Li8 Structure of English

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Li8 Structure of English

• Hierarchical morphological structure

2
Todays topics

• Basic point morphological structure of words is
  hierarchically organized, as with words in syntax
• How do we know this?
• Derivation
• Superordinate categories
• Order of attachment
• Phrasal embedding
• Selectional restrictions
• Stress in compounds
• Interesting aspects of hierarchical structure
• Bracketing paradoxes
• Headedness
• Exocentric vs endocentric
• Saturation and irregular compounds

3
Derivation

• Derivational morphology usually consists of
  adding a prefix or suffix to a base ( stem).
• The base has a lexical category (N, V, Adj), and
  the suffix typically assigns a different category
  to the whole word.
• Two possible analyses of this process
• It yields an output with no internal structure
• E.g. sadAdj ? sadnessN
• The derivational history is preserved in the
  structure

Noun
-ness Adj ? N suffix
Adj
sad ness
4
Multiple derivation
Adj
Adj
V
un interest ing
5
Recursive derivation
Feb 10, 1959
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Recursive derivation
N
Note that the correct term for 'a missile to be
deployed against "anti-missile missiles"' is not
"anti anti-missile missile." It's "anti
anti-missile-missile missile." You're always
supposed to have one more "missile" than "anti,"
because otherwise nothing will blow up. Granted,
this information comes from civilian linguists,
rather than from military sources. Military
sources would almost certainly be using acronyms
instead
N
N
N missile
missile
missile
missile
anti-
anti-
anti-
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Phrasal embedding

• Buttinsky
• We can tell butt in is a Phrase here because
  the t undergoes flapping before a stressed vowel
  (in flapping dialects)
• Nogoodnik
• de-pant-s-ing
• depantsing is when one or more persons
  aggressively pulls down another persons pants and
  underpants, often wrestling them to the ground
  and then stripping them completely naked
  http//www.misterpoll.com/3470596525.html
• What about the queen of Englands crown?
• This s is a clitic rather than an affix

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How do we know what the hierarchical structure is?
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Semantics often help

• A black board eraser is obviously a type of
  eraser, and a black board is obviously a type of
  board
• We can reflect this nicely in a right-headed
  hierarchical structure
• N
• N
• Adj N N
• black board eraser

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Compound stress

• How are the following compounds stressed?
• government tax inspector
• engine fault detection mechanism
• How do the stress patterns change according to
  the meaning/grouping?
• Does the stress pattern relate to the meaning and
  constituent structure?

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Compound stress

• Chomsky, Halle, and Lukoff 1956
• Compound stress contours can be generated from
  hierarchical structure via a simple set of cyclic
  (recursive) rules
• Work outward from inside (most nested)
• Mark stress of first constituent as primary
• Demote remainder by one degree
• black board eraser
• Conclusion compounds have hierarchical structure
• If they didnt, wed have no explanation for the
  predictability of their stress patterns

word stress 1 1 1 cpd stress cycle 1 1 2 cpd
stress cycle 2 1 3 2
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What about in less clear situations?

• e.g. illegality

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Selectional restrictions

• Semantic
• un- cannot attach to adjectives that already have
  a negative connotation
• unhappy vs. unsad (actually used in Chaucer)
• unhealthy vs. unsick
• unclean vs. undirty
• Syntactic
• -ness attaches only to adjectives (happiness vs
  dogness)
• Morphological
• -ion attaches only to Latinate bases (decision vs
  choosion)
• Phonological
• -er cannot attach to words of more than two
  syllables
• happy, happier
• competent, competenter

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Selectional restrictions

• Application to difficult cases
• Basic principle if an affix with a selectional
  restriction forms a legitimate word, it must be
  attaching to a constituent that satisfies its
  selectional restrictions
• Example illegality or illegality?
• /in-/ not X attaches to Latinate adjectives
• illogical vs illogic
• legal is an Adj, legality is a N therefore

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Interesting aspects of hierarchical morphological
structure

1. Irregulars in compounds
2. Headedness and saturation
3. Residual issues

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Irregular plurals in compounds

• 2 popular generalizations about English
  compounds
• Inflection only appears on final member of
  constituent
• Heads fox(es) hunting, stir(red) fried
• Non-heads burrito supremes, whopper juniors
• The one exception is when the non-head takes
  irregular inflection
• mice catchers 140 mouse catchers 480
• rat catchers c. 40,000 rats catchers 8
• Possible counterexamples
• systems analyst, parks supervisor, salesman
• Why might this be?
• Kiparskys theory
• irregulars stored in lexicon
• Inflection dealt with after derivation (more on
  this in M-P interactions lecture)

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Irregular plurals in compounds I

• A systematic exception to Kiparskys
  generalization
• Most humans allow irregular plurals only in
  plural compounds
• teeth mark 786 tooth marks 13,400 teeth marks
  39,700
• women writers vs women writer
• This appears to be an instance of saturative
  affixation

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Saturative affixation
From Eugene ONeills Beyond the Horizon

• eye poker outer, quicker picker upper
• Always involves verb particle constructions
• blew dried, didnt used to (294K google hits)
• Your guys(s), Georges and my book
• Preferred with exocentric constituents?

"Well the annual list of Most Dangerous Holiday
Toys is out, Number one this year Mattel's new
toy 'Eye Poker Outer'."
Barbie of Swan Lake Plush Lila the Unicorn with
Magical Glowing Horn
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An interesting case study

• What is the plural of freshman adviser?

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Irregular plurals in compounds II

• Toronto Maple Leafs c. 4.4 million Leaves 240
• Flew out to third 6 Flied out to third 57
• Again exocentricity appears to be involved
• Morphological features can percolate down to
  head, but (typically) not to non-head

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Typology of feature percolation

• When theres a constituent head
• percolation to head (snowmen)
• When theres no head
• No percolation (Maple Leafs, flied out)
• Saturation (blew dried, women writers)

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Conclusions

• There is ample evidence in English for
  hierarchical organization of morphological
  structure, parallel to what we find in syntax and
  phonology.
• Morphological headedness, a central component of
  this hierarchical structure, appears to play an
  important role in explaining a number of oddities
  of English morphology.

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Residual questions

• Do selectional restrictions hold only over the
  head of a compound?
• ?unrulier
• Bracketing paradoxes
• Transformational grammarian
• Cant be analogy cf substandard grammarian
• We will hopefully deal with these in the M-P
  lecture

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References

• Berent, I., Pinker, S., Ghavami, G., Murphy, S.
  (under review) The Dislike of Regular Plurals in
  Compounds Phonological Familiarity or
  Morphological Constraint?
• Chomsky, Noam, Morris Halle, and F. Lukoff. 1956.
  On accent and juncture in English. In For Roman
  Jakobson. The Hague Mouton.

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Blew dried

• 223 hits on Google
• So we went inside, had a party in the bathroom,
  some girls blew dried their hair, then just went
  into my room and blasted ....March of Flames and
  then the boys took over the bathroom and blew
  dried their hair, taking much longer than we did,
  haha madness! www.livejournal.com/users/ablurredre
  ality/44161.html

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2pl possessive

• From my dialect survey (www3.uwm.edu/Dept/FLL/ling
  uistics/survey)
• Google as of 12/10/06
• You guys() place 11,500
• Your guys() place 583
• Your guyss place 43
• You guyss place 3

Used e.g. in Napoleon Dynamite