323 Morphology

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323 Morphology

• The Structure of Words
• 2. Basic Concepts
• (Last updated 25 SE 06)

2.1 Lexemes and Word Forms Words are not easy to
define. A preliminary definition is based on the
English orthographic system. The spaces used in
orthography represent words (usually). Most
dictionaries list only one word of an inflected
set E.g. sing, sang, sung, singing,
sings. The form sing is always chosen as a
dictionary entry. The form is technically an
infinitive. In linguistics the term is lexeme
represents the basic or dictionary form of the
word. Lexemes are usually written in CAPS
SING Lexemes are abstract representations, which
presumably are listed in the brain in a component
called the lexicon. Each inflected form of a
lexeme is called a word-form. E.g. sing, sang,
sung, singing, sings are each a word-form and
each one belongs to the lexeme SING. The set of
word-forms of a given lexeme is called a
paradigm.

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2.1 Lexemes and Word Forms
By convention in each language, the dictionary
representation may be the infinitive form of the
verb as in Russian, the first person singular in
Latin (which has no infinitive), the third person
singular in Arabic, or perhaps by some other
form. The entry form for nouns in normally the
singular nominative case form of the noun Latin,
Russian, English, Czech, German. A lexeme
family, or less formally a word family, is a set
of lexemes that are related. They should share
some phonological properties and be related
semantically. The latter is easier said than
determined. E.g. print, printable, unprintable,
printer, printability, reprint. This list is not
necessarily complete. Complex lexemes are
lexemes formed with an affix (a morpheme). E.g.
able, un, er, ity, re in the above
list. Complex lexemes must each be listed
separately in a dictionary as the meaning may
differ. The various word-forms of a given
lexeme do not change the meaning of the
lexeme. Which affixes that occur with which
basic lexeme is not predictable. E.g. we find
in English un-happy, un-ripe, but not un-sad,
un- red, un-tall, and so forth.
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2.1 Lexemes and Word Forms
Sometimes a lexeme with an affix occurs but the
basic form does not exist E.g. dis-gruntled
but not gruntled, in-cognito, but not cognito,
un-gainly, but notgainly. Sometimes the
expected affix does not occur but another affix
does E.g. natural-ness in place
natural-ity. Or the expected affix occurs with
another meaning E.g. cook, cook-er (an
instrument for cooking, not a person who
cooks, which is simply the noun
cook. Kinds of morphological
relationship inflection the relationship
between the word-forms of a lexeme. E. g. mask,
masks sit, sat, sitting, sits blue, bluer,
bluest. derivation the relationship between
lexemes of a lexical family. E. g. singer,
singer write, writer cookV, cookN,
cooker. Derivation usually implies forming one
lexeme from another lexeme in the same lexical
family. E.g. sing -gt singer, write -gt writer,
cookV, cookN and cooker. Word is used whenever
the distinction between derivation and inflection
is uncertain. (no examples currently). Compound
lexeme) refers to words that are made up of two
or more lexemes doghouse, catfish, greenhouse,
whiplash, tattletale, and so forth.
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2.2 Morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest constituent with a
function. I prefer this distinction to smallest
constituent with meaning. There are some forms
that appears to be constituents but have no
discernable meaning, but have a function in terms
of word building E.g. doof-us, radi-us, cf.
radi-al, radi-an. Some inflectional morphemes
have no true meaning, but they have a grammatical
function E.g. he, him who, whom they,
them, The suffix -m marks the accusative
(objective) Case. This is a syntactic relation
and no meaning can be associated with it. The
term function includes meaning. To go one step
further than H., the hierarchy for constituents
is Sentence -gt phrase -gt word -gt
morpheme. Phrases are very important constituents
in syntax. Some grammatical categories cannot be
expressed in terms of morphemes. For example,
note the following partial inflection of the
English verb sing and others similar to
it E.g. sing, sang, sung. The past tense is
marked by a change of the root vowel. The latter
form marks two distinct grammatical functions
the passive form of the verb and the perfect form
of the verb. Each form is a distinctive morpheme
with a different function but phonologically the
same.
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2.3 Affixes, Bases and Roots
Affixes are morphemes that are adjoined to the
left of the base of a word or to the right of the
base of a word A prefix is an affix that is
adjoined to the left of the base of a
word. E.g. un- in un-happy, un-regulated
re- re-do, re-heat, re-write, and so
forth. A suffix is an affix that is adjoined
to the right of the base of a word. E.g. s in
book-s, cat-s eat-s, smell-s linguistic-s. An
infix is an affix that is inserted into the base
of the word forming a non- contiguous base.
There are no infixes in English. Infixes occur in
the Semitic language. E. g. ktb is the base
for book and read and words which refer to
book/read in some related sense. To form the
noun in Arabic, the infixes I and a are
inserted into the base between the firsts two
consonants and the second two consonants,
respectively E.g. kitab. A circumflex is an
affix that occurs on both sides of the base.
(H.) E. g. (per H) German ge-les-en. English
dialects a-walk-ing, a-read-ing.. The English
a- is etymologically related to the German
ge-. Actually, this is not quite the case. In
German the prefix ge- is a morpheme and
allomorph in that it occurs in other
constructions. The prefix ge- must occur in
construction with certain suffixes. A circumflex
is a morphological construct which contains a
prefix and a suffix in a noncontiguous string.
Together the affixes in a circumflex represent
one function. Outside of the aforementioned
dialect, there are no circumflexes in English.
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2.3 Affixes, Bases and Roots
Stem and Root A root is a morpheme that cannot
be broken down into further morphemes. A base
is a contiguous strings of one or more morphemes
which can hold lexical meaning. In English the
word dog, for example, is a root since it cannot
be broken into further morphological
units E. g. do is not a morpheme of dog, it
is basically a verb. There is no morpheme og
that has any kind of function. Dog is also a
base. It has lexical meaning. The English word
disgruntled consists of three morpheme dis-,
gruntle, and ed. dis is a prefix, and ed is an
inflectional affix marking the past tense among
other functions. The morpheme gruntle is a root,
since two affixes are adjoined to it. It is not a
base, since it has no lexical meaning (what does
gruntle mean?) Once both affixes are adjoined to
it, then disgruntled, which is a base, is a
lexical stem since it does have
meaning. Technically, the prefix dis- is
adjoined first to gruntle to form the base
disgruntle. Apparently this form has no
lexical meaning and remains a base. Once the
adjectival suffix -ed is added to disgruntle
then the base receives lexical meaning and is a
stem. English has several words usually
considered compounds, where at least one member
of the compound doesnt behave like a normal
prefix or affix. E. g. tele-graph. Although
graph may have lexical meaning, tele- does not.
It does not occur in isolation. The form is
borrowed from Greek where it means far. It is
more like a root that cannot become a stem in its
own right, but it may be adjoined to a stem to
form a new stem. This particular property makes
it look like an affix, or, why are affixes not
roots?
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2.4 Formal Operations
Some words such as derive imply a process. A true
process is a historical phenomenon and does not
imply a process in terms of how language is
represented in the mind (the grammar of a
language). For some yet to be determined reason,
H considers affixation and compounding to be
concatenative (the addition of morphemes on to a
string e.g. hope-less-ness. Certain kinds of
inflection and other constructions he considers
to be non-concatenative e.g. English sing, sang,
sung (there is no past tense morpheme
here) Another non-concatenative structure
include word whose final consonant becomes
voiced, final consonant becomes palatalized, or
gemination of a root consonant. E.g. Albanian
armik -q (Sg.), armiq -c (Pl.). Note c
is not a palatalized consonant. The form came
about through palatalization, which is not
visible/hearable in the phone c. E.g.
English hoof h?f (Sg.), hooves h?v-z
(Pl.). E.g. Arabic causative verbs darasa
(noncausative), darrasa (causative).
Gemination is the doubling of a consonant.
Reduplication is the copying of a syllable or
part of a syllable 1. Prereduplication E.g.
Ponapean duhp (nonprogressive), du-duhp
(progressive) (be) diving. A weak syllable
(no coda) is copied). 2. Postreduplication. E.
g. Mangap-Mbula kuk (nonprogressive), kuk-uk
)progressive) (be) barking The rhyme of
the syllable is copied. 3. Duplifixing is
adding an affix and reduplicated part of the
stem E.g. Somali buug (Sg.), buug-ag (Pl.)
book(s, fool (Sg.), fool-al (Pl.) .book. The
vowel a is like a suffix in that it is
invariable. The consonants g and l are
copied from the stem final consonant and placed
after a.
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2.4 Formal Operations
E.g. Tsutujil saq (Sg.) white, saq-soj
whitish. s is reduplicated from the
initial consonant of the stem, and oj is a
nonvariable suffix. Subtraction is the omission
of one or more final segments of the base. E.g.
Murle nyoon (Sg.), nyoo (Pl.) lamb Strong
suppletion is replacing one form with another
form (allomorph) that is phonologically unrelated
to it the replacee. E.g. the forms of the
English verb be is, are, was/were. Weak
suppletion if replacing one form with another
form (allomorph) which share some common
phonological forms, but not all phonological
forms are common to both E.g. sing, sang (/i/,
/æ/), foot, feet (/?/, /i/). Base is redefined
(H) The base of a morphologically complex word
is the element to which a morphological operation
applies. This definition works a long as we
assume a zero operation that may derive one form
from another forms is derived with no
phonological change. We can say a base may be
derived from a root with a zero morphological
operation. E.g. the noun push (he gave me a
push) is derived from the verb push. The
derivation is a zero operation in that there is
no overt sign marking this. We could represent
this as NV PUSH, probably in later
chapters. A morphological pattern refers to the
various ways a particular grammatical or lexical
feature can be expressed. There are four
morphological patterns of the past tense of the
English verb E.g. the default suffix -ed, the
irregular suffix -d (tell, told), ,the
irregular suffix -T (feel, felt), and the vowel
replacement system of strong verbs (sing, sang
drink, drank).
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2.5 Morphemes and Allomorphs
A morpheme is a set of allomorphs. Most linguists
would agree with this even if they are not
familiar with set theory. The problem is how to
account the variation. For the past 45 years or
so, the theory of underlying representation. This
theory states that there is an abstract (usually)
form from which the other allomorphs are derived.
H refers to these as a fictitious underlying
representation (p.27). H does not elaborate
here. I agree with him. The approach that I
favour is set theory.To review Korean, there are
two allomorphs (members) of the set for the
plural of nouns ul lul (also written as ul
lul. The standard to write morphemes and
allomorphs with hyphens to show that the morpheme
or allomorph is an affix. I is not a theoretical
divergence. As I mentioned before one of the
allomorphs of the plural morpheme is the default.
The nondefault allomorph must be marked with
information indicating the contexts in which the
allomorph occurs. The default allomorph usually
corresponds with the underlying form. The default
or underlying allomorph is normally determined,
in part, at least, by is distribution. There are
fewer vowels than consonants in Korean. If -ul,
which follows consonants, is the default, then
the selection of -lul has a more constrained
condition. The rule writing form will be dealt
with later. In the Russian example on p. 27, H
considers ZAMOK-I castles to be the underlying
form for the plural form. The suffix -ok must
be marked in its grammatical entry (the
grammaticon) to indicate that the vowel /o/ in
the suffix /ok/ is deleted if the inflectional
affix begins with a vowel. I, too, would consider
the allomorph /ok/ as the default. And I would
marked the other allomorph with the same
information indicating that /k/ is chosen if the
suffix begins with a vowel. Lexical conditioning
is the situation where on suppletive (weak or
strong) allomorph is dependent on a particular
lexical item but not on a class. The English
plural -en occurs with only three nouns, one of
them nearly obsolete ox-en, childr-en, and
brethr-en. The suffix the result of a lexical
property called lexical conditioning.
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2.6 Some Problems in Morpheme Analysis
H mentions a problem arising from suppletion. The
plural allomorphs -s and -en in English are
related by suppletion. They share no exclusive
phonological properties. H raises the question
whether the two suffixes are manifestations of
the same morpheme. H leans toward this view. So
do I. My view is determined by the claim that
all morphemes must have a form, a function and a
sign. I will illustrate with the progressive
participle suffix -ing
The program I am using to make graphics does not
import unicode phonetics. I am using here ñ for
engma, the nasal velar ?. Progressive is the
feature denoting the progressive aspect the form
is a suffix which is adjoined to a noun host
(base) and the sign is /??/. There are plural
signs for nouns in English /z/ and /?n/. These
two allomorphs are strongly suppletive. They are
shown in the following grammeme (entry form for
grammatical morphemes)
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2.6 Some Problems in Morpheme Analysis
The two allomorphs here form a natural set,
since they share the same function. The fact that
they are the same form supports this claim. If
they are in the same set, then they must be a
member of the Pl. And if they are in the same
set they must be allomorphs. A morpheme may
consist of two or more features. For example, the
English verbal suffix -s marks agreement with a
third person singular subject and it marks the
present tense. The suffix in the above figure
contains two subfeatures Host and Noun.
Agglutinating languages do not do this, with some
minor exceptions. This cumulative expression is
also called fusion. A zero expression ø means
that there is no overt affix to mark a function.
ø has been the topic of notable debates. Until
very recently I was opposed to the notion of ø
until I started learning set theory. Set theory
permits empty sets often written as ø. A zero
expression grammeme is not entirely empty the
sign and the form are empty. It is now considered
better to consider the singular morphological
operation for nouns as ø. It thus has the
following grammemical entry
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2.6 Some Problems in Morpheme Analysis
Only the function is not empty it merely has no
form and no sign. An empty morpheme is an affix
that has no meaning, but has a function it forms
a base to which certain meaningful affixes are
adjoined. This occurs in English when nouns are
borrowed from Greek and Latin and retain their
plural form. The singular ending occurs in
English an empty (ø) morph E.g. radi-us (Sg.),
radi-i (Pl.) agend-a (Sg.), agend-ae (Pl.)
phenomen-on (Sg.), phenomen-a (Pl.). The plural
form is adjoined to the base, respectively I,
ae, a. In English the Sg. form is
morphologically null. The suffixes in the above
three examples are stem-enders, an empty morpheme
required when there is no suffix adjoined to the
word. This applies to derivatives as well
radi-al, phenomen-al, and so forth. The
grammemical entry for -us is

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