Lex2 Flashcards
Clipping
-removing some segments of an existing word to create a synonym (laboratory-lab)
Acronymization
words consisting of initial letters or syllables of complex words (economy)
- usa (united states of america), nato (north atlantic treaty org.)Blends – merging
Gemination
ablaut g. – ticktack (alternation of the stem vowel)
- rhyme g. – willy-nilly
Reduplication
reapplication of a particular morpheme
- meaning is genuine (i don’t want a job. I want a job-job.) – i want a real job.
- in some languages it expresses plural (indonesian)
- could be used in onomatopoeia (haf-haf)
Compounding
- difficult to distinguish between a compound and a phrase
- compounds don’t have to be spelled together (flowerpot or flower-pot)
- compound stress rule has too many exceptions (blue-eyed, easy-going)
- integrity of compounds (a word cannot be inserted between constituents)
- recursiveness – (n+n) = n (shop lamp) + production = (shop lamp production) …
- classification – primary (root) – many potential meanings, not semantically transparent
- (shop lamp)
- synthetic (verbal) – contain verbal element (language teacher)- endocentric – consist of determinant and determinatum - shop lamp is a kind of lamp, blackboard a kind of board - exocentric – determinatum is not expressed - redskin is not a kind of skin, but a person
Affixation
-process of adding an affix to a base/most frequent WF process
affix – a bound morpheme
- infixation – abso-fucking-lutely → expletive, pseudo-infixation
- homeric infixation – saxo-ma-phone, secre-ma-tary
- to catch attention
- diddly flendarian infixation – ac-diddly-action
- iz/-izn – in hip-hop music – shit – shitiznt
- in sk – maličký – malililinký
Conversion
- the shift of a word belonging to one word class to another word class without adding an affix
- ex. Lunch – to lunch; forest – to forest; cloud – to cloud (nouns to verbs)
- ex. To hunt – hunt; to click – click; to break – break (verbs to nouns)
- ex. Clean – to clean; yellow – to yellow; clear – to clear (adjectives to verbs)
Backformation
- forming new words by deleting an element that is or appears to be an affix
- ex. Edit was formed from editor by deleting -or (or act-actor)
- ex. Burgle from burglar – it was a simple word of one morpheme, but it started to be perceived as complex with structure burgle + -er = reanalysis / folk (popular) etymology
- marchand notes that nouns ending in -ation are older than verbs ending in -ate
- ex. Alternation (1443) – alternate (1595); calculation (1393) – calculate (1570)
- historically, the nouns in -ation were borrowed from french or latin
Transformational hypothesis
- Lees (1960) derives n + n compounds from kernel sentences through a series of transformations (first significant work)
o A kernel sentence is transformed into a relative clause → the relative clause into an expression with a postnominal modifier → the final transformation results in a compound
o The course is a snap → …course which is a snap… → …course a snap… → …snap course
o Sharp criticism of his method
Absence of morphological and semantic description
Ambiguity of underlying sentence structures
o Reaction to criticism
Lees modified his approach by putting more emphasis on semantics → case roles (agent, instrument, patient, location, time etc.)
Moriss Halles model
- 1973- morris halle, russian emigrant, closely collaborated with chomsky on generative phonology
- He published short research paper know as prolegomena in which he outlined the first model of word formation in generative framework, had considerable impact on american derivational phonology
- His model consists of a few components
- List of morphemes
o Morpheme= unit that can exist without meaning
o Unilateral and bilateral morphemes
Broth-er= pure form without meaning - Word formation rules
o 1st type unilateral
Stem + suffix (broth-er)
o 2nd type bilateral
Verb + suffix (decide- decision) - Filter
o Filters out irregularities
o Three different types
Structural idiosyncrasies
o Morris distinguishes between protentional and real words; the fact that they doesn’t exist now, doesn’t mean they cant be used in the future; over generative capacity of word formation rules; every word has to be marked
o Arriv-al, *arriva-ion
o *deriv-al, derivate-ion
o Potention-al, potent-ion
Phonological idiosyncrasies
o Trisyllabic shortening rule= if there is long vowel or diphthong the vowel is shorten if suffix is added to this word
o Entire- entirety
o Obese- obesity
Semantic idiosyncrasies
o Predictable meaning of new word form - Dictionary of words
o Stores new words that were produced by the word formation rules - Product
o It’s the morpheme - Phonological component
o Adjective + en = can only occur when it ends with an obstruent
Soft+en= soften (t is silent)
o Necessity of the phonological component
Mark aronoff
- Founder of modern american generative word formation
- Introduced number of topics
- Known as a representative of word based word formation
- Main focus of research: affixation and phonological rules
- He believes that wf rules must be based on bilateral units (signs)
o Since not all morphemes meet this condition, his wf rules are based on units which always carry some meaning - on words → word-based theory of word-formation
Transaction rules
- Based on deletion and substitution of affix
By arnoff asi
Allomorphy rules
- Modifications of morphemes
o Classi/fy/cation - Adjust the form of word-adjustment rules (transaction + allomorphy rules)
BLocking theory
o Word is blocked if there is already a word with such a meaning in our mental lexicon (avoid synonymy principle)
- Operates when the following conditions are met – the blocking and the blocked units have:
o The same stem (for each stem, the lexicon can accept only one item)
o The same meaning
o None of them can be derived by productive WF Rules (labour – not a productive WF process, labouriosity – blocked, because was not produced by a productive WF process)
- Plays an important role in level-ordering theories
Potentiation
Williams notion
- Certain affix increase productivity of other affix
o General- generalise- generalization
Productivity
- Degree to which individual WF processes, WF rules/types and/or affixes are used in generating new words
o E.g. There are many more nouns in a language than adjectives → the number of words generated by the combination of a particular affix and nouns is much higher than that of some other affix combined with adjectives - WF should study productive WF processes only → only those capable of producing new complex words if need be
Relativized approach/Aronoff productivity
By aronoff
- Examines productivity of an affix in relation to a particular WF base
o E.g. Reveals that #ness is more productive than the synonymous suffix +ity when attached to adjectives of the form Xive (perceptive), while +ity is more productive than #ness when attached to adjectives of the form Xile (servile)
Semantic coherence
Depends on the predictability of the meanings of words derived by a specific WF rule (the word with less meanings is semantically more coherent – language user will prefer the rule that creates a new word, the meaning of which is more transparent)
E.g. The rule which derives abstract nouns from the WF base Xous by adding #ness is semantically more coherent because all the nouns of the form Xousness may have only one of three possible meanings (the Fact, the Extent, and the Quality/State of Action), while the number of possible interpretations of words of the form Xousity is much higher
o There is a direct correlation between semantic coherence and productivity
Baayen productiovity
- Uses a large corpus, and calculates productivity in relation to parole, notably to frequency – number of occurrences (tokens) of a particular derived word (type)
N1 = hapax legomena – number of types (of words) with the evaluated affix occurring only once in the sample analysed
N = the total number of tokens of all words with that given affix
P = the potential application of a particular WFR – the rate at which new types are to be expected to appear when N tokens have been sampled
o The lower the frequency of individual types, the higher their share of all different types
WF type cluster
Stekauer
- This cluster encompasses a number of various WF types –
o Suffixation Action-Agent (work-er),
o Object-Action-Agent (language teach-er),
o Conversion of the type ACTION-SUBSTANCE (cheatn)
Elsewhere condition principle
- A blocking principle which ensures that the more specific rule applies first whereas the general rule applies elsewhere
o Judge as a noun is formed by conversion of verb judge
Conversion is a more specific rule of forming agent nouns derived from
verbs than suffixation with -er, so the formation of the noun *judger is blocked
Lexicalization
- The process of losing semantic and/or formal links to the motivating constituents
- Does not have to encompass all complex words
Katovskys deinition of lexicalization
- Integration of a WF syntagma in the lexicon with semantic and/or formal properties that cannot be fully derived from the constituents or a WF pattern
- Includes idiomatization (lexicalization at the semantic level) and demotivation (lexicalization at the formal level)
Headeness
Inheritance of features
- Concerns the way how a complex word inherits its morphosyntactic (word-class, transitiveness, countability etc.) And lexical features from its constituents
o E.g. Blackboard is a noun because its determinatum is a noun – its meaning is primarily determined by the latter: it is a kind of board
IS A Condition
by allen
– expressed this aspect
- Grandfather IS A father, and IS A noun because father IS A noun etc.
HEad
-That constituent in a complex word from which the features are transferred to the compelx word as a whole
(before introducing this term, Marchand’s notion of determinatum carried all the features of the head)
Righthand head rule
Rule by williams
- In morphology, we define the head of a morphologically complex word to be the righthand member of the word.
-KAtovsky pointed out cases with left hand heads eg father in law
Level ordering theories
Siegel
- Two classes of affixes differ in their phonological and morphological characteristics → based on these differences she formulated the Level-Ordering Hypothesis
Allen
- Extended Ordering Hypothesis: there are 3 levels in morphology at which rules of WF operate
o Level I rules are ordered before Level II rules, and both Level I and Level II rules are ordered before Level III rules
o Level I – all rules of +boundary affixation
o Level II – all rules of #boundary affixation
o Level III – rules of compounding, non-prefixation, and some other rules
o There should be no affixation after compounding
Selkirk (1982)
- Derivational affixes may appear outside compounds, e.g. Un-self-sufficient, non¬-weather-related, painstaking-ly
o Conclusion → Class II affixes may appear inside or outside compounds, while Class I affixes appear only inside compounds = principle of Compound-Affix Ordering Generalization
Strauss (1982)
- Class I suffixes can attach after Class I prefixes, and Class I prefixes can be attached outside Class II suffixes
o E.g. In ungrammaticality, the Class II prefix -un attaches to grammatical, not to the noun grammaticality
Kiparsky: Lexical Phonology and Morphology
- There are several levels (strata, layers), each of them characterised by certain WF rules followed by phonological rules
o Phonological rules of lexical phonology = lexical rules are cyclic → they are applied after each step of word-formation, and admit exceptions
o Postlexical phonological rules = rules that apply to syntax, to combinations of words in sentences → they are exceptionless and automatic, they apply whenever the conditions for their application are met → they are non-cyclic, can apply only once
o The output of lexical phonology may be used as an input for a WF process at a higher level
o Important feature of Kiparsky’s model – affixation and compounding are interspersed
He places irregular inflection at level 1 – separates it from regular inflection at level 3
The result of every layer of derivation is a lexical item
Siegel’s class I vs class II affixes differences
Class I-Combine with words and stems, often come from non-native sources, suffixes typically move stress to the second/last syllable and prefixes are stressed
Class II prefixes-Only combine with words, no stress shift takes place and there is no vowel/consonant change
Aronoff
Semantic traits and status
The meaning of a lexical unit (LU) is determined by semantic traits, which vary in their value and contribution to the overall meaning of the LU. The significance of a lexical trait in defining the meaning of an LU is referred to as its status.
Zero morpheme
- a morpheme that has a meaning but zero form
- sheep sheep singular vs. plural form, has no form but changes meaning
Empty morph
- belongs to the no morpheme; doesn’t have a meaning
- Plural form children: it contains /r/- which is absent in the SG and therefore referred to as an empty morph.
- Czechoslovakia – O in the word connects two units together but has not meaning on its own
Seassures sign
Linguistic sign is a bilateral unit: link between a concept and sound image
- A concept is a general idea, a mental representation of something
- Sound image is an abstract mental representation of sound
- For the term concept he also introduced term signified (signifié) and for sound image term signifier (signifiant)
overgenerating capacity
● the capacity of WF rules to generate potential words
Pierce sign
Peirce also distinguishes 3 types of signs:
- Icons, they are based on resemblance with the designed object (e.x picture of a book)
o Images – direct similarity between signifier and signified
o Diagrams – analogy between the relations of signifier and signified
o Metaphors (metasigns) - similarity is based on similarity with other properties
- Indexes, point to the objects (e.x smoke indicates fire) or point to spatial and temporal relations of the utterance. (e.x here, there, yesterday)
- Symbols are based on conventions and unlike icons they do not resemble the objects and do not have a direct relation to the object like indexes. Symbols are connected with its object by virtue of the idea of the symbol using mind (e.x book, chair, table etc.)
Conventionalization
each onomatopea undergoes conventionalization which means that sound is adjusted to the phonological system of a particular language
Major vs MINOR wf processes
Major WF-compounding, suffixation, prefixation, zero-derivation, back-formation, reduplication
MINOR WF-clipping, acronymization, blending, gemination
