Cours 3 : Morphology Flashcards
morphology
it’s the study of words
a word is a unit that associates a form to a given meaning (in a sound-meaning pair)
one phonological word can correspond to many orthographic words, and one orthographic word can correspond to different words
definition of a word
a word is the smallest unit of language that can be surrounded by pauses and can take primary stress (stress helps defining what words are)
lexicography
dictionaries contain some information that is stored in our mental lexicon
distribution of allomorphs
the aim is to identify the pattern of distribution in terms of the phonological properties of the sounds preceding each allomorph.
to do so, we look for minimal pairs
we must look at the phonetic properties of each final sound
the 2 types of words
content words : nouns, adjectives, verbs -> they denote concepts such as events, attributes, ideas
function words : conjunctions, prepositions, articles -> they don’t have clear grammatical meanings and they don’t refer to obvious concepts, but they do have a grammatical function
word formation
words enter a language through many different processes. morphology and semantics are concerned with this idea.
- some processes of word formation consider the word as the basic minimal unit
> coinage, borrowing, compounding, blending, clipping, back
formation, conversion, acronyms - some other processes dig deeper into words to describe what happens at the level of morphemes
> derivation, inflexion
word coinage and borrowings
coinage : the invention of new words
> product names that become nouns (ex. google, granola)
> eponyms (ex. watt)
borrowing : a language borrows words from another language
> Greek roots (ex. thermometer)
> other languages (ex. croissant : French)
> loan-translation (ex. gratte-ciel)
compounding
a word formed by conjoining to other full words. the 1st word is always stressed and the 2nd receives secondary stress.
compound words are seen as single units with special criteria :
> the 1st syllable is stressed and the 2nd receives secondary stress
> sometimes, unusual word order (ex. fundraiser)
> sometimes, morphophonemic changes (ex. roommate VS some mice)
> like single words in terms of derivational/inflexional affixes (ex. “to can open” doesn’t exist but can opener does)
blending
ask
clipping
process by which a polysyllabic word is shortened
> gas for gasoline
hypocorism
a form of clipping
a longer word is reduced to a single syllable ending with -y or -ie
> Aussie, hankie
backformation
a word is created by reducing it through the deletion of a supposed affix AND by changing its grammatical category
> donation becomes donate
conversion
the word remains the same but its grammatical function is different
> to bottle, to butter
acronyms
words that consist of the sequence of initials of a set of words
> CD = compact disk
types of morphemes
root morpheme : it expresses the basic lexical meaning of a word and can’t be further divided into smaller pieces.
- free morpheme : it can be used autonomously and make sense
> ex. gentle, radio - bound morpheme : it can’t make sense on its own
> ex. /un/ for unbelievable
affixes
an affix is a morpheme that attaches to another morpheme
> prefixes : at the beginning (ex. un-likeable)
suffixes : at the end (ex. convert-ible)
suprafixes : change word pitch/stress (ex. PERmit and perMIT)
infixes : within the word (ex. congratu-fucking-lations)
clitics
morphemes and grammatical functors that phonologically depend on another word
they hace the form of affixes but the distribution of function words
> /a/ and /the/ articles (attached to whatever word is next)
root change
some morphemes undergo internal transformations
> goose becomes geese
morphological creativity
when we know the meaning of the individual parts of a word, we can understand the word.
there are morphological rules :
> adjective + -ify = verb
> adjective + -cation = noun
derivation
derivation consists in creating new lexemes by adding morphemes
derivational morphemes add to roots to create new stems (ex. paint -> paintable), so we can say that it also induces a change in meaning
there is a hierarchy in formation
other morphological rules :
> adjective + -al = adjective (ex. egotistical)
> adjective + -ly = adverb (ex. happily)
derivation with ambiguous words
ambiguity in meaning is the result of two different morphological structures, like with the word “unlockable”
> “unlock-able” or “un-lockable”
derivational morphemes
a productive morphological process applies to every stem of a certain class to create new morphemes.
> the morphemes -able/-ible form adjectives from transitive verbs
> they’re productive derivational affixes : the class they apply to is
well defined and, they contribute the same meaning component
across the board.
the morpheme -th/-t forms nouns from adjectives, but it doesn’t apply to all adjectives (ex. not “tallth”), and there is also an unpredictable change in the root vowel
> less productive derivational affix
decomposing the word “dehumidifier”
- root : “humid” (adjective)
- “humidify” : derivation of a transitive verb by adding the suffix -ify
- “dehumidify” : derivation of a transitive verb by adding the prefiy -de
- “dehumidifier” : derivation of a noun by adding the suffix -er
- “dehumidifiers” : the noun is made grammatically plural by adding the regular plural suffix -s in the allomorphic form /z/
inflexion
inflexion means adjusting the shape/meaning of a stem to adapt it to a particular syntactic and discourse context
grammatical morphemes
not autonomous : they need to be combined to other morphemes to express their meaning
> free grammatical morphemes : it, to…
> “I want to change my car”
bound grammatical morphemes : they mark tense/number/gender, and they never change the word category of the morphemes they attach to
> “he walks to work”, “he walked to work”
inflectional morphemes
they typically follow derivational morphemes
-s : plural
-‘s possessive
-s : 3rd person singular
-ed : past tense
-en : past participle
-ing : progressive
-er : comparative
-est : superlative
difference between derivational and inflexional morphemes
derivational morphemes change word category and/or the basic meaning of the word when affixed to roots, which may only then be inflected to express number/tense…
inflexional morphemes signal grammatical relations and are required by the rules of sentence formation (they play a syntactic role)
definition of slang
a way of speaking which consists of new words and extended meanings, prompted by the need to find fresh, vigorous or humourous expressions
perspectives on slang in the literature
sociological perspective
stylistic perspective
linguistic perspective
grammatical formations in slang
derivation
inflexion
compounding
conversion
extra-grammatical formations in slang
anomalous derivations
abbreviations
reduplication
reversed forms and variations on the base
all of the above, but with affixes with pragmatic meaning
fanciful coining
word classe
group of lexemes that are morpho-syntactically (form), semantically (meaning) and pragmatically (use) similar
entries that have all the properties of the class are prototypes (ex. dog -> labrador)
word class information is syntactic, because the position of the item in a sentence seems to reveal what it is
relative freedom in word classes
we can use it to force lexical words into non-natural classes for them. this partly happens because words are tools that may be used to fulfill specific expressive functions
> “for” : preposition AND synonym of because
conjunctions can be used as adverbs
some prepositions/conjunctions can be used as nouns
nouns
words which are usually well-defined in terms of conceptual boundaries.
these concepts may not change, but they can get additional meanings (= polysemy)
they can also be referred to by pronominal anaphora
verbs
verbs usually describe events that produce change in the world : processes
they function by selecting complements to which the predicate is associated
adjectives
adjectives refer to properties or attributes (ex. color, shape, size)
they usually modify nouns and serve an attributive function
adverbs
hard to define
types of adverbs
> manner
> time
> extent
> epistemic
> location
> hedging
auxiliaries
sometimes, they are considered as a subtype of verbs, because some of them function as full verbs (ex. be)
however, when they are used as auxiliaries, we consider there is class shifting
prepositions
grammatical functors that specify the semantic role of what follows them
pronouns
anaphoric words used in reference phenomena
conjunctions
they connect words/phrases/clauses together
> coordinating conjunctions : conjoin 2 units that have an equal syntactic status (ex. “and”)
subordinating conjunctions : conjoin 2 units that have a disting syntactic status (ex. “after”)
