10-21-02

Today

Announcements

- Assignment 2 and the mid-term probably will be returned in your tutorial this week

- Be certain that you are attending the tutorial that you are registered for!

- Units of linguistic analysis

- Morphology (Ch. 4)

Ahead

- Morphology (continued)

Units of linguistic analysis:

- phone, sound segment, allophone (consonant, vowel)

- suprasegmental properties (pitch, length, volume)

- phoneme

- (letter of a spelling system)

- syllable (onset, nucleus, coda)

- feature

Next:

- word

- morpheme, allomorph

Features -- pp. 84-98

- Some linguists have argued that sound segments “are composed of even smaller, subsegmental, phonological units known as features”.  (p. 84)

- features are thought to model the phonetic reality of articulatory components: individual, independently controllable aspects of speech production

- see Figure 3.15

- features also provide an economical way of characterizing segments as members of natural classes.  ‘Natural classes are classes of sounds that share feature or features and that pattern together in sound systems” and empirically attested articulatory processes.

- a specific theory and inventory of features is presented on pp. 85-98.  In phonology classes (e.g. LING 221 you will study this approach in more detail).

Morphology Schedule:

1. units of analysis:

            - word

            - morpheme

2.  Meanings expressed by morphemes

            - reference/lexical categories

            - grammatical meanings

3.  Types of morphological structures

- affixation (bound, free, prefix, suffix, root, base)

- compounding

- cliticization

- internal change

- suppletion

- stress and tone placement

- aditional types: conversion; clipping; blends; backformation; acronyms; onomatopoeia; coinage

4.  Two types of word formation: Inflection vs. Derivation

5.  Allomorphs

6.  Morphological acquisition (L1 and L2)

7.  Problem solving (ESL and morphological structures in languages other than English)

word --  a somewhat imprecise unit:

I’m – one word or two words?

greenhouse – one or two words?

fire tower – one word or two words?

wet suit – one words or two words?

Qasu-iir-sar-vig-ssar-si-ngit-luinar-nar-puq

‘Someone did not find a completely suitable resting place’ - Inuktitut (p. 325) – one word or ten?

Therefore:

morpheme – the smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning or function

book – one morpheme

book-s – two morphemes

happi-ness – two morphemes (don’t be confused by spelling)

re-act-iv-ate – four morphemes

Some of the meanings expressed by morphemes:

(repeated from week one)

Reference/ Lexical Categories  (pp. 169-170)

- naming entities, including individuals and objects = nouns or N

- designating actions, sensations and states = verbs or V

- designating properties and attributes of entities = adjectives or A

- denoting properties and attributes of actions, sensations and states = adverbs or Adv

Grammatical Meanings  (pp. 144, 147-153)

- plural number (books, feet, children)

            vs. singular, *dual

- case – nominative/subject – she, he; accusative / object – her, him; genitive / possession – her, his; Noam’s idea)

- past tense (walked, sang, was (vs. be))

- comparative (smaller, harder)

- superlative (smallest, hardest)

- person (I – speaker/first; you – listener/second; he/she/it - non-speaker/listener/ third; *fourth person – He (3) saw him (4) at school.  He (?) was wearing a hat.)

- noun class – masculine/he; feminine/she; neuter/it (vs. *animate/inanimate, Siswati classes, p. 148)

Types of morphological structures:

1.  Affixation:

Free morpheme – can be a word by itself: book, happy, act

Bound morpheme – must be attached to another element (e.g., a base): -s, -ness, re-, -ive, -ate

Root morpheme – the core of a complex word.  It carries the major component of word meaning.  It belongs to a lexical category (N, V, A, Adv). In English, the root morpheme is generally a free morpheme.

Affixes - bound morphemes that do not belong to a lexical category: prefix (attached to the front of a base), suffix (attached to the end of a base), infix (an affix that occurs within a base – non-existent in English – not on exams).  A dash attached to the end of the morpheme indicates prefix (pre-, re-).  A dash attached to the beginning of the morpheme indicates suffix (-s, -ness, -ed).  

Examples of these structures (affixation):

  N

   N                  Af

book    -s

root/

base

      A

   Af                 A

un-                   kind

                                    root/

base

 V

   V                  Af

jump    -ed

root/

base

               V

   V                  Af

teach  -es

Some affixes can change the lexical category of the complex word:

   N

   V                  Af

teach  -er

root/

base

3 morphemes in a word:

V

                        V                                             Af

A                                 Af

black                -en                               -ed

root/

base for –en

blacken is the base for –ed

Types of morphological structures:

2.  Compounding:

The combination of two or more existing words (usually roots/free morphemes) to create a new word:

street light                     blue bird                  washcloth

bookcase                                 in-group

Types of morphological structures:

3.  Cliticization:

Clitics – morphemes that are bound for phonological reasons (are not a syllable by themselves)

I’m leaving

Mary’s going to succeed.

They’re here now.