17/12/2015

Morphology - Exercises (Week 11)

1) For each verb or verb phrase (X) in the following list, give (i) the word you would use to mean
someone who Xs habitually or as an occupation and (ii) the meaning of the noun of the form Xer.
Explain how these examples illustrate the relationship between formal regularity, semantic blocking,
and semantic regularity.
(a) sing________________________________ (e) spy________________________________
(b) cook________________________________ (f ) clean________________________________
(c) steal________________________________ (g) pray________________________________
(d) cycle________________________________ (h) play the flute______________________________
2) Use the following list to come up with a phonological hypothesis regarding constraints on following
types of affixation. Supply additional forms if necessary.
i)
a. quietly
g. vocally
b. poorly
h. ? sillily
c. neatly
i. ? uglily
d. slowly
j. ? kindlily
e. prettily
k. ? friendlily
f. ungrammatically
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________________________________________________________________________________
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ii)
a. blacken
f. pinken
k. *orangen
b. whiten
g. deafen
l. *yellowen
c. redden
h. loosen
m. *greenen
d. sadden
i. roughen
n. *bluen
e. neaten
j. *happy-en
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________________________________________________________________________________
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3) Which of the following words are impossible in the given meaning because of synonymy blocking?
For words that cannot be explained as blocking, what is the reason for their impossibility?
*musting (e.g. I hate musting get up every morning.)
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*foots (e.g. Bobby played outside and has dirty foots now.)
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*cooker (e.g. This meal is superb. The cooker is a real artist.)
________________________________________________________________________________
*bishopdom (e.g. The bishop often travels through his bishopdom.)
________________________________________________________________________________
*teacheress (e.g. Our teacheress is a very competent woman.)
________________________________________________________________________________
*slickize (e.g. The Zambonis slickize the ice before the skaters compete.)
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*certainness (e.g. Nowadays there is less certainness about church teachings.)
________________________________________________________________________________
*sisterlily (e.g. She embraced her sisterlily.)
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4) Make a list of ten words containing the suffix ic, as in magnetic and allergic.
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
a) What word-class do the bases to which -ic is added belong to?
__________________________________________________________________________
b) What is the word-class of the resulting word?
__________________________________________________________________________
c) Is ic an inflectional or derivational suffix? What is your evidence?
__________________________________________________________________________
d) Does -ic attach freely to all eligible bases? If not, give two examples of bases which are ostensibly
suitable for ic suffixation but which fail to take this suffix.
__________________________________________________________________________

5) Compare the following pairs and answer the questions below:

author ~ authoress

lion ~ lioness

actor ~ actress

manager ~ manageress

mayor ~ mayoress

waiter ~ waitress

editor ~ editress

poet ~ poetess

emperor ~ empress

a) What is the word-class of the bases that the -ess suffix attaches to?
__________________________________________________________________________
b) What class do the resulting words belong to?
__________________________________________________________________________
c) What is the meaning of this suffix?
__________________________________________________________________________
d) Do you find these words equally acceptable? If not, explain why.
__________________________________________________________________________

6) Which of the following affixes are productive? Of those that are productive, do some seem more
productive than others? Give examples to support your answer.
i) a. re- (e.g., recreate)
b. un- (e.g., unstoppable)
c. for- (e.g., forgive)
d. hyper- (e.g., hyperactive)
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
ii)
a. -ship (e.g., partisanship)

e. -ling (e.g., earthling)

b. -ance (e.g., remittance)

f. -ster (e.g., youngster)

c. -wise (e.g., weatherwise)

g. -dom (e.g., kingdom)

d. -ly (; e.g., quietly)

7) How did the suffixes (or perhaps bound roots) -(er)ati and -scape come into being? Consider the
following examples:
literati, glitterati, liberati, chatterati, soccerati, digiterati (Kemmer 2003)
landscape, seascape, cloudscape, skyscape, waterscape, winterscape (Aldrich 1966).
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8) Calculate the missing productivity figures (P) for the following suffixes on the basis of the figures
given in table and list the suffixes according to their productivity:
V

n1

-able

933

140627

311

0.0022

-ful (N)

136

2615

60

0.023

-ful (A)

154

77316

22

0.00028

-ion

2392

1369116

524

-ish

491

7745

262

-ist

1207

98823

354

-ity

1372

371747

341

-ize

658

100496

212

-less

681

28340

272

-ness

2466

106957

943

0.0088

-wise

183

2091

128

0.061

(Taken from Plag et al. 1999)

V = type frequency/extent of use
N = token frequency
n1 = hapax frequency

0.0021