Morphology An Introduction to the Structure of Words

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Morphology An Introduction tothe Structure of
Words

• Lori Levin and Christian Monson
• Grammars and Lexicons
• Fall Term, 2004

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Goals

• Introduction to morphology, the structure of
  words
• look at one interesting morphological
  phenomenonallomorphy
• To help you read linguistic texts
• What meanings can pieces of words have

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What is a Word?

• There are no spaces in spoken language
• Hewenttotownonhishorse

Hew entt otow non hi shor se
He went to town on his horse
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What is a word?

• Welsh without spaces between words.
• Examples from Sadler (1988) Welsh Syntax
• Canithsiôn John will sing.
• Canithmair Mary will sing.
• Gweloddsiônddamwain John saw the accident.
• Gweloddsiônyllyfr John saw the book.
• Darllenoddsiônyllyfr John read the book.

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What is a word?

• a) Jánosénekel
• John sings
• Máriaénekel
• Mary sings
• Máriafut
• Mary runs

Hungarian examples from Christian Monson.
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Example of Words (Hungarian)

• a) Jánosénekel
• John sings
• b) Máriaénekel
• Mary sings
• c) Máriafut
• Mary runs

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What is a Word?

• Possible Criteria
• Recurring units of form and meaning
• The smallest things you can say in isolation
• Pauses are not possible inside a word
• There are many exceptions to these rules
• Linguists always qualify what they mean by a word
• In this class words will be separated by spaces.
• Even if the orthography of the language does not
  use spaces

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Morphemes

• Smallest unit of form and meaning
• Here too there are exceptions
• Affixes
• Prefix, suffix, infix
• Other changes
• Changes in vowels or consonants, reduplication of
  part of the word, etc.

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Example of Morphemes (Hungarian again)

• keresek I seek
• keresel you seek
• keres he/she/it seeks
• hiszek I believe
• hiszel you believe
• hisz he/she/it believes

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Example of Morphemes (Hungarian again)

• keresek I seek
• keresel you seek
• keresØ he/she/it seeks
• hiszek I believe
• hiszel you believe
• hiszØ he/she/it believes

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Allomorphs

• Same meaning
• Different form
• Complementary distribution

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Allomorphy ExampleEnglish Plural
bags, crabs, accidents, names, lollipops,
brushes, churches, maps, toes, faces, beds,
books, prizes, flies, giraffes, deaths, judges,
garages
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Allomorphy Example English Plural
bags, crabs, accidents, names, lollipops,
brushes, churches, maps, toes, faces, beds,
books, prizes, flies, giraffes, deaths, judges,
garages
? reduced vowel
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English Plural Cont.

• Identify the allomorph environments
• Generalize if possible
• may require phonologynot covered in this class.

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English Plural Cont.

• Identify the allomorph environments
• Generalize if possible
• may require phonologynot covered in this class.

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English Plural Cont.

• Identify the allomorph environments
• Generalize if possible
• may require phonologynot covered in this class.

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English Plural Cont.

• Identify the allomorph environments
• Generalize if possible
• may require phonologynot covered in this class.

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English Plural Cont.

• Identify the allomorph environments
• Generalize if possible
• may require phonologynot covered in this class.

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Morphemes and Allomorphs

• English plural morpheme
• Call it S
• This is something abstract that has different
  sounds in different contexts

• Allomorphs of the English plural morpheme
• s
• z
• ?z

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An analogy from chemistry

• Is H20 a solid, liquid, or gas?
• It depends on the conditions temperature,
  pressure, etc.
• Is the English plural morpheme pronounced with an
  s, a z, or a ??
• It depends on the preceding sound.

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Allomorph Environments

• Each allomorph has a separate environment
• Environments are complementary
• Wrong s occurs after consonants
• Because z and ?z also occur after consonants
• Environments are complete
• Wrong z occurs after vowels
• Because z also occurs after voiced non-sibilants
• No unused environments
• Wrong (usually) The plural of words ending in
  the phoneme p do not exist

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Complementary Distribution
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Complementary Distribution
All Sounds (consonants vowels)
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Complementary Distribution
Consonants (b, d, f, g, k, l, m, )
All Sounds (consonants vowels)
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Complementary Distribution
Sibilants (s, z, sh, ch, dj, )
Consonants (b, d, f, g, k, l, m, )
All Sounds (consonants vowels)
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Complementary Distribution
Sibilants (s, z, sh, ch, dj, )
Voiced (b, d, dg, g, l, m, )
Consonants (b, d, f, g, k, l, m, )
All Sounds (consonants vowels)
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Complementary Distribution
Sibilants (s, z, sh, ch, dg, )
Voiced (b, d, dg, g, l, m, )
Consonants (b, d, f, g, k, l, m, )
All Sounds (consonants vowels)
z
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Complementary Distribution
Sibilants (s, z, sh, ch, dg, )
Voiced (b, d, dg, g, l, m, )
Consonants (b, d, f, g, k, l, m, )
All Sounds (consonants vowels)
z
s
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Complementary Distribution
Sibilants (s, z, sh, ch, dg, )
Voiced (b, d, dg, g, l, m, )
Consonants (b, d, f, g, k, l, m, )
All Sounds (consonants vowels)
z
s
z
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
All Vowels
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
All Vowels
Front Vowels
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
All Vowels
Front Vowels
Front Rounded Vowels
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
All Vowels
Front Vowels
Front Rounded Vowels
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
All Vowels
Front Vowels
Front Rounded Vowels
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Allomorphy ExampleHungarian Present Tense 1sg
All Vowels
Front Vowels
Front Rounded Vowels
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Stem Allomorphy

• Allomorphy can affect the stem as well as the
  affixes
• Wolf/wolves
• Knife/knives
• Life/lives
• Leaf/leaves

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Meanings of morphemes

• Inflectional morphemes
• Have something to do with grammar
• Agreement, tense, etc.
• Generally do not change the part of speech or the
  meaning of the stem.
• Derivational morphemes
• May change part of speech or meaning.
• Happy (adj) happiness (noun)
• Construct (verb) construction (noun)
• Child (noun) childhood (different noun)

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Inflection of Verbs

• Tense
• Aspect
• Mood
• Voice
• Causative
• Agreement

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Three line example format

• Most of the linguistic examples you see in this
  class will be in a three-line format.
• Please use this format in your homework.
• Juan corría.
• Juan run-3SG.IMP
• Juan was running.
• Los niños corrían.
• the.PL child-PL run-3.PL.IMP
• The children were running.

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Three line example format
Sentence in the original language.

• Los niños corrían.
• The.PL child-PL run-3.PL.IMP
• The children were running.

Interlinear gloss.
Fluent translation or explanation of the meaning.
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Rules for glossing

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Rules for glossing

• Each meaning is identified separately
• the, child, run
• plural, 3rd person, imperfective
• A dash means that there is a morpheme boundary.
• niño s niños
• The morpheme boundary may appear in the original
  language and the gloss, or just in the gloss.
• A dot means that two or more meanings are
  carried by one morpheme
• ían carries three meanings
• Third person subject
• Plural subject
• Imperfective mood
• The main meaning of the word is in regular font.
• The meanings of other morphemes are in small
  caps.
• Meanings of morphemes are usually abbreviated.
• The author might include a list of abbreviations.
• The author might expect the abbreviations to be
  obvious.

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Agreement
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Features

• Nouns

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Features

• Nouns
• number
• singular, dual, plural
• case
• nominative, accusative, dative,
• gender/class
• male, female, neuter
• animate, inanimate, man-made object, shape,

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Features

• Verbs

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Features

• Verbs
• Person
• first, second, third, third person far removed,
• Number
• Tense
• present, past, future, remote past, ...
• Aspect
• perfective, imperfective, habitual, repetitive,
• Mood
• indicative, conditional, subjunctive (doubt or
  possibility),

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Other Parts of Speech

• Adjectives
• Adverbs
• Determiners and Specifiers

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Other Parts of Speech

• Adjectives
• Degree
• positive, comparative, superlative, etc.
• Number, Gender, Case
• Adverbs
• Degree,
• Determiners and Specifiers
• Case
• Who knows!
• This is what Linguists try to elicit and
  categorize