L3S5-GMCO 504-MORPHOSYNTAX-2019

LESSON ONE : WHAT IS MORPHOSYNTAX ?

Plan of the lesson :

Introduction

1. Defining morphosyntax

2. The relationship between morphology and syntax

3. Grammar vs Morphosyntax

4. What is the study of morphosyntax?

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

1. Reviewing the history of the study of language

It is noticeable that the study of language, linguistics, has been developing into a
science since the first grammatical descriptions of particular languages in India more
than 2000 years ago. Modern linguistics is a science that concerns itself with all
aspects of language, examining it from all of the theoretical viewpoints.

Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE

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The history of morphological analysis dates back to the ancient Indian linguist Pāṇini, who
formulated the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology. Pāṇini's systematic classification of word
classes, such as nouns and verbs, was the first known instance of its kind. The Greco-Roman
grammatical tradition also engaged in morphological analysis. According to Akesson (2001),
studies in Arabic morphology, conducted by Marāḥ al-arwāḥ and Aḥmad b. ‘alī Mas‘ūd, date
back to at least 1200 CE1. In Europe, the term "morphology" was coined by August
Schleicher2 in 1859.

In the same veine, works on grammar were written long before modern syntax came
about; the study of Pāṇini (c. 4th century BC) is often cited as an example of a premodern
work that approaches the sophistication of a modern syntactic theory3. In the Middle East,

1
Akesson, Joyce. (2001). Arabic Morphology and Pholonogy, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
2
Für die Lehre von der Wortform wähle ich das Wort "Morphologie"... ("For the science of word-formation, I
choose the term "morphology"..."), Mémoires Acad. Impériale 7/1/7, 35.
3
Fortson IV, Benjamin W. (2004). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. Blackwell. p. 186
Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE

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Sibabwayh, a non-Arab, made a detailed description of Arabic in 760 AD in his monumental

work, Al-kitab fi al-nahw (‫الكتاب في النحو‬, The Book on Grammar).

In the late 2Oth century, a number of studies have alluded to the existence of a branch of
linguistics referred to as morphosyntax. These include the works of : Crystal (1980),
Anderson (1986), Halle and Marantz (1993), Halle and Keysler (1993), Harley and Noyer
(1999), Embick and Halle (2001) and Kibort (2007). They describe morphosyntax as the part
of morphology that covers the relationship between syntax and morphology and is capable of
explaining why a word is included in a particular grammatical category.

2. Defining morphosyntax

Phonemic transcription : /mɔːfəʊˈsɪntæks/. Syllabic division: Mor·pho·syn·tax

Some specialists consider Morphosyntax an area inside of morphology devoted to the

study of certain morphological elements which are intimately related to syntax.
Others prefer to work with morphology and syntax together. They consider that the two
cannot be studied isolated, and that many morphological processes influence syntactic
structures and vice versa.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition,
morphosyntax includes :
 The study of grammatical categories or linguistic units that have both morphological and
syntactic properties.
 The set of rules that govern linguistic units whose properties are definable by both
morphological and syntactic criteria.
The following are distinctions between morphology, syntax and morphosyntax :
 The study of the interaction of morphology and syntax. Morphology and syntax
regarded as an interlinked unit. The study of the morphological and syntactic
properties of linguistic or grammatical units.
 The rules that determine the relation between one linguistic form and another, defined
by morphological and syntactic criteria.
 Morphology concerns ‘morphemes’ – units of sound that carry meaning. Syntax
concerns the hierarchical structure of words in a sentence. Morphosyntax moves one

Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE

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beyond morphology and concerns the structure of morphemes and how they can be
represented hierarchically, just like words are in syntax.
For example, let us consider these two words, Cat and Cats.
‘Cat’, has the meaning ‘feline pet mammal’. That’s a morpheme.
In ‘Cats’, ‘s’ carries the meaning of ‘plural’, so we have two morphemes.
Another two words, Mouse and Mice. They do share the sounds /m/ and /s/, but the plural
morpheme is inside. However, the word Mice still consists of 2 morphemes: Mouse + Plural.
In this case the plural form is historic, involving changing the vowel, but it’s still there!

3. The relationship between morphology and syntax

In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship
to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words,
such as stems, root words, affixes. Morphology also looks at parts of speech, intonation and
stress and the ways context can change a word's pronunciation and meaning
(morphphonology). Morphology differs from lexicology, which is the study of words and how
they make up a language's vocabulary.

Words are generally the smallest units of syntax and many words can be related to other
words by syntactic rules that collectively describe the grammar for that language.

Thus, morphology is about the study of the internal structure of words words; while
Syntax is about sentence/phrase structure, that is, the way in which words are put together to
form phrases and sentences. Morphosyntax is both. Probably what the non-linguist calls
Grammar! It is a more formal term for grammar in a linguistic sense.

If the term refers to the combination of morphology and syntax, morphosyntax is therefore
the internal structure of utterances, both above the word level and below it. Why combine
morphology and syntax ? Because grammatical constructions involve both. Consider the
English Numeral Modification construction, illustrated below :

one tree

two tree-s

Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE

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three tree-s etc.

The Numeral Modification construction involves both syntax—the order of numeral

and noun—and morphology—the form of the noun. A description or analysis of the Numeral
Modification construction must include reference to both : the relative position of numeral
and noun, and the inflection of the noun for number.

Of course, some constructions in languages seem to involve “only syntax” : order and
grouping of words like in bamankan (yiri kelen, yiri fila, yiri saba) or in Songhay (turi foo,
turi hinka, turi hinza). Other constructions seem to involve “only morphology” : the
inflectional forms of words, for example (one tree, two trees, three trees), or (work, works,
worker, workers, working).

The question of what relation morphology should bear to the syntax may be
comprehensively considered vis à vis the lexicalist hypothesis: Syntax neither manipulates nor
has access to the internal forms of words. Anderson (1986) cites several properties that
appear to call for a non-null interaction of syntax and word structure (morphology). He further
asserts that all the major areas where syntax and morphology interface appear to have a
commonality : They fall under (an appropriate interpretation of) the notion of inflectional
morphology. Inflectional morphology consists of exactly those aspects of word structure that
are syntactically relevant, in the sense of being determined by or are accessible to syntactic
rules. Marantz (1997) sums it up by saying that a theory of inflectional morphology becomes
precisely a theory of the qualification of the lexicalist hypothesis.

Inflectional morphology involves concepts that are more relevant to how the word relates
to other words in a construction than to the lexical item itself. (Plungjan 2000 : 125). If, for
example, a language inflects its nouns for number and case, all nouns will obligatorily express
these categories.

Both the syntactic theory of Kayne (1994) and Chomsky (1995), and the
morphological theory of Halle and Marantz (1993) are recent proposals that have influenced
the way in which we view the relation between syntax and morphology.

Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE

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The development of recent syntactic theories has partly provided an explanation for
some well-known descriptive generalizations that operate in morphology. In particular, the
new theory of word order and phrase structure developed by Kayne.

4. Grammar vs Morphosyntax

It is important to define grammar in a way that accounts for both the structure of the
language and its communicative use. In order to do so, we will need to take into consideration
how grammar operates. Thus, linguists recognize that grammar involves three dimensions :
(morpho)syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Grammatical structures not only have a morphosyntactic form, they are also used to
express meaning (semantics) in context-appropriate use (pragmatics). We refer to these as the
dimensions of form, meaning, and use. The three are interrelated-that is, a change in one will
involve a change in another.

THE THREE DIMENSIONSOF GRAMMAR :

M
e
a
n
i
n
g
:
W
h Fo rm :
a U se:
H o w is it fo r m e d ?
t W h e n / W h y is it u s e d ?
(M o rp h o s y n ta x )
( P r a g m a ti c s )
d
e
o
s

i
t

m
e
a
n
?
(
S
e
m
a
n
t
i
c
s
)

Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE

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In dealing with form, for instance, we are interested in how a particular grammar
structure is constructed-its morphology and its syntax.

When dealing with meaning, we want to know what a particular grammar structure means,
what semantic contribution it makes whenever it is used. There are two kinds of meaning :
grammatical and lexical. For example :

She was walking home from school that day when she ran into a friend.

In the sentence above, the grammatical meaning of the verb « walk » is that the past
progressive indicates a past action in progress, and « ran » indicates the preterite of « run »
fulfilling a complete action in the past. Or the lexical meaning of « run » refers to its
dictionary definition ; for example, the meaning of the phrasal ver used in our example means
"to meet by chance."

When dealing with of the use, we deal with issues concerning the choices that users of
a particular language make when using the forms of language in communication. This is the
domain of pragmatics. We can account for the pragmatics governing the use of a particular
grammar structure if we can explain when it is used or why it has been used instead of another
structure with the same meaning.

So, these three dimensions are useful as a conceptual framework for teaching
grammar. Since grammar does not deal simply with form, and language teachers cannot
concern themselses with teaching only formal accuracy about morphology and syntax.
Language teachers must also help their students to use the structures meaningfully and
appropriately as well. Thus, the three dimensions of form, meaning, and use make explicit the
need for students to learn to use grammar structures accurately, meaningfully, and
appropriately (morphosyntax, semantics and pragmatics).

Thus, morphosyntax is grammar in the narrower sense in that it is the area of grammar
without phonology, which in the wider sense is also counted as grammar. Since the distinction
between morphology and syntax is not always easy, these two areas are sometimes
summarized under the name Morphosyntax. In principle, morphosyntax is nothing but the
reproduction of syntactic functions by morphological means.

Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE

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4. What is the study of morphosyntax?

• The morphosyntax of a language involves studying the rules of how the following
linguistic units are constructed:
1. Sentence
2. Clause
3. Phrase
4. Word
5. Morpheme
• These units are arranged in a hierarchy in two ways:
• The first way is:
1. Sentence
2. Clause
3. Phrase
4. Word
5. Morpheme
• The second way is:
1. Morpheme
2. Word
3. Phrase
4. Clause
5. Sentence
The units are arranged in a hierarchy in two ways:
1) a higher unit must be broken into the units immediately below it.
2) the lower unit is the constituent of the higher unit immediately above it.
A sentence can be broken into clauses,
a clause can be broken into phrases,
a phrase can be broken into words,
a word can be broken into morphemes.
1. Morphemes are the constituents of a word.
2. Words are the constituents of a phrase.
3. Phrases are the constituents of a clause.
4. Clauses are the constituents of a sentence.
Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE

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So, if the term refers to the combination of morphology and syntax, morphosyntax is
therefore the internal structure of utterances, both above the word level and below it.

This semester, we will discuss the two lower ranks:

1. morphemes (inflectional morphosyntax) and

2. words (lexical morphosyntax).

The following semester will be about the next ranks, that is, the phrase, the clause
and the sentence.

Dr Ibrahima ABDOULAYE