ESSENTIALS OF MORPHOLOGY

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• ESSENTIALS OF MORPHOLOGY
• Morphology is concerned with the elements that
  compose words and the organization of these
  elements into hierarchical structures.
• A word is an arbitrary pairing of sound and
  meaning (But see discussion in Baker Bobaljik
  (2000))

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• THE VOCABULARY
• The Vocabulary items
• (1) Identifying index /perestroika/ /bInd/
• Syntactic category Noun Verb
• Meaning reorganization, to make secure
• reconstruction by tying
• Syntactic features abstract transitive
• Morphological features none zero inflection
• ablaut

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• SIMPLE AND COMPLEX WORDS
• Perestroika, Monangahela, dog, boy, bind Simple
  words
• Complex words
• (2) a. high school, easy chair, black board,
  gentleman A NN
• b. un-wise, un-happy, un-natur-al,
  un-woman-ly un AA
• c. woman-ly, other-word-ly, heaven-ly,
  weather-ly N lyA
• d. black-ness, un-poison-ous-ness,
  gentlemanli-ness AnessN
• (3) un gentleA manNN liA A nessN
• anti dis establishV V mentN arian
  A A ism N

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• INFLECTIONAL AND DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
• Two main fields are traditionally recognized
  within morphology
• Inflectional morphology studies the way in which
  words vary (or inflect) in order to express
  grammatical contrasts in sentences such as
  singular/plural or past/present tense.
• Examples of inflectional morphology
• boy vs boy-s
• child vs. child-r-en
• love vs. love-s vs. love-d
• go vs. goe-s vs. went
• Derivational morphology studies the principles
  governing the constructions of new words, without
  reference to the specific grammatical role a word
  may play in a sentence.
• Examples of derivational morphology
• drink vs. drink-able
• inflect vs, dis-infect

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• THE NOTION OF MORPHEME
• Morphemes are the structural units of words (see
  Appendix I)
• MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
• In analyzing words into morphemes in a language
  we know, we often easily discover the separate
  parts because we can recall similar words with
  which to compare the words under analysis. In
  working with an unfamiliar language, it is
  necessary to have a group of similar forms to
  compare and from which to extract the recurring
  parts.
• A form from Kekchi (a Mayan language of
  Guatemala)
• (4) tinbeq 'I will walk.' (cf. Nida (1949, 6)
• To decide on a division of this form into smaller
  units, or even to know if such a division is
  possible, we have to consider other forms of the
  language.
• Comparison with forms such as tatbeq 'you (sg.)
  will walk' and ninbeq 'I am walking' show that
  the form tinbeq is composed of three morphemes
  t- 'future' (contrasting with n- 'present
  progressive'), -in- 'first person singular
  subject' (contrasting with -at- 'second person
  singular subject') and -beq 'walk.

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• (5) Swahili (East Africa).
• 1. ninakusikia 'I hear you'
• 2. ninamsikia 'I hear him'
• 3. ninakisikia 'I hear it'
• 4. ninawasikia 'I hear them
• 5. anakusikia 'he hears you'
• 6. anamsikia 'he hears him'
• 7. anawasikia 'he hears them'
• 8. anatusikia 'he hears us'
• 9. unanisikia 'you hear me'
• 10. unawasikia 'you hear them'
• 11 tunakisikia 'we hear it'
• 12. wanakusikia 'they hear you
• 13. ninakujibu 'I answer you'
• 14. nitakujibu 'I will answer you'
• 15. nimekujibu I have answered you'
• 16. nilikujibu 'I answered you'
• 17. unamjibu 'you answer him'
• 18. utamjibu 'you will answer him'

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• The order of morphemes
• (6) subject tense object verb
• prefix prefix prefix stem
• (7) subjects tenses objects stems
• ni- 'I' -ta- 'future' -ni- 'me'
  -sikia 'hear'
• u- 'you' -na- 'present' -ku- 'you'
  -jibu 'answer'
• a- 'he' -me- 'perfect' -m- 'him'
  -jua 'know'
• tu- 'we' -li- 'past' -ki-
  'it' -saidia 'help'
• m- 'you (pl.)' -tu- 'us'
• wa- 'they' -wa- 'them'
• PROBABLE new words made up of these same
  morphemes in the correct order.
• (8) atamsikia tumekijua
• walitujibu nimemsaidia
• But we can never absolutely certain that a given
  form is correct unless we learn the language as
  well as a native speaker knows it. There may
  always be irregularities for which we have not
  yet seen evidence.

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• ROOTS AND STEMS
• Roots
• The root is generally the principle carrier of
  the lexical meaning of a word, while affixes
  generally carry grammatical meanings. For
  example, in cats, the root cat carries the basic
  meaning Felis domesticus, while -s carries the
  grammatical information 'plural.'
• In some languages, roots characteristically occur
  in a particular position.
• In Turkish and Eskimo, the root occupies the
  first position in a word.
• Stems
• In addition to roots, we also distinguish stems.
  A stem may be also a root,
• as cat in cats. Often, a stem consists of a
  root plus something else. The present tense of
  the Latin verb amo_at_ 'love' is formed from the
  root am- plus the theme vowel -a_at_ plus the
  person-number suffixes.

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• BOUND AND FREE MORPHEMES
• Bound morphemes do not occur in isolation.
• Root that may constitute words by themselves
• (9) gentle, usurp, difficult, dog, man
• Bound stems/roots (cf Aronoff (1976)
• (10) -ceive -port -here -mit
• im-port in-here
• re-ceive re-port re-mit
• ad-here ad-mit

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• AFFIXES
• Prefixes a ff. X and Suffixes X aff.
• Affixes commonly determine the lexical category
  of the word that they form
• ex. a word formed with the suffix -ion is a noun
• a word formed with the suffix -ize is a verb
• Affixes are not freely combinable
• (11) seren-ity shop-ity proverb-ity machin-i
  ty
• regular-ize scandal-ize usurp-ize develop-ize
• Reason -ity is added to adjectives, but not to
  nouns or verbs
• -ize is added to adjectives and nouns, but not
  to verbs

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• Bound morphemes may be assigned morphological
  templates like the following
• (12) i. X A ness N gentleness,
  grammaticalness, uneasiness
• ii. un X A A ungrammatical, unaware,
  unconscious
• iii. X A ity N serenity,
  grammaticality, electricity
• iv. XN lyA godly, gentlemanly,
  husbandly, daily
• v. XA thN truth, width, breadth, depth
• vi. per stemLat.A permit, pertain, perform
• vii. Stem -mit, -tain, -sist, -form

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• Open and closed classes of morphems
• A count of the morphemes in any language will
  reveal many more root morphemes than affixes. The
  set of affixes is closed and can only rarely gain
  or lose members. The set of roots is open, and a
  normal speaker of a language adds new roots to
  his lexicon throughout his life.

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• TYPES OF AFFIXES
• 1. PREFIXES
• a. Prespecified (English)
•    work re-work
•    likely un-likely
• like dis-like
• b. Reduplicated (Tagalog)
•   bili 'buy' bi-bili 'will buy'
•    kuha 'get' ku-kuha 'will get'
•    punta 'go' pu-punta 'will go'
• sulat 'write' su-sulat 'will write'
• tawa 'laugh' ta-tawa 'will laugh'
• 2. SUFFIXES
• work work-ed
• likely likeli-ness
• bake bak-er

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• INFIXES
• Tagalog
• bili 'buy' b-um-ili 'to buy'
• kuha 'get' k-um-uha 'to get'
• sulat 'write' s-um-ulat 'to write'
• punta 'go'   p-um-unta 'to go'
• tawa 'laugh'   t-um-awa 'to laugh'
• 4. CIRCUMFIXES
•   em-bold-en en-light-en
• 5. NULL MORPHOLOGY
• Noun/Adjective Verb
• a frame to frame
•   dry to dry
•   a run to run

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• STEM CHANGES
• Ablaut
•   strike struck struck
• teach taught taught
• drive drove driven
• ring rang rung

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• Stem Changes
• II. RESYLLABIFICATION The Semitic binyans.
• Arabic root /ktb/
• katab write perfective active
• kutib 'was written perfective passive
• aktub 'is writing imperfective active
• uktab 'was being written imperfective passive
• Hebrew root /gdr/
•   Active Passive
• gadar 'enclosed ni-gdar 'was enclosed
•  goder 'encloses   ni-gdar 'is enclosed'
• yi-gdor 'will enclose yi-gader 'will be
  enclosed'
•  gdor 'enclose!  hi-gader 'be enclosed!'
• li-gdor 'to enclose   le-hi-gader 'to be
  enclosed'