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Introduction to Morphology
Class 3 (Bickford Chapter 4 pp. 25-34)
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State a more precise definition of MORPHEME and explain how it is better than the one given in the previous chapter Use appropriate terms for glossing meanings commonly found in verbal morphology (lets learn some jargon!) use appropriate terms for classifying and describing morphemes and morphological systems (and a little more jargon!) construct position class charts to describe data in an agglutinative morphological system Write a clear and concise prose description of such a system
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Assumptions
(obvious?)
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(from ch 3):
Minimal meaning unit of the language unreadiness un | ready | ness (p. 19)
Minimal smallest Minimal = the smallest UNANALYZABLE unit. unanalyzable a unit that cannot be further split up (or analyzed) into meaningful pieces.
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More Terms
MEANIFUL
LEXICAL
like a dictionary definition can usually be translated into equivalent ordinary words or phrases in other languages Can be glossed with a TRANSLATION EQUIVALENT
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More Terms
MEANIFUL
GRAMMATICAL
DONT usually translate directly between languages. usually have to describe their meaning with technical linguistic terminology
e.g. plural, 1stperson, Perfect, PST
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there is more to a morpheme that just its meaning (or SEMANTICS) part of the analysis of a morpheme includes a statement about its morphological and syntactic properties, that is, how it combines with other morphemes to form words and how these words combine to form sentences. ex: -d (-ed)
He arrived two hours ago. * He did not arrived yet.
also
s1 N + -s (turtle-s) plural s2 V + -s (run-s) SV agreement s3 N + -s (turtles) possessive
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Morphemes can also be prosodic or phonetic in some cases supersegments might be considered morphemes
supersegments those features of a language that occur across phoneme or word boundaries i.e. intonation, sometimes, pitch, accents, other phonological morphemes
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Better Definition
Bickford p.27
A morpheme is a consistent and unanalyzable association of phonological, grammatical, and semantic information.
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Tense
The relation between the time of the situation described by the verb and the moment of speech.
can be PST, PRS, FUT, as well as Non-PST, Non-FUT, Distant PST or even VERY-Distant PST
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Aspect
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Aspect
Imperfective:
The internal temporal structure of a situation (its beginning, middle, or end) is being presented as important. Often used for presenting events which are not complete and thus the internal structure is of interest. Can be used to describe a past event.
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Aspect
Perfective:
Only the situation as a whole is important. Used for past events (usually preeneted as complete and whole).
While I was wandering through the maze, I noticed a strange design on one wall. Imperfective
Perfective
Mood
(Not what the cow did yesterday!) Refers to the relationship between the situation reported by the verb and reality. covered in Two types of mood are: *(Others more detail in Ch 17)
Indicative
statements and questions concerned with how things actually are commands concerned with how the speaker would like things to be
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Imperative
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Agreement
Generally adding something on the verb that indicates something about the subject. Eng PRES 3rd Sg
V + -s
She/he/it ride-s fifteen miles a day. I/we/you/yall ride- fifteen miles a day.
Spanish:
Habla-n. speak-3rdPl They are speaking.
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Morphemes
Some affixes consist of no sounds at all. [some books take] a different position on this question, denying the existence of zero morphemes. THIS IS INCORRECT. Zero morphemes DO exist, and we'll see why, and illustrate another concept, allomorphy at the same time. Consider the following words: Adjective yellow brown green purple | Verb | yellow | brown | green | purple
The relation between "yellow" (adjective) and "yellow" (verb) is exactly the same as that between "white" and "whiten", which we just considered. But the form of "yellow" doesn't change. So we say that we added a zero suffix:
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(Allomorph)
root [i:] PRES root allomorph [] PST sleep/slept, keep/kept, deal/dealt, meet/met
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Morphemes
Adjective yellow brown green purple | Verb | yellow | brown | green | purple
But the form of "yellow" doesn't change. So we say that we added a zero suffix: Verb / \ Adjective | yellow Meaning: "to make (more) yellow" Zero morphemes are obviously hard to spot because you can't hear them! In these cases you have to notice what ISN'T there. (Sherlock Holmes solves one of his cases by noticing that a dog DIDN'T bark. This was important because there was a situation where any dog would have barked. This is the kind of thinking you have to do to M. Benton 1-23-08find zero morphemes.)
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from: http://www.answers.com/topic/null-morpheme In morpheme-based morphology, a null morpheme is a morpheme that is realized by a phonologically null affix (an empty string of phonological segments). In simpler terms, a null morpheme is an "invisible" affix. It's also called zero morpheme; the process of adding a null morpheme is called null affixation, null derivation or zero derivation.
Morphemes
The concept was first used over two thousand years ago by Pini in his Sanskrit grammar. (Some linguists object to the notion of a null morpheme, since it sets up (they say) an unverifiable distinction between a "null" or "zero" element, and nothing at all.) The null morpheme is represented as either the figure zero (0), the empty set symbol , or its variant .
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Morphemes ?Maybe?
The existence of a null morpheme in a word can also be theorized by contrast with other forms of the same word showing alternate morphemes. For example, the singular number of English nouns is shown by a null morpheme that contrasts with the plural morpheme -s.
cat = cat + - = ROOT ("cat") + SINGULAR cats = cat + -s = ROOT ("cat") + PLURAL
In addition, there are some cases in English where a null morpheme indicates plurality in nouns that take on irregular plurals.
sheep = sheep + - = ROOT ("sheep") + SINGULAR sheep = sheep + - = ROOT ("sheep") + PLURAL
Also, a null morpheme marks the present tense of verbs in all forms but the third person singular:
(I) run = run + - = ROOT ("run") + PRESENT: Non-3rd-SING (He) runs = run + -s = ROOT ("run") + PRESENT: 3rd-SING
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Morphemes
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questions comments
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Comic Relief
An Aggie ordered a pizza and the clerk asked if he should cut it in six or twelve pieces.
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Comic Relief
An Aggie ordered a pizza and the clerk asked if he should cut it in six or twelve pieces. "Six, please," said the Aggie. "I could never eat twelve pieces."
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Comic Relief2
Why did the Aggie stare at a frozen orange juice can for over an hour?
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Comic Relief2
Why did the Aggie stare at a frozen orange juice can for over an hour? Because it said 'concentrate'.
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the base (or part of the word to which affixes are attached) of a word is called either a STEM or a ROOT. Root (p. 136)
Is any single morpheme which is not an affix. may be identical to the STEM (Haspelmath 2002 p.274) a base that cannot be analysed further i.e. a base that consist of a single morpheme
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May be identical to the root May consist of multiple roots (Haspelmath 2002 p.274) the base of an inflected word-form
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stem
-er
|
+ -s
Inflectional Suffix
kick +
Root
Derivational Suffix
stem
Root
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the base (or part of the word to which affixes are attached) of a word is called either a STEM or a ROOT. Affix
morphemes that are used to modify the base of the word. (Haspelmath 2002 p.265) a short morpheme with an abstract meaning
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Affixes often have grammatical meaning e.g. Span. cantas you are singing canta- sing -s 2ndSgPres stem affix lexical grammatical
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Stems are generally members of OPEN CLASSES Affixes are generally members of CLOSED CLASSES
Open/Closed refers partly to the number of members in a class Further it refers to whether members can be added to the class e.g. harsh + ness (Adj + suffix)
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Affixes are always BOUND (cannot appear alone but must always be attached to some other morpheme) Stems can be either bound or FREE Free morphemes can appear alone as a word (Stems are always present in a word, affixes may or may not be present)
for more see Bickford pp. 29-30
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What meanings are being expressed? Are these meanings lexical or grammatical?
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B.
C.
D.
What is the phonological material that represents this meaning? Where is this material located w/ respect to the stem? Is it always the same on every stem, or does it vary depending on context? What category of words is affected by this morphological process (N, V, etc.)?
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simplest possible morphology nearly every word consist of a single morpheme especially common in SE Asia
Vietnamese (#11)
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individual Words may correspond to whole sentences in other languages. Morphemes are generally easy to find they are clearly seperable from each other they dont change much when they appear in different context
Chukchi (#12) , Swahili, Chichewa
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May have several morphemes per word finding morphemes may be difficult clear morpheme boundaries may not exist
most European Languages, Russian (#13)
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naatsa-
-ruuy
-hay -tsi
-maa
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When two affixes from different classes appear they appear in the order given in the chart.
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Which affixes (when they appear) are always first or last in the word, or always immediately precede or follow the stem? Which affixes are next in line in these positions, after the affixes found in question 1? For each pair of affixes that can occur together in a word, which one comes first?
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4.8 REVIEW
Bickford pg. 33
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Bickford pg. 34
What morphemes are found in the data? What are their semantic properties? What are their phonological properties? What are their grammatical properties? Is the language isolating, fusional, or agglutinative, or some combination of these?
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Bickford pg. 34
See ch 24: Hints for Linguistic Writing INTRODUCTION
Yagua is a language spoken in the Amazon basin The verb structure of Yagua is highly agglutinative There is a rich verbal morphology. For instance consider the following position class chart for Yagua verbs: As seen in example X in the data set
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