HS Morphology Winter Term 20052006 Morphology Processes of

HS: Morphology Winter Term 2005/2006 Morphology: Processes of Word Formation Session 8 20 December 2005 Reference: Bauer, Laurie. “The Morphological Structure of Words”. Introducing Linguistic Morphology. Edinburgh: EUP, 1988: pp. 19 – 42 Illustration: Fromkin, Victoria, and Robert Rodman. An Introduction to Language. 4 th ed. Forth Worth, Chicago, San Franciso, et. al. : Holt, Robert and Winston, Inc. : 1988: pp. 122 -154 Presenters: Denise Brilla & Carsten Litterscheidt

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Your contribution to our moderation: Please refresh your memory of the following passages: Group 1: circumfixes p. 22 f. , 3. 1. 3 Group 2: infixes p. 23, 3. 1. 4 Group 3: interfixes p. 23 f. , 3. 1. 5 Group 4: transfixes p. 24 f. , 3. 1. 6 Group 5: base modification: segmental changes p. 26 ff. , 3. 3 (21) – (24) incl. of text Group 6: base modification: suprasegmental chg. p. 29 f. , 3. 3 (27) – (28) incl. of text Group 7: subtractive morph p. 32, 3. 5 – “…process. ” Group 8: endo- vs. exocentric compounding p. 33, 3. 6 – p. 36 “…much rice. ” Group 9: dvanda compounds p. 36, “Many lges” – “prim. compounds. ” Group 10: incorporation p. 36, “These are…” – p. 38 (46) incl. Group 11: neo-classical compounds p. 38, “Compounds…” – end of page Group 12: unique morphs p. 40, 3. 8 Your Task: Please summarize briefly (!) the main ideas stated in your passage, and choose one good example to illustrate each phenomenon. Choose one spokesperson to present your findings. HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Affixation HS: Morphology Processes of Word Formation … sometimes not as easy as it seems 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Affixation • Circumfix • consists of a prefix and a suffix acting together to surround a base Examples: German past participles of weak verbs - film-en ge-film-t ‘to film’ - frag-en ‘filmed’ ge-frag-t ‘to ask’ - lob-en ‘asked’ ge-lob-t ‘to praise’ - zeig-en ‘praised’ ge-zeig-t ‘to show’ ‘shown’ if considered a single affix, ge…t = discontinuous morph (very rare) HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Affixation • Infix • morph inserted into the base • used derivationally vŏh OR inflectionally v-an-ŏh ‘know’ sulat ‘wise’ ‘write’ (from Chrau, Vietnam) s-um-ulat ‘wrote’ (from Tagalog, Phillippines) creation of discontinuous base (very rare) • In the same word-form, infixes can co-occur with prefixes and suffixes Example: sulat ‘write’ base s-um-ulat ‘wrote’ infixation s-in-ulat ‘was written’ infixation further preterite passives: HS: Morphology i-s-in-ulat second passive theme infix. + prefixation s-in-ulat-an third passive theme infix. + suffixation 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Affixation • Infix: speciality ‘Interfix’ • empty morph (i. e. it does not carry morphemic meaning) which occurs only between two other forms Examples: German compounding Auge + Arzt Auge-n-arzt ‘eye doctor’ Bauer + Frau Bauer-s-frau ‘farmer’s wife’ Strauss + Ei Strauss-en-ei ‘ostrich egg’ Geburt + Jahr Geburt-s-jahr ‘birth year’ English neo-classical compounding electr-o-lyte HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Affixation • Infix: speciality ‘Transfix’ • affix which occurs throughout the base • only appears in the Semitic languages: - roots are created by a concatenation of consonants, they never occur in isolation - transfixes, which always consist of vowels, are then added to the root - each transfix occurs in a fixed position in the root Example: Egyptian Arabic ktb (‘to write’) ΄katab ‘he wrote’ ΄jiktib ‘he will write’ mak΄tuub ‘written’ mak΄taba ‘bookshops’ ma΄kaatib ‘bookshops’ ki΄taab ‘book’ ΄kaatib ‘clerk’ transfixation involves two sets of discontinuous morphs thus, transfixes are the most complex type of affix HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Internal base modifications • involve phonological changes to the base • are either segmental OR suprasegmental a) segmental modifications b) Consonantal Change: c) N V change: mou/ / d) e) Voicing thie/f/ thie/v/ sing. pl. change: mouth/ / mou/ /s f) hou/s/ hou/z/es g) shel/f/ shel/v/s h) Vowel Mutation i) Umlaut = assimilation to a following vowel, e. g. f/ /t f/i/t j) Ablaut = any other instance of vowel mutation, e. g. s/ /ng k) s/a/ng mostly found in Germanic languages HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Internal base modifications • involve phonological changes to the base • are either segmental OR suprasegmental b) suprasegmental modifications (through superfixes) c) Change of stress pattern d) N V change: ΄discount dis΄count e) ΄import im΄port f) ΄insult in΄sult g) also called ‘replacive morphs’ = the replacement of one phonological sequence by another h) similarly: m/ /se m/ /ce 1. controversy: this would redefine the notion of ‘morph’ to include – in addition to form – the notion of process ( replacing a morph) 2. other scholars refer to such processes as infixation 3. term ‘replacive morph’ predominates HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Subtractive Morphs • = morphs which are removed by a morphological process • In French: subtract the final consonant of the feminine form masculine form • Example: mauvaise (f) mauvaix (m) verte (f) HS: Morphology vert (m) 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Compounding I a Endocentric compounds • denote a sub-class of the items denoted by one of their elements hyponym of main/head element Example: sea-bird HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Compounding I b Exocentric compounds • denote something which is not a sub-class of either of the elements in the compounds Example: egg-head sometimes called ‘bahuvrihi compounds’ HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Compounding II ‘Dvanda’ / copulative compounds • denote an entity made up of the two or more elements mentioned in the compound together Example: bleu – blanc – rouge I+II = root compounds / primary compounds HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Compounding III Synthetic (or verbal [nexus]) compounds • head element contains a verb Example: dish washer Incorporation • = a compound created in this way is itself a verb • noun in the modifying element has same semantic function as direct object of verb involved • frequently denote an activity Example: HS: Morphology Maori ‘hoko rare’ (= lolly-buy) 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Compounding III Neo-classical compounds • two lexemes involved in their maku up are not English lexemes Greek, Latin Example: HS: Morphology biology, geometry 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Unique morphs • = only occur in one fixed expression • bound to a particular collocation • no own meaning, but make something a subclass Example: cranberry often called ‘cranberry morphs’ HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Conclusion Bauer: There is a hierarchy of word formation processes. Compounding [norm] Affixation Suffixation other affixation processes Other word formation processes HS: Morphology 0 [deviation from norm] Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Summary of previously known processes of word formation HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Affixation • Suffix • the commonest bound morpheme in all languages • used derivationally OR inflectionally constitut-ion-ality talo-i-ssa-an ‘house-pl-in-3 rd person possessive’ from Finnish: ‘in their houses’ • When derivational and inflectional suffixes co-occur in the same wordform, the general rule is that the derivational suffixes precede the inflectional ones. Example: égal-is-a ‘equal (V, deriv. )-3 rd person sing-past (infl. )’ from French: ‘he/she/it equalised’ HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Affixation • Suffix ctd. How to mistake plural suffixation via analogy… HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Affixation • Prefix • rarer than suffixes • used derivationally OR inflectionally dis-en-tangle a-si-nga-li-jua ‘he-negative-concessive-past-know’ from Swahili: ‘if he had not known’ • When derivational and inflectional prefixes co-occur in the same wordform, the general rule is that the inflectional prefix precedes the derivational prefix. Example: jih ji-mi-langu ‘he 3 rd person (younger) (infl. )-intransitive (deriv. )-swim’ from Achenese (Sumatra): ‘he swims’ (intransitive use) • In the same word-form, prexifes and suffixes can occur in all possible combinations. HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Reduplication • using some part of (or the whole) base more than once in a word • far more common in the languages of the world than any affixation process • base reduplication resembles compounding Example: Afrikaans dik-dik ‘thick’ ‘very thick’ • can also form types of affixes Examples: Motu, Papua New Guinea mero me-mero redupl. : ‘boy’ ‘boys’ prefix mero ‘little boy’ whole word memero ‘little boys’ both Maori, New Zealand indigenous language aahua-hua ‘appearance’ ‘resemble’ suffix • often used iconically, i. e. the form of the word reflects its meaning often used to indicate plurality, intensity, and repetition • usually determined phonologically: a reduplication rule states how much of the base is to be reduplicated in terms of consonants, vowels, syllables, and word-forms HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Relationship with no change of form • Zero morphs o account for the difference in function between homophonous forms such as sgl-pl / N-V / N-Adj / Adj-V / … Examples: sheep – sheep / download – to download / a round – round / emtpy – to empty / … o processes: conversion, zero-derivation, functional shift HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Cases involving shortening the base • Backformation = derivational process o case where the element subtracted is / looks like a morpheme with independent existence elsewhere in the language Examples: pointer, retriever, warbler point, retrieve, warble o in retrospect, backformation is invisible. Only noticeable when backformation word unfamiliar • Clipping = shortening a word without changing its meaning or part of speech, only stylistic change Examples: deli(catessen), sci(ence) fi(ction) HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Alphabet-based formation • Blends = portmanteau word o two meanings packed up into one word o overlap no information is lost Example: glass + asphalt glasphalt • Acronyms = coined from initial letters of the words in a name, title or phrase pronounced as a new word Examples: NATO, AIDS HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06

English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation Suppletion • roots so completely different • derived from different words cannot be derived by general rules Examples: good – better, go – went HS: Morphology 0 Winter Term 05/06