1. Morphology, Part 2 January 26, 2012

2. Mr. Burns Quick Write Is it realistic to portray Mr. Burns as having a dictionary inside his head?

4. Interesting Thoughts

5. The Last Word(s)

6. In Our Last Episode Words and morphemes (meaningful “word parts”) Word-formation rules Free and bound morphemes Simple and complex words Affixes and roots

7. Tree Structures In this class, we’ll primarily stick with tree diagrams to represent word structure. (because they look better and are easier to read) reconstructionundesire able Tree terminology: branches nodes: where two branches meet nodes represent constituents of the word

8. Building the Perfect Beasts To accurately capture all of the facts of word formation… tree structures should represent the lexical categories of all constituents at each node in the tree. Noun Adj Verb Adj AffVerbAffAffVerb Aff [re-][construct][-ion][un-][desire] [-able]

9. Test Case What should the tree diagram for “reassignment” look like? Noun Verb AffVerbAff [re-][assign][-ment] 3. reassignment 2. reassign 1. assign

10. Another Test Case How about the tree diagram for “miscategorization”? Noun Verb AffNounAffAff [mis-] [category][-ize][-ation] 4. miscategorization 3. miscategorize 2. categorize *miscategory 1. category

11. Ambiguity Some complex words can have more than one interpretation Different derivations can result in different interpretations Example: “unlockable” Note: [un-] can attach to both adjectives and verbs [-able] attaches to verbs and creatives adjectives

12. Unlockable, part 1 Adj AffVerbAff [un-][lock][-able] = not able to be locked

13. Unlockable, part 2 Adj Verb AffVerbAff [un-][lock][-able] = able to be unlocked

14. Inflections vs. Derivations Linguists draw another distinction among affixes: 1.Inflectional affixes: mark grammatical properties (person, number, gender, tense, aspect) don’t change other aspects of meaning are required by rules of sentence structure create a new “word form” 2.Derivational affixes: change meaning create a new word (typically) have clear semantic content may change the lexical category of the word

15. Inflectional Affixes There are precisely eight inflectional affixes in English: 1.-s3rd personwait --> waits 2.-ingprogressivewait --> waiting 3.-edpast tensewait --> waited 4.-enpast participleeat --> eaten 5.-spluralcard --> cards 6.-’spossessivedad --> dad’s 7.-ercomparativetall --> taller 8.-estsuperlativeweak --> weakest All of these are suffixes.

16. Inflectional Affixes Other languages can have a lot more inflectional affixes. Examples from French: parler “to speak” 1st person, plural: parlons“We speak” 2nd person, plural: parlez“You guys speak” Past tense: 1st person, singular: parlais“I spoke” 1st person, plural: parlions“We spoke” 2nd person, plural: parliez“You guys spoke” Plus many, many more. Note: Volapük. (http://www.visi.com/~dean/volverb.html)

17. Derivational Affixes In contrast to inflectional affixes, derivational affixes: Create new words when they’re attached to roots Examples: re-cycle --> recycle de-code --> decode -yfish --> fishy -izevandal --> vandalize Also: English has far more derivational affixes than inflectional affixes. For fairness’ sake: http://www.visi.com/~dean/volword.html

18. Picky, Picky (last time) Inflectional affixes are always going to attach to a root with a particular part of speech. Plural noun = singular noun + “s” birds = bird + sdogs = dog + s Past tense verb = present tense verb + “ed” waited = wait + edtalked = talk + ed Comparative adjective = adjective + “er” taller = tall + ershorter = short + er Q: if both a derivational and an inflectional affix attach to a root, which will attach first?

19. The Relationship A: Derivational affixes will always attach before inflectional affixes do. Remember: derivational affixes create new words; Inflectional affixes just create new word forms. Examples: blackened, governments, *neighborshood Verb Noun AdjDAff. IAff.Verb DAff. IAff. black -en -edgovern -ment -s

20. A Note on Word Forms Morphologists use the term lexeme to refer to a group of related word forms. wait, waits, waited, waiting, etc. The canonical form of the lexeme is called the lemma. = the “headword” in a dictionary. Inflectional affixes relate a lexeme to its various forms. Derivational affixes relate one lexeme to another lexeme. lemma word forms different lexeme

21. The Class System In English, there are two types of derivational affixes: 1. Class 1 (or Level 1) Often cause phonological (sound) changes in the root Also cause more profound semantic (meaning) changes to the root Can combine with bound roots, too. Ex: -ity, -y, -ion For instance: Electric  electricity; stupid  stupidity democrat  democracy; nation

22. The Class System Class 2 (or Level 2) Don’t cause phonological (sound) changes in root. Less of a semantic (meaning) effect, too. Ex: -ness, -less, -er, -ish Normally, Class 1 affixes attach to the root before Class 2 affixes. relational-ion (1), -al (1) divisiveness-ive (1), -ness (2) *fearlessity-less (2), -ity (1) fearlessness-less (2), -ness (2)

23. Productivity Productivity = the extent to which a word-formation rule can be applied to new morphemes, to form new words Class 2 affixes tend to be more productive than Class 1 affixes. -ness vs. -ity both attach to: adjectives both form: nouns both mean: the quality of the adjective blindnessstupidity happinessvalidity goodnesscomplexity

24. Productiveness -ness is very productive, so it can expand its reach to other words: stupidness, validness, complexness The same is not true of -ity: *blindity, *happity, *goodity -ness is so productive, it can also be affixed to new words: truthy + -ness  truthiness chair + -ness  chairness productive + -ness  productiveness

25. Finiteness Note that “finitude” is the (awkward?) alternative. Another (formerly?) productive affix: -age wordage, sleepage, etc.

26. Unproductivity -able is another very productive morpheme: make-fun-of-able Other morphemes are not so lucky: -th:warm + -th=warmth wide + -th=width deep + -th=depth cool + -th=*coolth -en:moist + -en=moisten red + -en=redden cute + -en=?cuten abstract + -en =*abstracten

27. An Intermediate Case -ify attached to adjectives to form verbs just + -ify=justify pure + -ify=purify quick + -ify=?quickify smart + -ify=?smartify An anecdotal case busy + -ify=busify ugly + -ify=uglify -ify has limited productivity

28. Blocking Productivity can sometimes be limited by the existence of other words intelligent + -ness=*intelligentness “intelligence” gets in the way it blocks intelligentness from existence true + -ness = *trueness(truth) inhabit + -er=*inhabiter(inhabitant) guide + -er=*guider(guide) In other cases, a new word gets created anyway: pride + -ful =prideful(proud)

29. Content and Function Words One last distinction: there are both content and function words. Content words = have some semantic content (meaning) nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs ex: politics, baseball, socks, green, create Function words = specify grammatical relations have little or no semantic content prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions

30. Content and Function Words Content words are an “open class”-- we can add new members anytime we want. Function words are a “closed class”-- it’s not easy (or possible?) to add new members. When was the last time you heard a new pronoun? Or new preposition? (thoughts on the quick write?) Our minds also process function words differently from content words. For instance, how many ‘F’s are in the following passage?…

31. Check This Out FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS. You might want to read through it again.