LING 400 Exam 2 Study Guide

define morphology

the study of the shape of words, including the structure of words and their parts

syntactic category - noun (distribution, function, morphological)

person, place, or thing

distribution: between an article and a verb

function: typically occurs in phrases that function as subjects and objects

morphological: can usually take the pluralizing suffix -s (although some do not)

syntactic category - verb (distribution, function, morphological)

action, occurrence or state of being

distribution: after an auxiliary verb

function: typically occur in phrases that function as predicates

morphological: can usually take the progressive suffix -ing and the third-person subject-agreement suffix -s in the present tense

syntactic category - adjective (distribution, function, morphological)

modifier that expresses quality, quantity or extent

distribution: after an intensifier like “very”

function: typically occurs in phrases that modify nouns

morphological: usually have comparative or superlative forms (e.g., -er, -est)

syntactic category - adverb (distribution, function, morphological)

modifier that expresses manner, quality, place, time, degree, number, cause, opposition, affirmation, or denial

distribution: for manner, after a verb; for sentential, at the beginning of a sentence

function: typically occur in phrases that modify verbs

morphological: often have -ly suffixes

syntactic category - preposition (distribution)

modifier that indicates location or origin

distribution: between an intensifier and a location

syntactic category - determiners (distribution)

articles, such as a(n) and the; deictics, such as this/that

distribution: before the “adjective” other

syntactic category - complementizer (distribution)

that, which, for, etc

distribution: between a verb like “know” and a noun

syntactic category - conjunctions

and, but, or, nor, etc

syntactic category - quantifiers

each, every, some, three, etc

syntactic category - possessives

my, your, our, his, her, their, etc

syntactic category - auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries

express level of necessity or obligation

have, will, do, can/could, shall/should, will/would, must, may/might, dare

syntactic category - negators

no, not, -n’t

lexical morpheme - definition and examples

words that denote concepts

also referred to as “open class” because new words are easily added to a language in these categories

examples: nouns, verbs, adjectives

functional morpheme - definition and examples

serve grammatical functions but not much content

also referred to as “closed class” because new instances of these categories are rare

examples: prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, complementizers, auxiliaries, and negators

free morpheme - definition and examples

can be a stand-alone word

examples: fierce, desk, etc

bound morpheme - definition and examples

only occur attached to a free morpheme

examples: -s, -ed, pre-, etc

inflectional morpheme - definition and examples

adjust a word to fit its syntactic context, i.e., create a new form of the word (NOT A NEW WORD ALTOGETHER)

examples: -s, -ed, -ing

derivational morpheme - definition and example

create new words from existing ones; often change the syntactic category (if not, the change in meaning is still sufficient enough to be considered a new word)

example: -able, un-, etc

how to draw word structures

1. identify the root of the word

2. apply derivational affixes

3. apply inflectional affixes

how to combine affixes with their stems

add all derivational morphemes, then you add the inflectional ones

morphological processes for creating new words - affixation

adding prefixes, suffixes, infixes, and circumfixes

morphological processes for creating new words - compounding

combining two or more words to create a word

example: blackbird

morphological processes for creating new words - reduplication

doubling the whole or part of a morpheme

example: Bahasa Indonesia

• [rumah] house; [rumahrumah] houses

morphological processes for creating new words - morpheme-internal changes (ablaut)

occurs in English irregular past tenses or plurals - vowel will change

example: ring rang rung

morphological processes for creating new words - suppletion

complete replacement of phonological material

example: I am - I was

morphological processes for creating new words - null/zero derivation (also called conversion)

no phonological marking, but the syntactic category has changed

example: run (verb) versus run (noun)

morphological processes for creating new words - null/zero inflection

no phonological marking, but can be used as singular and plural forms

example: sheep (singular) versus sheep (plural)

morphological processes for creating new words - coinage

words are invented

example: Kleenex

morphological processes for creating new words - acronyms

letters that stand for words are put together to create a new word

example: AIDS

morphological processes for creating new words - clipping (truncation)

part of an existing word is cut off, creating a new word that often has the same or similar meaning

example: gas for gasoline

morphological processes for creating new words - back-formation

starting with a longer word that seems to be inflected, and cutting off the “inflected” part to yield a different category

example: automate from automation

morphological processes for creating new words - blending

when two or more words are blended together

example: brunch from breakfast + lunch

how to segment words into individual morphemes and pair them with their meanings

Step 1: Choose one aspect of meaning that occurs in multiple words (by looking at English translations)

Step 2: Find all the words that have that part of the meaning and separate them from the rest

Step 3: Compare the actual words in that selection to each other (pay attention to every phoneme and other symbols), and see if there is any part of the word that repeats in all of the words in the selection

Step 4: Testing: If there is a part of the word that repeats in all of those words, then check if any words that are not in the selection have that part of the word

 

• If not, check if there is any other part of meaning that also repeats in all those words. 

  • If not, then you have just discovered what part, in each of the words in the selection, is used in that language to mark the part of the meaning that you were looking for

• If some words that are not in the Selection also have that sequence of phonemes, then see if there is another sequence of sounds, found in all the words in the Selection, that only those words share

define tacit knowledge - examples using our knowledge of syntax

definition: we know a lot of things about language that we don’t know we know and that nobody has ever explicitly taught us (i.e., unconscious knowledge)

example: you know that some sentence orders are possible while others are not

acceptable: The baby mattered to us.

unacceptable: We were mattered to by the baby (but “We were chattered to by the baby” is acceptable)

define what a theory of syntax aims to capture (and what it does not)

aims to capture: should generate all of the grammatical sentences of a language and none of the ungrammatical ones

does not aim to capture: should not treat meaningful and non-meaningful sentences as the same

tests used to argue if a subunit of a sentence is a constituent

substitution - can the syntactic unit be replaced by an element, such as they, she, he, it, do so, etc?

• [The children] will [stop at the corner]. —> They will do so.

movement - can the syntactic unit be moved as a single unit to a different position within the sentence?

• They stopped [at the corner]. —> [At the corner], they stopped.

coordination - can the syntactic unit be joined to another group of words by a conjunction, such as and, or, or but?

• The children will [stop at the corner] and [look both ways].

how to draw syntactic trees for basic phrases

general X’ schema:

• all phrases have a head, X

• all phrases have 3 levels: X, X’, XP (P=phrase)

• if there is a complement(s), it attaches as a sister to the head, X

• if there is a specifier preceding the head, it attaches as a sister to X’, forming an XP with it

how to draw syntactic trees for simple declarative sentences

sentence = tense phrase (TP)

• NP acts as the specifier and attaches to T’ (NP = subject)

• T’ is made up of T and VP

• V is made up of V and NP

for T:

• can be an auxiliary verb, such as “can”

• can be marked with a suffix on the verb, such as “-ed”

  • in that case, T = +Pst

how to draw syntactic trees for English yes-no questions

undergoes head movement:

• before being transformed into questions, sentences are TPs with the head T —> auxiliaries are in the head T in declaratives (they mark tense by determining the form of the verb)

• when transformed into a question, the auxiliary in position T is moved to position C

• when the auxiliary is moved, it leaves a “trace”, denoted by t (in the head position) and draw an arrow showing where it moved to

how to draw syntactic trees for English Wh- questions

undergoes phrasal movement:

• before being transformed into questions, sentences are TPs with the head T —> auxiliaries are in the head T in declaratives

  • however, these are phrases, so the NP that merged with the lexical verb in the VP must also be in the correct position

• wh- phrase will then move:

  • auxiliary will move to the C of C’ (C’ = C + TP)

  • NP will move to the specifier of the CP (CP = NP + C’)

note: both the auxiliary and NP leave a “trace”, which is denoted with t

difference between head movement and phrasal movement

head movement - just the auxiliary verb

• occurs for yes-no questions

phrasal movement - auxiliary and NP

• occurs for wh- questions

reason why an auxiliary verb in English can occur at the beginning of a sentence, but a lexical verb cannot

Head-Movement Constraint - a moving head element cannot skip head positions (i.e., it can only move one head position up)

moving a lexical verb from V to C would not be movement to the next head position up, since there is an auxiliary in T

2 major tree relations between elements in a tree***

Head-Complement relation (or selection=subcategorization)

• selection determines:

  • how many complements a head can take

  • what type of complement a head can take

  • what form the head of the complement can have

2 major reasons why the order of basic elements in a sentence may differ in 2 languages

Head Parameter:

• setting 1: head precedes the complement, like in English

• setting 2: head follows the complement, like in Japanese

Specifier Parameter:

• setting 1: specifier precedes the head, like in English and Japanese

• setting 2: specifier follows the head, like in Malagasy

word order of basic elements for Head and Specifier Parameters

if the head precedes the complement and the specifier precedes the head: S-V-O

if the head follows the complement and the specifier precedes the head: S-O-V

if the head precedes the complement and the specifier follows the head: V-O-S

if the head follows the complement and the specifier follows the head: O-V-S

major difference in word order between English and French declarative sentences

the main verb in French is not in V, but instead moves to a higher position, T

how to draw trees for French declaratives

D-structure: main verb is in V

S-structure: main verb moves to T