Linguistic Signs: Morphemes

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Linguistic Signs Morphemes

• Lecture 5

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Do you remember?

• What are the three fundamental elements of any
  sign?
• Form, Meaning, Function
• What design features make language a unique form
  of communication?
• Arbitrariness, Discreteness, Duality,
  Productivity, Displacement, Cultural
  Transmission, Interchangeability

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Four Types of Words
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Morphemes

• Morpheme
• Smallest units of meaning or function in a
  language
• Minimal linguistic signs
• form
• meaning
• function ? (grammatical use noun, verb,
  adjective, etc.)
• Morphology
• The study of words and their constituent parts
  the internal structure of words
• Basic Word/Morpheme Types
• dogs, cat, book, go, written, eating, big, blue,
  quickly
• a, the, this, is, below, up

? content ? function
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Types of Morphemes
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Types of Morphemes
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Inflectional Morphemes of English

• Verbal Nominal Adjectival
• 3rd psn sing. present s plural s comparative
  -er
• past tense ed possessive 's superlative -est
• progressive ing
• past participle en

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Words have Structure
un X Adj Adj 'not X'
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Applying the un Rule

• On the basis of the rule that weve developed,
  can you diagram ?
• uncertain
• unavailable
• under
• uncle
• unite
• -----------------------------------
• untie
• unwrap
• unpack

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Words have Structure
un X V V reverse the act of X-ing'
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The Prefix un-

• When we consider the English prefix un-, do we
  conclude that there is
• One un- or
• Two morphemes with the form un-?

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Words have Structure
X Adj ness N state of being X
? Come up with two more sets of examples
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Look What Were Doing

• Were building a grammar of English
• The three rules weve developed thus far
• un X Adj Adj 'not X
• un X V V reverse the act of X-ing
• X Adj ness N state of being X
• Draw a tree for this word unhappiness(dont
  sweat the minor spelling change of happy ?
  happi)

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Two Competing Analyses for unhappiness

• Analysis A Analysis B
• N N
• Adj N
• pre Adj suff pre Adj suff
• un happy ness un happy ness

X
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Develop Rules for the Following Sets

• doable, useable, lockable, believable
• reconstruct, redeliver, restart, rewrite
• election, selection, protection, eviction

Now try diagrammingreconstruction and
undeliverable
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Four Morpheme Pitfalls to Avoid

• Syllable does not equal morpheme.
• Not every instance of the same sound sequence
  represents the same morpheme.
• Morphemes may have allomorphs.
• Follow the rules!