LING 20 - FINAL

MORPHOLOGY

Simple vs Complex

  • Simple Morphology: Refers to words that have no smaller meaningful parts. Example: "tree".

  • Complex Morphology: Refers to words that consist of multiple meaningful parts. Example: "treehouse".

Complex Words

  • Definition: Complex words have more than one meaningful part.

    • Examples:

      • "treehouse"

      • "trees"

      • "baking"

      • "screwdriver"

      • "restoration"

  • The term "basic unit of meaning" does not distinctly separate words from other language units.

MORPHEMES

Examples of Morphemes:

  • Morphemes that are words:

    • rug

    • slow

    • throw

    • give

    • love

    • flower

    • sky

    • go

    • the

  • Morphemes that are smaller than words:

    • -ness

    • -er

    • -ing

    • -ation

    • -ed

    • -s

    • in-

MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

GANDA Analysis

  • Data:

    • omukazi: ‘woman’

    • abakazi: ‘women’

    • omussawo: ‘doctor’

    • abassawo: ‘doctors’

    • omusika: ‘heir’

    • abasika: ‘heirs’

    • omuwala: ‘girl’

    • abawala: ‘girls’

JAPANESE Analysis

  • Data:

    • ake-: ‘open’

    • aketa: ‘opened’

    • tabe-: ‘eat’

    • tabeta: ‘ate’

    • jom-: ‘read’

    • jonda: ‘read’

    • ʃin-: ‘die’

    • ʃinda: ‘died’

    • nom-: ‘drink’

    • nonda: ‘drank’

    • wak-: ‘boil’

    • waita: ‘boiled’

    • ʦug-: ‘pour’

    • ʦuida: ‘poured’

CONTENT VS FUNCTION MORPHEMES

Content Morphemes

  • Definition: Refer to tangible concepts, ideas, actions, states, events.

  • Examples: Many nouns, verbs, adjectives.

Function Morphemes

  • Definition: Encode grammatical information; typical components include verbs and nouns.

    • Examples:

      • Articles: "the", "a"

      • Prepositions: "to", "for"

BASIC FUNCTIONS

Verbs

  • Functions: Indicate tense, e.g., "she walks" vs "she walked".

Nouns

  • Functions: Indicate case, number. Example in Ukrainian:

    • Lybid’ zakryla knyhu: ‘Libid closed the book’.

    • Knyha znakhodytʹsya na stoli: ‘The book is on the table’.

ROOTS VS AFFIXES

Affixes

  • Definition: Attach to roots to modify meaning.

  • Types:

    • Prefix: Attaches to the beginning (left) of the root. Example: "un-like".

    • Suffix: Attaches to the end (right) of the root. Example: "danc-ing".

    • Infix: Inserted in the middle of another morpheme.

      • Examples in English: "abso-bloody-lutely!", "fan-f*cking-tastic!".

Infixes in Bontoc

  • Examples:

    • fikas: ‘strong’ → fumikas: ‘s/he is becoming strong’

    • kilad: ‘red’ → kumilad: ‘s/he is becoming red’

    • bato: ‘stone’ → bumato: ‘s/he is becoming stone’

    • fusul: ‘enemy’ → fumusul: ‘s/he is becoming an enemy’

Example Question

  • If "pukaw" means ‘white’, what would "pumukaw" mean?

FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

Free Morphemes

  • Definition: Independent words that can function alone.

  • Examples: Fred, book, two, like, not, of, go, run.

Bound Morphemes

  • Definition: Must combine with something else; cannot stand alone.

  • Examples:

    • scared

    • houses

    • badly

    • unsure

Additional Examples

  • Roots can also be bound:

    • alt-a; alt-o (Spanish for ‘tall’)

    • in-con-ceiv-able

    • con-cept-ion, in-cept-ion, reception, deception, contra-cept-ion

AFFIXES AS EVIDENCE OF WORD CLASS

Affixes Provide Evidence

  • Example Affixed Words:

    • sweet-er

    • sweet-est

    • impacted

    • morphological properties indicate same word class across:

      • station, nation, innovation, irritation

      • googled, zoomed, DMed, DJed.

MORPHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

English Morphology

  • Nouns inflect for number:

    • singular: tiger

    • plural: tiger-s.

Other Languages

  • Nez Perce (Sahaptian; Oregon): Nouns inflect for case.

    • qiwn: ‘old man’ → qiwne: ‘old man (OBJECT)’

  • Sinhala (Indo-Aryan; Sri Lanka): Nouns inflect for definiteness.

    • pot-ə: ‘the book (definite)’

    • pot-ak: ‘a book (indefinite)’.

NOUN MORPHOLOGY

Tense

  • Definition: A grammatical means of expressing time.

Person

  • Definition: Refers to the participant role (speaker, addressee, other).

  • Verbs may agree in person and number with subjects or objects.

VERB MORPHOLOGY

Verb Examples in Sunwar

  • Verb: petta-yi-si: ‘you two overtook me’

  • Verb: petta-yi-mi: ‘they overtook me’

Verb Examples in Swahili

  • Verb: ni-ta-ku-penda: ‘I will like you’

  • Verb: ni-ta-m-penda: ‘I will like them (singular)’.

ADJECTIVES IN MORPHOLOGY

English Adjectives

  • Adjectives only inflect for comparative (-er) and superlative (-est).

Spanish Adjectives

  • Adjectives agree in gender and number with nouns:

    • el hombre alto (tall man)

    • los hombres altos (tall men)

    • la mujer alta (tall woman)

    • las mujeres altas (tall women)

OPEN VS CLOSED WORD CLASSES

Open Word Classes

  • Definition: Large numbers of members (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), easily added to.

Closed Word Classes

  • Definition: Limited membership (prepositions, articles, demonstratives, auxiliary verbs), difficult to add to.

  • Evidence is often not morphological.

ENGLISH PRONOUN PARADIGM

Subject and Object Case

SG (Singular)

PL (Plural)

1st Person

I / me

we / us

2nd Person

you / you

you / you

3rd Person

he / him / she / her / it

they / them

SAAMI PRONOUN PARADIGM

Subject

Possessive

SG

DL

PL

1st

mån

måj

mij

muv

2nd

dån

dåj

dij

duv

3rd

sån

såj

sij

suv

DETERMINERS Word Functionality

  • Articles: E.g., the (definite), a (indefinite).

  • Demonstratives: E.g., this, these (proximal), that, those (distal).

  • Possessive Pronouns: E.g., my, your, her, his, its, their, our.

SYNTAX

Constituent Structure

  • Example Sentence: "The little girl is reading a book about dragons."

  • Components:

    • NOUN PHRASE: "The little girl"

    • VERB PHRASE: "is reading a book about dragons."

REPLACEMENT TEST

  • The entire noun phrase (NP) can be replaced by a pronoun:

    • I saw [those three big copies of the book]NP

    • I saw [them]NP

  • Incorrect replacements:

    • *I saw those them

    • *I saw them the book

    • *I saw them of the book

INTERNAL COMPOSITION OF NOUN PHRASES

  • Noun Phrase Structure: Noun Phrase = ___ + Noun.

    • Examples:

      • Demonstrative: "that boy"

      • Article: "a child, the pie"

      • Quantifier: "some accidents"

      • Numeral: "five pumpkins; the eighth symphony"

      • Adjective: "amazing music"

      • Possessor: "their house"

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

  • Definition: A prepositional phrase contains a preposition and a noun phrase.

    • Examples: "to the front", "in the back", "from Gerald", "with a knife".

ORDERING RESTRICTIONS

  • Certain elements can co-occur while others cannot:

    • E.g.: "I read those three big books".

    • Incorrect: *"I like that some books."

    • Incorrect: *"I have the those books."

    • Incorrect: *"I own big some books."

GENERALIZING OVER NPS

Phrase Structure Rules

  • Phrase Structure Rules Example:

    • NP → (DET) (QNT) (ADJP) N (PP)*

    • NP → PRO

  • Items in parentheses ( ) are optional.

    • PP (Prepositional Phrase): P NP

    • AdjP (Adjective Phrase): Adj*.

HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE

Syntactic Tree Example

  • Sentence: "I saw those big flowers in the garden."

Syntactic Tree Diagram

    Sentence
    ├── NOUN PHRASE
    │   └── Determiner + Adjective + Noun
    ├── PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
    │   └── Preposition + NOUN PHRASE

STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY

  • Example: "Tabby drove the car from Detroit."

  • Explores multiple interpretations depending on structure.

RECUSRION

  • Definition: The ability to embed constituents of one type into others of the same type.

  • Example: "The key on the hook by the door in the corner of the room with the fireplace."

ARGUMENT STRUCTURE

Definition of Argument

  • Argument: A participant in a sentence (e.g., subject, object).

  • Argument Structure: Relationship between verb and other constituents.

DETECTING SUBJECTS

Definition of Subject

  • Subject: The noun phrase that the verb agrees with.

    • Examples:

      • Linda likes turtles.

      • Cathy likes Andy.

      • The magical honeybee kissed the possum.

OTHER ARGUMENTS

Core Arguments

  • Core arguments share grammatical behavior:

    • Subject: Noun Phrase (dependent of S)

    • Direct Object: Verb Noun Phrase (dependent of VP)

    • Indirect Object: Verb [ Preposition [ Noun Phrase ] ]

    • Oblique Arguments.

TRANSITIVITY IN VERBS

Types of Verbs

  • Intransitive Verbs: 1 core argument. Example: Carmen laughed.

  • Transitive Verbs: 2 core arguments. Example: Carmen ate the pie.

  • Ditransitive Verbs: 3 core arguments. Example: Carmen gave the dog a kiss.

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

Lexical Access

  • Definition: Retrieving the meaning for a known word.

  • Methodology: Lexical decision task (speed of response).

  • Frequency Effect: More frequent words have quicker responses (e.g., better vs. thumb).

  • Recency Effect: Recently heard words yield quicker responses.

Priming

  • Definition: When previous exposure to related words speeds up response time.

  • Methodology: Semantically associated prime followed by a test item.

  • Priming Effect: Fades rapidly after exposure.

SPEECH PERCEPTION

  • Contextual Cues: Sounds are perceived only in context, influencing recognition.

  • Segmentation Problem: Cues for sounds lie across segments.

  • Invariance Problem: Same sound perceived differently depending on context.

ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE

Methods for Studying Language Acquisition

  • Observational Approaches: Includes case studies, corpora, longitudinal studies.

  • Experimental Approaches:

    • Infants respond to perceived differences (head turn preference).

    • Study toddler comprehension with linguistic stimuli.

SIGN LANGUAGE

Characteristics of Sign Languages

  • Use visual signals instead of auditory/acoustic components.

  • Involves all linguistic components: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics.

HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS

Language Change

  • Can occur at any analysis level: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics.

  • Comparative Method: Steps to hypothesize relationships between languages.

    • Example: Gather similar words, identify sound correspondences, reconstruct proto-sounds, determine shape of words.

LANGUAGE CONTACT

Types

  • Bilingual Contexts: Coexistence of two languages.

  • Code Switching: Switching between languages/dialects in conversation.

LANGUAGE AND THE SOCIAL WORLD

Sociolinguistics Definitions

  • Structure of language usage varies across social groups via region, age, class, gender, etc.

  • Dialects vs standards: Ideologies that hold standard languages as "correct".

DIALECT VARIATION

Examples

  • Differences across regional dialects with lexical, morphological, syntax variations.

  • Features like rhoticity influence pronunciations across dialects.

LEARNING ABOUT VARIATION

Investigating Language Communities

  • Studies show how communities practice, change, and maintain language, impacting societal structures and identities.

MISCELLANEOUS

What to do when encountering new language contexts

  • Determine names referencing animals using local terms, extend existing terms, or adapt words from other languages.