Lecture 5 Morphology Morphology and lexicon Morphology is

Lecture 5 Morphology 形态学

Morphology and lexicon • Morphology is a branch of linguistics, which studies the formation of words. • Lexicon is synonymous with “vocabulary”. It is not a branch of linguistics, but a component of language. It refers to the collection of words in a language, including idioms and collocations.

5. 1 What is word? • 5. 1. 1 Three senses of “word” • 5. 1. 2 Identification of words • 5. 1. 3 Classification of words

Three senses of “word” • • • 1. word as a physically definable unit 2. word as the common factor underlying a set of forms 3. word as a grammatical unit

Word as a physically definable unit • a cluster of letters separated by blanks from others in writing • a cluster of sounds separated by pauses from others in speaking

Fallacies of the definition • First, physically separated units are not necessarily words. For example, 蟋 蟀 葡 萄 , waiting-room, baby-stroller • Second, since there is the phenomenon of liaison ( 连 读 ), the phonologically separations are not necessarily the same as orthographic separations. For example, at all [ t l] • Third, in English orthographic, there is the phenomenon of contracted form. For example, it is vs. it’s.

Word as a general term • boy, boys • check, checks, checked, checking • fat, fatter, fattest

Lexeme 词素 • Lexeme refers to word in the general sense, that is, the abstract unit underlying the smallest unit in the lexical system of a language. Thus, “boy” is the lexeme underlying the two words “boy” and “boys”, and “check” is the lexeme underlying the words “check, checks, checked and checking. ”

Word as a grammatical unit • The grammar of a language contains a set of layers, and word is one of them, as displayed in the following figure. • • • Each of these is called a RANK; and all the ranks constitute a hierarchical scale.

5. 1. 2 Identification of words • • • Stability 稳定性 Uninterruptibility 不可中断性 A minimum free form 最小自由形式

Stability 稳定性 • Stability means that the internal structure of a word is stable. Its constituents cannot be rearranged. • word vs. *dorw • chairperson vs. *personchair • Jim laughed at John. • John laughed at Jim.

Uninterruptibility • By saying the constituents of a word cannot be interrupted, we mean you cannot insert other elements into a word, although there may be several parts of it. For example, disappointment is composed of dis + appoint + ment, but we cannot insert any letter between the different parts. • However, this feature of word is only a relative notion, and there are words that can be interrupted. For example, passerby – passersby; son-in-law – sons-in-low.

A minimum free form 最 小自由形式 • This notion was first proposed by Leonard Bloomfield (1887 -1949). According to Bloomfield, a word is the smallest unit that can be used on its own to make a complete utterance. He calls it “the minimum free form” and he advocates treating sentences as “the maximum free form”.

• -- Who is knocking at the door? • -- Me. • I could describe your proposal in just two words: im possible. • -- Samuel Goldwyn

5. 1. 3 Classification of words • • Variable and invariable words 可变类 与不变类 grammatical words and lexical words 语法词与词汇词 Closed-class words and open-class words 封闭类和开放类 Word classes 词类

Variable and invariable words 可变类与不变类 • Before we talk about variable and invariable words, we first have to introduce two terms: inflection (屈折变化) and inflective endings (屈折 结 尾 ). Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships by adding affixes. For example, English is an inflectional language. We have the affix –s/-es to indicate third person singular, -ing to indicate a progressive aspect, etc. The suffix that is added to a word to indicate some grammatical function is then called inflective ending.

• The distinction between variable and invariable words depends on whether a word has inflective forms. Those having inflective forms are variable words, those that have not are invariable.

• nouns – number: worker, workers; • case, cases • verbs – tense, number: work/works/worked/working • adjectives – degree: fat, fatter, fattest • adverbs – degree: much, more, most; well, better, best • pronoun – case: you, yours • Invariable words include mostly conjunctions and prepositions like through, by, up, etc.

grammatical words and lexical words语法词与词 汇词 • Words expressing grammatical meanings mainly work for constructing group, phrase, clause complex, or even text. They are termed grammatical words, such as, conjunctions, prepositions, articles, and pronouns. And words which have mainly work for referring to substance, action and quality, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, are lexical words. Lexical words are also known as CONTENT WORDS (实 义 词 ) and grammatical ones as FUNCTION WORDS (功能词）.

Closed-class words and open -class words 封闭类和开 放类 • According to whether the membership is limited, words can be classified as closedclass words and open-class words. • Closed-class words: pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles • Open-class words: nouns, verbs, adjectives and many adverbs

Word classes 词类 • Two major defects of “part of speech” • 1) There is ambiguity when meaning and function are concerned. • 2) About 8 or 9 parts of speech are established in traditional grammar, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, articles, etc. But there may be actually more part of speech than 8 or 9 in a language.

Particles 小品词 • This class includes • the infinitive marker “to”: going to do the negative particle “not” : I do not speak Italian. • verbal particles like get on, do up, break down, pass by

Auxiliaries 助词 • NEGATION I can't come. *I wantn't come. INVERSION Is he coming? *Keeps he coming? CODE I'll come and so will Bill. *I intend to come and so intend Bill. EMPHASIS He has come. *He seems to come.

Pro-forms 替代形式 • Pro-adjective Your pen is red. So is mine. • Pro-verb He knows English better than he did. • Pro-adverb He hopes he'll win and I hope so too. • Pro-locative Jame's hiding there, behind the door.

Determiners 限定词 • Determiners refer to all the articles (a/an/the), demonstratives (this/that/these/those, etc. ) and quantifiers (some/many/most/all) that appear before the noun and its modifiers. As many as three determiners may be used in each case and there is a fixed orders when there is more than one determiner. According to Quirk, et al. (1985: 253), there are three sub-classes of DETERMINERS: pre-determiners (前 限 定 词 ), central determiners (中 限 定 词 ), and postdeterminers (后限定词). •

• Determiner: all the articles, demonstratives, and quantifiers that appear before the noun and its modifiers. – As many as three determiners may be used in each case and there is a fixed order when there is more than one.

• Predeterminers: all, both; half, one-third, three-quarters …; double, twice, three times …; such, what (exclamative) • Central determiners: the; this, these, that, those; Poss Pron. ; we, us; you; which, what (relative), what (interrogative); a, another, some, any, no, either, neither; each, enough, much, more, most, less; a few, a little • Postdeterminers: every; many, several, few, little; one, two, three …; (a) dozen

• • *their all trouble *five the all boys *all this boy *all both girls

5. 2 The formation of word • • 5. 2. 1 Morpheme 词素 5. 2. 2 Types of morphemes 5. 2. 3 Inflection and word formation 5. 2. 4 The counterpoint of phonology and morphology

5. 2. 1 Morpheme 词素 • The immediate concern of morphology is morpheme. This is the smallest meaningful unit in a language. It is an even smaller unit than word, which cannot be further divided without destroying or changing the meaning. For example, in boys, there are two morphemes, boy and –s.

5. 2. 2 Types of morphemes • 1) Free morpheme and bound morpheme 自由词素和粘着词素 • 2) Root, affix and stem 词根，词缀和 词干 • 3) Inflectional and derivational morpheme 屈折词素与衍生词素

1) Free morpheme and bound morpheme – Free morphemes: those that may constitute words by themselves, e. g. boy, girl, table, nation. – Bound morphemes: those that cannot occur alone, e. g. -s, -ed, dis-, un-. – compounds: poly-morphemic words consisting wholly of free morphemes, e. g. , blackboard, pancake.

Root, affix and stem 词根， 词缀和词干 Root: the base form of a word that cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity, eg friend as in unfriendliness. Roots may be free: those that can stand by themselves, eg black+board; nation+-al; or bound: those that cannot stand by themselves, eg -ceive in receive, perceive, conceive.

• Affix: the type of formative that can be used only when added to another morpheme. Normally divided into – prefix impossible, disbelief, unnecessary – suffix teacher, reasonable, strengthen – infix geese, teeth

• Stem: a morpheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix may be added, eg friend+-s; write+-ing, possibility+-es. • Inflection: grammatical endings, eg plural, tense, comparative, etc. • Derivation: combination of a base and an affix to form a new word, eg friend+-ly > friendly.

Inflectional and derivational morpheme 屈折词素与衍生词 素 • This distinction is also referred to as inflectional and derivational affixes, as it doesn’t apply to root. It applies to affixes only. • Inflectional affixes are added to add a delicate grammatical meaning to the stem. It doesn’t change the meaning or word class, but produces different forms of a single word. In contrast, derivational affixes are added to change the lexical meaning and in many cases, they also change the word class of the stem.

• • • Inflectional affix: works, worked, working, workers Derivational affix: teacher, reasonable, impossible In English, inflectional affixes are always suffixes, but derivational affixes can be either prefixes or suffixes.

5. 2. 3 Inflection and word formation • 1) Inflection • 2）Word formation

Inflection • Inflection is sometimes used to refer to inflectional morphology. It is concerned with different forms of a word as showing different grammatical relations, such as plural, past tense or case.

• (a) Number: table/tables apple/apples car/cars (b) person, finiteness and aspect: talk/talks/talking/talked open/opens/opening/opened shout/shouts/shouting/shouted (c) case: boy/boy's John/John's university/university's

Word formation • In the narrow sense, word formation refers to the formation of new words. It can be further divided into the compositional type (合成词) and the derivational type (派生词).

Compounds • • • • Compound is the easiest way to form words. In this wordformation process, we use two existing words to form a new word. N+N, V+V sleepwalk, makebelieve adj + adj icycold, red-hot adv + adv moreover, indeed prep + prep into, through conj + conj whereas, whenever pron + pron myself, you-all num + num two-thirds N + V sunrise, daybreak V + N playboy, pickpocket, killjoy adj + N greenhouse, hotdog, headstrong V + prep handout, sit-in adv + N downfall prep + N update, afterlife

• We distinguish between two kinds of compounds, endocentric compounds and exocentric compounds. Endocentric compounds (内向合成词) refers to those compounds in which one constituent is the centre and the other is the modifier. The center, also called the head, is usually derived from a verb and the modifier is a participant in the verbal process.

• • • Nouns self-control pain-killer core meaning foot-warmer Adjectives eye-entertaining bullet-resistant virus-sensitive sun-tanned

• In exocentric compounds (外向合成词), there is no focal element and the whole refers to something else rather than what either of the constituent denotes. • Nouns Adjectives • scarecrow 稻草人 takehome 实得的 • playboy 花花公子 lackluster 平凡的 • cutthroat 凶手 breakneck 非常危险的 • get-together 聚会 come-hither 诱惑的 • breakthrough 突破 walk-in 未经预约的

• Written forms of compounds – Solid: blackboard, teapot, bodyguard – Hyphenated: wedding-ring, wave-length – Open: coffee table, washing machine • Free variation: – businessman, business-man, business man – winebottle, wine-bottle, wine bottle – no one, no-one, noone

Derivation • Derivation refers to the word formation process of adding a morpheme to an existing word. Derivations can make the word class of the original word wither changed or unchanged. • Unchanged word class Changed word-class • non-smoker hospitalize • booklet delightful • disobey worker • undo lengthen • illogical exactly

• Generally speaking, prefixes like bi-, dis-, ex-, il-, im-, in-, a-, etc. don’t usually change the word class of the existing word, with exceptions like a-sleep, belittle, en-able, etc. • In contrast, suffixes like –able, -al, -dom, ee, -er, -ish, etc. usually change the word class of the original word.

• Usually on inflectional affix can be added to an existing word at one time, but a word can take different derivational affixes, and it may also take prefixes and suffixes at the same time. • de-nation-al-iza-tion

5. 3 Lexical change • • • 5. 3. 1 Lexical change proper 5. 3. 2 Phonological change 5. 3. 3 Morphological change 5. 3. 4 Syntactical change 5. 3. 5 Semantic change 5. 3. 6 Orthographic change

Lexical change proper • 1) Invention / Coinage 新创词语 • This refers to the creation of entirely new words, usually from brand name of products. For example, Kodak, Xerox, nylon, diesel, etc.

2) Blending 混合词 • • • initial + final transfer + resister → smoke + fog motor + hotel breakfast + lunch television + broadcast dance + exercise advertisement + editorial education + entertainment information + commercial transistor smog motel brunch telecast dancercise advertorial edutainment infomercial

• • • initial + initial teleprinter + exchange modulator + demodulator digital + computer Fusion crackup + breakdown stamp + trample → telex modem digicom → crackdown strample

3) Abbreviation / clipping 缩略词 • • Back-clippings: ad(vertisement), chimp(anzee), exam(inaiton), hippo(potamus), lab(oratory), • • Fore-clippings (ham)burger, (omni)bus, (tele)phone, (heli)copter, (alli)gator, (earth)quake • • Fore-and-aft clippings Influenza → flu, refrigerator → fridge

Acronym 缩合词/首字母组 合词 • Rador ← radio detecting and ranging • BASIC ← Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code • AIDS ← Acquired immune deficiency syndrome • dink ← double income no kid • CD-ROM ← compact disc read-only memory

• • Initialism AI: artificial intelligence a. s. a. p. : as soon as possible HIV: human immunodeficiency virus PC: personal computer PS: postscript RSVP: repondez s’il vous plait (please reply)

Back formation (逆向构词法） • BACK-FORMATION refers to an unusual type of wordformation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imagined affix from a longer form already in the language. • diagnose < diagnosis enthuse < enthusiasm laze < lazy liaise < liaison, reminisce < reminiscence statistic < statistics televise < television

• 1) burgle, commentate, edit, peddle, scavenge, sculpt, swindle • 2) air-condition, babysit, brainstorm, brainwash, browbeat, dry-clean, househunt, housekeep, sightsee, tape-record • 3) articulate, assassinate, coeducate, demarcate, emote, intuit, legislate, marinate, orate, vaccinate, valuate

6) Analogical creation 类 推 • The principle of ANALOGICAL CREATION can account for the co-existence of two forms, regular and irregular, in the combination of some English verbs. • old new work wrought worked learnt learned lighted

7) Borrowing 借用 • Borrowing can be done directly or indirectly. For instance, the word feast was borrowed directly from the Middle French festa, and the word algebra was borrowed indirectly from Arabic through Spanish. Many English words of Greek origin are borrowed via Latin or French.

• French: administration, parliament, public, court, crime, judge, army, enemy, officer, peace, soldier, war, faith, religion, coat, costume, dress, fashion, jewel, dinner, feast, fry, roast, supper, toast, customer, money, price, art, college, music, poet, prose, story, study

• Latin: admit, client, conviction, discuss, equal, index, library, medicine, minor • Greek: catastrophe, cosmos, criterion, idiosyncrasy • Spanish and Portuguese: banana, barbecue, cafeteria, cargo, chocolate, cigar, cocaine, cockroach, cocoa, guitar, mosquito, negro, potato, tank, tobacco, tomato, vanilla

• Italian: aria, bandit, broccoli, casino, concerto, duet, finale, influenza, mafia, malaria, paparazzi (singular paparazzo), piano, pizza, solo, soprano, spaghetti, studio, umbrella, volcano • Dutch: boss, brandy, cookie, cruise, deck, dollar, freight, gin, kit, knapsack, landscape, luck, sketch, slim, smuggle, snap, trek, yacht

• Arabic: admiral, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, alkali, almanac, assassin, candy, hazard, lemon, magazine, safari, sofa, zero • Indian: bungalow, cashmere, curry, ginger, jungle, mango, polo, pyjamas (or pajamas), shampoo, swastika, thug, yoga • Chinese: chop suey, chow mein, ginseng, gung-ho, ketchup (or catchup or catsup), kung fu, tea, tofu (via Japanese), typhoon

Loanword 借词 • The borrowing of LOANWORDS is a process in which both form and meaning are borrowed with only a slight change, in some cases, to the phonological system of the new language that they enter. For example, “encore” and “au pair” from French, “sputnik” from Russian, etc.

Loanblend 混合借词 • LOANBLENDING is a process in which part of the form is native and the rest has been borrowed, but the meaning is fully borrowed. This is more typical with words in which the root is borrowed while the native affix is added. For example, troublesome, colourless, uncertain, etc.

Loanshift 转移借词 • LOANSHIFT is a process in which the meaning is borrowed, but the form is native. Bridge is an English word, but when it refers to a type of card game, the meaning was borrowed from the Italian ponte. The English word artificial satellite is also a case of loanshit from the Russian sputnik. All the borrowings in Chinese are loanshifts.

Loan translation 翻译借词 • • This is a special type of borrowing, in which each morpheme or word is translated in the equivalent morpheme or word in another language. For instance, the English word almighty is a literal translation from the Latin omnipotens, superman is a literal translation from the German Ubermensch. This is also called CALQUE (仿译词), which may be a word, a phrase, or even a short sentence. free verse < L verse libre black humor < Fr humour noir found object < Fr objet trouvé

5. 3. 2 Phonological change • Phonological change refers to changes in sound leading to changes in form. • mus /muːs/ → mouse /maʊs/ hus /huːs/ house /haʊs/ ut /uːt/ out /aʊt/ sup /suːp/ south /saʊθ/

• Loss of sound 脱落 holh /holx/ → hollow /ˡhɒləʊ/ sorh /sorx/ → sorrow /ˡsɒrə ʊ/ niht /nixt/ → night /na t/ draugath /druxt/ → drought /dra t/

• Sounds loss may also occur in utterances at the expense of some unstressed vowels. • temperature/ˡtempərətʃə/ →/ˡtemprətʃə/ laboratory /ləˡbɒrətri/ /læˡbrətɔri/ cabinet /ˡkæbənit/ /ˡkæbinit/ postscript /ˡpəʊstskript/ /ˡpəʊsskript/

• The pen ‘n pencil 'n the drawer are better ‘n typewriter to copy 'n easy thing like this.

• Addition of sound 添加 • Sounds may also be added to the original sound sequence. This is usually the result of borrowing. • Latin → O. F. → Spanish → Portugese studium estudie estudio estudo

• Metathesis 换位 • METATHESIS is a process involving a change in the sequence of sounds. Metathesis had been originally a performance error, which was overlooked and accepted by the speech community. • Spoonerism” (首字母换位) the queer old Dean → the dear old Queen Is the bean dizzy? → Is the dean busy?

• Assimilation 同化 • ASSIMILATION refers to the change of a sound by the influence of an adjacent sound, which is more specifically called “contact” or “contiguous” assimilation. The assimilation processes at work could be explained by the “theory of least effort”; that is, in speaking we tend to use as little effort as possible so that we do not want to vary too often the places of articulation in uttering a sequence of sounds. • Assimilation takes place in quick speech very often. For instance, in expressions such as immobile, irrevocable, impolite, illegal, the negative prefixes im-, il-, or ir- should be inetymologically.

5. 3. 3 Morphological change • do(e)th > does, goeth > goes, hath > has, findeth > finds, hopeth > hopes • do(e)st > do， playest > play， hearest > hear， speakest > speak • the campus of the university > the university’s campus

5. 3. 4 Syntactical change • Syntax also changes in time, but it changes more slowly. • In the 15 cc, there were double comparatives or superlatives in English, but today there are not. more gladder > more glad, more lower > lower, most royalest – most royal • In old English， the negative particle “not” was usually put in front of the verb or at the end of a sentence, but today it comes after the finite verb. It not belongs to you. > It doesn’t belong to you. We saw you not. > We didn’t see you.

• Fusion or blending is also used in making new phrasal and sentential structures. Rarely + hardly even → rarely even Ever and anon + now and then → every now and then Equally good + just as good → equally as good It's no use getting there before nine + There's no use in getting there before nine. → There's no use getting there before nine.

5. 3. 5 Semantic change • Broadening 词义扩大 Broading is a process to extend or elevate the meaning from its originally specific sense to a relatively general one. holiday - holy day > any day for rest bird – young bird > any kind of bird pigeon – young pigeon > the whole species task – tax > any piece of work you have to do

• Narrowing 词义狭窄 Narrowing is contrary to broadening: the original meaning of a word can be narrowed or restricted to a specific sense. fowl – birds in general > domestic birds meat – any food you eat > edible flesh of the mammals deer – any beast > a particular kind of beast girl – young children of both sex > young female starve – die in any way > die of hunger

Meaning shift • Here MEANING SHIFT is understood in its narrow sense, that is, the change of meaning has nothing to do with generalization or restriction as mentioned above. What makes the meaning of a word different is its departure from its original domain as a result of its metaphorical usage. Sometimes the meaning changes so much that you can’t see any connection between the new meaning and the original one. bead – prayer > the prayer bead > small, ball-shaped piece of glass, metal or wood pay – livestock > payment crafty – skilled in making handcrafts > cunning knave – boy > boy servant > rascal, dishonest person silly – (OE) happy > (ME) naïve > foolish nice – ignorant > foolishly particular about small things > to be precise of refined taste

• Class shift 词类转变 • By shifting the word class one can change the meaning of a word from a concrete entity or notion to a process or attribution. This process of word formation is also known as ZERODERIVATION, or CONVERSION. • Verb – noun: smell, taste, walk • Adj. – verb: dirty, empty, lower • Noun – verb: head, table, chair, nose • Conj. – verb: But me no buts.

folk etymology 民间词源 • • FOLK ETYMOLOGY refers to the change of the form of a word or phrase, resulting from an incorrect popular notion of the origin or meaning of the term, or from the influence of more familiar terms mistakenly taken to be analogous. history – his story > herstory Fake etymology: a kind of folk etymology, humorous play of words Manhattan: man with hat on MBA: married but available Ph. D: perhaps have divorced golf: Gentlemen Only; Ladies Forbidden

5. 3. 6 Orthographic change • This refers to the change of spelling. Since writing is a recording of the sound system in English, phonological changes will no doubt set off graphetic changes. • Iesus > Jesus, sate > sat, Sunne > Sun • The two letters “u” and “v” exchanged their position in Old English.

Exercises • Define the following terms: • Morpheme, compound, inflection, affix, derivation, root, allomorph, stem, bound morpheme, free morpheme, lexicon, grammatical word, lexical word, closed-class, open-class, blending, loanword, loanblend, loanshift, acronym, loss, back-formation, assimilation, folk etymology

• Discuss the following questions: • 1) Discuss the different types of morphemes. • 2) Discuss whether morpheme is a grammatical concept or a semantic concept. What is its relationship to phoneme? Can a morpheme and a phoneme form an organic whole?

5. 2. 4 The counterpoint of phonology and morphology • MORPHOPHONOLOGY is a branch of linguistics that refers to the analysis and classification of the phonological factors that affect the morpheme forms, and, correspondingly, the grammatical factors that affect the phoneme forms. It studies the interrelationship between phonology and morphology.

• A single phoneme vs. a single morpheme • A single morpheme vs. multiple phoneme • Allomorph 词素变体 • Morphemic conditions

A single phoneme vs. a single morpheme • A single phoneme may represent a single morpheme, but they are not identical. • (a) boys /bɔɪz/ (b) boy's /bɔɪz/ (c) raise /reɪz/

A single morpheme vs. multiple phoneme • Morphemes may also be represented by phonological structures other than a single phoneme. • Monophonemic dogs /dɒgz/ Monosyllabic love + ly /ˡlʌv + li/ Polysyllabic tobacco /tə + ˡbæ + kəʊ/

Allomorph 词素变体 • Some morphemes have a single form in all contexts， but in other instances, a morpheme may have different shapes or phonetic forms. • map – maps /mæps/ dog – dogs /dɒgz/ watch – watches /wɒtʃɪz/ mouse – mice /maɪs/ ox – oxen /ˡɒksn/ tooth – teeth /ti: θ/ sheep – sheep /ʃi: p/

• Thus, morpheme, like phoneme, may have different realizations in different contexts. In morphemic transcription, morphemes are put between braces like { }. The plural morpheme can be expressed in the form of {-s～-z～-ɪz～aɪ～-i: ～-n～-θ}.

• Some morphemic forms represent different morphemes and thus have different meanings. • For example, the morpheme –s can express plurality (e. g. tables, apples, and cars), person/finiteness (e. g. talks, opens, and shouts), case (e. g. boy's, John's, and university's).

Morphemic conditions • (a) Phonologically conditioned • injustice imperfect inefficient impenetrable infirm impossible • The ASSIMILATION of /n/ is said to be conditioned by /p/. Similarly, /n/ is assimilated into /r/ in irregular, irresistible, and into /l/ in illogical and illegal.

• • (b) Morphologically conditioned Three requirements: First, all the allomorphs should have the same meaning, for instance, the plural morpheme {-s～-z～-ɪz～-aɪ～-i: ～-n～-θ}. Second, all the allomorphs should be in complementary distribution. Third, allomorphs that have the same meaning should occur in parallel formation. ox /ɒks/ cow /kau/ Singular oxen /ˡɒksn/ cows /kauz/ Plural