Assignment

To: Venerated Miss Madeeha Khan

Subject: ISSUES IN SYNTAX

Topic: MORPHOLOGICAL CRITERIA

From: Asif Ali Raza

M.Phil English Linguistics (Semester-I)

Roll No. 27

MINHAJ UNIVERSITY LAHORE

TOPIC

 Systems/Levels of Language

 Orthographic Level

 Phonology

 Grammatical Categories

 Morphological Criteria

 Inflectional Properties

 Derivational Properties
  Limitations

L
ANGUAGE is a complex phenomenon due to its various levels or

systems. Each level is a system of its own right. We can analyze

each level independently of other. This means that if we study one

level, we need necessarily study another level. Although these levels are linked in

such a way that one is lower and other is higher in the hierarchy, and higher level

includes the lower, still each level is independent because it has its own rules of

operation. We can represent these levels (only morphological level is being

explained here) in the following manner:

 WORD

ORTHOGRAPHIC LEVEL : The combination of letters

PHONOLOGY : Combination of sounds

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY : If we put word into different slots according

to their function/structure, this category is

called Grammatical Category.

WORD can be studied with the help of two criteria:

  MORPHOLOGICAL

 SYNTACTIC

MORPHOLOGICAL CRITERIA:

Morphological Criteria deals with Morphology (shape of words).

SYNTACTIC CRITERIA:

Syntactic Criteria deals with how Parts of Speech behave

differently or how different words function in a sentence.

Graphical view of Categories of Word is given below.

CATEGORIES OF WORD

MORPHOLOGICAL CRITERIA SYNTACTIC CRITERIA

INFLECTION SUBSTITUTION

DERIVATION DISTRIBUTION
INFLECTIONAL:

This property relates to different forms of the same word (e.g. the plural

form of a noun like fan is formed by adding the plural inflectional –s to

give the form fans). OR

Inflectional Morphology studies the ways in which words vary (inflict) in

order to express grammatical contrasts in sentences. Boy & Boys (Boy +

s) for example are the two same forms of the same word. If they are

nouns, it will be Noun-Inflection. If it is past tense of a verb, e.g. Attack &

Attacked (Attack + ed), it is Verb-Inflection and If it is comparative or

possessive degree, it is called Adjective/Adverb-Inflection, e.g. Large &

Larger & Largest (Large + er, +est)

DERIVATIONAL:

This property relates to the process by which a word can be used to form a

different kind of word by the addition of an affix of some kind (e.g. by

adding the suffix –ness to the adjective sad we can form the noun

sadness). OR

Derivational Morphology studies the principles governing the construction

of new words. It involves PREFIXATION (re + turn), SUFFIXATION

(wicked + ness), AFFIXATION (un + speak + able). Affixation is found

in Combodian, Sudanese and Sanskirt.

 INFLECTIONAL PROPERTIES OF NOUN AND VERB

Noun Inflectional Problems:

There are several complications which should be pointed out.

I. The existence of irregular nouns like sheep, fish which are invariable and hence

have a common singular/plural form (one sheep/fish, two sheep/fish).

II. Some nouns intrinsically singular (and so have no plural form) by virtue of their

meaning: only those nouns which denote entities which can be counted have a

plural form (one chair, two chairs) and called count nouns. Some denote an

uncountable mass and are called mass nouns/non-count noun and cannot be

pluralized but noun like furniture has ungrammaticality when it gets

modification as one furniture/two furnitures.

III. Some nouns like scissors, tongs, spectacles, goggles, trousers, socks, shoes,

gloves have plural forms but no countable singular form.

IV. Forth complication deals with more than one noun (i.e. compound noun). In this

process, only head noun is pluralized not modifier. (e.g. car door, car doors)

Modifier is the noun which is pluralized in more than one noun and head noun is that which is

pluralized. In the above example doors is head noun and car is modifier.

Verb Inflectional Problems:

Regarding verb, there are several complications. Some verbs have

two and some have three forms and so on. Inflections in verb are

given below:

I. Sometimes verbs are pronounced differently.

 II. Some have regular form like play and have same perfect and past form played,

plays is present form and playing is progressive form. Here we find that Play

has four forms.

III. Verbs like do, go, show are irregular verbs and have did, went, showed past

form, done, gone, shown perfect form, does, goes, shows present form and

doing, going, showing progressive form. These verbs have five forms.

IV. Verb Cut has only three forms cut base, perfect forms, cuts present and cutting

progressive form.

V. If we come to verb be, it is shocking to see that it has eight forms including base

form (is, am, are = present was, were = past, been = perfect and being =

progressive).

These are the limitations of inflections in verb. We cannot study word categories by

depending wholly upon inflections properties because we need to study other criteria to

assign categories to a word that is called Derivational Criteria.

DERIVATIONAL PROPERTIES

Derivational Properties deal with governing a new word—Derivatives.

Some aspects are given below.

 Negative Affixation

 Adverbialization

 Nominalization

 Forming Degrees

NEGATIVE AFFIXATION:

Prefix un is attached to noun/adjective/present participles to form negative.

e.g. Happy/Unhappy, Accurate/Inaccurate, favorable/unfavorable,

interesting/Uninteresting, assuming/unassuming

Prefix in is attached to adjectives to form negative.

e.g. Complete/Incomplete, Flexible/Inflexible, Active/Inactive, Sane/Insane

Limitations of usage of negative prefixes in/un:

 Negative Prefixes can’t be attached to a noun or base form of verb.

e.g. Fear/Infear,Unfear  work/Unwork, Inwork 

 Negative Prefixes can’t be attached to a Preposition.

e.g. Inside/Uniside  about/Inabout 

ADVERBIALIZATION:

Adverbs are formed by adding –ly to adjectives but not with all.

e.g. Sad/Sadly, High/Highly, Active/Actively, Warm/Warmly

Limitations of Adverbialization:

 Converting adjectives into adverbs we have seen that –ly is attached to

them but -ly cannot be attached to a noun to form any adverb.

e.g. book/bookly,  chair/charily 

 -ly can’t be added to any preposition to form adverb.

e.g. down/downly  with/withly 

NOMIALIZATION:

Sometimes, suffixes are added to words which change their word-class but not in

all cases. If we add –ness to any adjective, it forms an abstract noun.

e.g. Happy/Happiness, Frank/Frankness, Coarse/Coarseness

Limitations of Nominalization:

 -ness can’t be added to noun/preposition.

e.g. boy/boyness  down/downess 

FORMING DEGREES:

Normally degrees are formed by adding suffix –er and -est to the acute or

positive degrees of adjective and some adverbs.

e.g. high/higher/highest, big/bigger/biggest. Able/abler/ablest

Sometimes, degrees of adverbs are also formed by adding suffix –er and

-est to the acute or positive degrees of some adverbs.

e.g. soon/sooner (not soonest), early/earlier/earliest

Limitations of Forming Degrees:

 -er/-est can’t be attached to any preposition

e.g. down/downer/downest  to/toer/toest 

LIMITATIONS OF MORPHOLOGICAL CRITERIA

We can’t rely on Morphological Criteria because there are always some limitations as

one of them is mentioned under.

 It is sometimes irregular and sometimes it is not applicable to all the

elements of a particular class of word.

e.g. Although adverbs like quickly, slowly, painfully etc generally end in derivational

suffix –ly but this is not true of irregular adverbs like fast.

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