Morphology and Syntax

Morphology

  • Morphology is the study of the structure of words.

    • It addresses how languages change the form of words for grammatical purposes.
    • It explores the processes used to create new words.

  • Words can be thought of as consisting of meaningful units called morphemes.

    • Morpheme Definition: A morpheme is the minimal, indivisible unit of meaning of which words are composed.

Types of Morphemes

  • Free Morpheme:

    • Can stand alone as a separate word.
    • Examples: teach, farm, sing.

  • Bound Morpheme:

    • Cannot stand alone as a word; always attached to another form.
    • Examples:
    • teach-er (suffix -er as a bound morpheme),
    • farm-s (suffix -s as a bound morpheme),
    • sing-er (suffix -er as a bound morpheme),
    • walk-ed (suffix -ed as a bound morpheme).

  • A bound morpheme (affix) can be identified based on its position in a word.

Word Formation Processes in Morphology

  • COINAGE:

    • Refers to the invention of new terms.
    • Examples: aspirin, nylon, vaseline, zipper, google.

  • BORROWING:

    • Involves taking over words from other languages.
    • Examples:
    • piano (Italian),
    • pretzel (German),
    • sofa (Arabic),
    • tattoo (Tahitian),
    • tycoon (Japanese),
    • yogurt (Turkish),
    • zebra (Bantu).

  • COMPOUNDING:

    • The joining of two separate words to produce a single form.
    • Examples: fingerprint, sunburn, textbook, wallpaper, wastebasket.

  • BLENDING:

    • Combines the beginning of one word with the end of another word.
    • Examples:
    • bit (from binary/digit),
    • brunch (from breakfast/lunch),
    • motel (from motor/hotel),
    • telecast (from television/broadcast).

  • CLIPPING:

    • Reduces a word of more than one syllable to a shorter form.
    • Examples:
    • ad (advertisement),
    • bra (brassiere),
    • cab (cabriolet),
    • condo (condominium),
    • fan (fanatic),
    • flu (influenza),
    • perm (permanent wave).

  • BACKFORMATION:

    • A word of one type (usually a noun) is reduced to form a word of another type (usually a verb).
    • Examples:
    • donate (from "donation"),
    • emote (from "emotion"),
    • enthuse (from "enthusiasm"),
    • liaise (from "liaison"),
    • babysit (from "babysitter").

  • CONVERSION:

    • A change in the function of a word.
    • Examples:
    • bottle (can be a noun or a verb),
    • butter (can be a noun or a verb),
    • chair (can be a noun or a verb),
    • vacation (can be a noun or a verb).

  • ACRONYMS:

    • New words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words.
    • Examples: NATO, NASA, UNESCO, COVID-19.

  • DERIVATION:

    • The use of affixes to form new words.
    • Examples:
    • unhappy,
    • misrepresent,
    • prejudge,
    • joyful,
    • careless,
    • boyish,
    • terrorism,
    • sadness.

Syntax

  • Syntax is the study of how words are put together to form larger units like phrases, clauses, and sentences.

    • Phrases: Formed by words working together.
    • Clauses and Sentences: Combined phrases to create larger grammatical structures.

  • The structure and arrangement of sentences follow systematic rules; nothing is done randomly.

    • Rule Acquisition: ALL LANGUAGES adhere to complex but systematic rules in the formation and combination of phrases.

Parts of Speech

  • Words used to build sentences are referred to as parts of speech.

    1. Lexical/Open Category:
    • Noun (N), Verb (V), Adjective (Adj), Adverb (Adv).
    1. Functional/Closed Category:
    • Prepositions (P), Determiners (D), Conjunctions (Conj), Complementizers (Comp), Tense Auxiliaries (T), Negation (Neg).

  • Discussion Points:

    • Do you know how to define each of these categories?
    • What are the problems associated with semantic or traditional definitions of these categories?

Problems with Traditional Definitions

  • Defining a noun as a “person, place, or thing” and a verb as “an action, state, or state of being” can lead to difficulties in identifying the category of certain underlined words.

    • Example Sentences:
    • a. Sincerity is an important quality.
    • b. The assassination of Patrice Lumumba shocked the world.

  • Additionally, the same word may serve different functions in various contexts.

    • Contextual Examples:
    • a. My father is a rich man.
    • b. Did John father a child with you?

  • There are also words that cannot be easily defined, yet they play important roles in sentences.

Distributional Criteria

  • Words can be categorized based on their distribution.

    1. Morphological Distribution:
    • Refers to the type of affixes (prefixes and suffixes) that occur on words.
    • Derivational: Morphemes that change the category of a word.
      • Examples: teacher, education.
    • Inflectional: Morphemes that mark some grammatical notions such as number or person.
      • Examples: teachers, educational.
    1. Syntactic Distribution:
    • Refers to the position of words relative to other words.
    • Example: Nouns typically occur with determiners such as "a" or "the".
      • Example Sentence: The man loved his son.

  • Understanding the category of one word allows for the determination of the category of other words in the sentence.

Morphological Distribution Examples

  1. NOUN:

    • Derivational: establishment, action, sincerity, certainty, specialist, intimacy, employee, attendant.
    • Inflectional: peoples, houses, children.

  2. VERB:

    • Derivational: regularize.
    • Inflectional: walked, talking, beaten.

  3. ADJECTIVE:

    • Derivational: indicative, readable, childish.
    • Inflectional: wiser, wisest.

  4. ADVERB:

    • Derivational: quickly.
    • Inflectional: more quickly.