Grammatical Aspects of Language Morphology: The Words of Language

The Wug Experiment

The Wug Experiment

The Wug Experiment

The Wug Experiment

The Wug Experiment

Morphology

(This is a really famous experiment, by the way!) 

The Wug Test Footage of a child taking the wug test Jean Berko Gleason (the inventor of the wug test) administers the test to an adult

Morphology The study of the structure of words The rules of word formation How do we store all these words in our brains? The study of the structure of words The rules of word formation Which letters can go together and which can’t How you attach prefixes and suffixes to indicate tense, plurality, etc. The average six-year old knows 13,000 words The average high school graduate knows 60,000 words How do we store all these words in our brains?

Morphology How do we know when one word stops and the other starts? Lexicon: an individual’s mental dictionary No pauses between most spoken words A listener can understand each word in thecatsatonthemat (the cat sat on the mat) because each of those words is in their lexicon: their mental dictionary A non-English speaker can’t distinguish between words (Just like when we hear a language we don’t know and we can’t tell where one word stops and another starts because these words aren’t in our lexicon)

Your mental lexicon Take the word play. In your notebook, write down the following: How you’d pronounce it (phonetically) As many definitions as you can think of The spelling Use it in two sentences, using it slightly differently each time.

Your mental lexicon The brain catalogues: Pronunciation Meaning Related words (synonyms, antonyms, close semantic relationships) Spelling Alternate pronunciations or spellings Grammatical category (noun, verb, etc.) For each word you know, your brain catalogues most of the following: Pronunciation Meaning Related words (synonyms, antonyms, close semantic relationships) Spelling Alternate pronunciations or spellings Grammatical category (noun, verb, etc.) You may not know it consciously, but you know that you can use “love” in both I love you and You are the love of my life.

Content Words and Function Words Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs Objects, actions, attributes, and ideas Children, democracy, soar, purple New content words can be added to our lexicon when we learn new things (selfie, tweet, Broca’s area, unfriend, snowboard, incarnadine) Function words Don’t have clear meanings or obvious concepts associated with them Show grammatical relationships between content words Conjunctions (and, or, but) Prepositions (in, of, around, etc.) Articles (a, an, the) Pronouns (I, me, mine, he, she, etc.) New function words hardly ever enter the language.

Content Words and Function Words Count the number of Fs in this sentence: FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS. Write down the number; don’t say it out loud.

Content Words and Function Words There are six (most people only count three) Most people skip over at least one function word FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS. This shows the brain treats content words and function words differently

Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning “They gave it to me,” Humpty Dumpty continued, “for an un-birthday present.” “I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a puzzled air. “I’m not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I mean, what is an un-birthday present?” “A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.” --Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Inflection An inflected language: changes words slightly to change meaning. English depends on inflection and syntax An inflected language is a language that changes words slightly to change their meanings Plurals (hat  hats, person  people) Tense (run  ran, test  tested) Subject / direct object (this doesn’t apply in English) English depends on inflection and syntax

Inflection vs. Sytax: Latin vs. English In English, word order changes the meaning: The boy gives the girl a rose. The girl gives the boy a rose.

Inflection vs. Syntax Latin vs. English In Latin, words can be in any order. The inflection (the way the word changes) changes the meaning. Puer / Pueri / Puero / Puerum = boy Puella / Puellae / Puellam = girl Rosa / Rosae / Rosam / Rosarum = rose Puer puellae rosam dat = The boy gives the girl a rose Puellae rosam puer dat = The boy gives the girl a rose Puellae puer rosam dat = The boy gives the girl a rose Rosam dat puer puellae = The boy gives the girl a rose

Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning Morpheme: a basic unit of meaning that can’t be broken down into a smaller unit of meaning. Can be a root, prefix, or suffix Morphology: The study of how words can be put together. Word with one morpheme: eat Word with two morphemes: eaten (eat + en) Eat: to consume En: indicates the past perfect tense Word with three morphemes: uneaten (un+eat+en) Un: not Word with two morphemes: morphology Morphe: “form” -ology: “the science of” “the science of (word) forms” Word with seven morphemes: Antidisestablishmentarianism anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism Rules govern how we put morphemes together Uneaten is OK, but eatenun is not. Rules are unconscious and untaught but every native speaker of a language knows them. Morphology the study of the rules that govern how words can be formed the attempt to understand how we know those rules

Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning If a singer sings and a flinger flings, why doesn’t a finger fing? Singer is two morphemes (sing + er) Finger is only one morpheme (it can’t be broken down into any more morphemes) All languages are discrete Singer is two morphemes (sing + er) Finger is only one morpheme (it can’t be broken down into any more morphemes) All languages are discrete. Units of sound and units of meaning can be combined in infinite ways to create new meaning. Child Childish Childishness Man Gentleman Gentlemanly Ungentlemanly Write Rewrite Rewritable Unrewritable Unrewritableness

Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning Free morphemes Bound morphemes Free morphemes Morphemes that constitute words by themselves Boy, desire, gentle, man, write, child Bound morphemes Always parts of words -ish, -ness, -ly, -ing, -ed, -s, -es pre-, uni-, bi-, un-, a-

Morphemes in other languages Different languages attach morphemes differently Isthmus Zapotec (a native Mexican language) Attaches prefix ka- to make a word plural zigi (chin)  kazigi (chins) zike (shoulder)  kazike (shoulders) diaga (ear)  kadiaga (ears)

Morphemes in other languages In English, we don’t change anything (about the word) to change a verb to a noun. I like to dance vs. There’s a dance on Friday Turkish add suffix –ak to change a verb to a noun Dur (to stop)  durak (stopping place) Bat (to sink)  batak (sinking place / marsh or swamp)

Morphemes in other languages In English, we express reciprocal action by saying each other (love each other, understand each other) Turkish Adds –ish (after a consonant) or –sh (after a vowel) to express reciprocal action Anla (understand)  anlash (understand each other) Sev (love)  sevish (love each other)

Morphemes in other languages Some languages have infixes, or morphemes inserted into other morphemes Bontoc (Philippines) Does English have infixes? Fikas (strong)  fumikas (to be strong) Kilad (red)  kumilad (to be red) Fusul (enemy)  fumusul (to be an enemy) Does English have infixes? Only one type of infix: full-word obscenities Abso-friggin-lutely Un-friggin-believable (British English: abso-bloody-lutely) There are rules for where these infixes go Ab-friggin-solutely? Unbeliev-friggin-able? Where would you put the obscenity in Kalamazoo?

Morphemes in Other Languages Circumfixes: morphemes that are attached to a base morpheme at the beginning and end. Chickasaw (Native language of OK) A word is made negative by adding ik- to the beginning, dropping the final vowel, and adding an –o English has a few examples of circumfixes English has only a few examples of circumfixes Embolden Enlighten Chokma (he is good)  ikchokmo (he isn’t good) Lakna (it is yellow)  iklanko (it isn’t yellow) Palli (it is hot)  ikpallo (it isn’t hot) Tiwwi (he opens it)  iktiwwo (he doesn’t open it)

Roots and Stems Bound roots Why are some roots bound? It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella . . . when I saw her. . . . She was a descript person. . . . Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way. --Jack Winter, “How I Met My Wife” Bound roots: root morphemes that can’t stand alone as words—they have meaning only when combined with other morphemes. Why are some roots bound? Original Latin roots had independent meaning Combination morphemes moved into English, but roots didn’t move.

Roots and Stems You can add an affix to almost any word to make a new word. If someone from Iowa is an Iowan, what would you call someone from Nebraska? What’s the plural of sneet? If someone performed the act of gloobing yesterday, what did they do?

Roots and Stems How did you know what to do? Your lexicon for every morpheme you know includes the following: The pronunciation The meaning The rules for combining morphemes into complex words