1. representing word structures

• have been used to seperate morphemes in linear fashion

• morphological trees can represent the internal structure of words

→ known was word trees

• ex. the word joblessness in word tree

• review

  • one morpheme word → free morphemes

  • simple words are free morphemes that have a syntactic catergory

  • simple words internal structure is usually not drawn because it is only one word

  • allomorph: multiple representations of a morpheme

• two facts about affixation

  • affixes/bound morphemes attach to specfic bases

  → ex. -able prefers attaching to verbs, -ish prefers nouns and some adjectives

  • derivational affixes change the syntactic catrgory they attach to

  → ex. words that end with -able are adjectives, words that end with -ment or -ness are nouns

• need to identify root of complex word

• once root is found, find all attaching affixes to it

• when multiple affixes, the closest affix is attached first

• derivational affix attach to words first

• derivational affixes: change meaning of words

• inflectional affixes attach last

• ex. two trees for reuseable since reuse and usable are both words

• ex. -re attaches first since it can only attach to verbs and then -able

→ -able first makes it an adjective

• ex. for discontinuation

  • -dis first because it cannot attach to nouns (continuation)

  • -tion after

• words with more then one affix have a hierarchical structure

→ structure reflects in order of attachment

• english words come from latin and greek that can be broken down into smaller units of words

→ english speakers cannot analyze those → consider them as free morphemes

1.1 morphological ambiguity

• words with one meaning allows us to derive 1 morphological tree

• words with many meanings are structurally ambiguous words

• structurally ambigous words can have more then 1 morphological tree

• ex. untieable

  • can put -un and then -able

  • can put -able then -un

  • different meanings: able to untie, unable to tie

2. derivation: word formation processes

• affixation: affix(es) attach to form new words/grammatical function

• derivational affixation is one of the most common word formation processes in english and other languages

• english has derivational suffixation and prefixation

• adding a derivational affix can create words with new meanings/syntactic catergories

• -un → negated meaning

• derivational affixation is not the only way to make new words

2.1 compounding

• compounding: join two words/units into a new word

→ very common process to make new words

• usually two free morphemes make a compound

→ ex. greenhouse and green house have different meanings in a sentence

→ green is an adjective, greenhouse is a noun

• resulting compounds are in the following syntactic categories:

  • noun → ex. parking ticket, force-feed

  • adjective → ex. carsick

  • adverb → downward

  • verb

• compound propositions exist → ex. without

• prepositions a part of other compounds → ex. outsource (proposition + verb)

• most right word defines syntactic category of entire compound

→ ex. parking ticket is a noun bec ticket is a noun

• head: element that defines syntactic category of a compound

• english is a right headed language

• other languages can be left headed

→ where the left most element determines the compounds syntactic category

• compounds can be formed by multiple morphemes

→ not limited to two

• affixation is not compounds

• compounding helps expand dictionaries

2.1.1 properties of compounds

• compounds can be written with:

  • hyphen (-)

  • single word

  • separate words

• pronunciation of compounds is different from separate words

• emphasis/loudness (defined as stress) falls on first element in a compound

→ this falls on the second element in a non compound combination of words

ex. greenhouse → stress on green (compound)

green house → stress on house (non-compound)

2.1.2 endocentric and exocentric compounds

• compounds are classified by conveyed meaning

• endocentric compounds: meaning based on head of compound (head in english is the right element!!)

→ predictable meanings

→ ex. earthworm (type of worm), self-care (type of care)

• exocentric compounds: meaning not from the head of compound

→ not directly derived from head/not obvious or predictable

2.2 reduplication

• reduplication is a formation process that denotes grammatical/semantic contrast

• reduplication: doubling a free morpheme or a part of it to make new words

• semantic: logic of languages

• two types of reduplication:

  • partial reduplication: repeating a part of the morphological base (sound or syllable)

  • total/full reduplication: copying entire morpheme to change meaning

• english does not use reduplication to make new words

• can indicate intensity/focus of the object in a sentence

• some languages use reduplication to make new words

• some languages use reduplication to show grammatical information

→ ex. tagalog and Indonesian

2.3 zero derivation

• zero derivation/conversion: changes a words syntactic category without changing its form

→ ex. google as a verb and noun

• does not involve affixation

• conversions change stress

2.4 clipping

• clipping: deletes one or more syllables to a multisyllabic word

→ ex. rob, kat, liz

• usually the first syllable is chosen to be the new shortened form (ex. rob, kat, liz)

→ not always though (ex. flu ← influenza, mum ← chrysanthemum)

• other languages that are not english use clipping as well

→ ex. german

2.5 blending

• blending/portmanteau: makes new words from parts of words

→ usually first part of the first word, final part from another word

• ex. include:

  • brunch (breakfast and lunch)

  • motel (motor and hotel)

  • smog (smoke and fog)

  • sponcon (sponsored and content)

2.6 backformation

• backformation: creating new lexical entries from removing supposed morphemes from a word

→ supposed as in it is not actually a morpheme removed

→ removes what looks like a morpheme but actually is not one

• cannot tell what words are backformed until researched

• ex. donate came from removing -ion from donation

• words that end with -er or -or are at risk for backformation

→ ex. editor → edit

2.7 acronyms and abbreviations

• acronyms: take first letters of a word and pronouncing them as a word

→ words made by abbreviations

• ex.

  • NASA

  • BOGO

• acronyms are so engrained to the point where speakers sometimes forget/don’t know what they stand for

→ ex. laser, radar, scuba

• initialisms/abbreviations: words from a initial group of letters

• they contrast acronyms as they are pronounced by letters instead of as a word

2.8 coinage

• coinage: creating words from scratch

→ words from non-existing things

• coinings/new words are applied to new concepts/inventions that do not already exist

• coinage creates product and company names

• ex.

  • kleenex

  • kodak

  • teflon

2.9 eponymy

• eponyms: words created from human names

• meanings of eponyms are based off of person they are named after

• ex. morse code → named after samuel morse for telegraphs

• many eponyms are unambiguously name related

• some eponyms are less obvious

3. inflectional processes

3.1. internal change

• internal change is related to inflection

• internal change is when one non-morphemic element is substituted for another to make grammatical changes

→ ex. goose → geese, foot → feet display internal change of vowels

• change causes singular-plural distinction

• ablaut: change in vowel structure instead of affixation

→ marks grammatical contrasts

• vowels of a verb is replaced by another vowel for grammatical information purposes in some cases

ex. swim → swam

drink → drank

→ changes show past tense

geese → goose

→ changes in plural case

3.2 suppletion

• suppletion: the process of one morpheme replaced by another phonologically unrelated morpheme

→ when one form of a word are not phonologically related

• phonologically: relation to sound of a word (reminder)

• some verbs are unrelated to their infinitival forms

→ infinitival forms are to-infitinvtive and infintitive-without-to

• ex. go → went

• be → was → is → am

• suppletion occurs in verbs and adjectives

• these irregularities come from historic developments