The Grammar of Words

Grammar in Use
LING90016
Week 2
 Recap
Last week:
Definitions of grammar
Variation in grammar
Prescriptivism vs. descriptivism

Homework (not assessed, not a hurdle

requirement):
• Online quizzes (most weeks): Canvas > Quizzes
• Homework/tutorial exercises: Canvas > Modules >
Week 2 (or 3, 4, etc.) 2
 The Grammar of Words

Overview
• Words, Lexemes, Morphemes
• Word Classes / Parts of Speech

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WORDS, LEXEMES, MORPHEMES

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 What is a Word?
If you encountered the word pockled for the first
time in the following context:

1. He went to the pub for a pint and then pockled

off.

How would you look it up in a dictionary? Would

you look under pockled or pockle? Why?

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 Words, Lexemes, Morphemes
You know that the following words (word forms)
are all related to a single abstract vocabulary item
(lexeme):

Pockle
Pockled POCKLE
Pockling
Pockles

Word Forms LEXEME 1 6

 Words, Lexemes, Morphemes
You also know that the following word forms are
all made up of smaller units of meaning /
grammatical function (morpheme):

Pockle
Pockled = Pockle + ed POCKLE
Pockling = Pockle + ing
Pockles = Pockle + s (3rd person)

Word Forms Morphemes LEXEME 1

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 Words, Lexemes, Morphemes
Now compare pockles in 1. with pockles in 2.:

1. He goes to the pub for a pint and then pockles off.

2. He couldn’t care less about so many pockles.

• How would you look up pockles in sentence 2?

Do you expect to see it under the same entry
pockles in 1.? Why/Why not?
• What other word forms do you expect to see
pockles in the second sense to have?
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 Words, Lexemes, Morphemes

2. He couldn’t care less about so many pockles.

Pockle = Pockle + Ø (singular) POCKLE

Pockles = Pockle + s (plural)
Pockle’s = Pockle + ‘s (possessive)

Word Forms Morphemes LEXEME 2

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 Words, Lexemes, Morphemes
• Lexeme 1: Pockle (verb) + inflection/inflectional
morpheme
• Lexeme 2: Pockle (noun) + inflection/inflectional
morpheme
➢This shows that we can place words into word
classes without considering meaning/semantics.

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 Word
• a meaningful unit that can stand
alone in speaking or writing.
• can refer to a lexeme or different
word forms
• combines with other words to form
phrases, clauses and sentences.

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 Lexeme
• An abstract unit which may be associated with
more than one word form.
• The vocabulary or lexical item which is listed in a
dictionary.
• The word forms associated with a single lexeme
are said to be related to each other by means of
inflection.
— e.g. the lexeme EAT involves a number of different
word forms, such as eat, eats, eaten, ate and so on.
• The number of word forms a lexeme has is
determined by the set of grammatical categories
in a language. 12
 Inflection
base present past plural

lexeme 1 sell sells sold

lexeme 2 sale sales
lexeme 1 do does did
lexeme 2 do (noun) dos? do’s??

lexeme 1 undo undoes undid

lexeme 2 undoing (noun) undoings?

lexeme redo redoes redid

lexeme outdo outdoes outdid

lexeme overdo overdoes overdid

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 Activity
Is building in sentences 1 and 2 below instances
of the same lexeme or different lexemes? Why?

1) They’re building more town houses at the end

of the street.
2) We left the building by the back exit.

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 Morpheme
The smallest indivisible unit of:

• meaningful content
– cat, walk, hard
• grammatical function
– Cats, walked, harder, and
• A word contains one or more morphemes

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 Morphemes
How many morphemes can you identify in the following
words?

• But
• Cats
• Singers
• Uncleanliness
• Earring
• Hears

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 Morphemes
A word can be made up of one or more morpheme

Number of morphemes per word

1 2 3 More than 3
but
cat cat-s
sing sing-er sing-er-s
clean clean-ly clean-li-ness un-clean-li-ness
ear ear-ring
hear s 17
Morphemes: A Note on Realisation
The same morpheme can have different phonetic
realisation / spelling
The plural -s in English
-s pips, cats, cracks /s/
tubs, dogs, cousins /z/
kisses, churches /Əz/
Sometimes different morphemes have the same phonetic
realisation
– E.g. ear (for hearing) and ear (of corn)
– E.g. -s (for plural) and -’s (for possessive)
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 Occurrence of Morphemes

Word
(Morpheme) Morpheme (Morpheme)

Bound Free Bound

(Affix) (Base) (Affix)
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 Occurrence of Morphemes
• free morpheme: a morpheme that can be
used as a word without any modification:
– E.g. tuna, Warrnambool, drive and purple

• bound morpheme: a morpheme that cannot

stand alone, typically an affix:
– E.g. the verb suffixes -ing and -ed

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 Occurrence of Morphemes
Free Morphemes
(Words/Bases) Bound Morphemes (Affixes)
nouns • Lexical/derivational
verbs
adverbs • Inflectional
adjectives
prepositions
determinatives
coordinators
subordinators

[*Also a small number of bound base morphemes]

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 Free Morpheme: Base
• Most words are made up of a free morpheme
or base (also sometimes called a ‘stem’) and
optionally some affixes which attach to it
• Each affix is attached to a base, potentially to
form a new base for further affixation.

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Base

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 Bound Bases
• Some bases are not free but are bound
morphemes. These must be combined with an
affix in order to produce a word.
– E.g. -ceive cannot occur alone but does occur in
the forms receive, conceive and deceive.

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 Affixes
Affix: a bound morpheme that is added to the base
• prefix: an affix that occurs before a base. For
example, dis- in dislocate or re- in relocate.
• suffix: an affix that occurs after the base. For
example, -ly in happily and -est in highest are
suffixes.
• infix: a bound morpheme that occurs within the
base to which it is attached. Infixes are only found
in English as intensifiers in certain colloquial forms
such as bloody in fanbloodytastic.
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 Function of Affixes
1. to form a new word: lexical / derivational
affix [Lexical/derivational morphology]
– e.g. in- and -able in in+dispute+able or
2. to express a grammatical relationship:
inflectional affix [inflectional morphology]
– e.g plural -s in dog+s.

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 Function of Affixes
• Lexical/Derivational morpheme: an affix that, when
added to a word, can change its meaning and/or parts
of speech to create a new word.
– E.g. the lexical prefix un- can be used to create words such
as uninspiring, uninhibited, and unable.

• Inflectional morpheme: an affix that is added to a

word to express grammatical relationships without
changing the meaning of the word or its part of
speech.
– For example, -s ‘plural’, -er ‘comparative’ and -ed ‘past
tense’ are inflectional morphemes.

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 Lexical/Derivational Affixes
Examples

noun to adjective verb to adjective to noun to

noun adverb verb
boy+ish acquit+al exact+ly moral+ise
virtu+ous clear+ance quiet+ly vaccin+ate
Elizabeth+an accus+ation brand+ish
pictur+esque confer+ence haste+n
affection+ate sing+er
health+ful conform+ist
alcohol+ic predict+ion
life+like free+dom

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 Lexical/Derivational Affixes
• Not all lexical/derivational morphemes cause a change
in word class. For example, many prefixes:
a + moral mono +theism
re + print auto + biography
ex + wife semi + annual
super + human sub + minimal
• There are also suffixes of this type:
vicar + age Brisbane + ite
green + ish Melbourn + ian

Here there is rather a change of meaning. 29

 Inflectional Affixes
• express grammatical relationships without
changing the meaning of the word or its part
of speech
• in English, there is a limited number of
inflectional affixes (all happen to be suffixes)

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 The Inflectional Affixes of English
Stem Suffix Function Example
• Verbs
eat -s 3 person sg present He eats there every day.
walk -ed past tense She walked there yesterday.
wait -ing progressive He is waiting right now.
eat -en past participle She has eaten all the food.
• Nouns
chair -s plural The chairs are very soft.
chair -'s possessive The chair’s leg is broken.
• Adjectives and Adverbs
fast -er comparative She runs faster than me.
fast -est superlative She is the fastest runner.
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 Working out the Status of Morphemes
Divide the following words into their component morphemes.
Identify:
1) The base(s)
2) The affixes
3) If the affixes are derivational or inflectional

• Gluttons (e.g. there are many gluttons here)

• Tasted (e.g. I tasted the fruit)
• Purest (e.g. this is the purest material)
• Gluttonises
• Tastiest
• Impurities 32
Working out the Status of Morphemes
LEXICAL ITEM+ INFLECTIONAL SUFFIX
glutton (noun) gluttons (noun + plural)
taste (verb) tasted (verb + past tense)
pure (adjective) purer/purest (adj + comparative/
superlative)

LEXICAL ITEM + LEXICAL AFFIX(ES) + INFLECTIONAL SUFFIX

glutton (noun) gluttonize (verb) gluttonizes (verb + present)
taste (verb) tasty (adjective) tastier/tastiest (adj +
comp/sup)
pure (adjective) impurity (negative impurities (neg + noun +
+ noun) plural)
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MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES

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 Key Morphological Processes
Words are formed through:
• affixation or affixing: the process of combining
a base and an affix.
– E.g. the word truth becomes truthful, untruthful and
untruthfulness through the process of affixation.
• conversion: a base form converts to a different
part of speech without changing its form (i.e.
without adding any affix).
– N —> V table, chair, cushion, medal
– V —> N play, run 35
 Key Morphological Processes
• compounding: one or more bases are added
together to form a new word.
sales + person = salesperson
• base/stem modification: alternations in
base/stem vowels, consonants, or stress to
derive new lexemes or inflected forms.
sell (verb) sale (noun)
sell sold 36
 Morphological Processes
• suppletion: the addition of a grammatical
morpheme causes a complete change in the
original form.
– e.g. go vs went
• syncretism (shape sharing): the merging into
one of two or more former categories
– E.g. the ‘nonstandard’ English usage of was in we
was, you was, they was as well as in I was, he was
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 Activity
For each of the following words, identify:
1) What type of morphology is illustrated – inflectional or
derivational?
2) What type of morphological process is illustrated?
(Affixation; conversion; compounding; base modification;
suppletion; syncretism)

• (to) impact versus (an) impact

• outdo
• am → was
• heart-breaking
• pathology

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 Activity
Consider the following verb classes in English.
1) What type of morphology is illustrated here – inflectional or derivational?
2) Which morphological process does each class illustrate?
Base Past Tense Past Participle
1. a. drink drank drunk
b. cling clung clung
c. run ran run

2. a. know knew known

b. break broke broken
c. drive drove driven

3. a. leave left left

b. dwell dwelt dwelt
c. bring brought brought

4. a. cut cut cut

5. a. show showed showed/shown

b. dive dived/dove dived
c. burn burned/burnt burned/burnt

6. go went gone 39
 Activity
Base Past Tense Past Participle
1. a. drink drank drunk
b. cling clung clung The examples show a
c. run ran run mixture of:
2. a. know knew known • base modification
b. break broke broken (e.g. drink-drank)
• affixation (e.g.
c. drive drove driven
know-known)
3. a. leave left left • syncretism (e.g. cut-
b. dwell dwelt dwelt cut-cut, run-ran-run)
c. bring brought brought • suppletion (e.g. go-
4. cut cut cut went-gone)
5. a. show showed showed/shown
b. dive dived/dove dived
c. burn burned/burnt burned/burnt
6. go went gone
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CLASSES OF WORDS: PARTS OF
SPEECH

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Classes of Words: The Parts of Speech
Issues:
• number of categories, labels for word classes
and placement of subclasses

In a descriptive linguistic approach:

• Eight primary parts of speech are
distinguished

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 Parts of Speech
• verbs (includes auxiliaries)
• nouns (includes pronouns) Open Class
• adjectives
• adverbs (includes not)
• prepositions (in, on, by, near, next to, by means
of…) Closed Class
• determinatives (the, a/an, this, some, many, my,...)
• coordinators (and, or, but, both...and, neither...nor)
• subordinators (that, whether, if, for, to ‘infinitive
marker’) 43
 Exclusions
• ‘non-grammatical words’: words and word-types
which do not play a grammatical role in the sentence
– politeness markers, such as please, thank you, ta,
excuse me, pardon
– attention-getters, such as hey (you)! or yo!
– formulaic utterances such as words of greeting and
leave taking like G’day and goodbye.
– interjections or expletives such as bloody hell! bugger!
damn! psst! shh!
• discourse particles: words and expressions that may
not be referential, but play a role in managing the
discourse (e.g. turn-taking, topics, politeness, etc.)
– well, anyway, so yeah, yeah-no, like, you know, etc.
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 Defining Word Classes
Multiple Class Membership: Many words belong
to more than one word class
e.g. “round”
• She tied it round her finger. Preposition
• Come round at about six. Adverb
• The base of the statue is round. Adjective
• He bought a second round of drinks. Noun
• They will round the buoy shortly. Verb

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 Defining Word Classes
When defining word classes:
• Look at the word in context not in isolation
a. I hung the painting on the wall.
b. We have been painting the house for days.
• do not rely on meaning-only (traditional)
definitions
e.g. Noun (N): “a word which names a person,
place, or thing”. This is problematic. Consider:
abstract nouns: honesty, poverty, beauty, truth
How do we know these are nouns? Because of syntax:
is in the eye of the beholder.
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 Defining Word Classes
The parts of speech can be distinguished in
terms of three general types of properties (not
all of which are relevant to defining every word
class):
• Morphological (inflectional & derivational
morphology)
• Syntactic (function; distribution/dependents)
• Semantic (meaning)

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 Morphological Properties
Inflectional morphology: only some classes of words take certain inflections
• Inflectional morphemes provide a test for identifying nouns and verbs
• Note: in the case of adjectives and adverbs the inflectional suffixes don’t provide
sufficient evidence as some adverbs inflect for grade-like adjectives: soon, sooner,
soonest (Adv) and big, bigger, biggest (Adj).

Lexical morphology: certain lexical morphemes may be recognised as noun, verb,

adjective, or adverb formers.

Noun formers Verb formers

engine+eer → engineer popular+ize → popularize
drain+age → drainage simple+ify → simplify
boy+hood → boyhood

Adjective formers Adverb formers

cream+y → creamy happy+ly → happily
music+al → musical weather+wise → weatherwise
child+less → childless back+ward → backward
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 Syntactic Properties
The syntactic, or ‘external’, properties of the parts
of speech include their function in the larger phrase
or clause, and their distribution—that is, the kinds
of items with which they can combine.
• function: what are the functions within larger
constructions of the phrases they head?
e.g. Subject, object…
• distribution/dependents: what kinds of
dependents do they take within the phrases they
head?
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 Nouns
Meaning: A prototypical noun denotes a person,
place or thing.
Morphological properties
• inflectional: plural and possessive inflectional
forms
poems sunset’s

• lexical: most commonly derived from other

word classes by certain suffixation,
prefixation, compounding and conversion.
idealism arch-enemy doorknob turn
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 Nouns
Function:
• Nouns characteristically function as the head of
NPs
• NPs have a range of functions including that of
subject and object
A dog was barking.
I shot the sheriff.

Subclasses of nouns
• common nouns: poem, sunset, computer
• proper nouns: Australia, Elspeth, Herald Sun
• pronouns: I, me, who, yourself
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 Nouns
Prototypes
• prototypical noun: car (denotes a thing; cars,
car’s)
• non-prototypical members:
deafness (abstract nouns, *deafnesses, *deafness’)
binoculars (*binocular), scissors (*scissor), arms
(‘weapon’ *arm)
equipment (*equipments), billiards (billiards is/are)

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 Verbs
Meaning: A prototypical verb denotes a
situation: an action, an event or state.
Morphological properties
• inflectional: 3rd person present, preterite
• lexical: most commonly derived from other
word classes by certain derivational affixes.

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 Verbs
Function:
• Verbs characteristically function as the head of VPs
• VPs function as predicates in a clause; determine other
dependents in a VP
e.g. She left the airport not *she arrived the airport

Subclasses of verb
• Auxiliary verbs: Can you speak French?
– Can precede the subject in interrogatives e.g. Do
– Usually followed by another verb

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 Adjectives
Meaning: express properties of people or concrete or
abstract things
e.g. The soup is hot; Max was jealous

Function: attributive or predicative

– Attributive: some hot soup; a jealous husband
– Predicative: the soup was hot; He became jealous

Morphological properties: usually gradable i.e. Degree

(e.g. fairly big; surprisingly good)
– Inflectional: -er ; -est

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 Adverbs
Meaning: describes a state of a verb, adjective or another
adverb

Morphology:
– A large number derived from adjectives through lexical
derivational affix -ly
– But not all

Function: modifiers of verbs or VPs, adjectives and other

adverbs
e.g. She spoke clearly; I often see them
e.g. a remarkably good idea
e.g. she spoke quite clearly; It’ll end quite soon
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 Determinatives
Meaning: indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
e.g. the, a
Function: determiners in NPs (mark NP as
definite or indefinite)
e.g. I could hear a dog barking; Where is the dog?

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 Prepositions
Meaning: express various relations of space or time
e.g. after lunch; across the road

Function: head of PPs; PPs: dependents of a range

of elements such as VPs, nouns or adjectives
e.g. I sat by the door
The man on the moon…
… keen on golf

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 Coordinators
Meaning: relationship between expressions
e.g. and, or, but…

Function: mark relation between elements of

equal syntactic status
e.g. we need a long table and at least eight chairs

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 Subordinators
e.g. That, whether, if (meaning whether)

Function: mark a clause as a subordinate

e.g. He did his best → I realise [that he did his
best]
Subordinate clauses: function as dependent
element in a structure of larger clause

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 Activity
State the word class / part of speech of each of
the following bolded words. Give one piece of
evidence from inflectional or derivational
morphology to justify your answer.

a. They made it through the door sideways.

b. The lecturer skirted the main issue.

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 Defining Word Classes
TIP: When defining word classes
• See if you can replace a word which you are
unable to classify with another one in the
same context which displays more proto-
typical characteristics.

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 Words and Phrases
• A phrase normally consists of a head, alone or
accompanied by one or more dependents.
Example: Noun Phrases
Sam
some coins
the guy who fainted
the fact that she’s alive
• The category of the phrase depends on that of the head: a
phrase with a noun as head is a noun phrase, and so on.
• All of the eight word categories with the exception of
coordinators and subordinators can head a phrase.
• There are several different kinds of dependents – we will
come to these in future weeks.
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 Extra activity (if we get time)
Divide the following words into their component morphemes. State which
is/are:
1) The base(s)
2) The affixes
3) If the affixes are derivational or inflectional

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 To do
• Prepare tutorial exercises for this week
• Attempt Quiz 2 on Canvas (also Quiz 1 if you
haven’t done this yet)
• Reading

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