Usos y funciones de la lengua inglesa I

Unit 4: Morphology and Word Formation

Facultad de Lenguas y Educación
 Morphology vs. Word Formation

Morphology is the study of words, their internal structure and the changes they undergo when altered to form new words
(word formation) or when they have different roles within a sentence (grammatical inflection).

Word formation suggests that the fundamental unit of this linguistic subdiscipline is the word. Formation implies that we
are dealing with rules that “shape” (create, generate, derive) words. And is it always true that word-formation is the
formation of longer, more complex words from shorter, simpler words.

Morphology is the study of word formation…

Forming new words from the old ones:

1. It can change the part of speech (or category) of a word

Example: amuse (verb) ------- amusement (noun)

2. It can change or modify the meaning of the word

Example: happy (+) ------ unhappy (-)

3. It can change both meaning and category

Example: wash (verb/ action) ----- washable (adjective/ quality)
Language types regarding their genealogy
Language types regarding their morphology
Language types regarding their morphology

FUN FACT:
English is MOSTLY analytic language. There is only very little inflection and word order
is very important for understanding the meaning.
All languages, however, tend to move slowly from synthetic, to analytic.
English started as a synthetic language with a lot of inflection. Slowly, it dropped the
inflection and started using word order as a means of distinguishing the meaning.
Analytical language is a language that organizes words and grammar by a strict word order instead of inflections, or
word endings that show grammar. SVO (subject-verb-object) word order. Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Khmer, Lao.

Synthetic language any language in which syntactic relations within sentences are expressed by inflection (the change
in the form of a word that indicates distinctions of tense, person, gender, number, mood, voice, and case) or
by agglutination (word formation by means of morpheme, or word unit, clustering). Greek, Latin, German, Italian,
Russian, Polish, Czech, Spanish.
Vietnamese:
Khi toi den nha ban toi chung toi bat dau lam bai. (when) (I) (come) (house) (friend) (I) (plural
I) (begin) (to do) (lessons)

When I came to my friend’s house, we began to do lessons.

Greek:
τα σκυλιά της θείας μου είναι στο πάρκο.
(the dogs) (of my aunt) (are) (in the) (park)
Agglutinative refer to those processes in which the words can be decomposed into a sequence of morphemes. Each
of these word elements, however, represents no more than a single grammatical category (Turkish, Finnish, Basque,
Japanese…)
Polysynthetic languages: Incorporating languages, often referred to as polysynthetic languages, include all those in
which a single - though extensively long - word may represent an entire phrase, or even
sentence, including a verb, an adjective and even an object (Nahuatl , Greenlandic…)

Australian language Tiwi:

ngirruunthingapukani
-ngri -rru -unthing apu-kani
I PAST for some time eat repeatedly
 ñ
Morphology

The subdiscipline of linguistics which studies the internal structure of words, the rules that govern it, as well as the ways
of creating new words.

Morphemes

Word analysis involves breaking a word into its morphemes.

Linguists define it more precisely as the smallest form which is paired with a particular meaning.

We say that each form (i.e. MORPH) plus the meaning linked to it is a single morpheme.

MORPHEME = MORPH + MEANING

 Allomorphs Phonology + Morphology

The same morpheme can be carried out in different ways.

The different realizations of the same morpheme are called ALLOMORPHS.
This is usually the result of phonology interacting with morphology.
Negative morpheme IN has 3 allomorphs:

Example: in-elegant/ im-polite/ il-legal/ ir-regular

‘in-’, ‘im-’, ‘il-’, ‘ir-’ → allomorphs

Consider the different realizations of the morpheme {plural}: it has 3 different allomorphs: [s], [z], and [əz].
car > cars → (Regular form) [z]
bus > buses [əz]
proof > proofs [s]
 Morph vs. Morpheme
For instance: at one level of analysis, the minimal signs:
/z/ ‘PLURAL’,
/əz/ ‘PLURAL’ and
/s/ ‘PLURAL’
that we can identify in
car > cars → [z]
bus > buses [əz]
proof > proofs [s]

are different because they differ in expression. On the other hand, they have the same content (all of them signify the
plural of a concept) and can therefore be considered variants (allomorphs) of a single element (morpheme).
Now,
/s/ ‘PLURAL’ can be grouped together with
/s/ ‘3RD PERSON SINGULAR’ in writes /raɪts/ and
/s/ ‘POSSESSIVE’ in Jack’s /ʤæks/;
such a set of minimal signs with the same expression is a morph.
Morph vs. Morpheme
WORD
Types of Words
 Word classes

NOUN: A noun denotes something which is conceived of as an object in the widest sense. This includes beings (human and
animal), physical objects and also ideas, and feelings.
PRONOUNS
There are several types of pronouns in English. The most relevant are the personal pronouns. These are the pronouns that
refer to people and can appear in any position that a full noun phrase can appear.
VERBS
Verbs fall into two broad groups, those which indicate an action or process, dynamic verbs as in 'Pat went to Paris', and
those which indicate a state, stative verbs as in 'Pat likes chocolate'. Stative verbs do not normally occur in the progressive
form (-ing). Each set of verbs behaves somewhat differently because for the latter there is no extension in time or at least
no implication of change.
ADJECTIVES
Adjectives are used to specify an attribute of a noun. Normally an adjective is immediately adjacent to a noun, either before
it (as in English) or after it. Adjectives in English are defined by the lack of grammar properties of nouns and verbs. They
take neither plural marking, articles, nor possessors (except in certain limited contexts).
 Word classes

ADVERBS
This word class is a hold all for many different elements. The essential feature of adverbs is that they characterize a further
element, usually a verb, hence the name adverb, i.e. something which accompanies a verb. Many adverbs can be
recognized by the suffix -ly, but not all.
PREPOSITIONS
All languages have elements for expressing temporal and spatial relationships among lexical words. Such words are
prepositions and can appear in a variety of contexts. They are polyfunctional and the specific meaning is dependent on the
context in which the word occurs. (on it, before then, by the house, on time)

CONJUNCTIONS
In spontaneous discourse, complex sentences are likely to occur. When expressing a stream of thoughts, we frequently link
clauses and sentences to reflect the flow and, in order to do that we use conjunctions. There are conjunctions which links
two clauses which are not in a hierarchical relationship. Other conjunctions may signify a hierarchical relationship in which
one clause is a main one and another, a subordinate one. (and, or, or, but..)
Homonyms, homophones, homographs.

HOMO + GRAPH same spelling + different pronunciation

E.g. Desert /ˈdezərt/(a hot, arid region) and desert /dɪˈzɜːrt/(to leave or abandon)

HOMO + PHONE same pronunciation + different spelling

E.g. (Flour /ˈflaʊər/ (a fine white or brown powder made from grain used in cooking for making bread) and
flower /ˈflaʊər/ (the colored part of a plant from which the seed or fruit develops): homophones)

HOMONYM same pronunciation + same spelling

E.g. Well /wel/ (in good health) and well /wel/ (a source for water in the ground)