Week 3: Inflection vs Derivation and Word (Sub)classes

Inflection morphology

• Creating new forms of the same ‘word/lexeme’

• Various forms of the same lexical item within a paradigm

• Expresses same concept as base

• Expresses grammatical/syntactic distinctions

  • e.g. sing~sang~sung

Inflectional categories (cheat sheet)

• ProN, Adj, Dem, Prep

  • number (SG/PL)

  • person (1/2/3)

  • gender (F/M)

  • case (NOM/ACC)

• Verbs

  • number (SG/PL)

  • person (1/2/3)

  • tense

  • aspect

  • mood

  • voice

Derivational morphology

• Create new lexical items/stems and concepts which share a root

• Expresses semantic change, often involving change in word class

  • deploy (v) → deploy-ment (n)

  • faith (n) → faith-ful (adj)

Typical derivational changes

• Agent noun (v.→n.) - write-er

• Instrument noun (v.→n.)

• Quality noun (adj.→n.)

• Diminutive noun (n.→n.)

• Female noun (n.→n.)

• Factitive (‘make x’) - red → red-en

• Inchoative (‘become x’)

• Privative (‘without x’) - hope-less

• Facilitative (‘can be x-ed’) - read-able

Diagnostics

Inflection/derivation divide is a continuum

Word class change

• Inflection rarely changes word class; derivation often does BUT

  • Derivation that doesn’t change class

    • Causative :Korean cwuk' ‘die’ → cwuk-i ‘kill’

    • Attentuative: blue-ish

    • Argumentative Russian boroda ‘beard’→borod-išča ‘huge beard’

    • Inhabitant: : Arabic Misr ‘Egypt’→misr-iyyu ‘Egyptian’

  • Inflection that does change class (‘transposition’)

    • Participles: justify x → the justifi-ed x

    • Gerund: sing → your sing-ing (inflection)

Obligatoriness (Inflection)

• Inflection is obligatorily expressed on all applicable forms

  • e.g. Englsih 3SG.PRS -s isnt optional - dependent on syntactic subject; all verbs must have a tense value

    • He often walk-s

    • *He walk.

    • *He walk yesterday.

Obligatoriness (Derivation)

• Can choose

  • can add -er to create an agent noun, but not true that all verbs must be turned into agent nouns

    • e.g. The write-er/author/*write

Iteration

• Inflection can never be iterated

  • *cats-s-es-es-es

• Derivation can sometimes be iterated

  • post-post-post-modern

Semantic change

• Inflection: do vs did vs does = same core meaning, function, concept

• Derivation: child vs child-hood = related meanings but different concepts

Peripherality

• Inflection can almost never be the input to derivation

  • laugh → laugh-ed (infl) →/ *laugh-ed-er (deriv)

• Derivation can be the input to both derivation and inflection

  • laugh → laugh-er (deriv) → laugh-er-s (infl)

• Inflection cannot be the input to derivation, whilst derivation occurs next to the stem

  • [anti-dis-establish-ment-ari-an]-s

Productivity - distribution

Inflection is productive

• Easy to create novel forms - regular in distribution

  • All applicable bases in a word class take the relevant morphology

    • e.g. S/he {run/walk/talk/eat/travel/sit/tweet...}-s

Derivation is non-productive

• Not unusual for distribution to have idiosyncratic gaps

  • e.g. -ess canot attach to *{professor/teacher/president}-ess

    • {hope/faith/joy/fear}-ful vs.*{trust/goal/belief/anger}-ful

Productivity - semantics

Inflection is productive

• Functional contribution of inflection is always the same

  • [+past/+pl] always means the same thing

Derivation is non-productive

• Semantic contribution of derivation can be unpredictable

  • e.g. ignore→ignor-ance vs. rid→ridd-ance

What does hierarchy allow us to do?

• Differentiate between the two semantic meanings

  • Labels = category/class of word form

  • Stem = own word class, can be changed via derivation

Structural information

• Derivational morphemes can have their own word class

  • -able: forms adjectives; -er: forms nouns

• All morphemes have selectional requirements (i.e. what bases they are allowed to combine with)

  • Word class (N v V v ADJ)

  • Transitivity (intransitive vs. transitive vs. ditransitive)

  • Syllable count (e.g. more vs -er)

  • Semantic properties (e.g. must be animal)

Open class

“lexical” or “content” words; nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs

• New members are often and quite freely added

Closed class 

“function” words; pronouns, auxiliaries, determiners, prepositions, conjunctions

• New members are rarely added.

How is word class determined?

• Distribution: Its position in a clause and what it can combine with.

  • *My blue is television

• Associated grammatical categories: what kind of inflectional marking taken

• Typicalsemantics: meanings expressed

Open word class: nouns

• Nouns: have referents, serve as subjects/objects

  • Categories: case, number, gender, person, possession, size, definiteness

• Sub-classes

  • Common vs. proper: a name of a place/person, typically capitalised

  • Alienable vs. inalienable: can it be separated from the possessor?

Nominative case

• Subject of a finite verb.

  • I/we/she/he/who

Accusative case

• Direct object of a transitive verb, or of certain prepositions

  • me/us/her/him/who

Dative case

• Indirect object of a verb (recipient, beneficiary), and certain prepositions

  • me/us/her/him/whom ≈ to, for

Genitive case

• Possessor of another noun and after certain prepositions

  • my/our/her/his/whose ≈ of

Locative

static location or object of certain prepositions/verbs ≈ at, on

Ablative

movement away from or object of certain prepositions/verbs≈from

Instrumental

a noun being used as a tool, or the agent of a passive ≈ by

Pronouns

• Closed class words

• a word that can substitute or refer back to a noun, whose interpretation depends on context

  • Categories: person, number, gender, case, possessive

  • Sub-types: demonstrative, reflexive, interrogative, relative, indefinite

Featural distinctions of ProN

• Spatial deixis: promixal ∼ medial ∼ distal (here ∼ there ∼ yonder)

• Formality: awak ∼ kamu ∼ (eng)kau ∼ anda;tu vs. vous;thou vs. you

• Clusivity: kami (1PL.EXCL) ‘us excluding you’ vs. kita ‘us including you’

Verbs

• Open class words

• denote actions, events, states, serve as predicates

  • Categories: tense, aspect, mood, polarity, agreement with subject

Sub-classes of verbs

• Transitivity: is an object banned, obligatory, or optional?

  •  Intransitive: laughed (*a laugh)

  •  Strictly transitive: devour*(food)

  •  Ambitransitive: eat (food)

  •  Ditransitive: send someone something

•  Labile: verbs which alternate for transitive ∼ intransitive without a clear morphological change

Auxiliaries

• Closed class word

• “helping” verbs that express grammatical, not lexical, info

  • Categories: tense, aspect, mood, modality, copulas (= to be)

  • Generally inflect like verbs, but maybe with defective paradigms

  • Will typically show up in the vicinity of the “main” verb

Tense

• when the event/action takes place with reference to the utterance time.

  • Past, present, future, recent/remote past, near/remote future

Aspect

• how the event took place over a period of time

  • Perfective = the event is, was, or will be completed.

    • Future perfect = I will have eaten.

    • Present perfect = I have eaten.

    • Past perfect = I had eaten

  • Imperfective = the event is, was, or will be incomplete

    • Future imperfect = I will eat/be eating.

    • Present imperfect = I eat/I am eating.

    • Past imperfect = I ate/was eating