Morphology Complex Words Simplex words and complex words

Morphology Complex Words

Simplex words and complex words to walk, to dance, to laugh, to kiss to purify, to enlarge, to industrialize, to headhunt house, corner, zebra collection, builder, sea horse green, old, sick regional, washable, honey-sweet

Morphemes A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that adds its own distinct bit of meaning to the word. kill-er, work-er, print-er wash-able, laugh-able re-paint-ing

Cranberry morphemes blueberry blackberry gooseberry (goose? ) cranberry (cran? ? ? )

Free morphemes and bound morphemes Free morphemes can stand on their own. Bound morphemes, or affixes, cannot: Q: Is that green? A: *No, at best it’s –ish. Q: Is she any good at football? A: *Yes, she’s a great –er. Q: Does he play the piano often? A: *Yes, he –s it all the time.

Suffixes and prefixes Suffixes green-ish build-er wash-able solid-ify industry-al-ize Prefixes en-large re-en-act de-throne ex-minister

Circumfixes and infixes Circumfixes: leef ge-leef-d (Dutch) played Infixes: base: labas (Tagalog) base: pasok base: bili huur ge-huur-d lived verb: l-um-abas ‘come out’ verb: p-um-asok ‘enter’ verb: b-um-ili ‘buy’

Compounding Combining two free morphemes: sea + horse sea horse head + strong headstrong hand + made handmade

Productivity Some types of compounding are more productive than others. N-N compounding is completely productive in English: word + kitchen word kitchen (e. g. a kitchen for morphologists) tree + laptop tree laptop (e. g. a laptop with a picture of a tree) gorilla + window gorilla window (e. g. a window through which you can see a gorilla) window + gorilla window gorilla (e. g. a gorilla that always sits behind a window)

Derivation Making a completely new word with an affix: buildverb largeadjective industrynoun build-ernoun en-largeverb industry-aladjective industry-al-izeverb

Inflection Providing grammatical information about a word with an affix: workverb-s (expresses that the verb has a third person singular subject) workverb-ed (expresses that the event expressed by the verb took place in the past) housenoun-s (expresses that we are dealing with more than one house)

Inflectional morphology can be obligatory in some syntactic contexts. *Sylvia usually walk to work. Sylvia usually walks to work.

Conversion ‘Invisible’ morphology to build – a build-er to dance – a danc-er to run – a run-er to kill – a kill-er to cook – a cook

Conversion between different categories: to run. VERB – a run. NOUN yellow. ADJECTIVE – to yellow. VERB down. PREPOSITION – to down. VERB green. ADJECTIVE – a green. NOUN

Null affixes in inflection: I/You usually go- to the market on Saturdays.

Tree structures Representing the structure of a complex word in the form of a tree diagram N N N school plural N s V N teach er

Structural ambiguity This ex-president-office-manager works for Bill Clinton. This ex-president-office-manager is now a street artist.

N N N ex N manager N president office N N N manager president office