Lec. II The Morphology of English

Morphology The study of the internal structure of words. We will use the term word loosely.

Definition of Morpheme A Morpheme is a short segment of langauge that meets three criteria: 1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning. It cannot be dividede into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or witout meaningless remainders. It recurs in differing verbal environments with a relatively stable meaning.

For example, 1. The word straight raight---rate aight---ate 2. Brighten = make light Excercise 8-1 p 88

Free and Bound Morphemes A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning A bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It is always annexed to one or more morphemes to form a word It is possible for a word to consist entirely of bound morphemes. Excercise 8-3 P 89

Bases another classification of morphemes puts them into two classes: bases and affixes A base morpheme is the part of the word that has the principal meaning. Ex. denial, lovable Bases are very numerous iand most of them are free morphemes, but some are bound, such as –sent in dissent, consent. A word may contain one base and one or more affixes. Ex. readability Excercise 8-4 P.89

Bound Bases Bound bases are sometimes hard to attach a precise meaning. A number of the bases in english come from Latin and Greek. Ex. –sent- Sentiment, consent, resent -sent here means ‘feel’ A a base may have more than one phonetic form. Look at the previous examples of –sent. Excercise 8-5 P. 90

The American heritage Dictionary has these enties, phot, photo (light)-biblio- (book)- -meter (measuring device)- tele-tel- (distance)-mis-, miso- (hatred)-bio- (life) Excercise 8-6 P. 90

Affixes An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before or within or affter a base. There are three kinds: prefixes, infixes and suffixes Prefixes are bound morphmes that occur before a base. They are a small class numbering a bout 75. ex. ? There meanings are often those of english adverbials and prepositions. Excercise 8-8

Infixes are bound morphemes that have been inserted within a word. English does not have infixes There are few exceptions Un get at able Also might be considered as infixes the replacive vowels in some noun plurals or pt and pp forms. (replacive allomorphs)

Suffixes Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base. Ex. ? Suffixes may pile up to the number of 3 or 4, whreas prefixes are commonly single except for the negative un- before another prefix. Normalizers Excercises 8-9, 8-10

Inflectional suffixes {-s pl} {- sg ps} {-s pl ps} {-s 3d} {-ing vb} {-D pt} {D pp} { -er cp} {-est sp}

The words to which these suffixes are attached are called stems. The stem includes the base or bases and all the derivational affixes. The chart of IN suffixes does not contain alternate forms that are sometimes used for the plural, past tense, or past participle. Ex. Oxen—mice—sang—sung.

The overlapping form –ed for both the pt and pp does not normally cause a problem for interpretation. WHY? THE GRAMMATICAL CONTEXT OF THE TWO IS DIFFERENT. The IN suffix –en is listed here as an alternate for pp –ed because it occurs with a number of irregular verbs, and because it serves to distinguish the pt from the pp.

The inflectional suffixes differ from the derivational suffixes in the following ways, to which there are exceptions. They do not change the part of speech. Ex. Long-longer They come last in a word. Ex. waited. They go with all stems of a given part of speech. Ex. He eats, drinks, plays..etc. They do not pile up. ##--An exception here is the {-s pl ps}

Derivational Suffixes English has a large supply of derivational suffixes. DS consist of all the suffixes that are not inflectional.

The Most Important Characteristics of DS: 1. The words with which derivational suffixes combine is an arbitrary matter. Ex. adorn—adornment Fail-failure 2. a derivational suffix changes the part of speech of the word to which it is added. Ex. act-active – activate 3. Derivational suffixes do not usually close off a word. Ex. norm—normal-normalize—normalizer--normalizers

The Derivational Paradigm The derivational paradigm is a set related words composed of the same base morpheme and all the derivational affixes that can go with it. Ex. man-manly-manhood-manikin-manliness-manful.

SUFFIXAL HOMOPHONES 1. The inflectional morpheme {-er cp} has two homophones: {-er n} {-er rp} 2. the inflectional suffix {-ing vb} has two homophones: {-ing nm} {-er aj}

There are two tests by which the verbal suffix {-ing vb} can be distinguished from the adjectival {-ing aj} 1. the {-ing vb} can occur after as well as before the noun it modifies, ex. I saw a burning house I saw the house burning 2. the {-ing aj} can be preceded by a quantifier such as very, quite, by the cp or sp words more ad most, or by seems Ex. it is a very comforting thought. That snake seems interesting.

The derivational suffix {-ly aj} is distributed as follows: The derivational suffix {-ly av} has the homophone {-ly aj}. The derivational suffix {-ly aj} is distributed as follows: 1. it is added to monosyllabic nouns to form adjectives that are inflected with –er or –est. Ex. lovely, friendly 2. it is added to nouns to form adjectives that are not inflected with –er or –est. Ex. kingly, motherly

3. it is added to few adj, giving alternate adjectival forms that are inflected with –er or –est. Ex. deadly, lively 4. it is added to a short list of ‘time’ nouns to form adj. Ex. daily, hourly.

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