what is morphology? word structure lec. 1. linguistic levels semantic level meaning syntactic...
TRANSCRIPT
WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?WORD STRUCTURE
Lec. 1
Linguistic levels
Semantic level meaning Syntactic level sentence-structure Morphological level word-structure Phonology sound system
What is morphology?
The study of the internal structure of words / the study of word formation.
In the 19th century, morphology & the reconstruction of Indo-European (Latin-Sanskrit-Persian- Germanic)
Sound system & word-formation patterns
What is a word?
native speakers have intuitive knowledge of how to form new words:
E.g. ‘splinch’ = to step on broken glassE.g. code (n)/codify (v) Blair (n)/ Blairfy (v)/
Vietnamize (v) E.g. rewash/ reheat/ relove? reexplode?
redie?
What is a word?
A person a word is stretch of
letters that occurs between blank spaces.
a word is something small that means something.
A linguist a morpheme is the
smallest unit of language that has its own meaning.
E.g. giraffe, red, re-, -ize, etc.
1 .What is a word?
A word is one or two morphemes that can stand alone in a language.
Simple words & Complex words
Simple words
giraffesit
pistachioMichael
oops just
Complex words
oppositionprewashedblackboardinseparableorphanage
Exercise
While reading, an English book, you come across the word ‘pockled’? What would you do?
‘pockle’ or ‘pockled’ ?Dictionary: lexeme/ lexical items pockle, pockled, pockling, pokles, وردة
وردتان – - – – – وردتين تورد أورد وردات ورود
1.1 .The Lexeme
We shall refer to the ‘word’ in the sense of the abstract vocabulary item using the term lexeme. The forms eats, eating & eater are all different realisations/ representations/ manifestations of the lexeme EAT.
1.1 .The Lexeme
Lexemes share a core meaning although they are being spelled & pronounced differently.
predictable / prediction / predictability
Lexemes are the words listed in the dictionary
e.g. Predict
Exercise
Group words that belong to the same lexeme:
sleep – saw – catch – jump – seeing – eyes – seen – slept – caught – jumped –boy – boys – see –tallest – sleeps – woman – sleeping – jumps – tall – catches –– taller – catching – jumping – sees - women
1.2 .The word-form
We may use the term ‘word’ to refer to a particular physical realisation of a specific lexeme in speech or writing., i.e. a particular word-form.
1.2 .Word-form
The physical word-form
see – sees- seeing – saw – seen
sleep, sleeping, sleeper, slept, sleeps
catch, catches, catching, caught,
The realisation of the lexeme
SEE
SLEEP
CATCH
1.3 .The grammatical word
The word is a representation of a lexeme that is associated with certain morphosyntactic properties (morphological + syntactic), such as noun, adjective, verb, tense, gender, number, etc.
Exercise
Identify the 2/ 3 distinct grammatical words represented by the word cut:
Usually I cut the bread on the tableYesterday, I cut the bread in the sink
* Jane has a cut on her finger
Morphemes
Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning.
E.g.unfair – untidy – uncle – unjust - under
Morphemes
The term morpheme is used to refer to the smallest, indivisible units of semantic content or grammatical function from which words are made up.
A morpheme cannot be decomposed into smaller meaningful units, or units that mark a grammatical function.
Exercise
-er player / caller / pretender -nessKindness / cleanliness / goodnessex-ex-wife / ex-ministerpre-Pre-war / pre-wash / pre-school
Morphemes & meaning
It is possible to combine several morphemes together to form more complex words.
E.g.uncleanlinessunfaithfulnessreincarnation
Morphemes & meaning
Meaning & morphemes: speakers may have different mental lexicons, based on their personal experience
helicopter – pteropus - diptera (pter=wings)Bible – bibliography – bibliophile (bibl=book)
Identification of morphemes
What is true of science in general is also true of linguistics (Chomsky; 1957)
It is not possible to establish mechanical techniques for the identification of morphemes
But, there are a number of reasonably reliable & widely accepted techniques proposed by linguists working in morphology
2.1 .the principle of Contrast
We contrast forms (words) that differ in : 1. phonological shape /e/ vs. /i/ ten & tin / six & sex
2. meaning (meaning & grammatical) The girl plays vs. the boy playsThe girl plays vs. the girl played
2.2 morphemes & morphs
Morphemes are the smallest difference in the shape of a word that correlates with the smallest difference in word or sentence meaning or in grammatical structure.
2.1 .morphemes & morphs
The analysis of morphemes begins with the isolation of morphs.
A morph is a physical form representing some morpheme in a language. It is a recurrent distinctive sound (phoneme) or sequence of sounds (phonemes).
morphemes & morphs
morpheme By comparing these morphs with the same forms in other words we find that
they all have their own meaning: work + s (marks the 3rd person singular), work + ed (a marker for past tense), work + er (a
marker for "person who does the activity expressed in the verb”), work + house (a special house). All these words are made up of at least two meaningful units. We call these morphemes, i.e. the smallest meaningful unit of a language. The branch of linguistics which deals with these morphemes is called morphology.
morph Lets consider the elements in words like (she) works, worked, worker,
workhouse, we find in a first step in the analysis recurrent forms: work, -s, -ed, -er, house. These are called morphs, i.e. phonological representations of an element, a segment, which is not yet classified.
Source: http://www.anglistik.phil.unierlangen.de/dozenten/barnickel/Newwords.pdf
Exercise Identify the morphs:
I parked the car We parked the carI parked the carHe parks the carShe parked the carShe parks the carWe park the carHe parked the car
The morphs are :
Exercise
Identify the morphs which represent the past tense morpheme in English:
1. /d/ the verb ends with a voiced sound except /d/clean, weigh, enjoy, burb…
2. /t/ the verb ends with a voiceless except /t/ park, miss, watch, …
3. /id/ the verb ends with /t/ or /d/mend, paint, hand, wait, …
Allomorphs
If different morphs represent the same morpheme, they are grouped together and they are called allomorphs
Sometimes the difference in form is not associated with a difference in meaning
/d/, /t/, & /id//s/, /z/, & /iz/
Morpheme‘past tense’
morph /id/
morph/d/
morph/t/
morphemes, morphs, & allomorphs
Allomorphs of the past tense morpheme in English
Allomorphs of the plural morpheme in English
Morphemes ‘plural’
morph /s/
morph/z/
morph/iz/
Identification of morphemes
The central technique used in the identification of morphemes is based on the notion of distribution; the total set of contexts in which a particular linguistic form occurs.
Classification of morphs
We classify a set of morphs as allomorphs of the same morpheme if they are in complementary distribution:
If morphs: 1. represent the same meaning or serve the
same grammatical function, and 2. are never found in identical contexts
Morpheme‘past tense’
morph /id/
morph/d/
morph/t/
The allomorphs of the past tense morpheme in English are in complementary distribution
Exercise
Identify the allomorphs of the negative morpheme
1. impossible, impatient, immovable
2. intolerable, indecent, intangible, inactive, inelegance
3. incomplete, incompatible, ingratitude
Notes
If a morpheme has several allomorphs, the choice of allomorphs used in a given context is phonologically conditioned (assimilation).
Spelling is a very poor guide to pronunciation in many languages (e. g. English)