Linguistics 110 Zhang/Öztürk/Quinn

Class 14 (11/13/02)

Morphology

(1) What is a word?

• A word is the sequence of letters between two blanks.

The good can decay many ways. The good candy came anyways.
It’s hard to recognize speech. It’s hard to wreck a nice beach.
The stuffy nose can lead to problems. The stuff he knows can lead to problems.

• The units of language that are the products of morphological rules, and which are
unsplittable by syntactic rules. (syntactic atom)

(a) black board (a board that is black) very black board

blackboard (the board teachers write on) *very blackboard

pick pocket (the act of picking pocket) pick his pocket

pickpocket (one who steals from pocket) *pick-his-pocket

poor house (a decrepit house) poor gray house

poorhouse (housing for the homeless) *poor-gray-house

(b) He picks pocket. Question “pocket”: What does he pick?

He’s a pickpocket. Question “pickpocket”: What is he?

Question “pocket”: *What is he a pick?

• “Listemes”, i.e., the things in a language you learn as a rote list.

(a) Root words: man, woman, dog, cat, truth, fiction, red, tall, run, walk, live, die,
hippopotamus, magenta, procrastinate, etc.

(b) Proper names: Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, George Burns, England, Bantu,
Harvard, Pentium, etc.

(c) Compounds: box boy (carries boxes)

box score (summary of statistics)
box car (enclosed railroad car)
box office (ticket office at a theater)
box seat (special seat in a stadium)
box spring (has square frame)
box turtle (has square shell)
shoe box (shoes come in it)
tackle box (keep fishing tackle in it)

(d) Idioms: Go fly a kite!

kick the bucket
spill the beans
bite the bullet

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 kill two birds with one stone
out to lunch
go bananas
a pain in the neck

• What are the differences between the last two definitions of “word”?

(2) What does it mean to know a word (listeme)?

• The arbitrary relationship between form and meaning: words are symbols.

English: Tree [dOg] English: dog [bE®] bear (an animal)

French: Arbre Hebrew: fish bear (give birth)
German: Baum bare (naked)
Russian: Derevo [su:s] Hebrew: horse
Hebrew: Ets Latin: pig [beI:] bail (money)
Arabic: Shajara bail (bucket)
Hausa: Bishiya [mu:n] English: moon bale (bundle)
Korean: Namu Korean: door
Taiwanese: tǸ!u a~ [tÓu] to (toward)
Mandarin: shu~ two (2)
too (also)

[mit] meet (join)

meat (flesh)
mete (allot)

• Shared knowledge about meaning and appropriate use:

In Hausa, one would kaÎa … In English, one would break …

milk (English churn) a pot (Hausa fasa)
thread (English spin) a stick (Hausa karya)
a coat (English shake) a rope (Hausa tsinke)
a tail (Englsih wag) a watch (Hausa ∫ata)
one’s head (English nod) a horse (Hausa hora)
lie to someone.
commit perjury in court.
prevaricate in a literary society.
You might fail to avoid an untruth as a political candidate.
fib to your little brother.
con someone to get money.
bullshit someone you don’t respect.

(3) Morphemes: the meaningful elements of a word

• Some words cannot be divided into smaller meaningful units:
Eat, print, apple, uncle, word, tall, soon, on, free, real, …

Some words can:

Eats, printed, apples, taller, reality, transformational, uncontrollably, callousness, …

• Roots and Affixes:

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 Roots: morphemes that represent the core meaning of words, to which other morphemes
can be added to modify their meaning.

Affixes: morphemes that attach to roots or combinations of roots and affixes.

• Free morphemes and bound morphemes:

Free morphemes: morphemes that can stand alone.

Bound morphemes: morphemes that only function as parts of words.

• Are free morphemes the same as roots, and bound morphemes the same as affixes?

nonchalant, uncouth, disgruntle, overwhelm, inept, cranberry…

Free Bound
Root dog, cat, man, woman, truth, lie, nonchalant, uncouth, inept,
hippopotamus, procrastinate, cranberry, lukewarm, disgruntle,
fast, slow, pink, mauve … overwhelm
Affix cats, falsehood, untrue, pinkish,
pinker, pinkness, slowly, reconfirm,
confirmed, formation

(4) Classifying affixes 1—positions of affixes

• Prefixes: non-conformist, unfortunate, anticatholic, reconfirm, disfavor

• Suffixes: cats, falsehood, pinkish, slowly, confirmed, formation

• Infixes:
Bontoc (Austronesian, spoken in the Philippines):
fikas “strong” fumikas “to be strong”
kilad “red” kumilad “to be red”
fusul “enemy” fumusul “to be an enemy”

• Circumfixes:
Chickasaw (Muskogean, spoken in Oklahoma):
chokma “he is good” ikchokmo “he isn’t good”
lakna “it is yellow” iklakno “it isn’t yellow”
palli “it is hot” ikpallo “it isn’t hot”
tiwwi “he opens (it)” iktiwwo “he doesn’t open (it)”

• Interleaving morphemes:
Arabic:
kitaaba “writing” kataba “he wrote”
kaatib “writer” kaataba “he corresponded with”
maktab “office” maktaba “library”
miktaab “typewriter” kutubii “bookseller”

English borrowings from Arabic: Moslem, Islam, salaam. (cf. slm ‘peace’).

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(5) Classifying affixes 2—functions of affixes
• What are the differences between the following two kinds of affixes in terms of:
(a) Does the meaning of the derived form differ from that of the base form?
(b) Does the suffixation change part of speech?

Affix type 1 Affix type 2

false → falsehood cat → cats
form → formation sit → sits
confirm → reconfirm walk → walked
nation → national break → broken
national → nationalist walk → walking

• Derivational affixes—Affix type 1:

a.
b.

• Inflectional affixes—Affix type 2:

a.
b.

(6) A closer look at English derivational affixes

• Some derivational affixes of English:
-ly -ness -al -able
-ize -ation un- re-

• What do you know about these affixes?

-ly: change Adj to Adv (quick-quickly)

change N to Adj (friend-friendly, ghost-ghostly)

-ness: change Adj to N (clean-cleanness)

-al: change N to Adj (ration-rational, nation-national)

change V to N (dismiss-dismissal)

-able: change V to Adj (read-readable)

-ize: change Adj to V (rational-rationalize)

change N to V (subsidy-subsidize, creole-creolize)

-ation: change V to N (rationalize-rationalization)

un-: change V to V (do-undo, tie-untie)

change Adj to Adj (happy-unhappy)

re-: change V to V (do-redo, adjust-readjust, wind-rewind)

• In rule notation:
Adjective + -ly → Adverb
Adjective + -ness → Noun
Verb + -able → Adjective

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 re- + Verb → Verb

(7) A closer look at inflectional affixes.

• Some languages have dozens or even hundreds of inflectional affixes. They typically
mark such things as:
person of subject and object;
number of subject and object;
class of noun;
tense of verb;
negation of verb;
causation of an action;
doing something on behalf of, etc.

• San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec (Oto-Manguean, Oaxaca, Mexico):

r-guèe’ez ‘hugs …’ (unmarked)
r-guèe’ez-a’ ‘I hug …’
r-guèe’ez-yuu’ ‘you (sg. formal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-ùu’ ‘you (sg. informal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-iny ‘he (reverential) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ëb ‘he (formal) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ahzh: ‘he (respectful) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ëng ‘he (proximate) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ih ‘he (distal) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ëmm ‘he (animal) hugs …’
r-guèe’ez-ënn ‘we hug …’
r-guèe’ez-yud ‘you (pl. formal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-ad ‘you (pl. informal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-riny ‘they (reverential) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rëb ‘they (formal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rahzh: ‘they (respectful) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rëng ‘they (proximate) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rih ‘they (distal) hug …’
r-guèe’ez-rëmm ‘they (animal) hug …’

• Finnish (Finno-Ugric):

Case Function Example Translation

Nominative basic form auto car
Genitive possession auto-n of the car
Accusative object ending häne-t him, her
Partitive indefinite maito-a some milk
quantity vet-tä some water
perhe-ttä some family
Inessive inside auto-ssa in the car
Elative out of auto-sta out of the car
Illative into auto-on into the car
Adessive on pöydä-llä on the table
Ablative off pöydä-ltä off the table
Allative onto pöydä-lle onto the table
Essive state opettaja-na as a teacher
Translative change of state opettaja-ksi become a teacher
Comitative accompanying vaimo-ine-ni with my wife
(-ine = comitative, -ni = 1st sg. possessive)

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• Swahili (Bantu, East Africa):

hatutawapikishia cakula ‘we will not have food cooked for them’

ha- tu- ta- wa- pik- ish- i- a- c- akula

NEG we FUT them cook CAUS APPL INDIC CL7 food

• Grammatical functions of inflections:

(a) Consider English:

The lizard caught the fly.

The fly caught the lizard.

(b) Consider Latin:

Nominative Accusative Genitive

‘lizard’ lacertus lacertum lacerti
‘fly’ mosca moscam moscae

Lacertus moscam cepit.

Moscam lacertus cepit.
Lacertus cepit moscam. ‘The lizard caught the fly’
Moscam lacertus cepit.
Cepit lacertus moscam.
Cepit moscam lacertus.