Lecture 2

English 3318: Studies in English Grammar

The Morphology of English

Dr. Svetlana Nuernberg

Objectives

● Grammatical Prototypes

● Grammatical Meaning vs Grammatical Form

● Morphology

Grammatical Prototypes● Form categorization

– classification of new forms● nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

– sorting of words into proper groups● according to their form (part of speech)● according to their behavior (the same with other members of

that group– difficulties with categorization

● words can belong to more than one group– down (verb) – to down a drink– down (adverb) – look down– down (preposition) – walk down a corridor– down (noun) – the fourth down in football– down (adjective) – feel down on a bad day

● words within one group can behave differently– plural (cats, houses, references) no plural form (honesty, happiness)

Prototypical and Peripheral Cases● Exceptions to grammatical rules

– concepts are not clear-cut categories to which members belong on an all-or-none basis

– some members are better examples of the class than others– e.g., a word cup – a mind picture (a bowl-like object with a handle), but

not all of them have a handle and a bowl-like shape; function – we drink beverages from cups

– distinguishing between cups and glasses or mugs is difficult, so concept named by cup – is complex

– concept or class– has a clearly defined center, where members (prototypical cases) exhibit

all the characteristics associated with the prototype– has fuzzy borders, where other members (peripheral cases) seem to

belong, even though they exhibit only a few of the characteristics associated with the category.

Tasks for Learning a Language

● Master the criteria to be able to examine a new example

● Note its structure or habits (or both)● Decide how to classify it● Realize the fact that language is like nature

– gives us a fair set of prototypes of any category we can establish

– gives us a substantial number of peripheral examples:● items that seem to belong to the category partly because they

do not fit as well into any other category ● Learn criteria – associate them with prototype

Example 1● The word happy is a prototypical adjective, its

characteristics are typical of adjectives– it ends in -y, a suffix added to many words to create

adjectives: cheesy, grumpy, funny, funky– it can be made comparative and superlative: happier,

happiest– it can be intensified with words like: very, rather, quite– it can be a predicate adjective: I feel happy– it can function as an object compliment: The new doll made

her happy– when it modifies a noun, as in happy child, its meaning can

be paraphrased by a sentence in which its noun is the subject and it is the predicate adjective following a form of the verb to be: The child is happy

Example 2● Another situation shows us how linguists distinguish

between a word's form and it's function● A rock wall surrounded the field.● A rocky path surrounded the field.

– both rocky and rock describe the nouns that follow them, wall and path, are they therefore adjectives?

– rocky is an adjective in the form, rock is a noun– actual characteristics of the word might show the class to

which it belongs ● rocky has all of the most important traits of an adjective

– it ends in the common suffix-y (like happy)– it can be made comparative and superlative (rockier, rockiest)– it can be intensified (very rocky, rather rocky)

● rock on the other hand– doesn't have suffix -y (which is not required in red, tall or rich)– it can't be made a comparative and superlative (*rocker, *rockest)– nor can it be intensified (*very rock, *rather rock)– it easily functions as a noun (a heavy rock, on the rock), which rocky can't do

Example 3● The little old house that stands on the corner of 12th

and Vine belongs to me. ● Stands corner little the on house of and 12th that Vine

the belongs to me.● These means help to group and organize words into

meaningful utterances– word order, which can either change the meaning of the

sentence or make it completely senseless– word change, or alterations in forms (e.g., like, likes, liked)– function words, which serve to connect words into

meaningful utterances (“in” in the example above)– intonation pattern, as the main constituent feature of the

sentence

The Subject of Descriptive Grammar● The study of the grammatical structure of English● Adequate and systematic description of English

language phenomena● Grammar is divided into 2 major parts:

– morphology (Greek: morph → form + logos → word)● a branch of grammar concerning itself with the structure of

words as dependent on the meaning of constituent morphemes

● the system of morphological oppositions including their grammatical categories as unities of form and content.

– syntax (Latin: syntaxis → order)● a part of grammar dealing with the arrangement of words

into phrases, clauses, sentences

Morphology● Differentiate morphemes from words● Differentiate between bases and affixes● Identify bound and free bases● Distinguish prefixes from suffixes● Identify allomorphs of a morpheme● Recognize and produce examples of all eight

inflectional morphemes● State whether or not a derivational morpheme has

changed the part of speech of the base to which it is attached

Morphemes● Morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a

language– {} are used to differentiate morphemes from words and

syllables– if a word cannot be divided into smaller meaningful

components – it is a morpheme too ● e.g., readable – consists of two morphemes {read} and

{able}, the first of which is also an independent word– it is used to create and understand sentences

● e.g., adjective adverb pairs {ly}: happy-happily; sweet-sweetly;

● prefix {un} (unkindly, unhappily) vs (*unsweetly, *unroughly)

Exercise 1 ● Suppose that you hear someone use the newly coined

noun glub, and are told that it means “a silly remark”– next you encounter an adjective from the noun - glubby. – Using these two words as the basis, see how many of the

following words you can create or understand● From the noun glub, create a verb that means “to say something

silly.” They always ___during discussion.● From the noun glub, create another noun meaning “someone who

makes a silly remark.” Sometimes she can be such a_____.● From the noun glub, create an adjective other than glubby. That

was certainly a ___thing to do.● From the adjective created in #3, create an adverb. Jack always

speaks so___about his brother.● From the noun glub, create another noun meaning “one who hates

silly remarks.”

Morphological Clues and Grammatical Tags● In addition to serving in creation of vocabulary,

morphemes supply grammatical tags to words– identifying on the basis of form the parts of speech we hear

or read. e. g. Why is that groony stronker wigrifying his klummitzes so briggily?

● Groony – ends in -{y} and comes between that and a nounlike word stronker with ending -{er} – it is an adjective

● Stronker -{er} morpheme is often used to create noun meaning “one who does” biker, teacher, streaker.

● Wigrifying – ends on two verbal morphemes: {fy} used to create verb like magnify, falsify, and -{ing} found on participles like biking, teaching

● Klummitzes – looks like a plural noun, because of its ending -{es}● Briggly – seems to have the adverbial ending – {ly} like unkindly

Rules of Thumb● Characteristics of a Morpheme

– has a meaning that can be at least vaguely stated– contain only one unit of meaning– can be used with the same meaning within other words

or as a word itself● Steps of Morphological Analysis

– draw a vertical line between words whatever parts of words seem to you to be meaningful units in the sentence

– go back and check each division you made● be sure that each contains only one unit of meaning● try to state what the meaning or function of each unit is● try to think of a way that you can use the unit with a similar

meaning in another word or as a word itself

Morphological Analysis● How would you divide

– yesterday● because there is a word day (24 hour period)● yester – is less than a word, but it has a recognizable meaning

(previous, one before this) yesteryear– can it be divided into two or more morphemes?

● it can only if you are able to show that the units divided off can be reused with the same meaning in other combination

– baker's and banker's – are alike● bake or bank + {-er} (one who bakes or banks) + possessive

suffix {-'s}– oldest or smallest

● contain superlative morpheme {-est} – {old} + {-est}

Complex Cases● daughter, mother, sister, brother or younger

– *{-er} – is not separable, the meaning is not “one who daughts”

● younger– {young} + {-er}, but it does not mean “one who does” - it

is comparative morpheme used to show varying degrees of adjectives

● away– {-a}+ {way} – prefix a- turns words into adverbs like

aboard● ran – move rapidly

– {run} + {a} – (peripheral cases) signal of the past tense - (run/ran) – like want/wanted {-ed} ((prototypical cases); go/went; cost/cost) – {run} + {-ed}

Allomorphs● Allomorph is a variant of a single morpheme (good,

better, best - adjective; have eaten, have walked - past participle morphemes - occur in a variety of forms) – {-able} – unbearable vs {-ible} – incredible – have similar

pronunciations and meaning - “capable of action” - (more important than spelling)

– both are considered variants, or allomorphs, of the morpheme {-able}, as no difference in meaning coincides with the difference in pronunciation

● This morphological pattern occurs each time {-ity} is added to {-able}, thus producing a variety of pairs, such as: usable/usability, credible/credibility

Inflectional and Derivational Morphemes

● Morphemes that are used– to create new words are called derivational– to show grammatical relationships are called

inflectional● The important distinction

– the nature of base before and after affixing occurs● when derivational morphemes are attached to the base, they

create words with new meanings: walk – an activity; walker – a person who performs an activity

● when inflectional morphemes are added, the essential meaning and the part of speech of the word remain unchanged; it simply contributes additional information about the concept:walk and walked are verbs naming the activity, the only difference is tense.

English Inflectional MorphemesMorpheme function Form Combined Form Resulting Word

NounsPlural -s book+-s books

Possessive -s Barbara+-s Barbara's

Verbs-s walk + -s walks

Past Tense -ed walk + -ed / eat +vowel change walked / atePast Participle -en walk + -ed / eat + -en walked / eaten

Present Participle -ing walk + -ing walking

AdjectivesComparative - er big + -er biggerSuperlative - est big + -est biggest

Pres Tense (3rd p.s.)

Inflections

Example of Inflectional Suffixes

Inflection Frame

{-s1} noun plural{-s2} noun possessive{-s3} verb present tense{-ed} verb past tense{-en} verb past participle{-ing} verb present participle{-er} adjective comparative His dessert is larger than mine{-est} adjective superlative

He has three dessertsThis is Betty's dessertBill usually eats dessertHe ate the dessert yesterdayHe has always eaten dessertsHe is eating the dessert now

Her dessert is the largest

Verb InflectionsMajor Verb Past-Tense and Past-Participle Allomorphs

Regular Verbs Past Tense {-ed} Past Participle {-en}

Past Tense She walked/tapped She has walked/tappedand Past Participle forms It stayed/opened It had stayed/openedare identical He waited/waded He has waited/waded

They stopped They were stoppedIrregular Verbs {-ed} {-en}

Vowel change She ate/rode She has eaten/riddenHe sang/wept He has sung/weptThey found They were found

No change in form They hit They have hitThey cut They were cu

Zero Allomorph

● Noun Inflection– when the plural form is not expressed at all

● one sheep/three sheep – zero allomorph – representing it with the null sign Ø, as in {sheep} + {Ø}

● Verb Inflection– when there is no visible difference between Present

and Past Tense, for example cut/cut, hit/hit, put/put – is shown as {put} + {-ed}; {hit} + {-ed}

Adjective and Adverb Inflections

● In English there are two possible inflections for adjectives – comparative and superlative {-er} and {-est}– can be added only to one or two syllable words: tall, taller,

the tallest; heavy, heavier, the heaviest– adjectives of more than two syllables do not accept

inflectional morpheme, for them words like more and most are used to indicate comparative and superlative forms

– can also appear on a small number of adverbs: He drove longer and faster than anyone else

– more and most are applicable to many adverbs as well – more securely, most effectively

Derivational Morphemes● Create (derive) new words by recycling parts of

existing words into new combinations– attaching a variety of affixes (morphemes added to the

beginnings or ends of words) to the basis noun friend – you get

● nouns: friendship, friendliness, unfriendliness, friendlessness● adjectives: friendly, unfriendly, friendless● verb: befriend

– bound morphemes – incapable of standing alone as words – prefixes, affixes

– free morphemes – can stand alone as words - friend– base - to which prefixes and suffixes are attached - act

● not all bases are free morphemes

An Example of Derivational Morphology: {act}

Derivational DerivationalBound Free Bound

Prefixes Base Suffixes

{in-} {act} {-ive} + {-ly}{in-} {act} {-ive} + {-ity}{in-} {act} {-ive} + {-ate}{re-} {act} {-ive} + {-ate}{en-} {act}

{re-} + {en-} {act} {-ment}

Differences Between Derivational and Inflectional Suffixes1. Always precede any inflectional suffixes 1. Always follow any derivational suffixes

2. Often change the part of speech of the base 2. Never change the part of speech of the base Example: boy (noun) Example: boy (noun singular)boyish (adjective) boys (noun plural)

3. Usually can combine with only a 3. Combine with almost all members of few subgroups of bases belonging a single part of speechto one or two parts of speechExample: human > humanize Example: human > humans

pencil > pencilscar > cars

4. Have some lexical (or dictionary) meaning 4. Have grammatical meaning

Creates verbs meaning “to cause Creates plural of a word that retainsto become” its original meaning

Example: {-ize} in authorizing Example: {-s} in statements{author} + {-ize} + {-ing} {state} + {-ment} + {-s}

* humanify*humanate

Example: {-ize} > humanize Example: {-s} > humans

Form Classes and Structure Classes

● Words that can change form through the addition of derivational or inflectional morphemes belong to the category called form-class words– four parts of speech – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

● Words that are incapable of changing form through inflection or derivation belong to the separate category called structure-class words– modals – can, may, will, shall, could, would, might

Summary● Morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in a

language, consist of bases and affixes– bases may be bound or free– affixes are, by definition bound, they can precede the

base (prefix) or follow it (suffix)● To analyze morphemes

– we divide the word into meaningful parts (morphemes)– state the meaning or function of each, and show that it

occurs with similar meaning or function as part of other words in the language

● English has eight inflectional morphemes● The remaining morphemes are derivational