1. BBI3212 Syntax and Morphology
Lecture 1
Overview

2. Overview What is morphology? What is syntax?
What is the relation between morphology and syntax?
11/8/2018

3. What is morphology?
Morphology is the study of the structure and classification of words and the units that make up words.
Morphology is the study of how words are constructed out of morphemes.
Morphology is the study of the rules governing the internal structure of words.
11/8/2018

4. What is a WORD? Let’s take a test. Which of the following are words?
cat bang up un ahh..
huh oh owe choo-choo bling-bling
blik blak blok bluk ing
supercalafrajilisticexpealladocious er
cats batman camping hot dog
dog hot pow-wow oink-oink wow-wow
uncat unseen teachable dogable
How do you decide? What criteria did you use in this Lexical Decision Task ?
11/8/2018

5. Possible Criteria used to identify words
Previous knowledge or use : meaning of the word
e.g. cat up
Past experience: heard it before
e.g. pow-wow bling-bling bang
Guessing: sounds possible
e.g. blak blok
Suitability of use depending on the context or the user
e.g. choo-choo wow-wow
11/8/2018

6. Would you choose these as words?
un Ing er Why not? Because they can’t stand alone.
11/8/2018

7. What about these ones? Are these words?
ahh.. huh Oh supercalafrazilisticexpeallodocious
11/8/2018

8. How do we identify words?
Sound sequences (pronunciation)
Letter sequences (spelling)
Meaning or Function
Possible combination of morphemes
(rules and internal structure)
Ability to stand alone (the concept of Bound or Free)
11/8/2018

9. Morphemes and Words
Morphemes are the smallest recurrent meaningful units of a language.
Why smallest?
Because you cannot break down the meaning any further.
For example: Cats = cat + s (plural)
There are two units of meaning in cats. But the word cat cannot be broken down any further.
Why recurrent?
Because the meaning is consistent in other occurrences. Cat has the same meaning regardless of the context in which you use it. And the plural marker consistently pluralizes any nouns it is affixed to.
11/8/2018

10. Classification of morphemes
Based on shape: free or bound
Based on class: lexical categories (open class)
functional or grammatical categories (closed class)
Based on function derivational morphemes
inflectional morphemes
11/8/2018

11. Types of morphemes (based on shape)
Free morphemes
e.g. cat bang woman
Bound morphemes (affixes which may be prefixes or suffixes)
e.g prefixes un- unhappy, unable
dis- dismantle, disable
suffixes -ness happiness, sadness
-ity humanity, ability
-s cats, dogs
-ing driving, testing
11/8/2018

12. Types of free morphemes (based on class)
Open class morphemes: lexical morphemes
You can always add members in this class
Lexical categories within this class includes:
nouns: blog twitter facebook
verbs : google blogging twit
adverbs slowly
adjectives “smart”
11/8/2018

13. Types of free morphemes (based on class)
Closed class morphemes: Functional or grammatical categories
The membership is determined by the language. You cannot easily add items into this class.
E.g. pronouns: Singular Plural
first person pronouns I we
second person pronouns you you
third person pronouns he, she, it they
But it can happen. Even in such cases, it’s not an addition, it’s just a substitution.
Example: the use of ‘You’ in Malay instead of kamu
11/8/2018

14. Other functional or grammatical categories
Auxiliaries – is, may, have, could
Intensifiers/qualifiers – very, quite, pretty, more, too, rather, ever so, maybe, often, hardly, perhaps, quite
Prepositions – above, behind, in, for, of, under
Conjunctions – and, or, so, as, but
11/8/2018

15. Types of bound morphemes (based on function)
Derivational morphemes
Bound morphemes that are used in the derivation process (a word formation process) where new words are generated in the language
Change the meaning or lexical category (parts of speech) of the word
Inflectional morphemes
bound morphemes that do not change the essential meaning or lexical category of the word. It changes the grammatical function.
11/8/2018

16. Examples of derivational morphemes in English
Un unhappy
dis- disable
ness happiness, sadness
-ity humanity, ability
11/8/2018

17. ENGLISH INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES
Plural -s/-en the books, the oxen
3rd person sg. non-past -s John reads well.
Progressive -ing He is working.
Past tense -ed He worked.
Past participle -en/-ed He has eaten/studied.
Comparative -er the smaller one
Superlative -est the smallest one
Possessive ‘s (a clitic) Johan’s book
cmy/july/2009

18. Internal structure of words
How do we know words have internal structure?
It helps addresses ambiguity that should arise in meaning or interpretation of multimorphemic words.
It helps explain regularity in word derivations if rules govern the formation of words and these rules determine possible word structure in a language
11/8/2018

19. Let’s study a simple example: helpfulness
This word consists of three morphemes: help + ful + ness
There are two possible structures
A) (help+ful) + ness – characteristics of being helpful
B) help + (ful + ness) - ???
If both structures are possible, there should be two possible meanings/interpretation for this word, but it is difficult to interpret the meaning for B. In fact, we only have the meaning available in A. This suggests that the structure for this word must be as shown in the diagram below.
11/8/2018

20. helpfulness N Word Formation Rules: Adj Af Adjective + ness  Noun
V Af
Help ful ness
Word Formation Rules:
Adjective + ness  Noun
Verb + ful  Adjective
11/8/2018

21. Word formation rules in English
Adjective + ness  Noun
e.g. happiness laziness
sadness fulness
tiredness
sleepyness
Verb + ful  Adjective
e.g. helpful
playful
11/8/2018

22. *help(fulness) Word Formation Rules: Adj *Verb + Noun  Adj V N Adj Af
Note: the asterisk sign is used to indicate ungrammaticality
Word Formation Rules:
*Verb + Noun  Adj
It is difficult to find evidence that this word formation rule exists in English.
Adjective + ness  N
11/8/2018

23. Summary: What is morphology?
Morphology is the study of the structure and classification of words and the units that make up words.
Morphology is the study of how words are constructed out of morphemes.
Morphology is the study of the rules governing the internal structure of words.
11/8/2018

24. What is syntax?
Syntax is the study of how words, phrases and clauses are put together to form sentences.
Phrase structure rules and constituency tests
Lexical categories
Heads and modifiers
Syntax is also the study of subconscious rules and categories that are part of each person’s linguistic competence that contraints or governs how statements, questions, commands and other types of utterances are constructed.
Lexical selection: subcategorisation
Movement Rules and constraints on movement
11/8/2018

25. Words and Sentences S Noun Sentences have structure too.
Words have structure.
Sentences have structure too. S
NP VP
N V NP
George drove Det N
the car
Noun
Verb Af
Adjective Af
White en er
Question : How are the two structures different?

26. SIMILIARITIES: Evidence for hierarchical structure (structural ambiguity)
Ambiguity in words
un(lockable)  not possible to lock
(unlock)able  possible to unlock
Ambiguity in phrases
english (history teacher)
(english history) teacher
big (cats and dogs)
(big cats) and dogs

27. DIFFERENCES Basic unit for words are morphemes
Basic unit for sentences are words
Larger groupings are phrases and clauses
Larger groupings can be analysed as heads and modifiers
Word formation rules govern word internal structure
Phrase structure rules and movement rules govern sentence structure.

28. Constituency Tests: Identifying the natural groupings of words
Wh-questions and Stand Alone as answers:
Constituents can be substituted with a wh-word.
Constituents can stand alone.
Who drove the car ? George (NP)
What did George drive? The car (NP)
*car
*the
What did George do? Drive the car (VP)
George drove the car (S)

29. Another constituency test: Substitution with Pronouns
Pronouns can substitute constituents
He drove the car He = George (NP)
George drove it it = the car (NP)
*George drove the it *it = car
George drove the car and Bill did too.
did = drove the car (VP)
*George drove the car and Bill did the car too.
*did = drove

30. More constituency tests
Movement Test:
Constituents can be moved.
It was the car that George drove.
*It was the car that George drove the car
*It was car that George drove the
Coordination Test:
Consituents can be coordinated
George drove the car and the van. (NP and NP)
George drove the car and fixed the van. (VP and VP)
*George drove the car and van (NP and N)

31. Let’s use the constituency tests
1. My uncle went out the door
2. My uncle threw out the door
Questions:
Where does ‘out’ belong?
Does it belong to the same grouping in both cases?
Prove it using constituency tests.

32. Applying the constituency test
Wh-question test
1. Where did my uncle go? OK
2. Where did my uncle throw? Bad
What does this suggest?
1. My uncle went (out the door) good
2. My uncle threw (out the door) bad

33. Applying the constituency test
Stand Alone test
1. Where did my uncle go? Out the door
2. What did my uncle throw out? *Out the door
the door = ok
What does this suggest?
1. My uncle went (out the door) good
2. My uncle threw out (the door)
out and the door cannot form a natural group in sentence 2.

34. Applying the constituency test
Stand Alone test
1. My uncle went out where ? The door
2. My uncle threw out what? The door
What does this suggest?
1. My uncle went out (the door) good
2. My uncle threw out (the door) good

35. Applying the constituency test
Coordination test
1. My uncle went out the door and into the garden.
2. *My uncle threw out the door and into the garden.
Movement test
1. It was out the door that my uncle went.
2. *It was out the door that my uncle threw.
3. It was the door that my uncle threw out.

36. What are the structures of these sentences? Draw the tree structures
My uncle went out the door.
My uncle went out the door
went out the door
out the door

37. Adding syntactic categories to the tree
My uncle went out the door. = S
My uncle = NP went out the door = VP
went out the door = PP
out the door = NP

38. Adding syntactic categories to the tree
NP VP
Det N V PP
my uncle P NP
went
out Det N
the door

39. Adding syntactic categories to the tree for sentence 2
NP VP
Det N V Part NP
my uncle went out
Det N
the door

40. Structure of Words Word Formation Rules
Adjective
Adjective er
Un Adjective
happy
Adj + er  Adj
un + ADJ  Adj

41. What are the rules for combining words? Phrase Structure Rules
S = Sentence NP = noun phrase VP = verb phrase
V = verb N = noun Det = determiner S
NP VP
N V NP
George drove Det N
the car
S  NP VP
VP  V NP
NP  Det N
( )

42. More Phrase Structure Rules
NP VP
Det N V PP
P NP
my uncle
went
out Det N
the door
VP  V PP
PP  P PP

43. Economy in Phrase Structure Rules
S  NP VP
VP  V NP
NP  (Det) N
VP  V PP
PP  P NP
VP  V (NP) (PP)
He sang.
He sang a song at the club.
*He sang at the club a song
With just a few rules, we can generate many sentences.
Our language system is very economical.

44. What is the relation between morphology and syntax?
READ chapter 5 of the text book
11/8/2018

45. Homework 1 (20 %)
Part 1 (10 marks) Write a two page essay on the following
Why study morphology and syntax? How can you apply this knowledge to the real world? Be sure to provide specific examples of ideas from morphology or syntax in your essay.
Part 2 (15 marks) Answer questions provided in the handout on identifying lexical categories
Part 3 (15%) Draw tree diagrams and write out the word formation rules involved for the following words
(See next slide for the list of words).
11/8/2018

46. Part 3 ownership untouchable reappearance unremarkable recolonizations
11/8/2018

47. Guide to mid term exam Chapter 1-5 of textbook
Handout chapter on morphology ( me for the softcopy)
Types of questions
Multiple choice questions
Structured questions
Tree drawing for word internal structure
HINT: do exercises at the end of each chapter
11/8/2018

48. Sample structured question
Which of the following is correct (in English)? How did you know?
Oldest
Bestest
Cleverest
Spoonest
Soonest
cmy/fbmk/july 2009

49. Sample structured question
Identify the word categories (syntactic categories) of the words in RED. What clues did you use to help you determine the categories of these novel words.
T’was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe
(Lewis Carrol, “Through the Looking Glass”)
cmy/fbmk/july 2009