Unit 3 Morphology: an introduction

 Morphology

 Classification of languages

 Inside a word
 Linguistic sign
 What is a word
 Morphemes
 Lexemes

 Morphological properties:
parts of speech

 Morphological
competence
Morphology is the study of words, their internal
structure and the changes they undergo when
altered to form new words (word formation) or
when they have different roles within a sentence
(grammatical inflection).
Adapted from Hickey, R. (2010) The Handbook of Language Contact, John Wiley & Sons
Adding prefixes and suffixes:

1. Changes in the part of speech (or category).

amuse (verb) ------- amusement (noun)

2. Changes in meaning.
happy (+) ------ unhappy (-)

3. Changes in both meaning and category.

wash (verb/ action) ----- washable (adjective/ quality)
Genetic classification: Language types regarding their genealogy.
Typological classification: Language types regarding their morphology.
 Analytic languages
Each morpheme is realised as a single word.
Grammatical particles and words instead of inflection.

Vietnamese

Khi toi đã den nha ban toi, chung toi đã bat dau lam bai.
(when) (I) (came) (house) (friend) (I) (plural I) (began) (to do) (lessons)

When I came to my friend’s house, we began to do lessons.

Synthetic languages
 Sintactic relations by using inflection.
 A single word = root + affixes (case, tense, gender, etc.)

Spanish

Él escribe una carta.

Él está escribiendo unas cartas.

Agglutinative languages
Words are formed by a sequence of morphemes.
Each morpheme corresponds to one grammatical category.

Turkish

-ev -ler -den

evlerden: from the houses house plural form from
Polisynthetic languages
A word may represent an entire phrase or sentence.
Words are formed by inflection or extensive agglutination.

Tiwi

-ngri -rru -unthing apu-kani

ngirruunthingapukani
I past for some time eat repeatedly

I was eating for some time

 MORPHOLOGY

WORDS

LEXEMES MORPHEMES PHONEMES

Saussure’s Linguistic Sign

/tri:/
 Word
Different definitions of word:

1. Orthographic words. A written sequence which has a white space at each end but no
white space in the middle.

2. Phonological words. A piece of speech which behaves as a unit of pronunciation

according to criteria which vary from language to language. In English: stress.

3. Lexical items. An abstract unit of the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, with a more
or less identifiable meaning or function.
 Word
Syntactic hierarchy: morphosyntatic words

 Can be uttered in isolation

 Cannot be interrupted by pauses
 Its parts cannot be reordered
 Syntax does not have access to its internal structure

Content words Function words

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs Prepositions, conjunctions, articles, pronouns, quantifiers
Open class Closed class
Clear lexical meaning Invariable
 Word

Word: one or more morphemes which can stand alone in a language

because they contain meaning.

SIMPLE WORDS (one morpheme) COMPLEX WORDS (more than one morpheme)
just opposition
giraffe washable
 Morphology:
Morphemes internal
structure of
words
Morpheme is the minimal unit with meaning or grammatical function.

 Word: proofs -s plural

 Morpheme: -s (plural) /s/ proofs /pruːf-s/
Allomorphs
/z/ grooves /ɡruːv-z/
/ɪz/ nooses /nuːs-ɪz/

Morph is a set of minimal signs with the same expression but a different meaning.
Plural: proofs /pru:fs/
-s 3rd person singular: writes /raɪts/
Possessive: Jack’s /ʤæks/
Morphemes
Free morpheme Bound morpheme
 Independent, can stand alone.  Needs a root, cannot stand alone.

ship shipment
teach teacher
happy unhappy

Derivational Inflectional
(teacher) (teachers)
 Lexeme
Lexeme: a meaningful linguistic unit that is an item in the vocabulary of a language
(Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

 Abstract concept

 Families of words: grammatically different (dictionary entries)

 Dependent on syntactic context: sing - sings, sang, singing

Words and lexemes
 Homonyms (same words, different lexemes)

 Homographs (same spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning)

lie (not telling the truth) and lie (to rest in a horizontal position)

 Heteronyms (same spelling, different pronunciation, different meaning)

tear /teər/ (rip) ad tear /tɪər/ (drop of water from eyes)

 Homophones (different spelling, same pronunciation, different meaning)

pear /peə/ (fruit) and pair /peə/ (two things)
 Words: runner, running, ran, runs

 Lexeme: run

 Morphemes: run, -er, -ing, -a, -s

Morphological properties: parts of speech
NOUNS PRONOUNS
 Beings (human and animal)
 Substitute nouns
 Physical objects
 Personal
 Ideas
 Demonstrative
 Feelings

VERBS ADJECTIVES
 Attribute of a noun
 Dynamic verbs: action or process
 Lack grammar properties
 Stative verbs: state
(plural, articles, possessives)
Morphological properties: parts of speech
ADVERBS
PREPOSITIONS
 Characterise another adverb,
adjectives or verbs  Temporal and spatial relationships
 Lack consistent morphological  Polyfunctional
porperties: invariable  Meaning depends on context
 Manner, time and location
CONJUNCTIONS
 Links between clauses and sentences
 Coordinate
 Subordinate
Morphological competence

Grammatical context Inflection (number, tense, person, case)

 Learn new words, infer their meaning

 Identify lexical derivations and morphemes

 Better written and oral skills

 Recognise the relationship of English with other languages