ESSENTIALS OF MORPHOLOGY

Morphology is concerned with the elements that compose words and the organization of these elements into hierarchical structures.

A word is an arbitrary pairing of sound and meaning (But see discussion in Baker & Bobaljik (2000))

THE VOCABULARY

The Vocabulary items:

(1) Identifying index: /perestroika/ /bInd/Syntactic category: Noun VerbMeaning: “reorganization, “to make secure

reconstruction” by tying”Syntactic features: [+abstract] [+transitive]Morphological features: none zero inflection

ablaut

Each word belongs to a grammatical/syntactic category. The vocabulary is not simply a long, random list, but is structured into special subgroups of words identified by the grammatical/syntactic categories (=the traditional “parts-of-speech”) The basic parts-of-speech of English: Nouns= Class of words whose characteristic role is to be an argument of the verb.

Words denoting concrete entities (dog, tree) and words denoting abstract concepts (music, anger) belong to this class.

Verbs= Class of words whose characteristic role in th e clause is to deter mine,

wholl y or in part , the other wo rds that its construction may or must have. Words denotin g action or processes (run, make, melt) characteristica lly belong to this class.

Adject ives= Class of word s who se characteristi c rol e is to be mod ifiers of nouns (in tall

men, tall is the adjectiv e mod ifyin g the noun men). Adverbs = Class of word s whose characteristi c rol e is to be mod ifiers of verb or ver b

phrases (e. g badly in he wrote it badly). Preposi tions = Class o f wo rds whose memb ers typical ly come before a noun phrase an d

which i s characterize d by ones which basic ally indicate spatia l relations (behind in behind the sofa)

SIMPLE AND COMPLEX WORDS

Perestroika, Monangahela, dog, boy, bind = Simple words

Complex words:(2) a. high school, easy chair, black board,

gentleman [A + N]N

b. un-wise, un-happy, un-natur-al, un-woman-ly[un + A]A

c. woman-ly, other-word-ly, heaven-ly, weather-ly[N + ly]A

d. black-ness, un-poison-ous-ness, gentlemanli-ness[A+ness]N

(3) [[ un [ [ [gentle]A [man]N]N li]A ]A ness]N

[ anti [ [ [ dis [ establish]V ]V ment]N arian ]A ]A ism ]N

INFLECTIONAL AND DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY

Two main fields are traditionally recognized within morphology

Inflectional morphology studies the way in which words vary (or ‘inflect’) in order to express grammatical contrasts in sentences such as singular/plural or past/present tense.

Examples of inflectional morphology: boy vs boy-schild vs. child-r-enlove vs. love-s vs. love-dgo vs. goe-s vs. went

Derivational morphology studies the principles governing the constructions of new words, without reference to the specific grammatical role a word may play in a sentence.

Examples of derivational morphology: drink vs. drink-ableinflect vs, dis-infect

THE NOTION OF MORPHEME

Morphemes are the structural units of words (see Appendix I)

MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSISIn analyzing words into morphemes in a language we know,

we often easily discover the separate parts because we can recall similar words with which to compare the words under analysis. In working with an unfamiliar language, it is necessary to have a group of similar forms to compare and from which to extract the recurring parts.

A form from Kekchi (a Mayan language of Guatemala)

(4) tinbeq 'I will walk.' (cf. Nida (1949, 6)

To decide on a division of this form into smaller units, or even to know if such a division is possible, we have to consider other forms of the language.

Comparison with forms such as tatbeq 'you (sg.) will walk' and ninbeq 'I am walking' show that the form tinbeq is composed of three morphemes: t- 'future' (contrasting with n- 'present progressive'), -in- 'first person singular subject' (contrasting with -at- 'second person singular subject') and -beq 'walk.’

(5) Swahili (East Africa).1. ninakusikia 'I hear you'2. ninamsikia 'I hear him'3. ninakisikia 'I hear it'4. ninawasikia 'I hear them’5. anakusikia 'he hears you'6. anamsikia 'he hears him'7. anawasikia 'he hears them'8. anatusikia 'he hears us'9. unanisikia 'you hear me'10. unawasikia 'you hear them'11 tunakisikia 'we hear it'12. wanakusikia 'they hear you13. ninakujibu 'I answer you'14. nitakujibu 'I will answer you'15. nimekujibu ’ I have answered you'16. nilikujibu 'I answered you'17. unamjibu 'you answer him'18. utamjibu 'you will answer him'19. umemjibu 'you have answered him'20. ulimjibu 'you answered him'21. mnanisikia 'you (pl.) hear me'22. mmewasikia 'you (pl.) have heard them'23. mtatusikia 'you (pl.) will hear us'24. mlikisikia 'you (pl.) heard it'25. ninamjua 'I know him'26. niliwajua 'I knew them'27. atanisaidia 'he will help me'28. wamekusaidia 'they have helped you'

The order of morphemes:

(6) subject tense object verbprefix prefix prefix stem

(7) subjects tenses objects stemsni- 'I' -ta- 'future' -ni- 'me' -

sikia 'hear'u- 'you' -na- 'present' -ku- 'you' -jibu

'answer'a- 'he' -me- 'perfect' -m- 'him' -

jua 'know' tu- 'we' -li- 'past' -ki- 'it' -saidia 'help'm- 'you (pl.)' -tu- 'us'wa- 'they' -wa- 'them'

PROBABLE new words made up of these same morphemes in the correct order.

(8) atamsikia tumekijuawalitujibu nimemsaidia

But we can never absolutely certain that a given form is correct unless we learn the language as well as a native speaker knows it. There may always be irregularities for which we have not yet seen evidence.

See Appendix II

ROOTS AND STEMS

Roots The root is generally the principle carrier of the lexical meaning of a word, while affixes generally carry grammatical meanings. For example, in cats, the root cat carries the basic meaning Felis domesticus, while -s carries the grammatical information 'plural.'

In some languages, roots characteristically occur in a particular position.

In Turkish and Eskimo, the root occupies the first position in a word.

Stems

In addition to roots, we also distinguish stems. A stem may be also a root,

as cat in cats. Often, a stem consists of a root plus something else. The present tense of the Latin verb amo@ 'love' is formed from the root am- plus the theme vowel -a@ plus the person-number suffixes.

BOUND AND FREE MORPHEMES:

Bound morphemes do not occur in isolation.

Root that may constitute words by themselves:

(9) gentle, usurp, difficult, dog, man

Bound stems/roots (cf Aronoff (1976):

(10) -ceive -port -here -mitim-port in-here

re-ceive re-port re-mitad-here ad-mit

AFFIXES:

Prefixes = a ff. + X and Suffixes = X + aff.

Affixes commonly determine the lexical category of the word that they form:

ex.: a word formed with the suffix -ion is a nouna word formed with the suffix -ize is a verb

Affixes are not freely combinable:

(11) seren-ity *shop-ity *proverb-ity *machin-ity

regular-ize scandal-ize *usurp-ize *develop-ize

Reason: -ity is added to adjectives, but not to nouns or verbs

-ize is added to adjectives and nouns, but not to verbs

Bound morphemes may be assigned morphological templates like the following:

(12) i. [ [ X ] A + ness] N : gentleness, grammaticalness, uneasinessii. [ un+ [ X ]A ]A : ungrammatical, unaware, unconscious

iii. [ [ X ]A +ity ]N : serenity, grammaticality, electricity

iv. [ [X]N +ly]A : godly, gentlemanly, husbandly, daily

v. [ [ X]A +th]N : truth, width, breadth, depth

vi. [ per + stemLat.]A: permit, pertain, perform

vii. [###]Stem: -mit, -tain, -sist, -form

Open and closed classes of morphems:

A count of the morphemes in any language will reveal many more root morphemes than affixes. The set of affixes is closed and can only rarely gain or lose members. The set of roots is open, and a normal speaker of a language adds new roots to his lexicon throughout his life.

TYPES OF AFFIXES

1. PREFIXES: a. Prespecified (English)

   work re-work    likely un-likely

like dis-like

b. Reduplicated (Tagalog)  bili 'buy' bi-bili 'will buy'   kuha 'get' ku-kuha 'will get'   punta 'go' pu-punta 'will go'

sulat 'write' su-sulat 'will write'tawa 'laugh' ta-tawa 'will laugh'

2. SUFFIXES: work work-edlikely likeli-nessbake bak-er

3. INFIXES Tagalogbili 'buy' b-um-ili 'to buy'kuha 'get' k-um-uha 'to get'sulat 'write' s-um-ulat 'to write'punta 'go'   p-um-unta 'to go'tawa 'laugh'   t-um-awa 'to laugh'

4. CIRCUMFIXES   em-bold-en en-light-en

5. NULL MORPHOLOGY Noun/Adjective Verb

a frame to frame  dry to dry  a run to run

STEM CHANGESI. Ablaut:

  strike struck struckteach taught taughtdrive drove drivenring rang rung

Stem Changes

II. RESYLLABIFICATION: The Semitic binyans.

Arabic root /ktbktb/katab ‘write’ perfective active

kutib 'was written’ perfective passive aktub 'is writing’ imperfective active

uktab 'was being written’ imperfective passive

Hebrew root /gdr/

  Active Passivegadar 'enclosed’ ni-gdar 'was enclosed’ goder 'encloses’   ni-gdar 'is enclosed'yi-gdor 'will enclose’ yi-gader 'will be enclosed' gdor 'enclose!’  hi-gader 'be enclosed!'li-gdor 'to enclose’   le-hi-gader 'to be enclosed'