Morphology 1

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Morphology is the field within linguis

tics

that studies the internal

structure of words.

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• the smallest unit of grammatical analysis.

• Morphemes

bricks: different sizes and shapes

= classes of morphemes

walls of different types = sentences, paragraphs and texts.

a morpheme

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

be identifiable from one word to

another



and



Contribute in some way to the
meaning of the whole word.

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bound morpheme IN one complex word

leg- in legible.

illegible - the negative counterpart of legible.

cran-, huckle-, gorm-, - in cranberry, huckleberry,

gormless

Cranberry and huckleberry - compounds

free morpheme berry

cran- huckle-

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A name commonly given to such bound morphemes is

cranberry morpheme.

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Analytical process: Synthetical process:

Doctor

doktor

To a doctor

k doktorovi

English

Slovak

more and shorter words fewer and longer words

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 A synthetical process combines morphemes into

larger words.

Work, Works, worked

stop, stops, stopped

Read, readable, unreadable

analyze, analyzable

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

– ed the past tense



un- negation

 Monofunctional morphemes

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-s the singular number + the third person

of the English verb

polyfunctional morpheme

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• A synthetical process in which all morphemes are

monofunctional is called agglutination

• A synthetical process in which the morphemes are

polyfunctional is called inflection

(foot- feet )

• A process in which morphemes are not

combined into larger words but stand as words

by themselves is an analytical process and is
called

isolation.

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Models of morphology

• Morpheme-based morphology, which makes use of an

Item-and-Arrangement approach.

• Lexeme-based morphology, which normally makes use of

an Item-and-Process approach.

• Word-based morphology, which normally makes use of a

Word-and-Paradigm approach.

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• word-forms are analyzed as arrangements of morphemes.

• A morpheme is defined as the minimal meaningful unit of a

language.

• In a word like independently, we say that the morphemes are in-,

depend, -ent, and ly; depend is the root and the other morphemes are, in

this case, derivational affixes.

• In a word like dogs, we say that dog is the root, and that -s is an

inflectional morpheme.

• This way of analyzing word-forms as if they were made of morphemes

put after each other like beads on a string, is called

Item-and-Arrangement.

Morpheme-based morphology

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• Item-and-Process approach.

• Instead of analyzing a word-form as a set of morphemes

arranged in sequence, a word-form is said to be the result of

applying rules that alter a word-form or stem in order to

produce a new one.

• An inflectional rule takes a stem, changes it as is required by

the rule, and outputs a word-form

• a derivational rule takes a stem, changes it as per its own

requirements, and outputs a derived stem

• a compounding rule takes word-forms, and similarly outputs a

compound stem.

Lexeme-based morphology

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Word-based morphology



Word-and-paradigm approach.



This theory takes paradigms as a central notion. Instead of

stating rules to combine morphemes into word-forms, or to

generate word-forms from stems, word-based morphology

states generalizations that hold between the forms of

inflectional paradigms.



Words can be categorized based on the pattern they fit into.

This applies both to existing words and to new ones.

Application of a pattern different than the one that has been

used historically can give rise to a new word, such as older

replacing elder (where older follows the normal pattern of

adjectival superlatives) and cows replacing kine (where cows fits

the regular pattern of plural formation). While a Word-and-

Paradigm approach can explain this easily, other approaches

have difficulty with phenomena such as this.

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A word and its forms: DERIVATION

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MORPHEMES

 derivational

inflectional

work – work(-s)

work – work (-ed)

paradigm

read + -er

un- + tie

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 Derivationally related words are different words with

a shared base.

 We talk about so called word classes , primary grammatical

categories, parts of speech or lexical categories:

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Why do we group words into categories?

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 The lexicon (vocabulary) of language - much higher

than a hundred thousand.

 It is convenient not to study individual items but to

group certain items into classes sharing certain

features, and examine them together

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• major classes

• Subclasses

 Accordingly, we speak of items which are central to

the class on one hand, and of those which are on the

periphery

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easily, there, yes

Adverbs:

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

She speaks naturally.

She

speaks easily.



Naturally I like it.

Yes, I like it

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

In setting up word classes, several

criteria, not only one, are usually

applied.

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

For our purposes, in studying

grammar, meaning will not be a

primary but an auxiliary criterion. The

same holds for phonological make-up

of words.

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

The main grammatical criteria are

paradigmatic and syntagmatic.

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

Words of the same word class often have

similar paradigms (i.e. sets of forms which

the word may assume) and they are

paradigmatically related to each other if they

can replace each other in certain contexts.

Thus some words which can be inflected for

number will belong the same class – we shall

call them nouns. These words can be used,

for example in the context:



The …………………………….disappeared.

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

words money, chair, trousers,

enthusiasm



read, very, so, true , and



Very, so = the same class because

both of them can be used in the frame.



They were…………………….pretty.

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

By examining with which items certain words

can combine, we arrive at their syntagmatic

properties. Nouns, for example, can be

preceded by adjectives and determiners, and

with or without them by prepositions; words

like very and so are typically used before

some adjectives and adverbs etc. Items

which can be used in the same frame are

said to be paradigmatically related, those

that combine with each other are

syntagmatically related

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

If by way of example we want to establish a

word class, we may group together words

which can take the morphemes –es, - ed, -

ing.



The class obtained will be that of verbs.



We shall see, however, that a number of

items which are also classified as verbs do

not take exactly these three morphemes

(e.g. auxiliary and modal auxiliary verbs) In

applying our criterion we have obtained a

subclass of a larger class of verbs, that of

regular verbs.

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

English word on its own is rarely overtly marked as

belonging to one word class or another.



Its class membership only becomes evident when it is

used together with other words, i.e. in context.



The main criterion is not the form but the function.

The same item can, in fact, be used in several

functions and its classification is only possible for its

particular use. The word table for example can be a

noun, an adjective or a verb:

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

The word table for example can be a

noun, an adjective or a verb:



We sat down at the same table.



He bought a table lamp.



It was his turn to table a proposal.

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

Slovak



stôl, stolný and nastoliť



d e r i v a t i o n.

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

conversion (or zero derivation)



word passing from one word class to

another (or several others) without

taking any affix

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

Conversion exists not only between

such major word classes as nouns and

verbs or verbs and adjectives etc. but

also between subclasses such as

common and proper nouns, count

and non-count nouns etc

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

Except for traditional classification of

words into NOUNS, VERBS,

PRONOUNS, ADJECTIVES, ADVERBS,

PREPOSITIONS, CONJUNCTIONS,

ARTICLES and INTERJECTIONS,

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

words can be classified on account of various

criteria into for example, lexical and

grammatical words, i.e. words whose main

use is to denote substances, qualities,

processes etc. and those used primarily to

indicate various relations among these

entities.



Grammatical words are more important in

analytical than in synthetical languages

where most of the relations are indicated by

affixes.

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

Words can also be classified according to

whether they can take inflexions or not.



Most of the English nouns and verbs belong

to the inflected words, adjectives, adverbs

and pronouns are inflected or uninflected,

prepositions, conjunctions are uninflected

words.

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

An important division is that into

words belonging to open classes and

words which are members of closed

system or closed classes.

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

An open class can be extended by

new items if the need arises to

name new items or new aspects of

extra-linguistic reality, e.g. when a

new thing is discovered or invented,

a name is given to it.

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

On the other hand , we can hardly notice a

new pronoun, or preposition in our every-day

language experience. Mainly grammatical

words belong to closed systems, in which the

individual items are mutually exclusive (i.e.

two items of the same class can not be used

in the same place together) and mutually

defining (ie the meaning or function of an

item is that which is not contained in the

other item or items of the same class)

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

For example definite and indefinite

article can not be used with the same

noun, and once one of them is used

we know that it denotes exactly the

opposite of what the other one would

denote.

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

Adverbs derived from adjectives:



– ly-



OFTEN, SElDOM, NEVER, SOON



morphologically complex without adding – ly

(NOWHERE, ANYWHERE, TODAY, YESTERDAY)



formed by conversion FAST (the car was

driven fast) and HARD (They worked hard),

derived from adjectives FAST as in fast car,

and HARD as in hard work.

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

Nouns derived from nouns



Small X : - let, - ette, -ie (droplet, booklet,

cigarette, doggie)



Female X: - ess, -ine (waitress, heroine)



Inhabitant X – er, -(i)an (Londoner, Texan,

Glaswegian)



State of beingX: - ship, hood (kingship,

ladyship, motherhood, priesthood)



Devotee of or expert on X: - ist, - ian (Marxist,

historian)

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Nouns derived from members of
other word classes



nouns from adjectives:

-ity (purity, equality, ferocity, sensitivity)

-ness (goodness, tallness, sensitiveness)

-ism (radicalism, conservatism)


Even more numerous are suffixes for deriving nouns

from verbs

Here are just a few:

-ance, -ence (performance ignorance, reference)

-ment, (announcement, development)

-ing (painiting, ignoring)

-((a)t)ion (commission, organisation, confusion

-al (refusal, arrival, referral)

-er (painter singer)

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Nouns derived from members of
other word classes



Some non-affixal ways of deriving abstract

nouns (other than conversion) are:



change in the position of the stress (NOUNS

permit, transfer alongside VERBS permít,

transfér)



Change in the final consonant NOUNS belief

proof, defence alongside VERBS to believe, to

prove, defend



Change in vowel NOUNS song, seat

alongside verbs sing, sit.

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Adjectives derived from adjectives



In this category prefixes predominate



The only suffix is – ish, meaning somewhat X:

greenish, smallish



Prefixes – UN –extremely widespread for

example unhappy, unsure, unreliable



Because it is so common, most dictionaries do

not attempt to list all un- adjectives.



This does not mean, however, that un- can be

prefixed to all adjectives quite freely.

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Adjectives derived from adjectives



Another negative prefix is IN- with allomorphs

indicated by the variant spellings IL-, IR - , IM- as in

intangible, illegal, irresponsible. Impossible



It is more restricted than UN, largely for historical

reasons .



Eatable/uneatable

edible/inedible



Readable/unreadable

legible/illegible



Lawful/unlawful

legal/illegal

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Adjectives derived from members of
other word classes



Suffixes – ed, -ing, -en can also be adjectives:

A not very interesting book

The party-goers sounded very drunk

The car seemed more damaged than the lamp-post.


Further suffixes that commonly form adjectives from verbs

are:

able (readable, breakable)

ent, -ant (repellent, conversant)

ive (repulsive, explosive)


Suffixes that form adjectives from nouns are more numerous:

ful (pocketful, joyful, helpful)

less (meaningless, helpless)

al (original, normal, personal)

ish (boyish, childish)

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Verbs derived from verbs



All affixes that will be mentioned here are

prefixes:



Most prominent are re- an the negative

reversive prefixes un- de- and dis-

Paint, enter

repaint, re-enter

Tie, tangle

untie, untangle

Compose, sensitive

decompose,desensitive

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Verbs derived from members of
other word classes



Affixes for deriving verbs from nouns are:

De- debug, deforest,

-ise (organise, terrorise)

-(i)fy, (beautify, petrify)



There are also some common verbs that are derived by

replacing the final voiceless consonant of a noun with a

voiced one, perhaps with some vowel change.



NOUNS

VERBS



Bath

bathe



Breath

breathe



House (s)

House (z)



Wreath

Wreathe

