CH 4 ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY, 98-127 Morphology Morphology refers to the study of words and word formation (the combination of morphemes)

Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language (cf. phonemes, which have no meaning); a morpheme may be a word (cat) or a part of a word (cat-s) Morphemes may have variant allomorphs (different phonetic forms or realizations) appearing in predictable and systematic in variation depending on the linguistic environment; e.g., past participle, past tense, plural

PAST PARTICIPLE= -ed, usually

Morphemes can be open or closed, bound or free But First: Three Types of Language Agglutinative: in which many morphemes join together in a long word effectively the equivalent of an EN sentence; e.g. Uzbek kelolmaganlardanmisiz? Are you one of those who couldnt come? Synthetic: in which grammatical function is conveyed mostly by inflectional endings; Latin and OE are synthetic; e.g., Omnia vincit amor Love conquers all (things)

Analytic: in which grammatical function is conveyed mostly by word order and function words like prepositions; Mn EN is analytic (see e.g. on p.
100); e.g., Bob kissed the dog The open classes of morpheme can admit new members; the form of such morphemes can change, and they are frequently used to form new words; these include N, V, ADV, ADJ (aka content words); examples? The closed classes of morpheme do not readily admit new members; the form of such morphemes rarely changes, though their meaning might change over time; these include CONJ, PRON, AUX, DET, PREP (aka function/grammar words); examples? EN contains more open than closed morphemes, but the most common EN words are closed

Morphemes: Free vs. Bound

Both the open and closed classes of morpheme can contain free and bound morphemes
Free morpheme: one morpheme that can function by itself as a word and thus belong to a lexical category; it can also sometimes join with other morphemes to make longer words; e.g., dog, dog + house

Bound morpheme: one morpheme that cannot function by itself as a word

and so must attach to a free morpheme (think: affixes) and thus cant belong to a lexical category; is either inflectional or derivational; e.g., -ed,
walk + -ed Morphemes: Inflectional

vs. Derivational

Inflectional morphemes indicate grammatical function when added to a word but dont change word meaning or part of speech; in EN they are usually suffixes added to open class morphemes; there are only 8 (memorize

list on p. 105); e.g., -s, -ed

Derivational morphemes often help form words of a new lexical category (POS) or words with a significantly different meaning; in EN they can be prefixes or suffixes; e.g., -ment, unAffixation: EN words often involve the process of affixation, the addition to a base or root of an affix, whether word initially (prefix), medially (infix), or finally (suffix) Morphology Trees Words are constructed hierarchically (root (1st) then

derivational morphemes

then (2nd) inflectional morpheme (3rd) ), and that hierarchical structure can be
represented visually in a morphology tree *In determining what order morphemes attach in, determine

the POS the individual morphemes can attach to (and do derivational before inflectional)
Go through example on p. 109!
Further examples: inconceivable, tree-huggers, deemphasize, Morphological Processes

EN users invent new words all the time, for various reasons (to fill lexical gaps, use nonce words)

ADJECTIVES THAT ARE USED OCCASIONALLY

They do so using systematic morphological (or word-formation) processes that can create an infinite number of words

NB: word formation in EN often involves more than one morphological process; e.g. re- chillaxing
Examples of Morphological Processes 1.Combining: putting morphemes together; by far the most productive process in EN a. Compounding: combining free morphemes together; is productive and historical; e.g., goofball b. Affixing: combining bound morphemes to a word, at beginning (prefix), middle (infix), or end (suffix), e.g., reflex or greasy 2.Shortening: shortening existing words a. Alphabetism/Initialism: pronouncing the initials of a phrase as a sequence of letters NOT as a word; usu. saves syllables; e.g., MIT b. Acronymy: pronouncing the initials of a phrase as a word NOT as sequence of letters; e.g., NAFTA c. Clipping: losing a word element or morpheme, usually at a

Morphemic boundary; e.g., advertisement or doctor

d. Backformation: removing an affix, usually suffix, to make a word that never existed; isnt very common; e.g., gruntled 3.Blending/Portmanteau: joining two or more words, at least

must

one of which be clipped (contra compounding); e.g, brunch word as a different part

4.Shifting/Conversion: using an existing

of speech, without changing its form; e.g., chair or pepper

5. Reanalysis: (mis)understanding morphemes in terms of their sound or etymology and making new words or morphemes accordingly; e.g.,fishburger 6. Reduplication: repeating or duplicating a morpheme, sometimes with change; much more common in other languages); e.g., lookie lookie pee pee pitter patter 7. Borrowing/loanword: taking a word from another language, with or without modification; historically was very common, less so now; e.g., igloo taco

Borrowing

In addition to the , EN has added to its lexicon by borrowing words from other languages, with or without changing (sometimes Englishing) the word being borrowed, e.g. cafes Sometimes borrowed words compete with native EN synonyms or near-synonyms, at times even driving out the EN word; e.g. sheep- mutton, cow-beef Latin and French have contributed many words to EN at various points in our languages history; e.g., Latin camp, port, angel; French avant-garde, cest la vie, caf au lait Slang Slang: an informal word or expression that has not gained complete acceptability and is used by a particular group (Linguistics for Everyone 535); agree? EN demonstrates its creativity through slang; but slang still follows typical EN morphological processes Slang can be Empathic, a form of rebellion or transgression, esp. by the young or dispossessed

word-formation processes above