man (n) manhood (n) child (n) childhood (n) god (n) godhood (n) b) Below is the short list of Derivationa-Prefixes and Suffixes, the classes of the bases to which they can be attached and the words that are thereby formed. Note : These abbreviations are used in the list below : N for Noun, N (abs) for abstract noun ; N (cone) for concret noun ; V for ver ; Adj for Adjective, Adv for Adverb. 35Prefix | Word Meaning Word Example ' class of class of Input Output base base Hine | Adj Adj im’acurate 2.un- | Adj Adj un-kind 3. un- | Verb v un-tie, un-do 4.dis- | V v dis-con 5. dis] Ntabs) NoAbs) | disorder 6. dis | Adj Adj dis-honest 7 v v dis-approve 8 v V | rewrite, re-do N N ex-major, N v en-cage N Status” NoAbs) | child-hood 2. -ship | N ate or condi NtAbs) |king-ship,Jord.- ship’ 3,-ness | Adj | “quality, state or | N(Abs) | kind-ness conditio ld. -ity | “Adj "State or condition") —Agj sincer-ity 5.-ment | V__ result or product of | Adj govemment doing the action indicated by the verb, N “without” Adj power-less 7. ful | oN “having” Adj power-ful 8. -ic N “pertaining to" | Adj democratic 9. -al | N | “pertaining to. of | Adj medicin-al the kind” z 10. -al_ | V_— | “pertaining to or} NiAbs) refus-al act of I-er | V_ | “agent whodoes | N reader whatever the verb indicates" 12-y_| Adj “manner” Ady kindly 36derivational affixes are used toe (i) modifying significantly the meaning of the hase to which they are attached, without necessarily changing its grammatical category (prefix) eg. un + kind = unkind, or (ii) they bring about a shift in the grammatical class of a.base as well as a possible change in meaning (suffix) eg. hard (adj) — hardship (N(abs) br (iti) they may cause «shift in the grammatical sub-class of a word without moving it into a new word-class (suffix) eg. friend (N¢con) and. friendship (N(abs)). (c) A note on the difference of meaning of some prefixes Now consider the prefix “en-" that derives the verb, but there is a difference in the input bases. Sometimes en- is attached to adjectives and sometimes to nouns. a. Adj hase |New word Verb] b, Noun base |New word Verb able en-able tobe. en-robe large en-large danger en-danger noble en-noble enrage rich en-rich, cage ‘This formal difference correlates with a semantic distinction. So, we conclude that there are two different prefixes here which happen to be homophonous. The en- in (a) has a causative meaning (similar to “make") lw enable is to "make able”, to enlarge is to "make large" ete... 37The en-in (b) put in or into \ encage is to put in a cage, to endanger is to “put in dange. ete. do not change referential or cognitive meaning. We ha 2. Inflectional morpheme: (i) Unlike derivational morphemes, in Lmorphemes ¢ already seen that a derivational affix like un - can change into unkind. In this case, the derived word has a meaning which is opposite to that_of the input. Inflectional affix will not do sueh a thing ¢-g. Student (nof person)-Students (in. of person), (in plural). study (v) student (n) ~ (DS-ent changes the cognitive meaning of the verb, {-ent} means “a person whe does (ii) Furthermore, while D Affix may move_a_base into_a new word — class, an inflectional morpheme does not alter the word — class of the base to which it is attached. Inflectional morphemes are only able to modify the form of a word so that in can fit into a particular syntactic slot do. 38 eg. book — books are both nouns referring to the same kind of entity. The -s ending merely carries information about the member of those entities. walk — wlaking are both verbs referring to"the action The ~ ing ending is used to form the aspect English has no inflectional prefixes but some other Langu. Here are eight IS.Suifix © | Stem Funetion Example is (Si) N_ [genitive suttia teacher's 2s {82} N_ [plural Xl book-s s (83) N__ | 4rd person. singular. present tense |sleep-s ¢ (ing}} V__ [progressive (incomplete action) |sleeping 5. -ed {edi} | V__ fpast tense walk-ed 6, — ed {ed} | V_ [past participle (perfect or passive) |walk-ed 1. er Adj comparative degree taller 8. - est Adj, [superlative degree tallest IV. Multiple Affixation What we are now going to explore are some of the ways in which complex words are formed by creating bases which contain several derivational morphemes. For example. the root dict meaning "speak, say" is found ion. dictate tie torial, lion, etc,.. cogtradict, benedi Starting with dict. we can form complex words such as oalradichy and contradictoriness by attaching several affixes othe root, ie. we can have multiple-atfixation. This process can tke place ina number of rounds, with the output created hy one round of alfixation serving as the input to a later round : eg Ldicl Leases alict (round 1: prefixation - auld contra, prep) > contradict v hase: contradict » (round 2 ; first suftixation: add - ory A) > contradictory a base: contradictory 4 (round 3: 2nd suffixation : add — ness nN) — contradictoriness 39Suffix : Suffix : Prefix Suffixes : Prefix : Prefix : (but there is no denationalisate) — anti-denationalisation Nation Output ~al +> national ~ ise > nationalise de — — de-nationalise - at, — ion > denationalis-at-ion anti — pre - > pre-antidenationalisation Note : when several prefixes or suffixes occur in a word, their place in the s equence is normally rigidly fixed. ce oe ie ae formalizers } Input Output Root form Base form round |: affix ) formal (adj) al (adj) Base formal round 2: affix | formalize (v) ize (v) Base formalize | round 3: affix | formalizer (n) er (0) : Stem formalizer | round 4: affix | formalizers (n) s(n) formizalers is non-English. because the is wrong. 40 order of morpheme‘As we saw in word compounds, a compound word contains at least two bases which are both words, or at any rate, root morphemes. eg. teapot, week-end, hairdresser, kind-hearted are com- pound words. They consist of the following bases : (a) [tealn + [pot]n + [teapot]n [weekIn [end] > [week-end] (b) {hairy [Idress] v erly. > [hairdresser] [kind], [[heart]N -edJa. > [kind-hearted] Compounding is a very important way of adding to the word stock of English. Sometimes it is bare roots that are combined in compounds as in (a) and sometimes an input base contains an affixed form as in (b). VI. Conversion. We have seen that complex words may be formed either by compounding or by affixation, or by a combination of the two. We are going to see now that there is an alternative word-formation strategy which is commonly used in English. Words may be formed without modifying the form of the input word that serves as the base. Thus head can be a noun or verb. This is called conversion. eg. (a) The head of the village school has arrived. The heads of, the village schools have arrived. (b) She will head the village school. She headed that school.It is partly the morphological structure, and partly the syntactic position that the word occupies that tells you whether it is a noun or a verb. In (a) the head is a NP, head must be a noun. However heads with the s-morph is a noun in plural. In (b) head must be a verb. Moreover, headed with the -ed morph is a past simple of verb. Conversion is also referred to as zero derivation and is subsumed under affixation, by analogy to zero _affixation in inflectional morphology. It is claimed that zero morphs (ie ones lacking any overt marking) are used as suffixes in derivational morphology as well. For instance, the verb head is derived by suffixing a zero morph to the noun head. (This is done by analogy to the derivation of a verb like victimize (from the noun victim when the overt verb-forming suffix -ise is used). Vil. Reduplication : is the repetition of a syllable, a morpheme or a word. e.g. hush — hush never ~ never system quack ~ quack chit — chat pretty ~ pretty ding - dong goody — goody ping ~ pong Vill. Recursiveness Words may have multiple affixes either with different suffixes appearing in a sequence as in derivation or with the same prefix recurring as below in : a. the latest re-re-re-make of Beau Geste. b. the great great great- great- grandson of the last Tsar of Russia 42