Morphology

Morphology

the study of form or forms

Morphemes

the smallest linguistic pieces with a grammatical function

a word: hand

a meaningful piece of a word: -ed (looked), which are not further divided

morphemes must:

1. be identifiable from one word to another

2. contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole wor

Stem

a base morpheme to which another morphological piece is attached

Root

A stem to which other parts can be added. It refers to the simplest units

Simple stem

One piece

Complex stem

More than one piece

Infix

do not attach to the front or back of a word, but rather in the middle

Morph

the phonological realization of a morpheme

For example: -ed could be realized as:

[t] in jumped,

[d] in repelled, and

as in rooted and wedded

Such morphs are also called allomorphs/variants

inflectional morphology or inflection

area of morphology concerned with changes in word shape that are determined by, or potentially affect, the grammatical context in which a word appears

Word

small, satisfying bit of isolated meaning into which the sentence resolves itself

Lexeme

a basic abstract unit of meaning; it may have a few contexual realizations

grammatical word

designations like

‘the plural of the noun row’

,

‘the third person singular present tense of the verb row’, and ‘the past tense of the verb perform’

suppletion

one lexeme may be represented by two (or more) quite distinct root morphemes (not allomorphs)

Go and went

defective

Lexemes that do not have a form that one would expect them to have (for example scissors and pants)

The singular–plural distinction

the only grammatical distinction that is expressed morphologically in English nouns

When two grammatical words that are distinct for some lexemes are systematically identical for others, theyare said to be

syncretised

dig and sting

(past = perfect participle dug, stung)

all those that use the suffix -t,

such as bend, feel and teach (bent, felt, taught)

Derivation

concerns all aspects of word-structure involving affixation that is not inflectional

derivational morphology

is concerned with one kind of relationship between lexemes - involving affixation, and the grammatical and semantic tasks that such affixation can perform

base

word or part of a word viewed as an input to a derivational or inflectional process, in particular affixation

word class

one of the classes to which words (more precisely, lexemes) are allocated on the basis of their grammatical behaviour, including noun (e.g. cat, disappointment), verb (e.g. perform, come), adjective (e.g. green, sensitive), adverb (e.g. happily, well), preposition (e.g. on, without), pronoun (e.g. she, us), determiner (e.g. this, our, the)

unlike inflection, derivational processes

can change the word class of the bases to which they apply

monomorphemic adverbs

often, seldom, never, soon

morphologically complex adverbs

nowhere, everywhere, today, yesterday

adverbs formed from nouns with the suffix -wise

moneywise, timewise

adverbs that are formed by conversion:

fast (as in The car was driven fast) derived from the adjective fast (a fast car)

hard (as in They worked hard) derived from the adjective hard ( hard work)

Nouns derived from nouns

small X’: -let,

-ette,

-ie

e.g. droplet, booklet, cigarette, doggie

Nouns derived from adjectives:

ity, e.g. purity, equality, ferocity, sensitivity

(-ness, e.g. goodness, tallness, fierceness, sensitiveness

-ism, e.g. radicalism, conservatism

-ing is the most general suffix

all verbs can form nouns with it

-er is a suffix most used for forming nouns

denoting a person performing the action of the corresponding verb (agent nouns)

Adjectives derived from adjectives

-un (unhappy, unsure, unreliable, undiscovered)

-in (intangible)

-il- (illegal)

-ir- (irresponsble)

-im (impossible)

the only suffix of note is -ish, meaning ‘somewhat X’

- greenish

adjectives from nouns

-ful, e.g. joyful, hopeful, helpful, meaningful

-less, e.g. joyless, hopeless, helpless, meaningless

-al, e.g. original, normal, personal, national

-ish, e.g. boyish, loutish, waspish, selfish

Transitive Verbs

Require an object noun phrase

that typically indicates the target of the verb's action.

Example: In "She laid the book down,

"

the book is the object of the transitive verb laid.

Intransitive Verbs:

Do not take an object.

Example: In "The book lay on the table.

" lay is intransitive and lacks an object

Causative Transitive Verbs

Transitive verbs have a causative meaning, like "cause to X," where X represents the meaning of the intransitive form.

Transitive-Intransitive Verb Pairs:

Common in English, such pairs usually involve conversion (no change in form), rather than affixation or vowel changes.

Examples:

"Jill boiled the water" (transitive) means "Jill caused the water to boil."

"The water boiled" (intransitive) has no causative agent

Verbs derived from members of other word classes

Some affixes for deriving verbs from nouns are:

de-

, e.g. debug, deforest, delouse

-ise, e.g. organise, patronise, terrorise

-(i)fy, e.g. beautify, gentrify, petrify

Prefix de-:

Often means "remove X from" (e.g., desensitize).

Suffixes -ise and -ify

Primarily verb-forming without clear meanings, attaching to both nouns (e.g., organize) and adjectives (e.g., intensify).

Ambiguity in Bound Roots

Roots like those in cauterize and satisfy make it unclear if the base is originally a noun or adjective.

Suffix -ate

Seen in verbs like generate and rotate, attaches to bound roots without favoring adjectival or nominal bases

compound

word containing more than one root

phrasal words

items that have the internal structure of phrases but function syntactically as words

Stress pattern - greenhouse (literal) vs greenhouse (place in which plants grow)

Lit - the stress on house

Plants - green stress

Compounds usually have a meaning that is more or less

idiosyncratic or unpredictable

Right-headed compounds

Verb is on the right (the word which meaning is the primary one)

Head

the rightmost element

Examples of right-headed compound adjectives

noun adjective - sky-high, coal-black, oil-rich

Adjective-adjective- grey-green, squeaky-clean

Preposition-adjective- overactive

Compound nouns (examples)

Verb-noun: swearword, drophammer, playtime

Noun-noun: hairnet, mosquito net, butterfly net

Adjective-noun: blackboard, greenstone, faintheart

Preposition-noun: in-group, outpost, overcoat

Main stress on the left

root compound

An NN compound like hairnet or mosquito net, where the right-hand noun doesn’t come from a verb and whose meaning isn’t fully predictable

secondary or verbal compound

NN compound like hair restorer or slum clearance, where the first noun acts as the object of the verb embedded in the second noun

headless compound

faintheart is considered ? because its noun status doesn’t come from either of its part

Some ?, like pickpocket, killjoy, and cutpurse, function similarly to secondary compounds in that the noun on the right serves as the object of the verb. These compounds are also ?; for example, a pickpocket is not a type of pocket

VN-type compound nouns , headless

Some nouns are formed directly from verbs through conversion, without adding an affix

take-off, sell-out, wrap-up, sit-in

exocentric compounds

These headless compounds lack a defining element inside them, meaning they have no internal center.

Przyklad dac

compounds with an internal “center”

Endocentric

Blends

compounds where one or both parts are only partially represented;

Smog (smoke + fog)

Blends made entirely from initial letters are called

Acronyms (NATO)

(acronyms) If each letter is pronounced individually, like USA or RP (Received Pronunciation)

it’s considered an abbreviation

many compounds made from bound roots

Examples include words like anthropology, sociology, cardiogram,

electrocardiogram, retrograde, retrospect, and plantigrade

Phrasal words

However, the order of the words in the compound is different from the syntax, as we say "This substance restores hair," not "*This substance hair-restores." This illustrates the distinction between compound word structure and sentence structure. Additionally, there are complex items that function as words but have an internal structure more like a clause or phrase than a compound

examples of phrasal words

Jack-in-the-box

Phrases other than noun phrases can also constitute phrasal words.

For example, adjectival phrasal words include dyed-in-the-wool (as in "a dyed-in-the-wool Republican") and couldn't-care-less (as in "a couldn't-care-less attitude").