English Morphology Lecture

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English Morphology Lecture 2

• David Brett
• Antonio Pinna
• University of Sassari 2007

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Distinguishing between morphemes

• Bound and free morphemes
• Free morphemes can occur on their own
• happy, change, select, green, house,
• Bound morphemes can occur only if they are
  attached to other morphemes
• Affixes (un-, -ness, -able, de-, -ive, -er, )
• Binding forms liber-, oper-, circul-, legitim-,
  materi-,
• Eg. liber-ation, oper-ate, circul-ar,
  legitim-(a)cy, materi-al

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• Cran-berry (berry, straw-berry, black-berry)
• Dis-gruntle-d
• Gorm-less
• Cranberry morphemes

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Bound morphemes as core elements words derived
from Latin
Circul- Circular Liber- Liberty
Circul- Circulation Liber- Liberation
Circul- Circulator Liber- Liberalize
Circul- Circulatory Liber- Libertine
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Problem case Verbs of Latin origin
receive deceive conceive perceive
revert convert pervert
relate collate translate
reduce deduce conduce
Should these be considered to be composed of a
single morpheme? Or prefix bound morpheme?
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General tendency

• The core vocabulary of English is generally
  composed of words of Anglo-Saxon origin
• There is a general tendency for core elements to
  be free morphemes
• E.g. Hand
• Hand-y, hand-le, hand-ful, mis-hand-le,

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What is the difference between these two sets of
complex words
Fast-er Sing-ing Open-ed Car-s Write-s Bigg-est Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular Red-dish
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• Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed,
• Car-s, Write-s, Big-gest
• These affixes do not change the word class (verb,
  noun etc.), but rather contribute to meeting
  grammatical constraints. These are called
• Inflectional morphemes

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• Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish
• Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular
• These affixes do not necessarily change the class
  of the word, but this is normally the case, e.g.
  fame (n.)gt famous (adj.)
• Since these words derive from others these
  morphemes are called
• Derivational morphemes

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• He go to the park every day
• She speaks to me yesterday
• He is a very fame actor
• He gave me very good treat

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Inflectional morphemes Plurals 1

• Cat gt cats dog gt dogs case gt cases
• N.b. these are pronounced /s/, /z/, /?z/
• These different realizations are called
  allomorphs of the inflectional morpheme for
  plurals

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Inflectional morphemes Plurals 2

• Irregular plurals are also considered to be
  allomorphs e.g.
• Foot gt feet man gt men child gt children
• Sheep gt Sheep Fish gt fish etc.

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Inflectional morphemes Verbs 1

• English is particularly low on inflectional
  morphemes for verbs cfr. Italian (amare 1st
  persongt amo, amavo, amai, amerò, ami
  (subjunctive), amassi, amerei x 6)
• English love, loves, loved (past simple and
  p.part.), loving
• BE has the largest number of realizations
• Be, am, are, is, was, were, been, being

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Inflectional morphemes Verbs 2

• Verbs in the past and p. participle form can be
• 1 Regular kissed changed wanted
• Note that the ed suffix has three,
  phonologically determined, realizations (i.e.
  three allomorphs) /t/, /d/, /?d/
• The following lines rhyme
• You were the first one I kissed
• Because you were at the top of my list

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Inflectional morphemes Verbs 3

• Verbs in the past and p. participle form can be
• 2 Irregular
• Involving no changegt hit-hit-hit
• Involving vowel changegt drink-drank-drunk
• Involving consonant change gt make-made-made
• Involving vowel and consonant changegt
  leave-left-left
• Suppletion (i.e. with no phonological relation)gt
  BEgt was-were GOgt went

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Inflectional morphemes Adjectives

• Comparatives
• HOTgt hott-er hott-est
• IMPORTANT gt more important most important
• Note suppletion in
• GOOD gt better best
• BAD gt worse worst

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Derivational morphemes

• Far more numerous than inflectional morphemes
• Allow productivity (involved in the coining of
  new words)
• Can be prefixes, or suffixes, not circumfixes
• Suffixes usually, but not always, change word
  class
• Prefixes, usually dont

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Derivational morphemes some examples

• Verbs gt Nouns work-er, act-or, treat-ment,
  elect-ion
• Nouns gt Adjectives colour-ful, friend-less,
  fac-ial, fam-ous
• Verbs gt Adjectives bor-ing, interest-ed
  honour-able, access-ible

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Derivation with ful and less

• Which words can be derived by adding the
  following suffixes

-ful/less Only -ful Only -less
Age, Bag, Care, Cease, Cheer, Child, Colour, Cup,
Defence, Delight, Effort, End, Fate, Friend,
Help, Hope, Penny, Play, Spoon, Tact , Taste ,
Use,
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-ful/less Only -ful Only -less
Care Use Cheer Colour Help Taste Hope Tact Fate Spoon Delight Bag Play Cup Friend Age Cease Child Defence End Effort Penny
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Tree diagramsLabel the boxes in the diagram
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Greed gt Greedy gt Greediness
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N.b. Specif- is a bound root cfr. Specif-y
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Draw tree diagrams for the following words

• Unwholesome
• Rulership
• Underdeveloped
• Overachiever
• Operational
• Indispensable

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Productivity the creation of new words

• There a six main ways of creating new words
• By combining two or more core elements this
  process is called compounding
• truck driver, mother-in-law, download
• By adding parts to a core element this process
  is called affixation
• clockwise, credible, coarsely, kingdom
• By changing the word class of a given word this
  process is called conversion
• Bottle gt to bottle to call gt a call
• By clipping a longer word this process is called
  truncation
• Veterinary Surgeon gt vet Zoological gardens gt
  Zoo
• By amalgamating parts of different words this
  process is called blending
• Smoke fog gt smog Motor Hotel gt Motel Camera
  Recorder gt Camcorder
• Acronyms
• - North Atlantic Treaty Organization gt NATO
  Absent without leave gt AWOL Personal
  Identification Number gt PIN

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• We can also find multiple processes e.g.
• Camera gt web camera (Compounding) gt webcam
  (Truncation)
• Ball gt snowball (Compounding) gt to snowball
  (Conversion)

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Exercise for next lecture

• Produce tree diagrams of the following multiply
  affixed complex words
• airworthiness speechlessness non-specialization
  developmental antihistorical miscarriage