Transcript General Morphology Thoughts

Morphology, Part 4:
Allomorphy
October 3, 2012
The Morphology Plan
• The first homework will be due on Wednesday of next
week.
• I will post it to the course website today after class.
• On Friday, we will go over some more practice
morphology exercises.
• Primarily morphological analysis (like the Esperanto
problem).
• Let’s go back to that gender-free pronoun Quick Write…
Gender-Free Quick Write
• Is it feasible for speakers of English to create genderfree pronouns?
Gender-Free Quick Write
Find out more at:
http://www.bignewsday.com/story.asp?code=BZ345203T&news=yo_being_used_as_gender-neutral_pronoun
Gender-Free Quick Write
Internal Change
• A (slightly) more common word-formation process in
English is internal change.
• = changing sounds inside a root creates a new word.
• Also known as alternations
sing
~
sang
present/past
drive
~
drove
present/past
foot
~
feet
singular/plural
mouse
~
mice
singular/plural
import
~
import
noun/verb
present
~
present
noun/verb
Internal Change Quick Write
•
88 total responses.
0. Did you bive? Yes, I…
•
bave (1); bove (1); boved (1)
1. Did you vake? Yes, I…
•
vade (3); voke (3); vook (2); vaken (2); viked (1)
2. Did you slike? Yes, I…
•
sloke (4); slaught (1); sloked (1); sluck (1); slunk (1)
3. Did you neak? Yes, I…
•
nucked (2); noke (1); nuck (1)
Internal Change Quick Write
4. Did you mide? Yes, I…
• mode (16); mid (14); made (2); miden (1)
5. Did you strink? Yes, I…
• strunk (31); strank (15); strinken (1); stronk (1);
strought (1)
6. Did you lun? Yes, I…
• lan (6); land (1); lawned (1); lonned (1)
• Internal changes are made for the new forms to the extent
that they resemble phonologically similar forms already in
the language. (ride, drink, run)
Roots and Patterns
• An extreme form of “internal change” is found in Semitic
languages, like Arabic and Hebrew
• “Root and pattern morphology”
• Arabic: /k-t-b/ root “write”
kitaab
alkitaab
maktab
kataba
kaataba
ifkataba
kuttaab
‘a book’
‘the book’
‘office’
‘to write’
‘to correspond’
’to make a copy’
‘Koranic school’
kutub
kaatib
maktaba
kattaba
?uktaba
kutubii
miktaab
‘books’
‘author’
‘library’
‘to make write’
‘to dictate’
‘bookseller’
‘typewriter’
Conversion
• Conversion = usage of an exising word in a new lexical
category.
• English makes use of this process a lot.
• Examples:
• to butter
to nail
(N  V)
• a report
a call
(V  N)
• to right (a wrong)
to total (a car)
(A  V)
Awkwardizations?
• Football Announcer-ese:
• “Sanders defensed the pass.”
(noun to verb)
• “Urlacher lost weakside contain.”
(verb to noun)
• Corporate speak?
• During Hurricane Katrina:
• "We heard that there was a gentleman who was
stuck in his boat just downstream from us so we are
efforting to help rescue agencies to find him".
Conversion
Suppletion
• Suppletion occurs when inflected forms of a word have
different roots.
• In English, this is rare:
• go ~ went
• be ~ were
• compare with: walk ~ walked; cook ~ cooked
• Portuguese:
• ir
“to go”
comer
“to eat”
• vou
“I go”
como
“I eat”
• fui
“I went”
comi
“I ate”
• ia
“I was going”
comia
“I was eating”
Child Verb Morphology
• Patterns like the following are frequently found in child
language acquisition:
Present Past
Stage 1:
go
went
Stage 2:
go
goed
Stage 3:
go
went
• What’s going on here?
• What is the child doing, as a language learner?
Clipping
• Clipping = shortening of an existing word.
• demo
from “demonstration”
• condo
from “condominium”
• fax
from “facsimile”
• deli
from “delicatessen”
• lab
from “laboratory”
• taxicab
from “taximeter cabriolet”
• (cabriolet = horse-drawn carriage)
Blends
• Blending = melding together parts of two different
words.
• brunch
from breakfast and lunch
• smog
from smoke and fog
• spam
from spiced and ham
• telethon
from television and marathon
• chortle
from chuckle and snort
• motel
from motor and hotel
• chillax
from chill and relax
• bankster
from banker and gangster
• bricked
from brilliant and wicked
The Remainders
• Coinage
• = completely making a new word up.
• Example: snarky, dog
• Eponyms
• = naming words after people
• ex: boycott, crapper, sideburns
• Acronyms
• Creating a word out of an abbreviation.
• ex: scuba, radar, laser
Last but not least
• Sometimes an affix changes form, depending on what kind
of root it attaches to.
• Consider English /in-/
• combines with adjectives to form adjectives
• means “the opposite of”
• Examples:
/in-/ + accurate =
inaccurate
/in-/ + tolerant
=
intolerant
/in-/ + direct
=
indirect
Allomorphy
• What’s going on in these cases?
/in-/ + legible
=
illegible
/in-/ + regular
=
irregular
/in-/ + legal
=
illegal
• There are two new forms of the affix: /il-/ and /ir-/
• These are called allomorphs.
• Allomorphs = “different forms”
Allomorphy
• What’s going on here?
/in-/ + probable =
improbable
/in-/ + mobile
=
immobile
/in-/ + possible
=
impossible
• /in-/ changes to /im-/ before both /p/ and /m/.
• /p/ and /m/ are both produced with the lips.
To explain patterns like this, we’re going to need to know
something about how we actually produce the sounds of
English.
We have to study Phonetics!
Allomorphy
• Another English example:
a dog
an owl
a noise
an orange
a strawberry
an apple
• Here’s another:
• walked
invited
• sprayed
needed
• stopped
hated
• fired
landed
• What’s the pattern?
Allomorphy
• One last pattern:
• cats
matches
• judges
dogs
• chairs
passes
• When do we add an extra syllable?
• How does the pattern compare to the formation of third
person singular verbs?
• waits, loves, shows, finds…
• watches, hatches, kisses, spazzes…
• The pattern is based entirely on the sounds involved;
• not on the meaning of the morphemes.
Allomorphy
• How about the Italian Quick Write?