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Morphology and

Syntax

Unidad 1
Morphology

Tema 1
Lexemes and Word Forms

MSc. Lisseth Cabanilla García


Objective
To understand how languages work,
specifically the English language and
also how words can change and
form other words.
Subtopics
Subtopic 1: Lexemes and word forms
Subtopic 2: Prosodic words vs. Morphological words
Warm up
Complete the following chart.
(What are other forms of the word SING?)

sing

4
What is a word?

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

5
Subtopic 1: Lexemes and word forms
Lexeme

Forms of the lexeme: love (verb)


Love, loves, loved, loving
Subtopic 1: Lexemes and word forms
Morphemes A "morpheme“ is the smallest unit of meaning in a word.

Source: https://www.education.vic.gov.au
Subtopic 1: Lexemes and word forms
Types of Morphemes
A free morpheme can stand alone as its own word.

A bound morpheme only occurs as part of a word.


Subtopic 1: Lexemes and word forms
* Derivational Morphemes
Derivation is the formation of a new word typically occurs by adding an affix (prefix - suffix)
Subtopic 1: Lexemes and word forms
* Inflectional Morphemes
An inflectional morpheme is a suffix - letter, or group of letters - that adds grammatical information to a word.

Source: https://semanticsmorphology.weebly.com/inflectional-and-derivational-morphemes.html
https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/nlp/InteractiveNLP/NLP_morph1.html

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Remember!

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Subtopic 2: Prosodic word vs. Morphological word

Prosodic word
A phonological word can be defined as a
string of sounds that behaves as a unit for
certain kinds of phonological processes,
especially stress or accent.

The hot dogs ran for the lake.


Subtopic 2: Prosodic word vs. morphological word

Morphological Word

Highlighting the morphology of words is useful for


explaining phonics patterns and spelling rules, as well
as discovering the meanings of unfamiliar words, and
demonstrating how words are linked together.
Highlighting and analyzing morphemes is also useful,
therefore, for providing comprehension strategies.

Recuperado de https://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-
linguistics/morphology/what-is-morphology/
Bibliografía
» Aronoff, M., & Fudeman, K. A. (2010). What is morphology?: Fundamentals of
Linguistics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
» Eldredge, D. L., & Mayea-Rodríguez Liesder. (2015). Introduction to Spanish, English
linguistics. Xlibris.
» Kim, J.-B., & Sell, P. (2008). English syntax: An introduction. CSLI Productions.
» Koehl, M. (1996). WHEN DOES MORPHOLOGY MATTER?. Annual Review Of Ecology And
Systematics, 27(1), 501-542. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.27.1.501
» Roy, A. C., Curie, A., Nazir, T., Paulignan, Y., des Portes, V., Fourneret, P., & Deprez, V.
(2013). Syntax at hand: Common syntactic structures for actions and language. PLoS
ONE, 8(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072677
Morphology and
Syntax

Unidad 1
Morphology

Tema 1
Lexemes and Word Forms

MSc. Lisseth Cabanilla García


Objective
To understand how languages work,
specifically the English language and
also how words can change and
form other words.
Subtopics
Subtopic 3: Inflection vs. Derivation
Warm up

https://wordwall.net/es/resource/45709127/delivational-and-inflectional-morphemes
4
What is a
morpheme?
A "morpheme“ is the smallest
unit of meaning in a word.

Source: https://www.education.vic.gov.au
5
Remember!

A free morpheme can stand


alone as its own word.

A bound morpheme only occurs as part


of a word.
Subtopic 3: Inflection vs. Derivation

Inflection vs. derivation

Inflection is the morphological system for


making word forms of words, whereas
derivation is one of the morphological Source: Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction, Second Edition Kristin Denham, Anne Lobeck

systems for making new words. Derivation


is formally similar to inflection because
both processes make use of affixation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdrgdVgmX28 8
* Derivational Morphemes
Derivation is the formation of a new word typically occurs by adding an affix (prefix - suffix).
It is the formation of new lexemes (organize - organization)
* Inflectional Morphemes
An inflectional morpheme is a suffix - letter, or group of letters - that adds grammatical information to a word.
It produces new grammatical categories (e.g. tenses, comparisons, plural, possessions, etc.)

Source: https://semanticsmorphology.weebly.com/inflectional-and-derivational-morphemes.html
https://wordwall.net/es/resource/30486056/morphemes
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Bibliografía
» Aronoff, M., & Fudeman, K. A. (2010). What is morphology?: Fundamentals of
Linguistics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
» Eldredge, D. L., & Mayea-Rodríguez Liesder. (2015). Introduction to Spanish, English
linguistics. Xlibris.
» Kim, J.-B., & Sell, P. (2008). English syntax: An introduction. CSLI Productions.
» Koehl, M. (1996). WHEN DOES MORPHOLOGY MATTER?. Annual Review Of Ecology And
Systematics, 27(1), 501-542. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.27.1.501
» Roy, A. C., Curie, A., Nazir, T., Paulignan, Y., des Portes, V., Fourneret, P., & Deprez, V.
(2013). Syntax at hand: Common syntactic structures for actions and language. PLoS
ONE, 8(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072677
Morphology and
Syntax

Unidad 1
Morphology

Tema 2
Word Formation
Objetive
To understand how languages work,
specifically the English language and
also how words can change and form
other words.
Subtopics

» Subtopics:
1: Types of word formation
2: Paradigms and morphosyntax
3: Allomorphy
WARM-UP ACTIVITY

What is a morpheme?

4
Subtopic 1: Types of word formation

Prefixes

Main
Compounds
types of Suffixes
word
formation

Conversion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPqxNqO8u-A 6
Subtopic 1: Types of word formation

Prefixes
We add prefixes before the base or stem of a word. They change the
meaning of the word.

Examples Prefixes
monorail, monolingual mono- means ‘one’

multipurpose, multicultural multi- means ‘many’

post-war, postgraduate post- means ‘after’

Adapted from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/es-LA/grammar/british-grammar/word-formation_2


Subtopic 1: Types of word formation

Suffixes

We add suffixes after the base or stem of a word. The main purpose
of a suffix is to show what class of word it is (e.g. noun or adjective).

Examples Suffixes
-ism and -dom are used to form
terrorism, sexism
nouns
widen, simplify -en and -ify are used to form verbs
reasonable, unprofitable -able is used to form adjectives

Adapted from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/es-LA/grammar/british-grammar/word-formation_2


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Subtopic 1: Types of word formation

Conversion

Conversion involves using a word in a different part of speech or lexical category.

Examples Explanation
verb from noun text, meaning to send a
Can you text her?
text-message
All companies have
nouns from prepositions
their ups and downs
OK, so the meeting’s on Tuesday.
noun from adjective
That’s a definite
Adapted from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/es-LA/grammar/british-grammar/word-formation_2
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Subtopic 1: Types of word formation

Compounds
When we use compounding, we link together two or more bases to
create a new word.

Word class Compound

Adjectives heartbreaking, sugar-free, airsick

Verbs oven-bake, baby-sit, chain-smoke

Adverbs good-naturedly, nevertheless

Adapted from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/es-LA/grammar/british-grammar/word-formation_2


Subtopic 2: Paradigms and morphosyntax

A linguistic paradigm is the complete set of related word forms associated with a
given lexeme. The familiar examples of paradigms are the conjugations of verbs and the
declensions of nouns. Accordingly, the word forms of a lexeme may be arranged
conveniently into tables, by classifying them according to shared inflectional categories
such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, or case.

LOVE LOVES LOVING LOVED

NATURE NATURAL NATURALLY UNNATURAL


Subtopic 2: Paradigms and morphosyntax

Morphosyntax is the
part of grammar that is
responsible for studying
both the forms of words
and the relationships
between them to form
phrases, sentences, and,
in general, meaningful
and unambiguous
messages.

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Subtopic 3: Allomorphy

An allomorph is each alternative


form of a morpheme. In other
words, some morphemes change
their sound or their spelling but
not their meaning when they
appear in different contexts - each
of these different forms is classed
as an allomorph. Morphology An Introduction to the Structure of Words Lori Levin and Christian
Monson Grammars and Lexicons Fall Term, ppt download. (2022). Retrieved 15
May 2022, from https://slideplayer.com/slide/8161412/
Bibliografía
» Aronoff, M., & Fudeman, K. A. (2010). What is morphology?: Fundamentals of
Linguistics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
» Eldredge, D. L., & Mayea-Rodríguez Liesder. (2015). Introduction to Spanish, English
linguistics. Xlibris.
» Kim, J.-B., & Sell, P. (2008). English syntax: An introduction. CSLI Productions.
» Koehl, M. (1996). WHEN DOES MORPHOLOGY MATTER?. Annual Review Of Ecology And
Systematics, 27(1), 501-542. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.27.1.501
» Roy, A. C., Curie, A., Nazir, T., Paulignan, Y., des Portes, V., Fourneret, P., & Deprez, V.
(2013). Syntax at hand: Common syntactic structures for actions and language. PLoS
ONE, 8(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072677
Morphology and
Syntax

Unidad 2
Lexical
Morphology

Tema 1
Lexical morphology
Objective
Explain important starting points for
modern morphological theory . Describe
important concepts and models in
morphology . Compare and judge
morphological descriptions
Subtopics

Subtopic 1: Morpheme – based morphology


Subtopic 2: Lexeme – based morphology
Subtopic 3: Word based morphology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4OWb8dZ_c8 4
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Subtopic 1: Morphology – based morphology

Word forms are examined as morpheme


arrangements in morpheme-based
morphology. A morpheme is the
smallest unit of meaning in a language.
The morphemes in a word like
independently are in-, depend, -ent, and
ly; depend is the root, while the other
morphemes are derivational affixes in
this case.
Forms of the
Morpheme- lexeme:
smalles love (verb)
unit of meaning in a
language
Love, loves, loved, loving
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Subtopic 2: Lexeme based morphology
Subtopic 3 : Word based morphology
Word-based morphology focuses on whole
words as the primary unit of analysis. It
examines how words are formed, modified,
and function within a language, paying
attention to the relationships between words
and their meanings. This approach may
consider processes like compounding, where
two or more words are combined to create a
new word (e.g., 'bookstore' from 'book' and
'store').

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Bibliografía
» Aronoff, M., & Fudeman, K. A. (2010). What is morphology?: Fundamentals of
Linguistics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
» Eldredge, D. L., & Mayea-Rodríguez Liesder. (2015). Introduction to Spanish, English
linguistics. Xlibris.
» Kim, J.-B., & Sell, P. (2008). English syntax: An introduction. CSLI Productions.
» Koehl, M. (1996). WHEN DOES MORPHOLOGY MATTER?. Annual Review Of Ecology And
Systematics, 27(1), 501-542. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.27.1.501
» Roy, A. C., Curie, A., Nazir, T., Paulignan, Y., des Portes, V., Fourneret, P., & Deprez, V.
(2013). Syntax at hand: Common syntactic structures for actions and language. PLoS
ONE, 8(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072677
Morphology and
Syntax
Unidad 2
Lexical
Morphology

Tema 2
Other types of Word formation
Objective
Explain important starting points for
modern morphological theory. Describe
important concepts and models in
morphology. Compare and judge
morphological description
Subtopics
Subtopic 1: Some morphological phenomena
Subtopic 2: Other types of Word formation

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY


Subtopic 1: Some morphological phenomena
The following are some morphological
examples. This has to do with the
word's form, particularly the inflection's
form. In morphological phenomena, the
type of morphology is described, such
as:

Conversion: zero derivation: changing a


word from one category to another
without adding affixes:
water (N) to water (V).
Forms of the
Morpheme- lexeme:
smalles love (verb)
unit of meaning in a
language
Love, loves, loved, loving
Subtopic 2: other types of Word formation

The 'Word Formation Process' is a branch of


Morphology that plays an important role in
growing our vocabulary and facilitating
communication. The major goals of the word-
formation process are to use various rules or
methods to create new words with the same
root. To put it another way, the word-formation
process is the process by which new words are
generated by modifying or totally changing
existing terms.
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Subtopic 1: Some morphological phenomena
Clipping: fan (fanatic); when a lengthier
form is abbreviated to make a new form.

Blending: combining bits of many terms:


smog (smoke + fog), ), brunch (breakfast +
lunch).

Backformation: the process of creating a


simple word from a more complex one:
edit from editor; burgle from burglar.
Calque: a word that has been created by Forms of the
Morpheme- lexeme:
smalles love (verb)
unit of meaning
language
in a

translating a word from one language into Love, loves, loved, loving
another: grattacielo from skyscraper
Subtopic 2: other types of Word formation

Derivation:

The process of attaching


derivation affixes to the main
form in order to produce a new
word is known as 'derivation.'
Prefixes and suffixes are
considered bound morphemes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly4TLkZcnd8
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Subtopic 2: other types of Word formation

Back Formation :

Back-Formation is a word-formation technique


that removes the derivational prefix from the
primary form in order to produce a new term. In
terms of producing new words, however, Back-
Formation is the polar opposite of derivation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4CYIAhhd4
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Subtopic 2: other types of Word formation
Conversion:

A word in one grammatical form changes to a word in another grammatical form


without affecting its spelling or pronunciation. The term 'Google,' for example,
began as a noun before the verb. We used to say "Google it" as a noun until a
few years ago, but today we say "Google it."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7I3zRhagFE
13
Subtopic 2: other types of Word formation

Clipping :

Another important word-formation process is 'clipping,' which cuts or


shortens a word without affecting its meaning. It preserves the original
meaning, unlike the backformation procedure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r27dcrWco90
15
Subtopic 2: other types of Word formation

Compounding:

Compounding is a word-formation technique in


which two or more words are combined to
generate a new term. Compound words are
made up of two words connected by a hyphen.
Examples: Class+room Classroom/ Note+book
Notebook
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Bibliografía
» Aronoff, M., & Fudeman, K. A. (2010). What is morphology?: Fundamentals of
Linguistics. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
» Eldredge, D. L., & Mayea-Rodríguez Liesder. (2015). Introduction to Spanish, English
linguistics. Xlibris.
» Kim, J.-B., & Sell, P. (2008). English syntax: An introduction. CSLI Productions.
» Koehl, M. (1996). WHEN DOES MORPHOLOGY MATTER?. Annual Review Of Ecology And
Systematics, 27(1), 501-542. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.27.1.501
» Roy, A. C., Curie, A., Nazir, T., Paulignan, Y., des Portes, V., Fourneret, P., & Deprez, V.
(2013). Syntax at hand: Common syntactic structures for actions and language. PLoS
ONE, 8(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0072677
MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX

UNIT 1
Morphology

Autor: Mgs. Edwin Pacheco


ÍNDICE

1. Unit 1: Morphology............................................................................................3
Topic 1: Lexemes and word forms................................................................................. 3
Objective: ...................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction: ................................................................................................................. 3

2. Subtopics information........................................................................................4
2.1 Subtopics 1: Lexemes and word forms ............................................................... 4
2.2 Subtopic 2: Prosodic Word vs. Morphological word .......................................... 6
2.3 Subtopic 3: Inflection vs. derivation ................................................................... 8

3. Analysis Unit questions ....................................................................................13

4. Further Reading ...............................................................................................14

5. Bibliography ....................................................................................................15

2
Morphology

1. Unit 1: Morphology
Topic 1: Lexemes and word forms
Objective:
To understand how languages work, specifically the English language. This can be
obtained by studying each part of the language. IN this case how words can change
and form other words.

Introduction:
In linguistics, a lexeme is the fundamental unit of the lexicon (or word stock) of a
language. A lexeme is often--but not always--an individual word (a simple lexeme or
dictionary word, as it's sometimes called). A single dictionary word (for example, talk)
may have a number of inflectional forms or grammatical variants (in this example,
talks, talked, talking).
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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Morphology

2. Subtopics information
2.1 Subtopics 1: Lexemes and word forms
Morphemes
The identification and analysis of morphemes, which are frequently characterized as
the smallest linguistic elements with a grammatical function, is a significant approach
in which morphologists research words, their internal structure, and how they are
generated. This definition does not cover all morphemes, but it is the most common
and an excellent place to start. A morpheme is a word or a meaningful portion of a
word that cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful bits, such as the -ed in
gazed. Morphemes have also been defined as a combination of sound and meaning.
We purposefully avoided using this definition. As we will see, certain morphemes have
no solid or continuous shape, while others do not have meanings in the traditional
sense.

You might also hear the term morph. The term'morph' is sometimes used to refer to a
morpheme's phonological manifestation. For example, the English past tense
morpheme that we spell -ed has various morphs. It is realized as [t] after the voiceless
[p] of jump (cf. jumped), as [d] after the voiced [l] of repel (cf. repelled), and as [ ed]
after the voiceless [t] of root or the voiced [d] of wed (cf. rooted and wedded). These
morphs are also known as allomorphs or variations. In this situation, voicing and the
location of articulation of the verb stem's last consonant decide the appearance of one
morph over another.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

Another view is that morphology is the study of word production, which includes how
new words are coined in different languages around the world and how different
forms of words are utilized in sentences. As a native speaker of your language, you
have an instinctive understanding of how to create new words, and you identify and
understand new words every day.

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Morphology

Lexemes
Take a look at the following phrases:
• autoclave (v.)
• head bracelet (n.)
• conversate (v.)
• deBaathification (n.)
• oversuds (v.)
• McDonaldization (n.)
• unwipe (v.)

Have you ever come across these words? What do you think they mean? You've
probably never heard or read them before. Nonetheless, you presumably had no issue
picking out at least a general idea of what they meant. Assuming you already know
what an autoclave is, the verb to autoclave most likely means 'to sterilize with an
autoclave.' A head bracelet is most likely anything that is worn around the neck.
DeBaathification has to do with getting rid of the Baath (the Iraqi political party
associated with Saddam Hussein). And so on. You may not know what they imply
exactly, but you can make an educated estimate.

Because these terms follow the laws of English word construction, you can make
educated assumptions about them. You can usually figure out anything else once you
know what the base — the primary part of the term – signifies. We'll look at the most
prevalent techniques of producing new lexemes in English and other languages around
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

the world in this chapter. You'll discover how to break down words into their
constituent pieces, how to organize those parts, and how the various parts contribute
to their meanings.

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Morphology

Various Morphemes
Most native English speakers will identify that words like unwipe, head bracelet, and
MacDonaldization are made up of numerous important parts and will be able to
separate them:
un / wipe
head / bracelet
McDonald / ize / ation

Some of these morphemes can be used as words on their own, such as wipe, head,
bracelet, and McDonald. Free morphemes are what they're called. Bound morphemes
are morphemes that can't stand on their own. Derived words are new lexemes
generated with prefixes and suffixes on a base, and the process by which they are
formed is called derivation. The prefixes and suffixes attach to the base, which is the
semantic substance of the word. For example, the base of unwipe is wipe, while the
base of McDonaldization is McDonald. The base is frequently a free morpheme, as it is
in these two examples.

2.2 Subtopic 2: Prosodic Word vs. Morphological


Word
Morphological terms, or syntactic atoms, may not always behave as a unit from a
phonological standpoint. Phonological word-level rules, for example, can treat
derivational affixes and compound components separately. To account for the non-
isomorphy between morphology and phonology, the prosodic word has been defined.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

Word stress, phonotactics, and segmental word-level rules are all common
characteristics of prosodic words. This thesis examines many facets of the prosodic
word's meaning in terms of derivation, compounding, and cliticization. It also covers a
number of morphological concerns; but, due to the length constraints of this article, I
shall ignore these.

The prosodic word is just one component of the prosodic hierarchy, which is a
collection of hierarchically organized phonological elements (Selkirk 1981, 1986;

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Morphology

Nespor & Vogel 1986). The geometry of this constituent structure is determined by the
Strict Layer Hypothesis (SLH).

Morphological models are typically characterized by the units they treat as


grammatically'meaningful,' as well as the attributes they connect with these units.
Because it correlates grammatical features with particular morphs, the post-
Bloomfieldian approach is referred to as "morpheme-based." Because they correlate
attributes with words, realization-based models are referred to as "wordbased."
However, models can be classed MORPHOTACTICALLY based on the status that they
assign to these units. A model is 'word-based' from a morphotactic standpoint if it
accepts surface word forms as the basic constituents of a system and treats roots,
stems, and exponents as abstractions over a set of full forms. If a model presupposes
an inventory of morphotactically minimum forms from which surface forms are
'constructed' or 'derived,' it is called 'root-based' or'morph-based.'

The sorts of analysis that a model assigns are heavily influenced by its morphotactic
assumptions. This effect is most noticeable when dealing with morphological classes.
The shape of one or more word forms tends to identify the class of an item in
languages whose morphological systems are structured into inflectional classes.
Traditional models take advantage of this predictability by creating a set of exemplary
paradigms and expressing particular things using diagnostic surface shapes. However,
inflection class is rarely determined only by the qualities of roots or exponents. As a
result, models that represent items using their underlying root forms must frequently
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

incorporate diacritic class characteristics to replace lost inflection class information.

The treatment of various sorts of lexical classes is influenced by a model's


morphotactic assumptions. It is typically possible to identify a shared root, which
identifies an individual lexeme, as well as stem formatives and inflectional exponents,
whose distribution is linked to specific lexical classes, given a set of surface forms.
However, neither the form nor the qualities of a root often predict the choice of
formatives and exponents. To give 'assembly instructions' for options that are

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Morphology

underdetermined by the qualities of lexical roots alone, a model that represents


objects by roots requires additional lexical class attributes.

Amorphological analysis might take one of two approaches to patterns in a linguistic


system. One sort of analysis isolates recurrent bases and exponents within a system,
wraps each of these elements in an unique rule or entry that embodies their
grammatical features, and then uses rules or other combinatoric principles to
construct surface word forms from these simple elements. A second method of
analysis considers word forms to be the fundamental units of a system, with repeating
pieces being classified as abstractions over entire forms. The first option is clearly
"morph-based," whereas the second is "word-based." To avoid overusing terms like
'word-based,' which already have a wide range of meanings, ABSTRACTIVE will be used
to refer to models that are word-based in a morphotactic sense, and CONSTRUCTIVE to
models that are root-based, stem-based, or morph-based. The constructive method is
closely linked to post-Bloomfieldian models, in which morphological analysis is
primarily a segmentation and classification procedure. The pre-Bloomfieldian tradition
represented by Paul (1880), Saussure (1916), and Kuryowicz is known for its
abstractive technique (1964).

2.3 Subtopic 3: Inflection vs. derivation


The phenomenon of inflection raises fundamental problems regarding the nature of
morphology and its interfaces since it is the systematic relationship between words'
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

morphosyntactic meaning and their morphological shape. It is critical to determine


how (or whether) inflection differs from other types of morphology and the manner in
which morphosyntactic content might be stored morphologically within the domain of
morphology. There have been a number of alternative ways to modeling inflectional
morphology proposed; these seem to fall into two categories: morpheme-based and
lexeme-based.

Morpheme-based theories treat inflectional morphology as fundamentally


concatenative; they represent the morphosyntactic content of an inflected word as a

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Morphology

compositional summing of its morphemes' content; they attribute an inflected word's


internal structure to syntactic principles; and they minimize the theoretical significance
of inflectional paradigms.

Lexeme-based theories, by contrast, tend to accord concatenative and


nonconcatenative morphology essentially equal status as marks of inflection; they
tend to represent an inflected word’s morphosyntactic content as a property set
intrinsically associated with that word’s paradigm cell; they tend to assume that an
inflected word’s internal morphology is neither accessible nor defined by syntactic
principles; and they tend to treat inflection as the morphological realization of a
paradigm’s cells.

The nature of nonconcatenative morphology, the incidence of prolonged exponence,


the underdetermination of a word's morphosyntactic content by its inflectional form,
and the nature of word forms' internal structure are four key difficulties for both
approaches. The paradigm—the structure of a word's inventory of inflected forms—is
a source of significant cross-linguistic variance. The canonical relation of content to
form in an inflectional paradigm is subject to a wide range of deviations, including
inflection-class distinctions, morphomic properties, defectiveness, deponency,
metaconjugation, and syncretism; these deviations pose significant challenges for
understanding the interfaces of inflectional morphology, and whether a theory
resolves these challenges depends squarely on whether it is morpheme-based or
lexeme-based.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

Derivational morphology is a type of word creation that generates new lexemes by


altering the syntactic category or adding significant new meaning (or both) to a free or
constrained base. Inflection and compounding are two terms that might be used to
describe derivation. However, the distinctions between derivation and inflection, as
well as between derivation and compounding, aren't always evident.

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Morphology

Affixation, reduplication, internal alteration of various kinds, subtraction, and


conversion are all formal methods for creating new words. Prefixation and suffixation,
in particular, are best attested cross-linguistically.

Reduplication is also widespread, while internal alterations such as ablaut and root, as
well as pattern derivation, are less common. Derived words can fall into a variety of
semantic groups. Event and effect, individual and participant, collective and abstract
noun are all common nouns. Causative and applicative categories for verbs, as well as
relational and qualitative derivations for adjectives, are well-documented.

Negatives, relational words, and evaluatives are commonly derived in languages. Most
languages use some form of derivation, while some languages rely on compounding
rather than derivation to generate their lexical stock. Productivity (the extent to which
new words can be created with a given affix or morphological process), the principles
that determine the ordering of affixes, and the place of derivational morphology in
relation to other components of the grammar have all dominated the theoretical
literature on derivation. Derivation research has also played a role in a variety of
psycholinguistic issues about language perception and production.

Distinguishing Inflection from Derivation


The requirement to distinguish between inflectional distinctions among forms of the
same lexeme and derivational distinctions among forms realizing separate but related
lexemes has long been an issue in morphology (Anderson, 1985; Booij, 2000; Stump,
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

1998, 2005). Although the forms conduisons and conduisez are both forms of the
verbal lexeme CONDUIRE, the form conducteur is usually connected with a separate,
nominal lexeme CONDUCTEUR 'driver,' which is derived from CONDUIRE. To
distinguish between inflectional and derivational distinctions, practical criteria like
those in (2) have been used.

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Morphology

However, the reliability of these criteria varies. As previously noted, (2a) is a sufficient
but not sufficient criteria; derivation may fail to create a change in syntactic category
(read reread) or lexical meaning (syntactic lexical). Furthermore, even though
participles typically have adjectival qualities and gerunds have nominal traits, (2a)
contradicts the common notion that a verb's participles and gerunds are among its
inflected forms.

Criterion (2b) is far more trustworthy, albeit it, too, raises some concerns. For example,
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

while many languages consider the distinction between different tenses to be an


inflectional distinction, different tenses aren't always clearly related to different
syntactic situations. The context John __ cookies, for example, allows for either bakes
or baked. One could argue that the sequence-of-tense phenomenon is a syntactic
phenomenon that is sensitive to tense differences, causing the tense of a higher clause
to spread to a lower clause (for example, when John says, "I bake cookies for a living,"
which is reported as John said he baked cookies for a living). However, the tense
sequence issue is more obviously a semantic or pragmatic phenomenon: John said he

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Morphology

bakes cookies is likewise plausible, and its lack of tense sequencing offers it somewhat
different pragmatics.

At most, criterion (2c) is a statistical generalization. Inflectional paradigms with gaps


are defective paradigms, and extremely productive derivation can approach
gaplessness.

Criterion (2d) often, but not always, distinguishes inflection from derivation along the
same lines as previous criteria. Some derivational procedures, for example, have
extremely regular semantics; one example is the derivation of ordinal numerals in -th.
Simultaneously, the phenomena of deponency and metaconjugation entail inflected
forms with unexpected semantics; less spectacularly, an inflected form is lexicalized
with a specific meaning on rare occasions, as in the case of brothers.

Any inflection in a word's morphology should be an outer layer, according to criterion


(2e). On the surface, this appears to be a fair generalization: The outermost suffix is
inflectional, the remaining suffixes are derivational, and the word as a whole is no
longer amenable to additional morphological operations in a complicated word like
norm-al-iz-ation-s. The idea that inflection occurs after derivation has thus been given
the stature of a theoretical principle, namely the Split Morphology Theory (Perlmutter,
1988); however, this hypothesis ultimately proves to be experimentally unsound
(Bochner, 1984, Booij, 1994, 1996; Stump, 1990a, 1990b). In reality, inflection marks
can occur internally to derivation in some situations.
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Morphology

3. Analysis Unit questions

1. What exactly is a morpheme?


It is a linguistic morphological unit that cannot be subdivided further.

2. What do lexemes mean?


They are a basic lexical unit of a language that consists of one or more words, is
regarded an abstract unit, and is used to a group of words that are connected in form
or meaning.

3. How do prosodic words work?


The prosodic word (also known as the phonological word or p-word) is a component
that refers to morphological information in a broad sense.

4. How do you define morphological words?


Prefixes, suffixes, and base words are all morphemes, which are the smallest
meaningful units of meaning. Morphemes are vital for phonics in reading, spelling,
vocabulary, and comprehension.

5. How do you define inflection?


The inflectional morphology
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Morphology

4. Further Reading
Los siguientes recursos complementarios son sugerencias para que se pueda ampliar la
información sobre el tema trabajado, como parte de su proceso de aprendizaje
autónomo:

Videos de apoyo:
Video: Morphology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nduDAN9sKx4

English Morphology (morphemes lexeme word formation


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nduDAN9sKx4

Bibliografía de apoyo:
Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). An Introduction to English Morphology.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.


© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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Morphology

5. Bibliography
» Baker, A., & Hengeveld, K. (2012). Linguistics. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
» Burridge, K., & Stebbins, T. (2020). For the love of language (2nd ed.).
Cambridge.
» Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). An Introduction to English Morphology.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
» Curzan, A., & Adams, M. (2011). How English works: A linguistic
introduction. Longman.
» In Genetti, C. (2014). How languages work: An introduction to language and
linguistics.
» Rahman, T. (2010). Linguistics for beginners. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX

UNIT 1
Morphology

Autor: Mgs. Edwin Pacheco


ÍNDICE

1. Unit 1: Morphology............................................................................................3
Topic 2: Word Formation .............................................................................................. 3
Objective: ...................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction: ................................................................................................................. 3

2. Subtopics information........................................................................................4
2.1 Subtopics 1: Types of word formation ............................................................... 4
2.2 Subtopic 2: Paradigms and morphosyntax ........................................................ 6
2.3 Subtopic 3: Allomorphy ...................................................................................... 8

3. Analysis Unit questions ....................................................................................12

4. Further Reading ...............................................................................................13

5. Bibliography ....................................................................................................14

2
Morphology

1. Unit 1: Morphology
Topic 2: Word Formation
Objective:
On successful completion of the topic students will:
- have a robust understanding of the principal word formation processes of the
language
- have an overview of relevant theory debate
- be able to progress to independent research on the subject

Introduction:
This course gives students the opportunity to investigate, in the light of current
morphological theory, the word-formation processes of Modern English. The course
will survey the major word formation processes of English (as well as some of the
minor ones), combining this survey with a thorough discussion of key concepts such as
'morpheme', 'word', productivity' etc.
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2. Subtopics information
2.1 Subtopics 1: Types of word formation
In this course, we will study five major morphological processes that affect roots and
stems and which lead to the production of new words. Those processes are affixation,
compounding, symbolism, reduplication and suppletion.

A. Affixation
Affixation consists in adding derivational affixes (i.e., prefixes, infixes and suffixes) to
roots and stems to form new words. For example, if the suffix -able is added to the
word pass, the word passable is created. Likewise, if to the word passable the prefix in-
(or rather its allomorph im-) is attached, another word is formed, namely impassable.
Affixation is a very common and productive morphological process in synthetic
languages. In English, derivation is the form of affixation that yields new words.

B. Compounding
Compounding consists in the combination of two or more (usually free) roots to form a
new word. For example, the word blackboard, heartfelt, brother-in-law are compound
words; they are made up of the roots (at the same time words themselves) black and
board, heart and felt, brother, in and law, respectively.

Compounding is a very common process in most languages of the world (especially


among synthetic languages). In English, for instance, compound words have the
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

following characteristics:
1. Compounds words behave grammatically and semantically as single words.
2. Since compound words behave as units, between their component elements no
affixes (whether inflections or derivations) can usually occur; inflectional
suffixes can appear only after compound words. For example, bathrooms,
school, buses, water resistant. Exceptions: passersby, brothers-in-law, courts-
martial.
3. Compound words can be written in three different ways:

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a) Open, i.e., with a space between the parts of the compound; e.g., toy
store, diving board, flower pot.
b) Hyphenated, i.e., with a hyphen (-) separating the elements of the
compound; e.g., flower-pot, air-brake, she-pony.
c) Solid, e.g., without a space or hyphen between the component
elements of the compound; e.g., flowerpot, washrooms, pickpocket.
Preference for a particular form of writing the compound word depends largely
on lexicographical conventions and the variety of English use. For instance,
hyphenation (i.e., separating the elements of a compound with a hyphen) is
more common in British English than in American English. In American English,
the tendency is to write the compounds open or solid (Quirk et al., 1985).
However, hyphenation is quite common practice in both varieties of the
language when ad hoc premodifying compounds5 are used; e.g., a
muchneeded rest; a state-of-the-art report.

4. The global meaning of the compound word can often be guessed from the
individual meaning of each element of the compound. For example, a
boathouse is ‘a shed in which boats are stored’; a bookstore is ‘a store which
sells books’; and so on. But there are a few compound words whose global
meanings have to be learned as if they were single words because such
meanings cannot be guessed from the individual meanings of the component
elements of the compounds. For instance, a Redcoat is ‘a British soldier’, not ‘a
coat that is red’. Similarly, a flatfoot is ‘a detective or policeman’, a turncoat is
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

‘a traitor’, a hot dog is ‘a kind of fast food’, etc.

C. Symbolism
Symbolism (or morpheme internal change) consists in altering the internal phonemic
structure of a morpheme to indicate grammatical functions (cf. Pei, 1966). For
example, in order to form the plurals of goose \gu…s\ and tooth \tu…T\ in English, the
phoneme \u…\ is replaced by the phoneme\i…\, thus yielding the plural forms geese
\gi…s\ and teeth \ti…T\, respectively.

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D. Reduplication
Reduplication consists in the repetition of all or of part of a root or stem to form new
words. If the entire root or stem is repeated, the process is called complete (or total)
reduplication, and the new word is considered as a repetitive compound. Total
reduplication is fairly frequent in Indonesian, Tojolabal (Mexico), Hausa (Sudan), and
Hawaiian. For example, in Tojolabal [-otS] means ‘to enter’, [-otSotS] ‘to enter little by
little’. (cf. Nida, 1949). Similarly, in Indonesian, total reduplication is used to form the
plural of nouns, as in [rumah] ‘house’, [rumahrumah] ‘houses’; [ibu] ‘mother’ [ibuibu]
‘mothers’; [lalat] ‘fly’, [lalatlalat] ‘flies’. In Hawaiian, holo means 'run', holoholo 'go for
a walk or ride'; lau means 'leaf', laulau 'leaf food package'.

E. Suppletion
Suppletion consists in a complete change in the form of a root (i.e., a word) or in the
replacement of root by another morphologically unrelated root with the same
component of meaning in different grammatical contents (cf. Richards et al., 1985;
Byrne, 1978; Pei, 1966). For example, good and well change to better and best in the
comparative and superlative. Similarly, bad and badly change to worse and worst.
Likewise, be changes to am, are, and is in the present; am/is change to was and are to
were in the past. Another example is go which changes to went in the past. As can be
seen, this process yields completely irregular forms. Suppletive forms help to fill gaps
in grammatical paradigms of the language (cf. Pei, 1966).

2.2 Subtopic 2: Paradigms and morphosyntax


© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

Morphological Morphological paradigms (e.g., walk-walks-walkedwalking) are of


central interest to both linguists and natural language processing researchers for the
connectedness (e.g., jumps, jumping sharing the lexeme JUMP) and predictability
across words (e.g., inducing googles for google based on jump-jumps etc). This thesis
explores the computational structure of morphological paradigms, particularly from
the perspective of unsupervised learning for modeling how such structure can be
induced from unstructured data. Three topics under study are as follows:

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Stem identification: The first part of the thesis concerns the structure within a
morphological paradigm, focusing on stem identification. The goal is to devise
general and language-independent strategies for stem extraction applicable for
different types of morphology across languages, and goes beyond the common
substring-based approaches.

Paradigmatic similarity: The second part of the thesis asks what structure there
is across morphological paradigms. Paradigms often do not inflect in the exact
same pattern, which leads to inflection classes, e.g., Spanish verbs in distinct
conjugation groups. At the same time, paradigms inflect in remarkably similar
ways, e.g., Spanish verbs in the second plural all end with-mos regardless the
inflection classes. This part of the thesis develops a string-based hierarchical
clustering algorithm that computationally characterizes the similarity and
differences across morphological paradigms.

Induction of morphological paradigms from unstructured data: The third part


of the thesis seeks to induce paradigms from unstructured data. The kind of
unstructured data of interest here is child-directed speech. Building on previous
work on unsupervised learning of morphological paradigms from raw text, this
thesis develops an approach of paradigm induction that incorporates results
from the previous two parts of this thesis and has a version taking child-
directed speech data incrementally.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

Stem identification
Given a morphological paradigm with inflected word forms, what is the stem of the
paradigm? This question on stem identification is part of the morpheme segmentation
problem, important for both theoretical linguistics (Spencer 2012) and computational
linguistics (Goldsmith 2010, Hammarstr¨om and Borin 2011); once the stem is
identified, what is not the stem in each word form can be subject to further
segmentation and morphological analysis for potential affixes. Stem identification is far
from being a trivial problem.

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Strictly concatenative morphology, as exemplified by English jump-jumps-jumped-


jumping with “jump” as the stem, appears intuitively simple. In contrast, non-
concatenatie morphology, a well-known case being Arabic root and-pattern
morphology (e.g., kataba ‘he wrote’, yaktubu ‘he writes/will write’ with “k-t-b” as the
stem) has been treated as something fundamentally different. The first part of this
thesis seeks to develop language-independent, algorithmic approaches to stem
identification which are sufficiently general to work with both concatenative and
nonconcatenative morphology.

Morphosyntax
The morphosyntax is the study of grammatical categories whose properties are
definable by morphological and syntactic criteria. Some authors point out that the
term replaces what was traditionally called grammar. In this sense, morphosyntax is
intimately linked with morphology and syntax.

Some of the aspects studied by morphosyntax include ellipsis (omission of structures),


redundancy (repetition of elements) and concordance (normative coincidence of
certain grammatical accidents).

Morphosyntactic relationships are expressed through grammatical forms (grammatical


accidents, mode and verbal aspect). These forms vary depending on the characteristics
of each language. Different languages can be classified according to morphosyntactic
procedures to relate the words within sentences or sentences: insulators, binders,
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

inflectional and polysynthetic.

2.3 Subtopic 3: Allomorphy


An allomorph is each alternative form of a morpheme. In other words, some
morphemes change their sound or their spelling but not their meaning when they
appear in different contexts - each of these different forms is classed as an allomorph.

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Morphology

What is an Allomorph?
We have an entire article dedicated to morphemes - we recommend that you check
that out before reading this one on allomorphs. A morpheme is the smallest unit of
meaning in a language. This means that a morpheme cannot be reduced beyond its
current state without losing its basic meaning. This makes it different from a syllable,
which is a word unit - morphemes can have any number of syllables.

A morpheme is not to be confused with a morph. A morph is the phonetic expression


of a morpheme - in other words, it is how a morpheme sound.
Morphemes come in two varieties: free morphemes and bound morphemes.

Free morphemes
Free morphemes can stand alone. Most words are free morphemes - some examples
include: “house”, “book”, “tall”, “peacock”, and “smile”; these carry meaning on their
own and are complete in themselves. Take the word “tall” for example - it has a
meaning on its own, you can't break it down into smaller parts (such as t-all, ta-ll, or
tal-l). “Peacock” is also a free morpheme; despite having more than one syllable, it
cannot be broken down into smaller parts without losing its basic meaning.

Free morphemes are either lexical or functional. Lexical morphemes give us the main
meaning of a sentence or text; they include nouns, adjectives and verbs. Functional
morphemes help to hold the structure of a sentence together; they include
prepositions (eg. with), conjunctions (eg. and), articles (eg. the) and pronouns (eg.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

her).

Bound morphemes
Bound morphemes cannot stand alone. They have to be bound to another morpheme
to carry any meaning - bound morphemes include prefixes, like “pre” -, “un” -, and
“dis” - (eg. pre-screen, undone, disapprove); and also suffixes, like - “er”, - “ing”, and -
“est” (eg. smaller, smiling, widest).

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There is some debate around the different types of allomorphs - the way they are
categorized will depend on which textbook you use! For the sake of clarity, we will
take you through some examples of three common types of allomorph in the English
language: past tense allomorphs, plural allomorphs, and negative allomorphs.

Past tense allomorphs


In English, we use the past tense morpheme “ed”, which is most often used with past
regular verbs, for example: “planted”, or “washed”. It always has the same function (of
making a verb past), but is pronounced slightly differently depending on the verb it is
bound to: in “washed” we get /t/ (wash/t/), and in “planted” we get /ɪd/ (plant /ɪd/).
Try saying these words out loud and you'll notice a slight difference in the way the
“ed” morpheme is pronounced.

Struggling to notice the difference? Say these past tenses of the following verbs out
loud, focusing on the “ed” morphemes: “wanted”, “rented”, “rested”, “printed”. In
each of these words, the “ed” morpheme is pronounced /ɪd/.

Now do the same with this set of words: “touched”, “fixed”, “pressed”. Notice how the
“ed” morpheme is pronounced /t/.

Each different pronunciation of the “ed” morpheme is an allomorph, as it varies in


sound, but not function.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

Plural allomorphs
We typically add “s” or “es” to nouns to create the plural form; these plural forms of
“s” and “es” always have the same function, but their sound changes depending on the
noun.

The plural morpheme has 3 common allomorphs: /s/, /z/ and /ɪz/. Which one we use
depends on the phoneme that precedes it.
When a noun ends in a voiceless consonant (ie. ch, f, k, p, s, sh, t or th), the plural
allomorph is “s”. Examples include: “books”, “chips”, and “dishes”.

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When a noun ends in a voiced phoneme (ie. b, d, g, j, l, m, n, ng, r, sz, th, v, w, y or z, or


any of the vowel sounds: a, e, i, o or u), the plural form remains “s” or “es” but the
allomorph sound changes to /z/. Examples include: “bees”, “zoos”, and “kebabs” - try
saying these words out loud and you should feel how the plural allomorph becomes
more of a “z”.

When a noun ends in a sibilant (ie, s, ss, z), the sound of the allomorph sound becomes
/ɪz/. Examples include: “buses”, “houses”, and “waltzes”.
Other plural allomorphs include the “en” of words such as oxen, the “ren” of children,
and the “ae” of words such as formulas and antennae. These are all plural allomorphs
as they serve the same function as the more common “s” and “es” suffixes.

Negative allomorphs
Think of the prefixes we use to make a negative version of a word; informal (not
formal), impossible (not possible), unbelievable (not believable) or asymmetrical (not
symmetrical). Are you seeing the pattern here? “In” -, “im” -, “un” - and “a” - all serve
the same function, and so they are allomorphs of the same morpheme.
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3. Analysis Unit questions

1. What are affixation?


Affixation is the morphological process in by which bound morphemes are attached to
a roots or stems to mark changes in meaning, part of speech, or grammatical
relationships. Affixes take on several forms and serve different functions. In this
tutorial, we will be looking specifically at affixation in Standard English.

2. What are allomorph?


An allomorph is each alternative form of a morpheme. In other words, some
morphemes change their sound or their spelling but not their meaning when they
appear in different contexts

3. What is morphosyntax?
Morphosyntax is another word for grammar.
Grammar can be divided into morphology and syntax. Morphology is the study of
words and their rules of formation. And syntax is the study of sentences and their rules
of formation. Essentially, morphology and syntax are studies of the same thing –
formation rules of a language but at differing “levels”.

4. What are paradigms?


A set of all forms which contain a common element, especially the set of all inflectional
forms of a word or a particular grammatical category. The paradigm of "go" is "go,
went, gone."

5. What is free morpheme?


In linguistics, a morpheme that can stand alone, as a word in its own right. Free
morphemes are contrasted with bound morphemes, such as the plural -s, which can
only appear in combination.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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Morphology

4. Further Reading
Los siguientes recursos complementarios son sugerencias para que se pueda ampliar la
información sobre el tema trabajado, como parte de su proceso de aprendizaje
autónomo:

Videos de apoyo:
Video: Syntax - Morphosyntax: Crash Course Linguistics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1r1grQiLdk

Video: Morpheme||Morph||Allomorphs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm1Qafg2_0U

Video: Morphology 101: Word-formation processes


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHGtn563DQI

Bibliografía de apoyo:
Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). An Introduction to English Morphology. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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Morphology

5. Bibliography
» Baker, A., & Hengeveld, K. (2012). Linguistics. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
» Burridge, K., & Stebbins, T. (2020). For the love of language (2nd ed.).
Cambridge.
» Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). An Introduction to English Morphology.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
» Curzan, A., & Adams, M. (2011). How English works: A linguistic
introduction. Longman.
» In Genetti, C. (2014). How languages work: An introduction to language and
linguistics.
» Rahman, T. (2010). Linguistics for beginners. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX

UNIT 2
Lexical Morphology

Autor: Mgs. Edwin Pacheco


ÍNDICE

1. Unit 2: Lexical Morphology ................................................................................3


Topic 1: Lexical Morphology ............................................................................................................ 3
Objective:............................................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction: ......................................................................................................................................... 3

2. Subtopics information........................................................................................4
2.1 Subtopics 1: Morpheme-based morphology ................................................................. 4
2.2 Subtopic 2: Lexeme-based morphology .......................................................................... 5
2.3 Subtopic 3: Word-based morphology .............................................................................. 6

3. Analysis Unit questions ......................................................................................9

4. Further Reading ...............................................................................................10

5. Bibliography ....................................................................................................11

2
Lexical Morphology

1. Unit 2: Lexical Morphology


Topic 1: Lexical Morphology
Objective:
After successfully finishing this course, student will be able to:

- explain important starting points for modern morphological theory


- describe important concepts and models in morphology
- compare and judge morphological descriptions

Introduction:
This topic is primarily concerned with morphological analysis and developing an
understanding of how languages vary with respect to what information a word
encodes. We also study classical linguistic typology, including both morphological and
word order typology.
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Lexical Morphology

2. Subtopics information
2.1 Subtopics 1: Morpheme-based morphology
Word forms are examined as morpheme arrangements in morpheme-based
morphology. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning in a language. The
morphemes in a word like independently are in-, depend, -ent, and ly; depend is the
root, while the other morphemes are derivational affixes in this case.

Dog is the root, while -s is an inflectional morpheme in words like dogs. This method of
studying word formations, referred to as "item-and-arrangement," considers words as
if they were made up of morphemes strung together ("concatenated") like beads on a
string. More modern and advanced techniques, such as distributed morphology, aim to
preserve the concept of the morpheme while allowing for non-concatenated,
analogical, and other processes that have proven troublesome for item-and-
arrangement theories and comparable approaches.

Three key axioms underpin morphology based on morphes:

Baudoin’s "single morpheme" hypothesis: The status of roots and affixes is the same
as that of morphemes.

Bloomfield’s "sign base" morpheme hypothesis: They are dualistic signs because they
have both (phonological) form and meaning as morphemes.
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Bloomfield’s "lexical morpheme" hypothesis: The lexicon stores morphemes, affixes,


and roots alike.

Bloomfieldian and Hockettian morphology are two types of morphology based on


morphes.
Bloomfield considered the morpheme to be the simplest form having meaning,
although it lacked meaning.

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Morphemes are "meaning elements," not "form elements," according to Hockett.


There is a morpheme plural for him that uses allomorphs such -s, -en, and -ren. The
two perspectives are intermingled in an unsystematic way in much morpheme-based
morphological theory, so a writer may refer to "the morpheme plural" and "the
morpheme -s" in the same phrase.

2.2 Subtopic 2: Lexeme-based morphology


Morphological Affixes are isomorphic (biunique) linguistic signs (Sign-based
Morphology or SBM), stored in the lexicon alongside obvious lexemes (Lexical Affix
Hypothesis or LAH), where all morphological and cyclic phonological operations are
also carried out, according to much recent work in generative grammar (Lexical
Phonology).

In the United States, lexical morphology is far from a given, but SBM and LAH underpin
the work of Bresnan (1982), Farmer (1984), Guerssel (1983), Halle (1973), Halle and
Mohanan (1985), Keyser and Roeper (1984), Lieber (1981,1983), Sadock (1985), and
Selkirk (1985). (1982). Marantz (1982) and Pesetsky (1985) appear to concur on the
most important points while disagreeing on others. Kiparsky (1982) agrees with foggy
reasoning while disclaiming. Finally, Jackendoff (1975) makes the assumption that

Bloomfield (1933: 177-183), for example, proposed that lexemes and affixes are 'free'
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and 'bound' versions of a single form of linguistic symbol, the'morpheme.' Bloomfield


(1933: 162-163) and others draw the conclusion that all morphological indications and
the rules that govern them belong only to the lexicon. 'Affixes differ from nonaffix
morphemes simply in that affixes include frames specifying the category of objects to
which they attach as well as the category of the items generated', according to Lieber
(1981: 35). 'The fact that lexical entries for affixes are identical to lexical entries for
non-affix morphemes, save for the existence of subcategorization, is very essential for
the theory,' (1981: 37).

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The goal of these arguments is to show that affixes are not lexemes at all, but rather
belong to a category of morphology with members that are so dissimilar to lexemes in
form, function, organization, and operation that they cannot share the same
component, let alone the same definition. The lexical sign (symbol) with its directly
related form and meaning, and the (grammatical) morpheme in paradigm, which is
indirectly correlated with meaning, are the two discrete modalities of expressing
meaning in grammar. All of this necessitates a whole new morphological foundation,
one based on lexemes and morphemes, as well as separate lexicological and
morphological theories.

2.3 Subtopic 3: Word-based morphology


Morphological models are typically classified by the units they treat as grammatically
'meaningful,' as well as the attributes they connect with these units. Because it
correlates grammatical features with particular morphs, the post-Bloomfieldian
approach is referred to as "morpheme-based." Because they correlate attributes with
words, realization-based models are referred to as "word-based." However, models
can be classified MORPHOTACTICALLY based on the status that they assign to these
units. A model is 'word-based' from a morphotactic standpoint if it accepts surface
word forms as the basic constituents of a system and treats roots, stems, and
exponents as abstractions over a set of full forms. If a model presupposes an inventory
of morphotactically minimum forms from which surface forms are 'constructed' or
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'derived,' it is called "root-based" or "morph-based."

The sorts of analysis that a model assign are heavily influenced by its morphotactic
assumptions. This effect is most noticeable when dealing with morphological classes.
The shape of one or more word forms tends to identify the class of an item in
languages whose morphological systems are structured into inflectional classes.
Traditional models take use of this predictability by creating a set of exemplary
paradigms and representing particular things using diagnostic surface shapes.
However, in isolation, the qualities of roots or exponents are rarely accurate

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Lexical Morphology

indications of inflection class. As a result, models that represent items using their
underlying root forms must frequently incorporate diacritic class characteristics to
replace lost inflection class information.

The treatment of various sorts of lexical classes is influenced by a model's


morphotactic assumptions. It is typically possible to identify a shared root, which
identifies an individual lexeme, as well as stem formatives and inflectional exponents,
whose distribution is linked to specific lexical classes, given a set of surface forms.
However, neither the form nor the qualities of a root often predict the choice of
formatives and exponents. To give 'assembly instructions' for options that are under-
determined by the qualities of lexical roots alone, a model that represents objects by
roots requires various lexical class attributes.

Individual forms are derived in independence from the other forms in a grammatical
system, which is another premise that is closely associated with constructive
approaches. This assumption is reflected in the IA and IP models' solely syntagmatic
structure, as well as hybrid models like Distributed Morphology (Halle & Marantz
1993). Word forms are 'assembled' or 'processed' one at a time in a standard IA or IP
model, either by extracting sub-word units from the lexicon or by applying rules that
encapsulate these units. Words have no status as permanent lexical units since they
are the result of morphological derivation, and the derivation of a given form has no
access to 'paradigmatic' information about other word forms.
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Most realization-based approaches separate individual derivations to a similar degree.


In A-Morphous Morphology (Anderson 1992), inflected word forms are created by
'spelling out' the qualities associated with syntactic preterminal, resulting in words
that have no existence outside of the syntactic context in which they are created.

The central premise is that exemplary patterns or 'paradigms' can reflect form
variation within an inflectional system, and that the forms of non-exemplary things can
be determined from primary parts that designate which pattern a given item follows.
Traditional models, unlike many contemporary techniques, do not enforce a dramatic

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separation of 'data' and 'patterns,' but rather reflect a language's morphological


patterns by actual forms that display those patterns.
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Lexical Morphology

3. Analysis Unit questions

1. How are words analyze in morpheme-based morphology?


In morpheme-based morphology, word forms are analyzed as arrangements of
morphemes.

2. What is the Baudouin’s "single morpheme" hypothesis?


Roots and affixes have the same status as morphemes.

3. What are morphemes according to Hockett ?


Morphemes are "meaning elements," not "form elements," according to Hockett.

4. What are affixes?


Affixes are isomorphic linguistic signs stored in the lexicon alongside obvious lexemes.

5. Why is it referred as morpheme-based?


Because they correlate attributes with words
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Lexical Morphology

4. Further Reading
Los siguientes recursos complementarios son sugerencias para que se pueda ampliar la
información sobre el tema trabajado, como parte de su proceso de aprendizaje
autónomo:

Videos de apoyo:
Video: Word-based morphology

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MpxA9oPq-M

Video: Morpheme-based morphology


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4OWb8dZ_c8

Bibliografía de apoyo:
Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). An Introduction to English Morphology.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.


© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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Lexical Morphology

5. Bibliography
» Baker, A., & Hengeveld, K. (2012). Linguistics. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.
» Burridge, K., & Stebbins, T. (2020). For the love of language (2nd ed.).
Cambridge.
» Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). An Introduction to English Morphology.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
» Curzan, A., & Adams, M. (2011). How English works: A linguistic
introduction. Longman.
» In Genetti, C. (2014). How languages work: An introduction to language and
linguistics.
» Rahman, T. (2010). Linguistics for beginners. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX

UNIT 2
Lexical Morphology

Autor: Mgs. Edwin Pacheco


ÍNDICE

1. Unit 2: Lexical Morphology ................................................................................3


Topic 2: Other types of word formation ........................................................................ 3
Objective: ...................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction: ................................................................................................................. 3

2. Subtopics information........................................................................................4
2.1 Subtopics 1: Some morphological phenomena .................................................. 4
2.2 Subtopic 2: Other types of word formation ....................................................... 6

3. Analysis Unit questions ....................................................................................11

4. Further Reading ...............................................................................................12

5. Bibliography ....................................................................................................13

2
Lexical Morphology

1. Unit 2: Lexical Morphology


Topic 2: Other types of word formation
Objective:
After successfully finishing this course, student will be able to:

- explain important starting points for modern morphological theory


- describe important concepts and models in morphology
- compare and judge morphological descriptions

Introduction:
This topic is primarily concerned with morphological analysis and developing an
understanding of how languages vary with respect to what information a word
encodes. We also study classical linguistic typology, including both morphological and
word order typology.
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2. Subtopics information
2.1 Subtopics 1: Some morphological phenomena
The following are some morphological examples. This has to do with the word's form,
particularly the inflection's form. In morphological phenomena, the type of
morphology is described, such as:

Conversion: zero derivation: changing a word from one category to another without
adding affixes: halt (N) to halt (V).

Clipping: fan (fanatic); when a lengthier form is abbreviated to make a new form.

Blending: combining bits of many terms: smog (smoke + fog), ), brunch (breakfast +
lunch).

Backformation: the process of creating a simple word from a more complex one: edit
from editor; burgle from burglar.

Calque: a word that has been created by translating a word from one language into
another. : grattacielo from skyscraper.

Eponym: a personal name from which a collective noun is derived: Lord Sandwich from
Sandwich.
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Toponym: a term derived from a location.

Loanwords: words borrowed from another language by speakers of one language. A


borrowing is another term for a loanword.

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Acronyms: a term created by combining the first letters of several other words: Ash
from ‘Action on Smoking and Health; Tesol from‘Teachers of English to Speakers of
Other Languages’.

Onomatopoeia: When the meaning is viewed as imitating the sound, words are
formed: buzz, hiss, crack.

Coinage: the emergence of a new term: Teflon, spandex;

Cognates: words that have descended from the same progenitor ; beam (English) is
cognate with baum (German).

Clitics: a word in which a grammatical element is handled as a separate item in syntax


but shares the same phonological unit as the word before or after it: they’re; they’ve;
isn’t.

Nonce formation, institutionalization, lexicalization


Nonce formation: a new complex word invented on the spur of the moment by a
speaker/writer to address pressing needs; When a form is employed for the second
time, it is no longer a nonce-formation. It is then utilized a third time. Once—
formation is possible. It's possible that formation is ambiguous: The words "world" and
"sky" can refer to "the earth," "the universe," "human affairs," "people or institutions,"
and other things, while "sky" might refer to "where the sun is" or "climate." This
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means that a nonce-formation can mix and match any of these meanings in the
complex word;

When other speakers accept the nonce-formation as a lexical item, the potential for
ambiguity vanishes, and only one meaning is utilized. The term telephone box, for
example, can have just one of the following meanings:
1. a box shaped like a telephone;
2.a box located near a telephone;
3.a box which functions as a telephone, and so on;

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This method is said to have become institutionalized once it has been established.

Finally, the word is lexicalized, which occurs when the lexeme takes on a form that is
not obtained through the application of productive rules due to changes in the
language system.

Lexicalization can occur at any level of language analysis, including the morphological,
syntactic, and phonetic levels.

Some lexicalized forms resulting from morphological alterations may be transparent:


for example, warmth is lexicalized since the suffix –th to the adjective is not
productive; that is, it cannot be used to generate new nouns. Consider: ‘surrealth;’
‘tallth’, but ‘width’. Thus, in the example above, ‘warmth’ and ‘width’ are both
analyzable and lexicalized.

2.2 Subtopic 2: Other types of word formation


The 'Word Formation Process' is a branch of Morphology that plays an important role
in growing our vocabulary and facilitating communication. The major goals of the
word-formation process are to use various rules or methods to create new words with
the same root.

To put it another way, the word-formation process is the process by which new words
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are generated by modifying or totally changing existing terms.

Let's look at some basic linguistic word generation processes:


Derivation
The process of attaching derivation affixes to the main form in order to produce a new
word is known as 'derivation.' Prefixes and suffixes are considered bound morphemes.

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A morpheme is the smallest meaningful syntactical or grammar unit that can't be


separated without affecting its meaning. A bound morpheme, unlike a free morpheme,
has no independent meaning and requires the cooperation of a free morpheme to
produce a new word.

Let's look at several derivation examples:

Base Forms New Words


Appear Disappear
Justice Injustice

Back Formation
Back-Formation is a word-formation technique that removes the derivational prefix
from the primary form in order to produce a new term. In terms of producing new
words, however, Back-Formation is the polar opposite of derivation. Examples:

Base Forms Back Formation


Insertion Insert
Donation Donate

Conversion
A word in one grammatical form changes to a word in another grammatical form
without affecting its spelling or pronunciation. The term 'Google,' for example, began
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as a noun before the verb.

We used to say "Google it" as a noun until a few years ago, but today we say "Google
it." Examples:

Noun To Verb
Access – to access
Google – to google

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Compounding
Compounding is a word-formation technique in which two or more words are
combined to generate a new term. Compound words are made up of two words
connected by a hyphen. Examples:

Words Compounding Words


Class+room Classroom
Note+book Notebook

Clipping
Another important word-formation process is 'clipping,' which cuts or shortens a word
without affecting its meaning. It preserves the original meaning, unlike the back-
formation procedure.

Clipping is divided into four types. They are:


• Back Clipping
• Fore Clipping
• Middle Clipping
• Complex Clipping

When clippings are assigned, they are given varied roles in words. Back clipping
eliminates the last few letters of a word; fore clipping removes the first few letters of a
word; and middle clipping keeps the middle position. Finally, Complex Clipping
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removes several bits from a single word. Examples:

Words Clippings
Advertisement Ad
Photograph Photo

Blending
The pieces of two or more words are combined to generate a new word in the
'Blending' word-formation method. Examples:

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Words Blendings
Breakfast+lunch Brunch
Biographical+picture Biopic

Abbreviation
Another well-known and extensively used word-formation approach for shortening a
word or phrase is 'abbreviation.' 'Abbreviation is growing more prevalent in the
modern period. People nowadays utilize it almost everywhere. Examples:

Words/Phrases Abbreviation
Junior Jr.
Mister Mr.
Master of Arts M.A

Acronyms
An acronym is a term formed by pronouncing an initialism as a word. It is formed from
the first letter of each word in a phrase, and the newly formed letters form a new
word, allowing us to communicate more quickly. For example, the word 'pin' is an
initialism for Personal Identification Number.

However, for a better understanding, consider the following instances of well-known


acronyms:
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Acronyms Words/Phrases
AIDS Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
ASAP As Soon As Possible
AWOL Absent Without Leave

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Borrowing
Borrowing is another type of word development in which a word from one language is
directly borrowed into another. Let's look at some borrowed English words from other
languages:

Algebra Arabic
Cherub Hebrew
Murder French
Pizza Italian
Tamale Spanish
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3. Analysis Unit questions

1. What is Onomatopoeia?
Words formed when the meaning is perceived as imitating the sound: buzz, hiss, crack;

2. What is an Acronyms?
A word formed by joining the initial letters of other words

3. What are Loanwords?


Words adopted by the speakers of one language from a different language. A loanword
can also be called a borrowing.

4. What is Conversion
In conversion, a word of one grammatical form converts into another grammatical
form without changing any spelling or pronunciation

5. What are acronyms?


An Acronym is a popular word-formation process in which an initialism is pronounced
as a word.
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Lexical Morphology

4. Further Reading
Los siguientes recursos complementarios son sugerencias para que se pueda ampliar la
información sobre el tema trabajado, como parte de su proceso de aprendizaje
autónomo:

Videos de apoyo:
Video: Other Morphological Phenomena

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSlav_85BaY

Video: English. Word formation. Suffixes ant, ent, ance, ence, ment. Adverbs with -ly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRNEUPXlObY

Bibliografía de apoyo:
Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). An Introduction to English Morphology.

Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.


© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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Lexical Morphology

5. Bibliography
» Baker, A., & Hengeveld, K. (2012). Linguistics. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

» Burridge, K., & Stebbins, T. (2020). For the love of language (2nd ed.).
Cambridge.

» Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2017). An Introduction to English Morphology.


Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

» Curzan, A., & Adams, M. (2011). How English works: A linguistic


introduction. Longman.

» In Genetti, C. (2014). How languages work: An introduction to language and


linguistics.

» Rahman, T. (2010). Linguistics for beginners. Oxford: Oxford University


Press.
© Universidad Estatal de Milagro – UNEMI

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