Morphology
Morphology is the study of the mental knowledge and processes involved in the structure of
words and the creation of new (forms of) words.
Morphemes are the smallest linguistic elements with a meaning or grammatical function.
Examples of words segmented into morphemes: dis-pleas-ure,nerv-ous,electr-ic,walk-
ed,tree-s
Some words consist of single morphemes (to, that, tree)
1.Types of morphemes
Free morphemes can, and bound morphemes cannot, occur as independent words. Simplest
test for word: it can stand alone as the answer to a question.
Re-act-iv-at-ion.
Cranberry morphemes = unique morphemes: bound morphemes occurring in only
one word in a language.
Cranberry,inert,inane,inept,unkempt,disgruntled,umpteen,affable
Affixes: bound morphemes which have one or more identifiable semantic or
grammatical functions/meanings and which occur in more than one word in a
language. Bound morphemes cannot stand alone so you add affixes to the base
- Prefix: affix before the base
- Suffix: affix after the base
- Circumfix: affix consisting of both a prefix and a suffix (gekauft)
- Infix: affix inside the base ( rumpo—>"um “Latin ) fan-bloody-tastic—>inserting a
morpheme into another
2.Allomorphy
Allomorphy is the phenomenon in which a morpheme has more than one allomorph (variant
in pronunciation) . In English the plural affix is an allomorphy
Spain—>Spanish = allomorphy
Flute—>flautist
If the allomorphs of the morpheme are phonologically unrelated, we speak of suppletion.
Go/went , be /am/ was, good/better, one/first
3.Morphological processes: creating or changing the form of words
Affixation
Compounding (zusammensetzung): combining two words, doesn’t has to
be one-word (girlfriend, table leg) compounding is a recursive process
meaning you can reapply the rules again. It’s mostly two nouns (pencil
case, phone cover
Blackbird (black is stressed, common in compound)
Schnellzug oder schneller zug
Conversion: changing the syntactic category without adding affixes
N-->V WhatsApp, access (a file), butter, sign, e-mail, accent
German (das Rauchen-->rauchen)
V-->N a look, call, cry, meet, walk
Adj-->V slow (the tempo), cool(the wine), empty
Clipping: shortening a word by deleting phonological material (not
necessarily morphemes) It’s just phonological-->the structure of the
morpheme doesn’t matter
Prof (professor), typo, Mac, influenza, laboratory
Blending: combining the words and at least one of them undergoes
clipping
Carjack (hijack+ car) , guesstimate (guess + estimate) , hacktivist (hacker+
activist) , brunch( breakfast + lunch)
This process also happens when the brain ‘malfunctions’(reader+ listener=
accidentally becomes leader )
Backformation: formation of a new word by removing an affix
Self-destruct (from self-destruction) --> not formed by compounding self-+
destruct since destruct (an allomorph of destroy) is otherwise only found
with suffixes (destruction, destructive, indestructible) destruct=bound
morpheme
Dissertate (from dissertation)
Edit (from editor)
The difference between backformation and clipping is that backformation
involves the removal of affixes and changes the meaning or often the
syntactic category and clipping is the deletion of random phonological
meaning not specifically affixes and doesn’t change the
meaning/category.
Ablaut: creation of a new( form of a) word by changing vowel in the base
word
Sing/sang, man/men
Acronymy and abbreviation
Acronyms: words forms by taking the initial letters from the words in a
compound or a phrase and pronouncing the words spelled by them(NATO,
UNICEF, Moodle, AIDS)
Abbreviations are like acronyms but the names of the letters are
pronounced (BBC, cd, SMS-->simsen)
Reduplication: repetition of part of a word (not so important in English)
Lovey-dovey, super-duper
4. Inflection versus derivation
Inflection: doesn’t change the meaning of a word but may change regarding of tenses
(different form of the same word)
a) With verbs: rides, riding, rode, ridden
b) With adjectives: older, oldest
c) With nouns: dogs, men
d) With numbers: seventh
Derivation: word formation. The use of morphological processes to create new words.
Killer, kingdom, painful, unclear, greenish, talker
Inflection is obligatory, being forced by syntactic requirements, with derivation we can
decide to use it or not
Derivation may change the syntactic category while inflection does not.
Derivation is not always fully productive (piglet but doglet doesn’t exist)
Inflection is almost completely productive
5.Types of compounds
Endocentric compound AB=B
Houseboat is a type of house, boathouse is a house, strawberry jam is a
type of jam. In endocentric compounds, the final element is the head and
the other element provide an additional information about the head.
Exocentric compound AB = A nor B
Birdbrain(idiot)
Pickpocket
Skinhead
Greenback (American dollar bill)
Copulative compounds: AB is A and B
Singer-songwriter, bittersweet
6.” HEAD”
The head is the element that determines the semantic and grammatical characteristics of
the whole word.
Right hand head rule (almost always on the right) die Hausfrau, das Frauenhaus
Endocentric compounds have heads
Exocentric compounds are headless
7.Constraints on morphological processes
Productivity: its productive if you can create new words
67) very productive affixes:
a) -er (runner, baker, emailer)
b) -wise (moneywise, timewise)
c) -ful ( armful, fistful)
68) unproductive affix -th only occurs in the following words
(growth,health,length,strength..)
69) very productive processes in English: compounding, conversion
70) unproductive processes in English: ablaut
8.2 Blocking
The formation of new words can be blocked by existing words with the same meaning.
Seeable does not exist since there is another word for it -- > visible
Ungood because of bad
8.motivation, lexicalisation and the lexicon
The product of a morphological process is motivated if the meaning is predictable from the
meaning of the parts (dog owner). if not, they are lexicalised
Partly lexical: blackboard (its mostly green but still)
Examples of lexical entries: (76)
9.Analysing the structure of words
Constituency:
words with three or more morphemes are formed with constituents each consisting of two
morphemes. This can be expressed using trees or labelled bracketing
