MORPHOLOGY

LING 3340 - GRAMMAR AND MORPHOLOGY Spring 2008

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Introduction to Morphology
Class 3 (Bickford Chapter 4 pp. 25-34)

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Goals and Prerequisites

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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

You are familiar with the following material:

traditional terminology wh/ applies to verbal morphology (see ch 2) how to isolate morphemes and guess their meanings (see ch 3)

(obvious?)

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4.2 What is a Morpheme?

(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

usually have more to do with grammar than vocabulary

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More Morpheme Description

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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More Morpheme Description

Morphemes with lexical meanings may have grammatical properties

(homophones) week & weak Consider the following quote: I see said the blind man as he picked up is hammer and saw. V: saw, N: saw ?

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More Morpheme Description

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

change in vowel quality (man/men foot/feet )

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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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4.3 Verbal Morphology

Involves more grammatical meanings than noun morphology includes

tense aspect mood agreement

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Tense

What are they:

Things you sleep in when you go camping (tnts)

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

Refers to the time of a situation in relation to its context.

Generally two distinctions:

Perfective and Imperfective

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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.

While I was wandering through the maze,

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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

Also might be habitual or progressive

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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

Zero Morphemes from: http://www.ling.udel.edu/idsardi/101/notes/morphology.html

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)

(Haspelmath 2002 pp.26-27 & 265) An allomorph = morpheme alternate

two roots or morphological patterns are allomorphs (of the same abstract morpheme) if they express the same meaning and occur in complementary distribution. Korean accusative suffix markers

ton money tali leg

ton + -ul money ACC tali + -lul leg ACC

Some English verbs

root [i:] PRES root allomorph [] PST sleep/slept, keep/kept, deal/dealt, meet/met
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Consider the following words:

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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from: http://www.answers.com/topic/null-morpheme (cont)

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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from: http://www.answers.com/topic/null-morpheme (cont)

According to some linguists' view, it's also a null morpheme that turns some English adjectives into verbs of the kind of to clean, to slow, to warm. Null derivation, also known as conversion if the word class changes, is very common in English. In languages that show the above distinctions, it's quite common to employ null affixation to (not) mark singular number, present tense and third persons (English is unusual in its marking of the third person singular with a non-zero morpheme, by contrast with a null morpheme for others). It's also frequent to find null affixation for the least-marked cases (the nominative in nominative-accusative languages, and the absolutive in ergative-absolutive languages). In most languages of the world these are the affixes that are realized as null morphemes. But in some cases roots may alse be realized as these. For instance, Russian word --- (vynut', to take out) consists of one prefix (-), one zero root (--), one suffix (--), and one postfix (-). A basic radical element plus a null morpheme is not the same as an uninflected word, though usage may make those equal in practice.
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Morphemes

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Morphology Explanations online

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/peop le/schuh/lx001/Discussion/d03.html #anchor1962289

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Questions up to this point?

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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Stems/Roots and Affixes

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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Stems/Roots and Affixes

STEM (p. 136)

Can be an inflected word

i.e. can contain multiple morphemes

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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Stems/Roots and Affixes

stem
-er

|
+ -s
Inflectional Suffix

kick +
Root

Derivational Suffix

stem

view + point Root

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Root
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Stems/Roots and Affixes

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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Stems/Roots and Affixes

STEMS VS. AFFIXES

rules of thumb to help determine if a morpheme is a stem or an affix 1. The richness of its semantics. 2. whether it belongs to an open or closed class. 3. whether it is free or bound.

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Stems/Roots and Affixes

STEMS VS. AFFIXES

1. The richness of its semantics.

Stems usually have richer semantics than affixes

usually have lexical meaning

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/Roots and Affixes

STEMS VS. AFFIXES

2. whether it belongs to an open or closed class.

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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Stems/Roots and Affixes

STEMS VS. AFFIXES

3. whether it is free or bound.

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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4.5 Questions about Morphology

2 basic questions: (when analyzing affixes)

1. What is its meaning?
A. B.

What meanings are being expressed? Are these meanings lexical or grammatical?

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4.5 Questions about Morphology

2 basic questions: (when analyzing affixes)

2. How is meaning expressed?
A.

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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4.6 Different Systems

Three main TYPOLOGIES of Morphological systems

ISOLATING AGGLUTINATIVE FUSIONAL

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4.6 Different Systems

Three main TYPOLOGIES of Morphological systems

ISOLATING

simplest possible morphology nearly every word consist of a single morpheme especially common in SE Asia
Vietnamese (#11)

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4.6 Different Systems

Three main TYPOLOGIES of Morphological systems

AGGLUTINATIVE

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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4.6 Different Systems

Three main TYPOLOGIES of Morphological systems

FUSIONAL

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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4.7 Position Classes

How do morphemes combine to form words? Bickford pg. 32

ex (#14): Yagua (Peba-Yaguan, Peru) Make morpheme cuts and gloss morphemes 1st.

then represent the order in a position class chart.

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4.7 Position Classes

-1 Person 0 STEM +1 +2 Desider- TNS ative +3 ASP

naatsa-

-ruuy

-hay -tsi

-maa

desiderative (di-sid-r--tv) adj.

1. Of, relating to, or expressing desire. 2. Grammar Designating a clause, a sentence, or in some languages an inflected verb form that expresses desire.

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4.7 Position Classes

Each column represents a Position Class.

a class of morphemes that will occur in the same position in a word. any two morphemes that occur in the same position class will never occur in the same word.

(they are MUTUTALLY EXCLUSIVE)

When two affixes from different classes appear they appear in the order given in the chart.
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4.7 Position Classes

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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4.9 Questions for Analysis

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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4.10 Sample Description

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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Yagua verb structure

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