English Morphology – Lecture 2

David Brett Antonio Pinna University of Sassari 2007

Distinguishing between morphemes:

•

Bound

and

free

morphemes: • Free morphemes can occur on their own: –

happy, change, select, green, house

, … • Bound morphemes can occur only if they are attached to other morphemes: – Affixes (

un-, -ness, -able, de-, -ive, -er

, …) – Binding forms

liber-, oper-, circul-, legitim-, materi-,

… • Eg.

liber-ation, oper-ate, circul-ar, legitim-(a)cy, materi-al

• Cran-berry (berry, straw-berry, black-berry) • Dis-gruntle-d • Gorm-less • Cranberry morphemes

Bound morphemes as core elements: words derived from Latin

Circul-

Circular

Liber-

Liberty Circulation Liberation Circulator Circulatory Liberalize Libertine

Problem case: Verbs of Latin origin re ceive re vert re late re duce de ceive con ceive con vert col late de duce con duce per ceive per vert trans late Should these be considered to be composed of a single morpheme? Or prefix + bound morpheme?

General tendency

• The core vocabulary of English is generally composed of words of Anglo Saxon origin • There is a general tendency for core elements to be free morphemes • • E.g.

Hand Hand-y, hand-le, hand-ful, mis-hand-le,

What is the difference between these two sets of complex words Fast-er Sing-ing Open-ed Car-s Write-s Bigg-est Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular Red-dish

Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed, Car-s, Write-s, Big-gest

• These affixes do not change the

word class

(verb, noun etc.), but rather contribute to meeting grammatical constraints. These are called:

Inflectional morphemes

Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular

These affixes do not necessarily change the class of the word, but this is normally the case, e.g.

fame

(n.)>

famous

(adj.) • Since these words

derive

from others these morphemes are called:

Derivational morphemes

• He go to the park every day • She speaks to me yesterday • He is a very fame actor • He gave me very good treat

Inflectional morphemes: Plurals #1

•

Cat > cats; dog > dogs; case > cases

• N.b. these are pronounced /s/, /z/, /ɪz/ • These different realizations are called

allomorphs

of the inflectional morpheme for plurals

Inflectional morphemes: Plurals #2

• • •

Irregular plurals

be

allomorphs

are also considered to e.g.

Foot > feet; man > men; child > children Sheep > Sheep; Fish > fish

etc.

Inflectional morphemes: Verbs #1

• English is particularly low on inflectional morphemes for verbs cfr. Italian (amare 1st person>

amo, amavo, amai, amerò, ami

(subjunctive),

amassi, amerei x 6

) • English:

love, loves, loved

and p.part.),

loving

(past simple • • BE has the largest number of realizations:

Be, am, are, is, was, were, been, being

Inflectional morphemes: Verbs #2

• Verbs in the past and p. participle form can be: •

1 Regular

:

kissed; changed; wanted

• Note that the –ed suffix has three, phonologically determined, realizations (i.e. three

allomorphs

): /t/, /d/, /ɪd/ • The following lines rhyme:

You were the first one I kissed Because you were at the top of my list

Inflectional morphemes: Verbs #3

• Verbs in the past and p. participle form can be: •

2 Irregular

• Involving no change> hit-hit-hit • Involving vowel change>

drink-drank-drunk

• Involving consonant change >

make-made made

• • Involving vowel and consonant change>

leave left-left

Suppletion

(i.e. with no phonological relation)> BE>

was-were

; GO>

went

Inflectional morphemes: Adjectives

• Comparatives • HOT> hott-er – hott-est • IMPORTANT > more important – most important • Note suppletion in • GOOD > better – best • BAD > worse – worst

Derivational morphemes

• Far more numerous than inflectional morphemes • Allow productivity (involved in the coining of new words) • Can be prefixes, or suffixes, not circumfixes • Suffixes usually, but not always, change word class • Prefixes, usually don’t

Derivational morphemes: some examples

• Verbs > Nouns:

work-er, act-or, treat-ment, elect-ion

• Nouns > Adjectives:

colour-ful, friend-less, fac-ial, fam-ous

• Verbs > Adjectives:

bor-ing, interest-ed honour-able, access-ible

Derivation with –

ful

and –

less

• Which words can be derived by adding the following suffixes -ful/less Only -ful Only -less Age, Bag, Care, Cease, Cheer, Child, Colour, Cup, Defence, Delight, Effort, End, Fate, Friend, Help, Hope, Penny, Play, Spoon, Tact , Taste , Use,

-ful/less Care Use Cheer Colour Help Taste Hope Tact Only -ful Fate Spoon Delight Bag Play Cup Only -less Friend Age Cease Child Defence End Effort Penny

Tree diagrams Label the boxes in the diagram

Greed > Greedy > Greediness

N.b. Specif- is a bound root cfr. Specif-y

Draw tree diagrams for the following words • Unwholesome • Rulership • Underdeveloped • Overachiever • Operational • Indispensable

• • • • • • • • Productivity – the creation of new words There a six main ways of creating new words By combining two or more core elements: this process is called ‘compounding’ –

truck driver

,

mother

-

in

-

law

,

download

; By adding parts to a core element: this process is called ‘affixation’ –

clockwise

,

credible

,

coarsely

,

kingdom

; By changing the word class of a given word: this process is called ‘conversion’ –

Bottle

>

to bottle

;

to call

>

a call

; By clipping a longer word: this process is called ‘truncation’ –

Veterinary Surgeon

>

vet

;

Zoological gardens

>

Zoo

; By amalgamating parts of different words: this process is called ‘blending’ –

Smoke

+

fog

>

smog

;

Motor + Hotel > Motel; Camera + Recorder > Camcorder Acronyms - North Atlantic Treaty Organization > NATO; Absent without leave > AWOL; Personal Identification Number > PIN

• We can also find multiple processes e.g.

• Camera > web camera (Compounding) > webcam (Truncation) • Ball > snowball (Compounding) > to snowball (Conversion)

Exercise for next lecture

• • Produce tree diagrams of the following multiply affixed complex words:

airworthiness

;

speechlessness specialization

;

developmental

;

antihistorical

;

miscarriage

; ;

non-