Unit 6 Morphology MORPHOLOGY It is a branch
Unit 6 Morphology
MORPHOLOGY It is a branch of linguistics which is concerned with § the relation between meaning and form, within words and between words, § word formation and structure of words. 2
Morpheme the smallest linguistic unit which has a meaning or grammatical function open + ed tour + ist + s im + prison + ment tree money 3
Morpheme A morpheme has two elements: 1. Form (written/spoken) 2. Meaning form bee (morph) /bi: / ‘meaning’ ‘animal’ morpheme bee 4
Morpheme vs. Word vs. Syllable 5
Morpheme vs. Word Morpheme is a smaller unit than a word. papers (1 word, 2 morphemes: paper-s) 6
Morpheme vs. Syllables are sound combinations and are not necessarily meaningful. paper /peɪ. pə/ (1 morpheme) (2 syllables) 7
Convergence of categories cat, dog, key (one word, one morpheme, one syllable) word: cat morpheme: cat syllable: cat (all three categories converge on the same form, i. e. cat) 8
Free vs. Bound Morphemes 9
Free morphemes They can stand by themselves as single words. Potential to stand alone: I opened the window. Give me the documents, please. People are waiting outside. Chomsky and his colleagues 10
Bound morphemes They cannot normally stand alone, but are typically attached to another form (i. e. Another free morpheme). (They are not words. ) (affixes, contracted forms) re- (return) -ist (typist) -ed (tested) -s (begins) ‘ll (I’ll) 11
Stem When free morphemes are used with bound morphemes, the basic word forms are known as stems. system + atic (suffix) (free) (bound) systematic (stem) dis (prefix) + regard (free) (bound) disregard (stem) 12
Lexical vs. Functional Morphemes 13
Lexical Morphemes (i. e. Content Words) Nouns (ordinary): white, man, house Adjectives: sad, sincere Verbs : open, break, draw Adverbs (of manner): fast, correctly 14
they carry the content of the messages we convey (they have meaning) 15
Mr. Penn has two, a one and a one. Today he the one but it in the on his to. When he was on his after his, he a on the next and it, it was his. It to Mr. Count. (content words deleted) 16
Ø large number How many content words are there in English? Dictionary: essentially a list of content words 114, 000 basic content words (Webster’s) (450, 000 entries including derivatives & compounds) 17
Ø open-ended (an unlimited number of new words can be added) Some recent additions: blog vegan podcast spam wac (adj) botox 18
Functional Morphemes (i. e. Function Words) Articles: the, a, an Auxiliary verbs: can, must, am Pronouns: he, she, her Conjunctions: but, and, or Prepositions: from, at, on etc. 19
They have grammatical function rather than meaning. (we define the meanings of content words, but describe the use of function words, i. e. what they do in a sentence) Ø but indicates contrast or introduces an alternative the indicates definiteness (the book is a definite book. ) this is used to show things that are near. that is used to show things that are not near. in indicates location (place) he is used for a male subject 20
Ørelate words in sentences Mr. Penn umbrellas, brown black. Took black left bus way work. Putting coat day’s work, saw dark blue umbrella hanging hook thinking. Actually belonged Mr. Count. (function words deleted) Relations between events (verbs) and entities (nouns) are missing. 21
Ø small number overall and in each category Overall: 320 function words in English Articles: 3 words 22
Ø closed class (fixed number, changes very slow) 23
List of Function Words in English 24
Derivational vs. Inflectional Morphemes 25
DERİVATONAL MORPHEMES Derivational affixes change major grammatical category (v, n, adj, adv): friend (adj) friendly (adj) pay (v) payment (n) cloudy (adj) quietly (adv) 26
b) They change meaning substantially: king (n) kingdom (n) (person vs. place) behave (v) misbehave (v) (opposite) (all prefixes are derivational: Prefixes do not change grammatical category, they change meaning) 27
They are not always regular N) +(-hood)= N brother +hood *friend+hood neighbour+hood *daughter+hood knight+hood *candle+hood 28
A derivational morpheme is attached before an inflectional morpheme does. neighbour- hood-s | | DA IA *neighbour-s-hood 29
INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES Inflectional Suffixes (regular inflection) They aren’t used to generate new words, but provide further information about the grammatical function of an existing word. (Inflection by affixes is not a word-formation process. ) books (not a different word) 30
a. They do not change the grammatical category: work (v) worked (v) small (adj) smaller (adj) John (n) John’s (n ) 31
b. They do not change the word’s existing meaning but give additional information about it: passenger (n) passengers (n / plural) sing (v) sings (v / pr. tense 3 rd pers. sing. subj) c. They are very regular (few exceptions): -s (plural affix): (almost) all nouns except a few irregular nouns like feet, children, teeth -ed (past tense affix): all regular verbs 32
d. They are only suffixes in English / 8 inflectional affixes. -s (plural morpheme) chairs -s (3 rd per. sing. present) runs -ing (progressive) running -ed (past tense) waited -ed (past participle) had waited -er (comparative) taller -est (superlative) tallest -’s, -s’ (possessive) Mary’s, The Jones’ 33
Allomorphs 34
Allomorphs phonological forms of a morpheme 35
Plurality Morpheme Orthographic variants: -s (books) -es (buses) Allomorphs (phonological variants): /s/ /z/ /ız/ cats dogs houses 36
Distribution of the allomorphs of the plurality morpheme (Rule) 37
/s/ after most voiceless phonemes cats /t/ books /k/ cups /p/ roofs /f/ 38
/z/ after voiced phonemes (voiced consonants + vowels) lambs /m/ dogs /g/ bees /i: / 39
/ız/ horses /s/ cheeses /z/ 40
the prefix in. In English, the negative prefix in has several allomorphs: Orthographic variants: in- (inaccurate) im- (impolite) il- (illogical) ir- (irreverent) 41
Thank You! 42
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