Morphology I Linguistics 101 Gareth Price Duke University

Morphology I Linguistics 101 Gareth Price Duke University

Morphology • • Morph + ology Morphe = shape/form Ology = study, science of Study of the formation (v, n) of words?

• How many words in the English language? • Accidental gaps: words which follow the phonological rules of a language, but which don’t actually exist • How many words do you know? • Not easy to answer – linguists rarely agree. • College educated: 10, 000 to 60, 000 • Why is it difficult to know? • Mental lexicon

• • • • plinkling grimoulously klints twongier pendy thrustling stangliness centomer splimly centome stribble plinkleable decentome plinkler stribbling • • • • klintish liggeted pendierr pentful glosselstrop thrustle stromp grimulous acturously ponymous brimney stang parples stribbled klint • • • • unplinkleableness twength parple sloke pendiest fustered twong restribble sloken klintly acturous stangs strissed twongest liggets

Word Classes • Lexical Words – Nouns / Adjectives / Verbs / Adverbs • ‘Open class’ • Semantic content • Easily added to and modified • Most words are lexical words • Function Words – Determiners (a, the, an) – Pronouns (I, you, she, his, theirs) – Conjunctions (and, but) – Prepositions (to, in, without, for) – Intensifiers (very, too) – Auxiliary/Modal verbs (must, may, will) • ‘Closed class’ • Grammatical content • Tend not to be easily changed or added to

Morphemes • Smallest unit of words which have: • semantic content (meaning) • grammaticality (function) • un (semantic) + build (semantic) • magic (semantic) + ician (grammaticality) • cat (semantic) + s (grammaticality) • cat = four legged, furry, feline • s = plural

Morphemes One Two Three More than three a and dog-s write-r please pleas-ing red-der do un-do-able-ness caliber calibr-ate re-calibr-at-ion Words with one morpheme: simple “ two or more morphemes: complex

Free vs. Bound Morphemes • birds • bird / *-s • undo do / *un • • Hare (Athapaskan) *fi ‘head’ sefi ‘my head’ *be ‘belly’ nebe ‘your belly’ *dze ‘heart’ ? edze ‘someone’s heart / a heart’ Thai: Boon thaan khaaw leew Boon eat rice – past tense marker ‘Boon ate rice’

Allomorphs • • • a / an pots pigs bridges Turkish: lokanta ‘a restaurant’ – lokantada ‘in/at a restaurant’ kapi ‘a door’ – kapida ‘in/at a door’ kitap ‘a book’ – kitapta ‘in/at a book’ koltuk ‘a chair’ – koltukta ‘in/at a chair’ taraf ‘a side’ ? randevu ‘an appointment’ ? • Note: the morphology of a word is the study of its shape and meaning – but shape can be writing or sound

Roots, Stems and Affixes • • • Root + affix = complex word Black + en = blacken (root + suffix) adjective + suffix = verb blacken + ed = blackened verb + suffix = past tense verb black = root and stem for blacken black = root & blacken = stem for blackened unblackened = prefix + root + suffix but. . . unhappiness? un + happy + ness? un + knowledge? / un + ability?

Infixes Tagalog: takbuh ‘run’ – t-um-akbuh ‘ran’ lakad ‘walk’ – l-um-akad ‘walked’ Insertion of an affix within a base: in this case before the first vowel. • Arabic: • katab ‘write’ kutib ‘have been written’ aktub ‘be writing’ uktab ‘being written’ • Insertion of two vowels sounds among the three consonants which comprise the root • •

Internal Change • Changes in an internal non-morphemic segment to illustrate grammatical contrast. • sing – sang – sung • sink – sank – sunk • foot – feet • goose – geese • In English, there is a vowel change (ablaut) to mark past tense. • Umlaut: ‘fronting’ of vowel in response to front vowel in following syllable • go: s go: iz gi: s • Not infixing, however, as not changing the base *gs or *sng or *ft • no such morpheme as ‘oo’/‘ee’ or ‘i’/‘a’

Suppletion • • • Can be completely different morph (sound): French: avoir ‘to have’ eu ‘had’ Spanish: ir ‘to go’ fue ‘(he) went’ German: ist ‘is’ sind ‘are’ English: to be/is/are/we/were / to go/went

Suppletion or Internal Change? • But. . . think / thought seek / sought catch / caught • Probably extreme forms of internal change – sometimes called partial suppletion

Summary. . . • How many words in a language? How many do you know?