Ling 201, Sec. C.

Fall 2009

Unit 3

Unit 3. Morphology: The study of the structure and formation of words1

1 Some questions on word-formation

There are a lot of questions on the structure and formation of words. For example, redoable has only one meaning (possible to redo), but undoable is ambiguous: possible to undo undoable not possible to do How can we explain this difference? Is an expression like crystal clear a word or a phrase?

Morphemes: Building blocks of words

1. Morphemes Words are composed from parts, as in trees = tree + s, and redoable = re + do + able. Let us start our study of word-formation by looking at these building blocks. Linguists use the term, morpheme, for these parts of words. More precisely speaking, morpheme := The smallest meaning-bearing unit.

Exercise Divide the following words into morphemes. (1) (a) untrue (b) owner (c) (d) government (e) development (f) (g) fewest

incompletely rewrite

2. Free vs. bound morphemes 2-1. Free morpheme free morpheme := A morpheme that can stand on its own. Examples
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the,

cat,

people

Much of the content of this unit was adapted from course materials by Chris Potts, Florian Schwarz, Keir Moulton and John Kingston.

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We tend to consider free morphemes (or free complex morphemes) words. Free morphemes can, but need not, have other morphemes attached to them, as in talk-ing, where talk is a free morpheme.

2-2. Bound morpheme bound morpheme := A morpheme that cant stand on its own. Examples im-, -ize, -ly

A bound morpheme needs to be a subpart of a larger word. Exercise Classify the morphemes we have found in the last exercise into free morphemes and bound ones. (1) (a) untrue (b) owner (c) incompletely (d) government (e) development (f) rewrite (g) fewest Languages differ in how they divide up the vocabulary into bound and free morphemes. Heres a look at definite articles of two related languages, English and Danish. (2) (a) (b) the house huset the house (English) (Danish)

3. Root: Main morpheme of a word There are some other useful terms to discuss word-formation. root := the main morpheme of a word, morphologically and probably semantically, and one that cannot be decomposed into smaller parts. In English, roots tend to be free morphemes, but there are some bound ones. For example, (1) (2) -fer as in infer and transfer (-fer means bring) ling- as in linguist and lingual

In Hebrew and Arabic, roots are bound morphemes, realizable on their own only when combined with other morphemes in a complex way that is characteristic of Semitic languages. For instance, the Egyptian Arabic root ktb is realized as katab (he wrote) and kaatib (writer), among many other forms.
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4. How Morphemes Combine: Base and affix 4-1. Base base := the part of a word to which another morpheme attaches. Note that a base is defined relative to an attaching morpheme. Example. Lets take a complex word, mindfulness, for example. It is formed as follows: Root of the word: mind The first step of formation: mind-ful The second step of formation: mind-ful-ness

(-ful is attached) (-ness is attached) __________ __________

What is the base with respect to the morpheme -ful? What is the base with respect to the morpheme -ness?

As can be seen in this example, the base might be just a root, but it could be a composite of morphemes which contains a root.

4-2. Affix affix := a morpheme that attaches to others (i.e., to bases). Types of affixes: (a) prefix: An affix that goes on the front. Well signal that a morpheme is a prefix by ending it with a hyphen. (b) suffix: An affix that goes on the end. Well signal that a morpheme is a suffix by starting it with a hyphen. (c) infix: An affix that goes in the middle. Well signal that a morpheme is an infix by wrapping it with hyphens. A few examples: (a) un-friggin-believable (b) abso-bloody-lutely (b) takbuh run tumakbuh ran (Tagalog; OGrady et al. 2001) (d) circumfix: A morpheme that wraps around its base. Ex. The Tzotzil definite article, as in: li vaj e the tortilla

Note -ful in mind-ful-ness is NOT an infix! By definition, an infix goes in the middle. If -ful is an infix, it must have gone in the middle of *mindness, but English does not have such a word.
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Infixes are very rare in English, so you can normally suppose that every English affix you encounter is a prefix or a suffix. (The only exceptions are affixes like -friggin- or -bloody-.)

5. Allomorphs When a morpheme is realized by more than one sound pattern, we call the variations allomorphs. Example: English plural morpheme English plural morpheme s is realized (pronounced) in three ways: dogs (dog[z]) cats (cat[s]) judges (judg[z])

the plural morpheme -s

-s [z] an allomorph of the plural morpheme -s [s] an allomorph of the plural morpheme -s [z] an allomorph of the plural morpheme

To describe this situation, we can say - English has one plural morpheme, -s. - English has three allomorphs of the plural morpheme.

Another example: English indefinite article English has two allomorphs of an indefinite article: a dog an apple

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Exercise: A morphological analysis of Michoacan [mitkn] Aztec

The following list is taken from Michoacan Aztec. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. nokali nokalimes mokali ikali kali kalimes nopelo mopelo my house my houses your house his house house houses my dog your dog 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. mopelomes ipelo pelo nokwahmili mokwahmili ikwahmili ikwahmilimes kwahmili your dogs his dog dog my cornfield your cornfield his cornfield his cornfields cornfield

Fill in the following chart. Morpheme pelo English Gloss dog house cornfield his your my Plural Root/Affix root Free/Bound free Prefix/Suffix(1)

(1)

If the morpheme is a root, leave the cell under Prefix/Suffix blank.

Syntactic Categories (Parts of Speech)

We can say happiness, but not *happiable. Similarly, sadness is grammatical but *sad(d)able is not. What is a good generalization about this? Answer: The suffix -ness can combine with ______ , while the suffix able cant combine with _______ . It may seem that the answer is clear, but is it really so? What are adjectives? What are verbs? 1. Major categories of English N(oun): dog, book, jelly, sincerity, chaos, . . . P(reposition): in, on, among, away, atop, under, until, . . . V(erb): run, play, contemplate, parse, . . . A(djective): happy, tired, orange, crucial, scared, . . . Det(erminer): the, every, all, a, most, many, few, . . .
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Adv(erb): happily, tiredly, crucially, often, sometimes, . . . Aux(iliary verb): can, be (is/am/are/were), may, will,

2. The big questions (i) What distinguishes each of these categories from the others? (ii) How do these categories combine with each other to form phrases? ( Unit 4 Syntax) 3. Exploring the big question (i) Youve probably heard definitions for parts of speech like this: A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea or A verb is an action word. They looks innocent, but theyre slippery definitions we generally agree that a word like appetite is a noun, but its not really a person, place, thing, or idea; similarly, seem is a verb, but its not really an action word. So instead of these meaning-based definitions of parts of speech, linguists use structural definitions that is, definitions based on the structure of a word, and/or its position in a sentence structure. Linguists dont use definitions like a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea because of their unreliability. Below are a number of tests that purport to distinguish each of the above categories from the others. When using the tests, it is vital to ask: Does this test uniquely identify the word class in question from all others? If it does not uniquely identify the word class in question, then which classes does it distinguish among? Do all the words in this word class pass the test, or do only some of them pass the test?

4. Nouns May follow a determiner, or a determiner and an adjective Can inflect for number (singular/plural) Meaningful count/mass distinction Very open class of lexical items: new nouns appear all the time, and it is possible to coin new ones whenever we want 5. Verbs Can inflect for tense Can inflect for aspect (e.g., the progressive form running, formed with the suffix ing) May follow to (e.g., to play) Can immediately follow a modal verb (can, could, shall, should, may, might, and perhaps others) 6. Adjectives Can be modified by adverbs
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Can be modified by very Can modify nouns Can be inflected for the comparative (-er) and the superlative (-est) Can appear immediately following seem, appear, and become

7. Prepositions Can be modified by right Seem to form a closed class (that is, new prepositions emerge relatively rarely, and it is almost impossible to coin new ones) Can appear next to the verb journey and head (journey to the store, journey into work, *journey the store, . . . ) 8. Determiners Can immediately precede phrases such as other poem or other poems Form a closed class 9. Adverbs Can modify adjectives End in -ly 10. Auxiliary verb Appears before a verb (no more than three auxiliaries may appear before a single verb)

Affixes and categories

1. Selectional property of affixes Note that affixes can attach only to a restricted set of bases. For example, (a) read-able, do-able, *happi-able, *dark-able, *dog-able, *beauty-able, -able can combine only with ______ . How about ness? (i) Lets list some words which contains ness:

(b)

Can you make a generalization in the following form? -ness can combine only with _______ .

2. Category-changing ability of affixes Next, lets check the categories of the root and the resulting word in the following examples.
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(a)

dog + -s category: ___

dogs ____

(b)

play + -ed played category: ___ _____ people + -s peoples category: _____ ______ crystal + -ize crystallize category: _____ ________ bake + -er baker ___ ____

(c)

(d)

(e) category: (f)

penny + -less penniless category: ____ _______

We discover that there are two types of affixes. (Can you classify the affixes (a) ~ (f) into two types?)

3. Two types of affixes derivational affix := an affix that produces a meaning change when added to a base. Derivational affixes often (but not always) produce a syntactic category change as well. Examples -er (own-er),

-ful (beauti-ful),

un- (un-do), etc.

inflectional affix := a purely grammatical affix, which bears little meaning. Inflectional affixes cannot result in a category change. Examples -s (tree-s),

-est (small-est),

etc.

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English inflectional affixes English has only 8 inflectional affixes. Below is the list of them. Affix Plural -s Possessive (genitive) s 3rd person singular nonpast -s Progressive -ing Past tense ed Past participle en/-ed Comparative er Superlative est Example dogs Bills hat She sings lovely. She is singing lovely. He cooked dinner. He has cooked a meal. cheaper cheapest Attaches to a N N V V V V A A Forming a N N V V V V A A

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Some English derivational affixes Below is a list of some derivational affixes in English. The table tells you what the affix means, what it attaches to (what part of speech) and what part of speech it forms once attached. Affix Meaning exdisforeinmidmisreunun-able -age -(i)al -ate -ation -dom -en -er -ful -hood -ic -ify -ion -ish -ity -ive -ize -less -ly -ly -ment -ness -ous -ship -y former not before not in the middle of in a wrong manner again not do the opposite of able to be ed the result of ing pertaining to make act of ing state of being make one who s full of state of being a pertaining to make (into a) act or result of ing like a the quality of being tending to make without like a in a manner act or result of ing quality of being characterized by state of being (a) like Examples Attaches to a ex-president, ex-con N dishonest, disloyal, dissatisfied A foresee, foreshorten, foreshadow V incompetent, incomplete, intolerable A midseason, midweek, midair N mistake, misunderstand, misspell V rework, rethink, reevaluate, redo V unhappy, untrue, unsure, unconscious A untie, unwrap, uncover, undo, unfold V lovable, fixable, breakable, washable V breakage, bondage, dosage V national, musical, presidential N activate A relaxation, meditation, realization V wisdom, freedom, boredom A gladden, widen, soften, roughen, redden A baker, teacher, owner, wanderer V graceful, joyful, playful, hopeful N sisterhood, childhood, neighborhood N organic, atmospheric N classify, objectify, solidify N/A protection, compensation, reflection V boyish, childish, foolish, sheepish N sanity, activity, passivity, masculinity A assertive, comprehensive, reflective V visualize, unionize, crystallize N/A penniless, priceless, hopeless N friendly, womanly, manly, cowardly N slowly, happily, hurriedly, foolishly A adjournment, government, movement V happiness, firmness, kindness A famous, poisonous, rancorous N championship, kinship, governorship N mealy, pulpy, mousy, icy, fruity, fiery N Forming a N A V A N V V A V A N A V N N V N A N A V N A N A V A A Adv N N A N A

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4. Shorthand notation for describing rules In the above tables, the two rightmost columns describe how the morpheme in question interacts with syntactic category. Linguists have a shorthand notation for describing these changes: -able : V (This means -able affixes to a V A and produces an A.)

Here are a few more examples from English: (a) -ness : A N (b) re- : V V (c) -less: N A

Exercise Using this notation, write affixation rules for the following affixes. (a) -ment: (b) -ity: (c) ex-:

5. Inflectional affixes in other languages As we saw above, English is not a highly inflected language. The range and degree of inflection is language specific. Whereas there are languages with little inflectional morphology, there are languages with rich inflectional morphology. Japanese, for example, has inflectional affixes which indicate Case: Affix Nominative -ga Accusative -o Dative -ni Example mizu-ga water (Subj) mizu-o water (Obj) Ken-ni to Ken Attaches to a N N N Forming a N N N

Another difference is found in verbal inflection. English does not distinguish whether the subject is I, you, we, or you (plural): (a) He/she/it walk-s (b) I/you/we/you(pl.)/they walk On the other hand, in Latin (as its descendants such as Spanish), each kind of subject selects a different inflectional affix for the verb: (c) (ego) am- (d) (tu) am-s (e) (Is/ea/id) am-at I love ~ You love ~ He/she/it loves ~
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(f) (nos) am-mus (g) (vos) am-tis (h) (ii(ei)/eae/ea) am-ant

We love ~ You(pl.) love ~ They love ~

A puzzle

The following puzzle is from the Linguistic Olympics, a competition for high school students in which they try to figure out whats going on in a body of linguistic data. (The puzzles are copyrighted by the Department of Linguistics, University of Oregon.) The sentences are from the Orkhono-Yeniseyan language. Lets assume we know nothing about beyond sentences (a) (h). Our goal is to solve part of the puzzle of how the language works. (a) Oghuling baliqigh alti. (b) Baz oghuligh yangilti. (c) Siz baliqimizin buzdingiz. (d) Qaghanimiz oghulingin yangilti. (e) Oghulim barqingin buzdi. (f) Siz qaghanigh yangiltingiz. (g) Biz baliqigh altimiz. (h) Bazim qaghanimizin yangilti. Your son conquered the city. The vassal betrayed the son. You all destroyed our city. Our king betrayed your son. My son destroyed your house. You all betrayed the king. We conquered the city. My vassal betrayed our king.

Our goals for the syntactic analysis: 1. For each sentence, where is the subject? 2. For each sentence, where is the object? 3. For each sentence, where is the verb? Our goals for the morphological analysis: 1. How does one express the? 2. How does one express your? 3. How does one express my? 4. How does one express our? 5. Where does -in appear?

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Internal structure of a word

1. Tree diagrams Up to this point, we have indicated morpheme boundaries simply by putting a hyphen between the morphemes. Example undoable un-do-able

This notation is convenient, but it has a weakness: it cannot represent how the morphemes are combined. Example undoable can be formed in two ways: (i) un- + do un-do un-do + -able un-do-able The meaning: possible to undo (ii) do + -able do-able un- + do-able un-do-able The meaning: not doable (i.e., not possible to do) The simple notation, un-do-able, cant tell us whether able attached to un-do or unattached to do-able. To represent the order of combination, linguists usually use tree notation. Trees are a very useful tool in linguistic analysis, as they allow us to visually represent the structural and hierachical relations between parts of expressions. Ex. A simplified tree for undo un- + do un-do can be represented as un-do undo

Ex2. A simplified tree for undoable un- + do un-do, and un-do + -able un-do-able un-do-able un-do -able undo

can be represented as

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The trees on the last page are simplified for ease of illustration. Usually, linguistic trees are decorated with category labels of each morpheme and category labels of composites of morphemes. Because affixes do not belong to any category, they are labeled Af. Additionally, the products themselves (undo and undoable in the previous trees) are normally omitted because they are obvious. Ex. A fully labeled tree for undo un- is an Af, do is a V, and the composite un-do is also a V. So it is represented as V Af V | | un do This tree can be read as follows: un-, an Af, and do, a V, are combined into a V (undo).

Exercise: Draw a fully labeled tree diagram for the following bimorphic words. 1. fastest 2. untie 3. payment 4. ageless

2. Disambiguation and category-selection So far, it is plain to draw trees. Things get much more interesting once we begin considering more complex words that involve 3 or more morphemes. First, lets draw trees for undoable. It is the simplest case. Exercise: Draw all the fully labeled tree diagrams for undoable.

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Next, lets consider a complex word, unchildish. The first step of drawing trees for it would be as follows. Tree (a) (halfway): Af N Af | | | un- child -ish First, child and ish are combined. First, un- and child are combined.

Tree (b) (halfway): N Af | | child -ish

Af | un-

However, (as you probably have already noticed,) un- and child cant be combined: You know unconsciously that unchild is not grammatical. So Tree (a) should be discarded. There is only one tree for unchildish: Tree (b), completed: First, child and ish are combined. Then un- is attached. A Af A | un- N Af | | child -ish

Finally, lets consider a complex word, unhappiness. Are the following two trees okay? Tree (a): un- and happy are combined first. Then, -ness is attached. N A Af | Af A -ness | | un- happy

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Tree (b): happy and ness are combined first. Then, un- is attached. N Af N | un- A Af | | happy -ness

In this case, both un-happy and happi-ness are grammatical, so the first step of wordformation is legitimate for each tree. However, Tree (b) is not legitimate! Why? It is because un- cannot attach to a N. (Ex. *un-child. Or see the above table of affixes.) So, actually, the second step of word-formation in Tree (b) is impossible. Therefore, Tree (a) is the only legitimate structure for unhappiness. Note In Tree (a), the attachment of -ness to un-happy is legitimate because -ness selects (i.e., combines with) an A. In Sum Complex words that involve 3 or more morphemes may have two trees or only one tree. What we need to do to find possible trees is very simple: In each step of wordformation (i.e., in each combination, ) we only need to check whether the combination is possible or not.

Exercise: Check that the two trees for un-do-able are both legitimate.

Exercise: Draw fully labeled tree diagrams for the following words 1. unhappily 2. rehospitalize

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Exercise (cont.):

3. carelessness

4. ungracefully

Now can you answer to the question at the beginning of this Unit? I.e., can you explain why undoable is ambiguous whereas redoable is not ambiguous? Your answer:

3. Order of affixation and derivational/inflectional distinction Attachment of derivational affixes cannot occur after attachment of an inflectional affix occurs. Evidence Lets take a derivational affix ion and an inflectional affix s for illustration. (a) construct + -ion construct-ion, and construct-ion + -s construct-ion-s (b) construct + -s construct-s, but construct-s + -ion *construct-s-ion

Using this, we can often construct an argument that an English prefix is derivational. Example: A word like redoable is evidence that re- is derivational, not inflectional! We can claim this by using proof by contradiction. If re- was inflectional, the attachment of re- must have occurred after do and -able were combined. In other words, re- must have attached to do-able. It is, however, impossible! That is because do-able is an adjective while re- selects a V (see the table). Therefore, the underlined assumption must be wrong. That is, re- cant be inflectional.

Exercise: Find out a word or words which can be used to argue that the prefix mis- is not an inflectional affix.
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4. Some terms on the tree notation Tree diagrams are excellent for representing not only the internal structure of words but also the constituent structure of sentences. We will use tree diagrams extensively throughout this course. The following are some characteristic properties and definitions of some important terms on the tree notation. Immediate dominance A node M immediately dominates another node N just in case M is above N and M is directly connected to N. Examples (a) M | N (b) M P N

Dominance A node M dominates another node N just in case N can be reached from M by travelling along a path of immediate dominance relations. Examples (c) M | N (d) M | P | N (e) M (f) M Q N R S T N

Daughters The daughters of a node M are the nodes that M immediately dominates. Mothers The mother of a node N is the node that immediately dominates N. A node can have at most one mother. Examples (g) M | A (h) M B C mother daughter

Sisters Two nodes are sisters just in case they have the same mother. Example (i) M D E

. D is a sister of E, and vice versa.

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Compounds

1. Words or phrases? Is fire truck a word? Or is it a phrase? Our orthography does not reliably distinguish words from phrases. But we have other techniques.

I. Stress In adjectivenoun compounds, the main stress falls on the adjective; in the stringidentical phrases, the noun generally receives main stress. (i) wtsuit vs. wet sit (ii) Whte House vs. white huse

II. Inflection Only in a very few cases can the first element in a compound be inflected: (i) He [drop kick]ed the ball. (ii) *He [dropped kick] the ball. (i) [fire truck]s (ii) * (a) [fires truck] Exceptions: passers-by, courts-martial, itsy-bitsy (maybe), parks commissioner,

III. Modification In adjectivenoun compounds, the adjective cannot be modified by an adverb. (i) Thats an extremely white huse. (ii) *Thats an extremely Whte House.

IV. Pronominalization In adjectivenoun compounds, the noun cannot be turned into a pronoun. (i) Ed saw the white huse, and I saw the green one. (ii) *Ed saw the Whte House, and I saw the green one.

V. Compositionality The meaning of a compound can drift from the meaning of its parts, whereas the corresponding phrases have predictable meanings: (i) #The white huse isnt painted white. (ii) The Whte House isnt painted white.

So we can say that fire truck, drop kick, etc. are words for sure.
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2. Two types of word-formation: affixation and compounding There is a difference between words like unhappiness and words like fire truck: In the case of un-happi-ness, un- and -ness are affixes. In the case of fire truck, there is no affix: fire is a free morpheme, and truck is also a free morpheme.

We call the former type of word-formation affixation and the latter type of wordformation compounding. Compounding is a morphological process whereby two or more words are combined to form a new word.

3. Head of a compound A compound word obtains its syntactic category from one of the words that make it up. For example, the compound ice-cold is made up of the noun ice combined with the adjective cold and it is an adjective as a whole. We call the morpheme which determines the category of a compound the head (of the compound). Example: nationwide A N A | | nation wide (a) A nationwide program was established. (b) *A nationwide exists.

Exercise: Draw a full labeled tree diagram for fire-engine red.

In English, as can be expected from the above examples, the rightmost member of a compound is its head. It is known as the right-hand head rule. The right-hand head rule The head of a compound is the rightmost member of the compound.
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