Transcript Introduction to Linguistics

INTRODUCTION TO
LINGUISTICS
DR Hany Ibrahim
Word And Word-formation processes
Word - Formation Processes
One of the distinctive properties of human language
that we have already discussed in the introductory
chapter is creativity, by which we mean the ability of
native speakers of a language to produce and
understand new forms in their language. Even though
creativity is most apparent when it comes to sentence
formation, where new words are added to our mental.
In this part of Chapter 3 we discuss the processes that
speakers of a language use regularly (and
unconsciously too) to create new words in their
language
(1) Derivation ‫اإلشتقاق‬
The most productive process of word formation in a
language is the use of derivational morphemes to form
new words from already existing forms, as we discussed
in the previous handout. So, for example, from arrange
we can derive rearrange, from which we can still derive
rearrangement. Can you think of other examples?
Derivation is the formation of a new word or
inflectable stem from another word or stem. It typically
occurs by the addition of an affix . An affix is a bound
morpheme that is joined before, after, or within a root
or stem
* A prefix is an affix that is joined before a root or
stem.(un- , pre- , mis- ) e.g ) The prefix un- attaches to
the front of the stem selfish to form the word unselfish
* A suffix is an affix that is attached to the end of a root
or stem
(-ful , -less , -ism) . e.g) The past tense suffix -ed attaches
to the end of the stem walk to form the past tense verb
walked.
* An infix is an affix that is inserted within a root. or
stem .
Philippines (Tagalog) The focus marker -um- is a infix which is
added after the first consonant of the root
· bili: root ‘buy’
· -um-: infix ‘AGT’
(2) Coinage ‫ابتكار‬
Coinage is the invention of totally new
words. The typical process of coinage usually
involves the extension of a product a name
from a specific reference to a more general
one. For example, think of Kleenex, Xerox,
and Kodak. These started as names of
specific products, but now they are used as
the generic names for different brands of
these types of products.
(3) Conversion ‫التحويل‬
Conversion is the extension of the use of one
word from its original grammatical category to
another category as well. For example, the word
must is a verb (e.g.
1 “You must attend classes regularly”), but it can
also be used as a noun as in “Class attendance is a
must”. Conversion from one category to another
is very common in natural language morphology
and it’s one way of enriching the lexicon of a
language.
(4) Borrowing
New words also enter a language through
borrowing from other languages. English, for
example, borrowed a lot of French words as a
result of the Norman invasion in 1066, and that’s
why the English lexicon has a Latinate flavor to it,
even though English did not descend from Latin.
Here are some examples of foreign words that
found their way into English:
(a) leak, yacht (from Dutch)
(b) barbecue, cockroach (from Spanish)
(c) piano, concerto (from Italian)
(5) Compounding
New words are also created through the common
process of compounding, i.e. combining two or
more words together to form a new complex
word. Here are some examples of compounding:
(a) post + card → postcard
(b) post + office → post office
(c) book + case → bookcase
We may also combine more than two words, e.g.
mother-in-law, sergeant-at-arms.
(6) Acronyms‫المختصرات‬
Acronyms are words created
from the initial letters of several
words. Typical examples are
NATO, FBI, CIA, UN,
UNICEF, FAQ, WYSIWYG,
radar, laser
(7) Back-formation ) Back-formation
Back-formation of words results when a word is
formed from another word by taking off what
looks like a typical affix in the language. For
example, one of the very productive derivational
morphemes in English is –er, which may be added
to a verb to create a noun meaning “a person who
performs the action of the verb”, e.g. teacher,
writer. Sometimes, however, the reverse happens.
A noun enters the language first and then a verb is
“back-formed” from it. This is the case with the
verbs edit and televise
for example, which entered English as back-formations from
editor and television.
(8) Clipping ‫القصاصة‬
Another process of word-formation is clipping, which is the
shortening of a longer word. Clipping in English gave rise to
words such as fax from facsimile, gym from gymnasium, and lab
from laboratory.
(9) Blending ‫ال َم ْزج‬
Blending is another way of combining two words to form a new
word. The difference between blending and compounding,
however, is that in blending only parts of the words, not the
whole words, are combined. Here are some examples:
(a) smoke + fog → smog
(b) motor + hotel → motel
Morphology
Morphemes
Introduction
Morphemes are what make up words. Often,
morphemes are thought of as words but that is not
always true. Some single morphemes are words while
other words have two or more morphemes within
them. Morphemes are also thought of as syllables but
this is incorrect. Many words have two or more syllables
but only one morpheme. Banana, apple, papaya, and
nanny are just a few examples. On the other hand,
many words have two morphemes and only one syllable;
examples include cats, runs, and barked.
Definitions
morpheme: a combination of sounds that have a
meaning. A morpheme does not necessarily have to be a
word. Example: the word cats has two morphemes. Cat
is a morpheme, and s is a morpheme. Every morpheme
is either a base or an affix. An affix can be either a
prefix or a suffix. Cat is the base morpheme, and s is a
suffix.
affix: a morpheme that comes at the beginning (prefix)
or the ending (suffix) of a base morpheme. Note: An
affix usually is a morpheme that cannot stand
alone. Examples: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness. A few exceptions
are able, like, and less.
base: a morpheme that gives a word its meaning.
The base
morpheme cat gives the word cats its meaning: a particular type
of animal.
prefix: an affix that comes before a base morpheme. The in
in the word inspect is a prefix.
suffix: an affix that comes after a base morpheme. The s in
cats is a suffix.
free morpheme: a morpheme that can stand alone as a
word without another morpheme. It does not need anything
attached to it to make a word. Cat is a free morpheme.
bound morpheme: a sound or a combination of
sounds that cannot stand alone as a word. The s in cats is a
bound morpheme, and it does not have any meaning without
the free morpheme cat.
inflectional morpheme: this morpheme can only be a suffix.
The
s in cats is an inflectional morpheme. An inflectional morpheme creates a
change in the function of the word. Example: the d in invited indicates past
tense. English has only seven inflectional morphemes: -s (plural) and -s
(possessive) are noun inflections; -s ( 3rd-person singular), -ed ( past tense), en (past participle), and -ing ( present participle) are verb inflections; -er
(comparative) and -est (superlative) are adjective and adverb inflections.
derivational morpheme: this type of morpheme changes the
meaning of the word or the part of speech or both. Derivational
morphemes often create new words. Example: the prefix and derivational
morpheme un added to invited changes the meaning of the word.
allomorphs: different phonetic forms or variations of a
morpheme. Example: The final morphemes in the following words are
pronounced differently, but they all indicate plurality: dogs, cats, and horses.
homonyms: morphemes that are spelled the same but have different
meanings. Examples: bear (an animal) and bear (to carry), plain (simple)
and plain ( a level area of land).
homophones: morphemes that sound alike
but have different meanings and
spellings. Examples: bear, bare; plain, plane; cite,
sight, site.
Fifteen Common Prefixes and Ten Common
Suffixes
The following tables and tip are adopted from
Grammar and Composition by Mary Beth Bauer,
et al.
Prefix
adcircumcomdedisexinin-
Meaning
to, toward
around, about
with, together
away from, off
away, apart
from, out
not
in, into
Prefix
intermispostresubtransun-
Meaning
between
wrong
after
back, again
beneath, under
across
not
Suffix
Meaning
-ly
-ment
-ness
in a certain way
the result of being
the state of being
the act of or the state
of being
without
-tion (-ion, -sion)
-less
Suffix
Meaning
-able (-ible)
-ance (-ence)
-ate
-ful
-ity
capable of being
the act of
making or applying
full of
the state of being
Tip
Suffixes can also be used to tell the part of
speech of a word. The following examples
show the parts of speech
indicated by the suffixes in the chart.
Nouns: -ance, -ful, -ity, -ment, -ness, -tion
Verb: -ate
Adjectives: -able, -ful, -less, -ly
Adverb: -ly
Morphology
Morphology is the study of word structure. For example in the
sentences The dog runs dna The dogs run smrof drow eht ,runs dna
dogs erab eht morf meht gnihsiugnitsid ,dedda s- xiffa na evah
smrofdog dna run sevig mets lanimon a ot xiffus siht gniddA .
ot tcejbus eht stcirtser smets labrev ot ti gnidda ,smrof larulp
htiw etarepo seiroeht lacigolohprom emoS .ralugnis nosrep driht
semehprom eht f o shpromolla dellac ,s- sexiffus tcnitsid owt
reffid segaugnaL .ylevitcepser ,ralugnis nosrep drihT dna larulP
.trw
.to their morphological structure. Along one axis,
we may distinguish analytic languages, with few
or no suffixes or other morphological processes
from synthetic languages with many suffixes.
Along another axis, we may distinguish
agglutinative languages, where suffixes express
one grammatical property each, and are added
neatly one after another, from fusional languages,
with non-concatenative morphological processes
(infixation, Umlaut, Ablaut, etc.) and/or with less
clear-cut suffix boundaries
Morpheme
In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme
citnames sah taht tinu citsiugnil tsellams eht si
.gninaem
In spoken language, morphemes are composed
of phonemes, the smallest linguistically distinctive
units of sound.
The concept morpheme eht morf sreffid
dnats tonnac semehprom ynam sa ,drow tpecnoc
si emehprom A .nwo rieht no sdrow safree ti f i
ro ,enola dnats nacbound ylevisulcxe desu si ti f i
.emehprom eerf a edis gnola
English example: drow ehT
semehprom eerht sah "elbakaerbnu"
gninaem( ,"-nu"not x dnuob a )
,emehprom eerf a "-kaerb-" ,emehprom
-" ,xiferp a osla si "-nu" ."elba-" dna
.sexiffa era htoB .xiffus a si "elba
Types of morphemes
Free morphemes like town ,dog nac
ni sa( semexel rehto htiw raeppatown
hall ro dog house dnats nac yeht ro )
."eerf" ro ,enola
Free morphemes fall into two categories.
First sevitcejda , snuon yranidro f o tes ehT:
) dellac si siht sbrev dnalexical morphemes
… kaerb , wollof , gnol , das , nam , yob (ge (
Second eht f o ylegral stsisnoc tes sihT:
sa hcus egaugnal eht ni sdrow lanoitcnuf
snuonorp dna snoitisoperp , snoitcnujnoc
) dellac si sihtfunctional morphemes)
…… ti , taht , eht , raen , no , tub , dna(ge
Bound morphemes like "un-" appear only together with
other morphemes to form a lexeme. Bound morphemes
in general tend to be prefixes and suffixes.
Unproductive, non-affix morphemes that exist only in
bound form are known as "cranberry" morphemes,
from the "cran" in that very word. This also falls in two
categories:
First :Inflectional ,esnet s'drow a yfidom semehprom
eht ni sa) .no os dna ,tcepsa ,rebmundog f i emehprom
emehprom rekram larulp eht htiw nettirws semoceb
dogs .(
Noun +
-'s , -s
Verb +
-s , -ing , -ed , -en
Adjective +
-est , -er
Second semehprom lanoitavireD :
(evired) etaerc ot drow a ot dedda eb nac
ot "ssen-" f o noitidda eht :drow rehtona
) ".ssenippah" evig ot ,elpmaxe rof ",yppah"
(..… , -nu , -erp , ssen- , sselAllomorphs are variants of a morpheme,
e.g. the plural marker in English is
sometimes realized as /-z/, /-s/ or /- ɪz ./
Free morpheme
In linguistics, free morphemes era
ekilnu ,enola dnats nac taht semehprom
sa ylno rucco hcihw ,semehprom dnuob
ecnetnes hsilgnE eht nI .sdrow f o strap
colorless green ideas sleep furiously ,elpmaxe rof ,
color ,green ,idea dna ,sleep eerf lla era
lla era yl- dna s- ,ssel- saerehw ,semehprom
semehprom dnuob
Bound morpheme
Bound morphemes nac taht semehprom era
sexiffA .semehprom toor ot dehcatta nehw ylno rucco
dnuob hsilgnE nommoC .semehprom dnuob era
dna ,re- ,de- ,gni- :edulcni semehprompre.Morphemes that are not bound morphemes are free
morphemes.
Allomorph
An allomorph tnairav a rof mret scitsiugnil a si
tinu a nehw srucco tpecnoc ehT . emehprom a fo mrof
tuohtiw )yllacigolonohp( dnuos ni yrav nac gninaem fo
nialpxe ot scitsiugnil ni desu si tI .gninaem gnignahc
cificeps a rof dnuos ni snoitairav fo noisneherpmoc eht
.emehprom
[
Allomorphy in English
English has several morphemes that vary in sound but
not in meaning. Examples include the past tense and the
plural morphemes.
Example esnet tsap eht egaugnal hsilgnE eht nI
shpromolla lareves ni srucco tI .de- si emehprom
gnitalimissa ,tnemnorivne lacigolonohp sti no gnidneped
awhcs a gnitresni ro tnemges suoiverp eht f o gniciov
:pots raloevla na gniwollof nehw
as /əd/ in 'hunted' or 'banded ,'
as /d/ in 'buzzed ,'
as /t/ in 'fished '
morphological description
The girl's wildness shocked the teachers
The
girl
's
wild
- ness
shock
(Functional) ( lexical ) (inflectional) (lexical)
(derivational ) (lexical )
the
teach
er
sde
( inflectional ) (Functional ) (lexical)
(derivational) ( inflectional)
This shows the different categories of
morphemes
Morphemes:
1.Free:
a. Lexical
b. Functional
2. Bound:
a. Derivational
B. Inflectional
problems in morphological description
So far we have only considered examples of English words
in which the different morphemes are easily identifiable .
thus what is the inflectional morpheme which makes sheep
the plural of sheep , or men the plural of man ?
A related question concern the inflection which makes went
the past of go .
And yet another question concern the derivation of an
adjective like legal . If al is the derivational suffix , as it is in
forms like institutional , then what is the stem ? No it is not
leg
A full description of English morphology will have to take
account of both historical influences and the effect of
borrowed elements .