Universit di Salerno Facolt di Lettere e Filosofia Curriculum Pubblicistica

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Università di SalernoFacoltà di Lettere e
FilosofiaCurriculum Pubblicistica

• Corso di Lingua Inglese
• Prof. Rita Calabrese
• a.a. 2006/2007

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MORPHOLOGY
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WHAT ARE WORDS MADE OF?

• Look at the following sentence
• The plogs glorped bliply

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Morphology
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THE MORPHEME

• The smallest unit of a sentence which carries
  grammatical information.
• Morphemes are not the same as syllables
  POSSESS, STUDY have only 1 morpheme (i.e.base
  form root- stem) but 2 syllables.
• The meaning or grammatical structure of these 2
  words cannot be simplified any further against
  words like POSSESS-ED, STUDY/I-ES formed by 2
  morphemes

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THE MORPHEME

• Inflectional Morphology studies the way in which
  words vary (inflect) in order to express
  grammatical contrasts
• SINGULAR/PLURAL SHARE/SHARES
• PRESENT/PAST ACQUIRE/ACQUIRED
• Derivational Morphology studies the principles
  governing the construction of new words
• ANALYSE gtANALYSABLE
• CURRENT gtCURRENTLY

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Types of Morphemes

• INFLECTIONAL morphemes express a grammatical
  contrast (comparative, superlative, plural, past,
  possessive, 3rd person singular)
• DERIVATIONAL morphemes build new items of
  vocabulary, combining different elements, both to
  change word class and to change meaning
• IN-DESCRIBE-ABLE

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Types of Morphemes

• FREE MORPHEMES can operate freely in the
  language, occurring as separate words
• study go yes
• BOUND MORPHEMES cannot occur on their own (anti-
  -ation).
• As we have seen, bound m. can be INFLECTIONAL or
  DERIVATIONAL

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WORD FORMATION

• There are four (4) processes of word formation in
  ENGLISH
• Prefixation DIS-OBEY
• Suffixation KIND-NESS
• Conversion INCREASE (vn)
• Compounding DATABASE
• There are also some less usual ways like
• CLIPPINGS(ad,flu,faxltfacsimile,veggies,glam)
• ACRONYMS (scubaltself contained underwater
  breathing apparatus)
• BLENDS (brunch, blipvert)

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WORD FORMATION

• CONVERSION or Functional Shift is referred to
  lexemes that have been assigned a new word class
  without change in the form.
• Examples of conversion from verbs to nouns
• INCREASE, COMMUTE, EAT, UPDATE
• From nouns to verbs
• TO IMPACT, INTAKE, TRASH/RUBBISH (CRITICIZE
  HEAVILY), PROGRAM
• Adverbial passives include intransitive verbs
  from transitive ones
• The book sells well the wine will drink well for
  the next few years cold lamb eats beautifully,
  she interviews easily.

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WORD FORMATION

• COMPOUNDS consist of two or more free morphemes
  in attached (turnkey), hyphenated (zero-rate,
  index-link, sick-out), composite forms (prime
  number, electronic mail, combined-cycle gas
  turbine, Washington-based public-policy group)
• BLENDS are the fusion of the forms and meanings
  of two lexemes bitltbinarydigit,
  motelltmotorhotel, stagflationltstagnationinflatio
  n, brandalismltbrandvandalism, bolloticsltbollocks
  politics (combination of nonsense and politics),
  flexecutiveltflexibleexecutive

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WORD FORMATION

• AFFIXES are meaningful, dependent elements added
  both before and after the base form
• PREFIXES precede the base form
• 2. SUFFIXES follow the base form.

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WORDS AND MEANINGS

• Synonymy two words that have the same meaning
  such as obstinate/stubborn, purchase/buy
• Polysemy one word that has more than one meaning
  such as pupil, bank, futures (stock options)
• Lexical ambiguity occurs when it is not possible
  to decide on the intended meaning of a word. The
  English language has a broader capacity for
  meaning than a simple one-to-one word and meaning
  relationship. Producers of text are aware of this
  capacity and make use of it.

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WORDS IN COMBINATION

• In his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965) the
  American linguist Noam Chomsky points out that
  decide on the boat, meaning make a decision to
  buy a boat, is a close construction, while the
  sentence meaning make a decision while on the
  boat is a loose (unbound) association. The
  expression close construction is here referred to
  as grammatical collocation and free construction
  as loose association.

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WORDS IN COMBINATION

• A grammatical collocation is a recurrent
  combination usually consisting of a dominant word
  (verb, noun, adjective) followed by a grammatical
  word, typically a preposition.
• Examples of VPrep collocations are aim at,
  adhere to, account for, allow for.
• Examples of NPrep collocations are access to,
  admiration for, advantage over, analogy between.
• Examples of AdjPrep collocations are absent
  from, accountable to, adequate to/for, afraid of,
  allied to/with.

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WORDS IN COMBINATION

• Lexical collocations, in contrast to grammatical
  collocations, contain no subordinate elements
  they usually consist of two equal lexical
  components. The main types of lexical
  collocations are
• AdjN combinations, NV combinations, VN
  combinations. Many of these lexical functions
  represent free combinations
• build bridges/houses/roads, cook
  meat/vegetables, grow apples/corn.

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WORDS IN COMBINATION

• During the 1990s the Lexical Approach challenges
  the traditional view of language seen as an
  opposition of grammar and vocabulary arguing that
  language consists of chunks (suspicious of
  people who relevant to our discussion). which,
  when combined, produce continuous coherent texts.
  We store much of our mental lexicon in complete ,
  fully contextualised phrases.

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WORDS IN COMBINATION

• The principle of arbitrariness of the sign
  affects collocation too a relative can be close,
  near, while a friend can be close but not near
  strong/powerful argument, but strong tea not
  powerful tea, powerful car not strong car he
  is a heavy drinker but not the drinker is heavy.
  
• Many multi-word items show the same
  arbitrariness
• I hope so I hope not I dont hope
  so
• I think so I dont think so I think not

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WORDS IN COMBINATION

• Collocations for polysemous nouns and verbs are
  extremely important. For example the entry for
  the noun line should have the following
  collocations draw a line, form a line the entry
  for operation should have perform an operation,
  carry out an operation for sentence pronounce a
  sentence, form/compose a sentence or the entry
  for the verb meet meet demand, meet a person,
  for place place an order.

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WORDS IN COMBINATION

• Collocations are combinations of words which
  occur with great frequency in an arbitrary way
  this means that we meet and store words in
  prefabricated chunks, so that we cant say high
  boy, but tall boy.
• Even native speakers may need to refer to a list
  of collocations. Speakers of British English (BE)
  prefer to have a bath, have a walk, whereas
  American English (AmE) speakers take a bath, take
  a walk. Everyday English speakers make a
  decision, whereas BE speakers can also take a
  decision.