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Ling 110, Section 1 (Morphology)

February 10, 2006.

Homework #1: 2.12 (p.50), 2.19 A-C (p.64), 2.21 cut down to 5 compounds, see the box
below (p.69), 2.27 (p.86) and 2.29 (p.88).

Due: Monday at 9 am into HW-dropbox on the course website.

Homework Hints:

2.12: Lakhota. More on reduplication below. Note that question (c) is about the two
sentences in question (b).

2.19: Tagalog Reduplication. For this problem, keep in mind that both basic and
intensive verbs may contain some affixes. Read pp.57-60 and also try Exercise 1 below for
a hint on what some of those might mean. More on reduplication on this handout.

2.21: English N-N-N Compounds. Please consider only the following 5 compounds:
baby buggy bumper
hair care product
metal filing cabinet
mother seagull
rubber ducky lover

2.27: Chickasaw Verb Segmentation. More on metathesis below.

2.29: Egyptian Arabic Verbs. More on discontinuous morphemes below.

Note that question (d) asks you to give the form for each of the following six verbs: ‘study’,
‘do’, ‘copy’, ‘live in’, ‘carve’, and ‘sew’.

I. Morpheme Segmentation

Exercise 1: In Tagalog, a verb may occur in three different forms, depending on which
sentence role (actor, object, or directional) is focused or emphasized.

Given the following paradigm, identify morphemes that indicate AF (actor-focus), OF

(object-focus), DF (directional-focus), respectively.

root meaning actor-focus bject-focus directional-focus

bintang ‘accuse of’ magbintang ibintang pagbintangan
batay ‘base on’ magbatay ibatay pagbatayan
hiram ‘borrow from’ humiram hiramin hiraman
?awit ‘sing to’ ?umawit ?awitin ?awitan

Cf.) [?] is a consonant called a glottal stop as occurring in ‘oh-oh!’

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II. Reduplication (see also 2.6.3. on pp.61-64):

II.1. Complete reduplication: the whole of the affected word or morpheme is copied.

II.1.1. Japanese (mimetic)

a) pota-pota ‘dripping’
b) hena-hena ‘weak’
c) pitya-pitya ‘splashing’

II.1.2. Plural Marking in Indonesian

sg. pl.
a) buku 'book' buku-buku 'books'
b) anak 'child' anak-anak 'children'
c) pulau 'island' pulau-pulau 'islands'

II.2. Partial reduplication: only part of an affected word or morpheme is copied.

II.2.1. Inseño Chumash:

- Basic Paradigm

(1) s-telmemen (4) no-k-c’imutelew

3-touch fut-1-bite
‘He touches it’ ‘I will bite it’

(2) no-k-telmemen (5) no-k-iy-xiliwayan

fut-1-touch fut-1-pl-float
‘I will touch it’ ‘We will float’

(3) no-s-iy-telmemen
fut-3-pl-touch
‘They will touch it’

- Reduplication of the first CVC of the root yields distributed-in-space reading:

(4) nosiyteltelmemen ‘They will grope around for it” (root telmemen ‘to touch’)
(5) kteltelmement ‘I grope around it’

Exercise 2: what are the root and the reduplicated portion in the two examples below?

a) sc’imc’imutelew ‘he nibbles it’

b) nokxilxilwayan ‘I will float around’
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II.2.2. Ancient Greek: reduplication with pre-specified vowel /e/:

a) ly:o: ‘I release’ le-lyka ‘I have released’

b) grapho: ‘I write’ ge-grapha ‘I have written’

II.2.3. Samoan: reduplicated portion is introduced within the morpheme (i.e. as an infix).

a) alofa ‘love (sg.)’ a-lo-lofa (pl.)

Discussion: Can you think of examples of either full or partial reduplication in languages you
are familiar with?

III. Metathesis.

III.1. Definition: “Metathesis is the phenomenon whereby two sounds that appear in a
particular order in one form of a word occur in the reverse order in a related form of the
word”1.

III.2. Example of sporadic metathesis : Some dialects of American English: aks ‘ask’

III.3. Examples of more regular metathesis: Old English to modern English bridd > bird,
frist > first, thridde > third, but crisp > crisp, bricg > bridge, etc.

III.4. Examples of grammaticalized metathesis: Saanich (Salishan language):

Non-actual (≈ perfective) Actual (≈ imperfective)

(a) se se-? ‘send’
wéqəs wé-?-qəs ‘yawn’

(b) t’sə t’əs ‘break something’

q’k’wə q’ək’w ‘straighten something’
sc’ə səc’ ‘whip something’

Exercise 3: how are the actual forms of verbs derived in (a)? What about (b)?

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http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~ehume/metathesis/
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IV. Discontinuous Morphemes in Egyptian Arabic (see also sidebar 2.12 on p.80)

Perfective katab ‘he wrote’ daras ‘he studied’

Imperfective baktib ‘I write’ badris ‘I study’
Imperative iktib ‘write!’ idris ‘study!’
Active Partic. kaatib ‘writer’ daaris ‘studier’
Passive Partic. maktuub ‘written’ madruus ‘studied’

Exercise 4: Can you find what the root for each verb is (hint: look for recurrent elements)?
What about the rest of the morphemes (represent the discontinuities with _ )?

Roots:
Perfective:
Imperfective:
Imperative:
Active Participle:
Passive Participle: