Morphology - BASICS

Question 1

Morpheme definition

Answer 1

Minimal unit that bears meaning in language.

Question 2

Types of morphemes

Answer 2

• Free or bound
• Root, stem, clitic

Mode of attatchmentL
different affixes that attatch to eachother in different ways

Question 3

What is freedom of occurrence in a morpheme

Answer 3

Whether a morpheme is free or bound.

Question 4

Free morphemes

Answer 4

a morpheme can be a word: “soon” - smallest unit of meaning

Question 5

Bound morphemes

Answer 5

Morphemes that are not words are bound!
» Affixes are bound.
He walked. *He –ed.

> > lexical words can also be bound (in many langs):
EG Verbs in Dalabon

EG Rembarrnga
- classes of bound nouns
(some bound, some not)
*djarra = head
djarra-na = his head

Bound&raquo_space; Root/stem/affixes

Question 6

Word boundaries

Answer 6

How do we decide that a block is a word or not? not two?

1. Phonology - stress. pauses not possible
2. Morphophonemic phenomena at word boundaries.
   E.g. French liaison.
   ORTHOGRAPHY is NOT a good indicator

Question 7

Affixes and clitics

Answer 7

Affixes are bound morphemes.
» Highly specified in distribution. E.g. verbal, nominal…

Clitics are ‘halfway’ between free morphemes and affixes.
» Symbols = vs –
» Proclitics and enclitics = Transparent labels!

Question 8

Clitics are not free morphemes because

Answer 8

NOT independent
> Nor phonologically.
   -> Not independent phonological words.
> Neither syntactically.
   ->Cannot occur without a head.

Jane’s blue dress.
*’s blue dress.

Question 9

Clitics are not affixes because

Answer 9

Their distribution is often more flexible.
»They typically afford a larger range of heads
- She’s in Europe.
-The weather’s awful.

> > some things can come between clitics and their heads (french example)

> > Affixes are closer to the root. Clitics are further out

Question 10

Clitics

Answer 10

 Probably a fuzzy category.
 Not always easy to decide.
 In some languages the properties combine.
 E.g. polysynthetic Guniwnyguan languages (Australia)

Question 11

Roots

Answer 11

Roots are not the same as free morphemes.
» Not all roots are free.
» Some must have affixes to be well-formed words.

They are the greater common denominator - after removing suffixes

Question 12

Stems

Answer 12

The part of the words to which affixes attach

EG italian
STEM
parli-
parla-
parle-

ROOT
parl
parl
parl

> > often the same as the root

Question 13

TYPES OF AFFIXES

Answer 13

prefixes
suffixes
infixes
circumfixes
reduplication
non-segmental

+portmanteau

They combine - can be several of each
- always relative to the root - not to other affixes

Question 14

Prefixes

Answer 14

left of the root

Question 15

Suffixes

Answer 15

right of the root

Question 16

Infixes

Answer 16

Inside the root.

Question 17

circumfixes

Answer 17

On each side of the root.

> I.e. in two parts.

Question 18

Infixes and circumfixes

Answer 18

Rare.
> Cognitive factors?
- The middle of the root is the least salient part.
=> Infixes not effective in language processing?
- Circumfixes are disruptive.
+ not economical

Question 19

Reduplication

Answer 19

All or part of the word is repeated.
(Not an affix strictly speaking.)

> > Must have consistent meaning to be a morpheme.
- This meaning must be regular and productive.
NOT French pipi ‘wee’ and caca ‘poo’ - *pi *ca
Lexical reduplication is NOT morphological reduplication.

NOT RARE
Natural occurrence in early acquisition.
- Pragmatic association with children
- maintain in adult linguistic abilities?

Question 20

Suprasegmental

Answer 20

(Not affixes strictly speaking.)
>Tone.
>Stress.
> Phonological transformation.
   >> E.g. nasalization

kakataibo (peru)
Nasalization of imperatives expresses anger

Question 21

Portmanteau

Answer 21

Morphemes that encapsulte different meanings/functions.
»Which are commonly expressed by different forms.
&raquo_space;> E.g. verbal prefixes merging A + O + tense

TAM categories are merged in many languages
EG. most romance languages
> in most langs person and number are merged

Question 22

CROSS-LINGUISTIC TRENDS

suffixes vs prefixes

Answer 22

Notable cross-linguistic PREF for SUFFIXES
> Varies according to basic constituent order.
» Verb FINAL languages: 1P:5S
» Verb MEDIAL languages: 1P:2S
» (Still more frequent in verb final languages, but less.)

Question 23

Internal explanation for cross-ling suffix preference

Answer 23

Remember the category harmony principle.
> Verb initial (VO) is head-dependent.
> Suffix (root+suff) is also head-dependent.

Question 24

External explanation for cross-ling suffix preference

Answer 24

Principles of language change.

> Notion of grammaticalization.

Question 25

Grammaticalization

Answer 25

Free lexical morpheme grammaticalizes into bound affix.
> Semantic generalization.
> Phonological reduction.

EG SWAHILI (bantu)
Step 1: Semantic generalization: 
‘want (something to happen in the future) --> FUTURE
Step 2: Phonological reduction:
taka --> ta-

if the lexical verb occurs BEFORE the verb describing the want = Results in a PREFIX

if the lexical item was placed AFTER the verb = result in a SUFFIX

Lexical items tend to become affixes
to elements that precede them.
> Results in creating more suffixes than prefixes.