English 311 - Structure of English

Morphological Processes
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What are some processes used in word formation?

AFFIXATION:

PREFIXATION:
English: all Standard English prefixes are derivational, and usually involve a change of meaning rather than a
change in part of speech (changes in part of speech are usually accomplished by derivational
morphology).

e.g., im + possible un + believable out-last

Many languages do have inflectional prefixes:

e.g., Macedonian: naj (superlative mkr.) + dobar goodnajdobar best

Georgian: The prefix - (v-) is used to mark 1SG subject, e.g., (v-svam) I drink

SUFFIXATION:
English: all modern English inflectional morphemes are suffixes
(e.g., plural -s, past tense -ed, comparative -er, etc.).

Nearly all derivational morphemes that change the part of speech are also suffixes
(e.g., VN -er, AV -en, AN -ness, etc.)

INFIXATION:
English: Nearly completely absent.

Other languages utilize infixation frequently:

e.g., Tagalog: bili buy (root) + -um- (agent marker) bumili bought
Latin: rup break (root) + -n- (present stem augment) rump I break

CIRCUMFIXATION:
English: (Maybe?) Absent in modern English, but Old English formed past participles of strong verbs by
simultaneously prefixing ge- and suffixing en (along with a few other occasional changes).

e.g., drincan to drink, gedruncen drunk singan to sing, gesungen sung

Circumfixation is pretty common cross-linguistically (though it may alternatively be analyzed as separate processes of
prefixation and suffixation), e.g., Greek and Sanskrit required a prefix and suffix simultaneously to form some past tense
forms.
e.g., Modern Greek e (past mkr) dn give a (1SG) edna I was giving
Sanskrit a (past mkr) han kill ma (1PL) ahanma We were killing

REDUPLICATION: copying a part of a word and treating it as an affix (most commonly a prefix, but often as
a suffix or infix as well)
Common cross-linguistically, even in languages related to English:

e.g., Latin mord- bite (root) momord I bit

Sanskrit: d give (root) dadti s/he gives
Swahili: piga strike pigapiga strike repeatedly
ALTERNATION:
ABLAUT: Changes the vowel in a word. Incredibly important to English morphology (though its
often overlooked and most of the cases of it are just called irregular)

English past tense & past participles:

English plurals:

CONSONANT ALTERNATION:

SUPPLETION:
What's the difference between irregularity and suppletion?

In English and related languages, this is pretty common in the verb be and other high-frequency verbs.
English Italian Welsh Macedonian Albanian Persian
1SG present am sono wyf sum jam hastam
1SG past was fui bum bev qesh budam

Where else do we find suppletion in English?

Adjectives? Nouns?

COMPOUNDING:
Compounding is essentially the process of putting free morphemes (words that could individually stand alone)
together.

Some English compounds are written together as one word with no indication of the original word boundaries.

Some English compounds are written with a dash showing the original word boundaries.

Linguists also consider some two-word combinations to be compounds based on their phonological features. The
fact that they are written as two separate words is irrelevant and is just an orthographic feature. For example, you
can hear the difference between White House (where the president lives) and white house (some random house
painted white). We would consider White House to be a compound.

A few languages that feature extensive compounding:

Sanskrit: ava horse + kovida skilled avakovida well skilled in horses

su well + ns nose + aki eye + bhr browsunskibhruva
having beautiful noses, eyes, and brows

German: Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung speed limit

Rindfleischetikettierungsberwachungsaufgabenbertragungsgesetz
beef labeling regulation & delegation of supervision law