Morphology Flashcards
Morphemes
Smallest units of language that carry information about meaning or function
Inflection
Modifies a word’s form to indicate grammatical subclass
Derivation
Building a new word by adding an affix
- changes the word class and/or basic meaning of the word;
Grammatical morphemes
Inflectional affixes & function words.
- Serve the same kind of role, but inflection is bound to its host, and function words are freestanding
Components of inflectional morphology
- number (singular vs. plural)
- tense (past, future)
- agreement (first, second, third person)
- gender (masculine, feminine).
To build a grammar of the structure of words, children must:
-Segment words into morphemes
- Assign meaning or function to each morpheme
- Learn the category types of morphemes (root vs. affix, prefix vs. suffix, derivation vs. inflection, lexical vs. functional, etc.);
Findings of Brown’s research on Adam, Eve and Sarah
Relatively uniform order of acquisition due to :
1. frequency (plural -s > possessive -s)
2. saliency (plural -s > past tense -ed) 3. semantic weight (plural -s > third person -s)
Morphemes allomorphs
Morphemes can vary in shape depending on the context (e.g. same underlying representation morpheme for -s in cats and dogs but one pronounced [s], the other [z])
Methodological issues for interpreting data
- Obligatory context : a sentence can be grammatical but incorrect given the context
2.Cut-off : determining when a child has acquired a construct (Brown’s criterion: 90% use in obligatory contexts) - Variation across sessions : Brown required that the rate of use remain above 90% for three consecutive sessions
- Variation across learners : children do not learn structures at same age; solution : MLU
True or false : there is a uniform order of grammatical morphemes acquistion across languages
False, morphology is more robust in certain languages
True or false : order of grammatical morphemes acquistion is relatively stable within a given language
True
Productivity challenge to Brown’s experiment
Do children memorize the right context for inflected forms use or do they acquire productive rules and representations that they apply to new words ?
90% inflection can be attained with memorization
- You can incorrectly store keys as irregular, but produce it correctly
Wugs test
Tests generalization of rules to novel forms
* If children can pluralize nouns they have never heard before, they must have a rule of plural formation (suffix -s to a noun to form its plural):
When do children struggle to add the [-s] or [-z] plural morpheme ?
When the word already ends with an [s]
Chunking
Employing memorized fixed forms
Children usually acquire the inflectional system before __ years old
4
2 most common inflectional morphemes
Prefixes and suffixes
Children find ______prefixes/suffixes easier
Suffixes
Operating principle of Slobin
Idea that a rule tells children to be attentive to the end of words
Children tend to omit obligatory ______prefixes/suffixes
Prefixes
Why are infixes easy to acquire in Tagalog ?
The infix is sometimes realized as a prefix to optimize the syllable structure (phonology places constraints). The infix being realized as a prefix makes it easier for the child to identify the inflectional morpheme.
Consonant-initial roots: Agent-focus <um> is infix
Vowel-initial roots: Agent-focus <um> is prefix</um></um>
Children acquiring more morphologically rich languages acquire inflection _____earlier/later than more empoverished languages like English
Earlier
In morphologically rich languages, morphology does some of the job of ______
Syntax
Languages with richer morphology have relatively free _____ _______
Word order
Case marking
Indicates the role that a noun plays in a sentence (subject or object).
Case marking suffixes in Hungarian correspond to … in English
Prepositions
Why do English children acquire locative prepositions later than Hungarian children acquire locative case markingn ?
In Hungarian :
1. case markers appear to the right of the root as the final suffix in word:
haːz-ban, haːz-at-ok-ban
2. Vowels in case markers harmonize with root-final vowel, which makes them cohere as a unit
In English :
1. Prepositions are function words:
a lot of different types of material can intervene between preposition and noun
2. No vowel harmony binds a preposition to a noun or other following word
Evidence for productivity
- Generalization of rules to novel forms (e.g., using Wug Test);
- Types of errors that children make (i.e., morphological overregularization).
Children produce plural for most words ending with a vowel or sonorant consonant, but less for …
Stop-final words
More segmental and syllable complexity _____reduces/increases plural production
Reduces
Morphological rule of past tense formation
V → V + /d/ past
- Irregulars like ‘bring’ must be marked in the lexicon as not undergoing the rule of past tense formation; regulars like ‘play’ are not marked in any special way.
Errors of omission
Leaving out a morpheme
What do errors of omission indicate ?
2 options :
1. Lack of morphological knowledge
2. Uncertainty as to the context for use of the inflection
Errors of commission
Using the wrong form (e.g. “I walks”)
What do errors of commission indicate ?
Lack of knowledge
Errors of ______ are more common
Omission
Errors of overregularization
Similar to errors of commission, but not due to lack of knowledge (e.g. mans for men)
Children make errors when a morphological rule is applied to ______
Exceptions
U-shaped development for irregular forms
Stage 1: No rule
* Productions in past contexts: [pleɪd] ‘played’, [brɑt] ‘brought’.
* Rule for past tense formation not yet acquired
* Regular and irregular forms stored in lexicon as morphologically unanalysed chunks:
/pleɪ/ (Vpresent) /pleɪd/ (Vpast)
Stage 2: Rule acquired → overregularization:
* Productions in past contexts: [pleɪd] ‘played’, [brɪŋd] ‘bringed’.
* Since children never hear forms like [brɪŋd] in the input, they have acquired the rule for past tense formation :
V → V + /d/past
* Regular and irregular forms stored in same manner in lexicon:
/pleɪ/ (V) /brɪŋ/ (V)
Stage 3: Rule acquired and exceptions marked in lexicon:
* Productions in past contexts: [pleɪd] ‘played’, [brɑt] ‘brought’.
* Children recognize that there are exceptions to the rule of past tense formation; the behaviour of irregular verbs must be learned one at a time.
* Rule for past tense formation acquired (as per Stage 2):
V → V + /d/past
Regular and irregular forms stored differently in lexicon:
/pleɪ/ (V) /brɪŋ/ (V*) /brɑt/ (Vpast)
Analogy
type of associative learning that takes certain salient properties of
one word and applies those properties to other words like it
Example :
“rat” for “wrote” or “brang” for “bringed” based on rhymes with “sat” and “sang”
Blocking approach
Once the child hears the irregular form in the input, the overregularized form is blocked and removed from the child’s grammar
Competition approach
Children initially postulate the overregularized form and when they hear the irregular form for the first time, they entertain both options for a time. As the child hears the irregular and never the regular, the overregularization is eventually removed.
- More input is needed
Why common irregulars are acquired earlier
Syntactic fast mapping
One meaningful is enough for children to acquire some aspects of morphosyntax (even for rare morphemes)
