Ling 390 - Intro to Linguistics - Winter 2005 Class 1 - Monday, January 3, 2005

1
Ch4 Features
Consider the following data from Mokilese
Can you identify complementary distribution? If
so, write a rule in feature to capture the
overall process (not specific rules for specific
sounds but for natural classes)
2
Ch4 Features
Consider the following data from Mokilese
High vowels become voiceless between voiceless
consonants
syllabic ? voice / - sonorant ___ - sonorant
dorsal - voice - voice
high
3
Ch 5 - Morphology

• The part of the grammar that is concerned with
  words and word formation
• Lexicon - your mental dictionary - the filing
  cabinet drawer for how words are put together and
  what the meanings of this different parts are
• Word - the smallest free form found in language
  (it does not have to occur in fixed position with
  respect to other forms)

4
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Morpheme - the smallest unit of language that
  carries information about meaning or function
  (builder has 2 morphemes build and -er)
• Simple words - contain only 1 morpheme
• Complex words - contain more than 1 morpheme
• Free morpheme - a morpheme that can be a word by
  itself
• Bound morpheme - a morpheme that must be
  attached to another element

5
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Allomorphs - the variant forms of a morpheme
• English indefinite article has 2 allomorphs a
  and an
• English plural has 3 allomorphs - what are they?
  cats, dogs, horses

6
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Word structure
• Root - the core of the word and carries the
  major component of meaning
• Lexical category - Noun (N), Adjective (A), Verb
  (V), Preposition (P)
• Affixes - general term for a morpheme that does
  not have a lexical category, and is always bound
• Base is the form to which an affix is attached
  (most cases it is the root)

7
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Word trees - (Af) means Affix
• Base is the thing that an affix affixes to
  (sometimes the root, sometimes not)
• kindness
• 1) Identify the root

kindness
8
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Word trees - (Af) means Affix
• Base is the thing that an affix affixes to
  (sometimes the root, sometimes not)
• kindness
• 2) Attach the suffix and determine lexical
  category of the word

A
kindness
9
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Word trees - (Af) means Affix
• Base is the thing that an affix affixes to
  (sometimes the root, sometimes not)
• kindnesses
• 1) Identify the root

kindnesses
10
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Word trees - (Af) means Affix
• Base is the thing that an affix affixes to
  (sometimes the root, sometimes not)
• kindness
• 2) Attach the 1st affix and determine lexical
  category of the word

A
kindnesses
11
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Word trees - (Af) means Affix
• Base is the thing that an affix affixes to
  (sometimes the root, sometimes not)
• kindness
• 3) Attach the 2nd affix to the new base and
  determine lexical category of the resulting word

N
A
Af
kindnesses
kind A nessN esN
12
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Affixes can be suffixes, prefixes or infixes
• Infixes must be morphemes inserted into the root
  of the word, and not just adding another prefix
  or suffix to an existing one
• freakin as an infix abso-freakin-lutely not
  absolute-freakin-ly
• a true English infix?
• Problems some words that have an affix no
  longer allow the root to be a free form -
  unkempt, inept, overwhelmed - any others?
• Some words appear to have affixes but are
  considered one morpheme - receive, submit,
  permit (still formed with other affixes like they
  do have affixes though - permission, reception)

13
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Derivation - an affixational process that forms
  a word with a meaning and/or category distinct
  from its base
• Complex derivations - when there are multiple
  affixes
• Structurally ambiguous words - unlockable

V
Af
V
unlockable
unlockable
14
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Constraints on derivation - suffix -ant cannot
  affix to native English words, only borrowed
  words from Latin
• Sometimes constraint is phonological - -en can
  only attach as a suffix to a monosyllabic base
  ending in an obstruent.

15
Ch 5 - Morphology

• 2 different classes of affixes
• Class 1 affix - triggers phonological changes in
  consonants or vowels of the base - stress shifts
  (not talking about spelling)
• Class 2 affix - phonologically neutral, having
  no effect on base or stress of resulting word
  (not talking about spelling)
• Usually, Class 2 affixes cannot come between
  Class 1 affixes and the root.
• fearlessity, but ok fearlessness, relational,
  divisiveness

16
Ch 5 - Morphology
On p. 110, un- is a prefix that attaches to an
adjective and here it attaches to a noun
17
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Compounding - compound word is the combination
  of two already existing words
• The right-most word determines the lexical
  category of the new compound word (greenhouse is
  a noun because house is a noun although green is
  an adjective) - the morpheme that determines the
  category is called the head
• Spelling is not consistent with how compounds
  are represented - high school, high-school,
  highschool
• Pronunciation differences between compound and A
  N sequence - blackbird versus black bird
• Inflectional suffixes can only be added to
  second form in compound (tense or plural) so drop
  kicked but not dropped kick

18
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Inflection - the modification of a words form
  to indicate grammatical information of various
  sorts
• The base that inflectional forms are added to is
  sometimes called a stem (like root for
  derivational affixation)
• This is different from derivation
• Includes Tense, Aspect, Number, person/number
  agreement, case

19
Ch 5 - Morphology

• There are many irregular forms in English that
  dont use the affixation of inflection as
  discussed. (go PAST goed? no, went)
• Inflection versus Derivation
• Inflection does not change the grammatical
  category or the meaning of the word to which it
  is affixed
• Derivation can change the category and does
  change the meaning (although still related) (All
  English prefixes are derivation even though they
  do not change the lexical category of the word)
• Derivational affixes have to occur closest to
  base. neighborhoods but not neighborshood
• Inflectional affixes can combine with nearly
  every possible word (plural -s) but derivational
  affixes can combine with a more limited set
  (-ment)

20
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Inflection versus Derivation
• Special case of -ing There are 3 -ing affixes!
• 1) Derivational Verb -ing Noun - I watched
  the dancing in the room.
• 2) Derivational Verb -ing Adjective - The
  dancing frog
• 3) Inflectional Verb -ing Verb - The frog
  is dancing

21
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Inflection - in English is usually marked with
  affixes (suffixes)
• Can also be marked through Internal Change - a
  process that substitutes one nonmorphemic segment
  for another to mark a grammatical contrast
• Ablaut (vowel alterations) sing, sink, drive -
  sang, sank, drove OR feet and geese from foot and
  goose - what about dive?
• Suppletion - replaces a morpheme with an
  entirely different morpheme in order to indicate
  a grammatical contrast
• to be in English is made up of a few different
  forms not related to each other through
  affixation or internal change is, was, were,
  are, am, be

22

• INFLECTION
• Reduplication - total or partial - the repetition
  of all or part of a word to indicate a
  grammatical or semantic contrast
• Tone placement - different pitch to indicate
  different tense (Spanish has an inflectional
  stress to indicate tense and person - hablo
  versus habló)
• Agreement when one word is inflected to match
  a certain grammatical properties of another word
  number, person (Eng. 3rd Sing Present s he
  speaks
• Case - is a change in a words form to indicate
  its grammatical role (subject, direct object,
  indirect object, etc.)
• He/his/him, I/mine/me

Ch 5 - Morphology
23
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Conversions - changing one word from one category
  to another without the use of affixes (zero
  derivation or zero affixation)
• Also, productivity still can write rules for
  non-productive morphology (like en plural oxen)

24
Ch 5 - Morphology
25
Ch 5 - Morphology
26
Ch 5 - Morphology

• In order to figure out the morphemes, must find
  morphological minimal pairs (2 words that differ
  with only 1 morpheme) then figure out what the
  diffs in meaning are and you can figure out the
  morphemes.
• atanipenda vs. atakupenda he will like me vs.
  he will like you
• So we know that ni- must be me (Obj) and ku-
  must be you (Obj)
• Figure out with the data that the order of the
  morphemes is
• SUBJECT TENSE OBJECT ROOT

27
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Morphological rules to derive the correct forms.
  Since there are 3 prefixes attaching to root, we
  start with the one closest to root.
• 1.)Object Marking
• X ? OP X in Verb
• Where OP is selected from
• ni- me-object
• ku- you-object
• m- him-object
• tu- us-object
• wa- them-object

28
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Morphological rules to derive the correct forms.
  Since there are 3 prefixes attaching to root, we
  start with the one closest to root.
• 2.)Tense Marking
• X ? Tense X in Verb
• Where TENSE is selected from
• ta- future
• na- present
• me- past

29
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Morphological rules to derive the correct forms.
  Since there are 3 prefixes attaching to root, we
  start with the one closest to root.
• 3.)Subject Marking
• X ? SP X in Verb
• Where SP is selected from
• a- he-subject
• ni- I-subject
• u- you-subject
• tu- we-subject
• penda root
• nipenda Object Marking
• tanipenda Tense Marking
• atanipenda Subject Marking
• atanipenda Output of morphology

30
Ch 5 - Morphology

• Questions about morphological rules?