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Morphology

This document discusses linguistic concepts related to morphology. It defines words, morphemes, morphs, and allomorphs. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in language and can be either lexical or grammatical. Morphs are the concrete realizations of morphemes. Allomorphs are variant morphs that are conditioned by phonological or morphological factors. The document also classifies morphs as free or bound, and discusses the differences between inflection and derivation.

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Diana
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127 views7 pages

Morphology

This document discusses linguistic concepts related to morphology. It defines words, morphemes, morphs, and allomorphs. Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in language and can be either lexical or grammatical. Morphs are the concrete realizations of morphemes. Allomorphs are variant morphs that are conditioned by phonological or morphological factors. The document also classifies morphs as free or bound, and discusses the differences between inflection and derivation.

Uploaded by

Diana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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07/10/2018

1 The word
 The notion of word is a very complex one, often
controversial. A possible definition would be that a
word is a meaningful linguistic unit that can be
combined to form phrases and sentences.
 I love eating spaghetti with my hands.

1 The word 2 Morpheme


 Main criteria:  A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a
 Phonetic identity language.
 Semantic identity  Morphemes are represented between curly brackets:
 Morphological stability { }
 Syntactic mobility

1
07/10/2018

2 Morpheme 2 Morpheme
 Characteristics of morphemes: morpheme
 They are internally indivisible:
 -able /Əbl/; book /bʊk/
 They have internal stability:
 comfort - *comablefort - comfortable grammatical lexical
 They are externally transportable:
 uncommon, unfamiliar

function inflectional content derivational


word affix word affix

2 Morpheme 3 Morphs and allomorphs


 Lexical morphemes: lexical or dictionary meaning.  Morph: concrete realization of a morpheme.
 Independent words:  Morphemic analysis: analysis into morphemes.
 Parts of words: affixes  Morphological analysis: analysis into morphs.
 Grammatical morphemes:
 Inflectional affixes:
 Function words:

2
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3 Morphs and allomorphs 3 Morphs and allomorphs


Morphemic Morphological
analysis analysis
build
 Allomorphs: variant morphs.
 Morphophoneme: a morpheme with allomorphs.
building
 {pl}
/z / after voiced sounds except sibilants
buildings /s / after voiceless sounds except sibilants
/ɪz/ after sibilants /s, z, ʃ, Ʒ, tʃ, dƷ/

3 Morphs and allomorphs 3 Morphs and allomorphs


Morphemic Morphological
 {past}
analysis analysis
/t/ after voiceless sounds except /t/ beds
/d/ after voiced sounds except /d/
/ɪd/ after /t,d/
shoes

snores

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3 Morphs and allomorphs 3 Morphs and allomorphs


Morphemic Morphological
analysis analysis  These allomorphs are phonologically conditioned,
stopped because the occurrence of each allomorph depends on
the phonological environment.
 Those allomorphs that are not determined by the
mended phonological environment are called
morphologically conditioned.

raised

3 Morphs and allomorphs


Morphologically conditioned allomorphs:
3 Morphs and allomorphs
Morphemic Morphological Morphemic Morphological
analysis analysis
mice analysis analysis
burnt

fish (pl)

oxen is

broke

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3 Morphs and allomorphs 3 Morphs and allomorphs


 Morphologically conditioned lexical allomorphs:
Morphemic Morphological
 house /haʊs/ - houses /haʊzɪz/
analysis analysis
house
 wife /waɪf/ - wives /waɪvz/

houses
 Also called allomorphic variation of the root.

wives

4. Classification of morphs 4 Classification of morphs


morph

free (root) bound


 A free morph may stand alone as a word:
content function affix  A bound morph must always be attached to another
bound root
word word morph:
 A root carries the main lexical or grammatical
prefix suffix meaning: methodically, outlandish, ultraviolet.

derivational derivational inflectional

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4 Classification of morphs 4 Classification of morphs


 Affixes are always attached to roots:
 Stem: root + derivational affixes.
 Prefixes: before roots, e.g. pre-, re-
disembowelments:
 Suffixes: after roots, e.g. –er, -dom
 Infixes: within roots.

5 Types of words 6 Inflection vs derivation


 Derivational affixes  creation of new words.
 Simple words: one free root
 e.g. 2 types:
 Complex words: one free root and one or more bound  class-changing:
morphs (inflectional and/or derivational), or two or  e.g.
more bound morphs
 class maintaining:
 e.g.
e.g.
 Compound words: two free roots 

 e.g.  Inflectional affixes  NO creation of new words.


 Compound-complex words: two free roots and  diferent (inflected) forms of the same word:
associated bound morphs  e.g.
 e.g.

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6 Inflection vs derivation
 English inflectional affixes
plural number -s
Noun
genitive case -s

present tense, 3rd p sg -s

past tense -ed


Verb
past participle -ed

present participle -ing

comparative degree -er


Adjective
superlative degree -est

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