INTRODUCTION TO MORPHOLOGY

AND THEORIES OF MORPHOLOGY

 MORPHOLOGY, MORPHOLOGICAL ENTITIES

 MORPHEMES: AFFIXES, ROOTS, PREFIXES &

SUFFIXES

 WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

 MORPHOLOGICAL PRODUCTIVITY

 MORPHOLOGY BASED CLASSIFICATION OF

LANGUAGES

 INTRODUCTION TO KEY THEORIES OF

MORPHOLOGY
 INTRODUCTION TO MORPHOLOGY

 Study of human language

 Features Human language: sound system, word/sentence structure,

meanings, spoken discourses, written texts etc

 Based on these features, various branches (sub fields) of Linguistics

 Phonetics/Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics,

 Morphology means the study of the forms of things

 A branch of various fields e.g. a branch of biology, geology,

linguistics

The branch of biology deals with the form/structure of organisms

 Study of word structures/combining morphemes Linguistic Morphology

 The study how morphemes (words/parts of words) combined to

change lexical forms or to make new/complex words

Also called Grammar of Words

 Process of combining morphemes: inflection/derivation/ compounding

 Morphological changes affect meaning la ‘no’+sani ‘second’→ lasani

e.g. (Spanish) mosquito for insect & mesquita for masjid

mosquito’s clipping mosque used as loanword in English for masjid

 MORPHOLOGICAL ENTITES

 Morpheme: A minimal unit of meaning; an arbitrary pairing of sound

and meaning.
Types of Morphemes:

 Every word is composed of one or more morphemes e.g. kill / killer

‫ سربراہ‬/ ‫گھر‬

1) Free morpheme: root: Urdu ɪlm Punjabi. sʊkʰ

2) Bound morpheme: Urdu: lɑ:ɪlmi / Punjabi. sʊkʰi

lɑ:ɪlmi: prefix affix root ɪlmi stem: lɑ:ɪlmɪjət̪

infix: rəzɑ:-e-mʊstəfɑ:, aab-o-həvɑ:

suffix: sʊkʰi:
 MORPHOLOGICAL ENTITES
MORPHEMES: AFFIXES, ROOTS, PREFIXES & SUFFIXES

 Morphemes smallest meaningful units; different from syllables

 Two different things;: smallest meaningful unit/pronounceable unit

 Physical form of morpheme: morph/allomorph e.g. horses/hosɪz

 Morphemes recyclable units; various forms; roots, stems, affixes

PREFIXES ROOTS STEMS SUFFIXES

 irresponsibility irresponsibility irresponsibility irresponsibility
 lɑ:ɪlmɪjət̪ lɑ:ɪlmɪjət̪ lɑ:ɪlmɪjət̪ lɑ:ɪlmɪjət̪

 Semantically/grammatically, the function of a morpheme constant

e.g. Lovely (adj) and quickly (adverb); two functions of -ly

Non-morphemic entities look like morphemes: car in care/carpet

a) ROOTS AND STEMS
 A base/root is innermost and basic unit of a word e.g. immorality

 A root and a stem same in a two morphemic word e.g. irrelevant

 BUT A stem derived from root in a three or more morphemic word

 e.g. immorality, lɑ:ɪlmɪjət̪ ‫العلمیت‬

 From a stem, an inflection/affixation produces lexical forms e.g.

ask /asked and new words .e.g. immorality

b) AFFIXES `

 Affixes attach to stems/roots

 Various types e.g. prefixes, suffixes, infixes/interfixes

 Prefixes before the stem e.g. illegal, immoral incompetent

 Suffixes after the stem e.g. useless, harmful

 Infixes appear in between a word; almost none in standard English

 Only used in Slang English e.g. edumacation in ironic sense

 Such an infix also termed Pseudo-sophistication

 Others e.g. hizouse for house and shiznit for shit

 Infixes frequent in SA/Indo Aryan languages e.g. sərbərah ‘leader’

 Called interfixes, if used in compounds e.g. rəzɑ:-e-mʊstəfɑ

and ɑ:b-e-hejɑ:t̪ ‘water of life’

 Tmesis, called expletive (abusive) infix; Separation of word parts

 A word / set phrase used within a word separating it into two e.g.
im-bloody-possible; where I go ever instead of wherever I go
 “This is not Romeo, he's some other where” (Romeo and Juliet)

 Confixes (Circumfixes/Ambifixes/ transfixes) controversial-

front/back
of a stem e.g. Indonesian nominal markers ke . . an in ke-besar-an
‘bigness/greatness (Aronoff & Fudeman, 2011)
In punjabi be-mʊsɘm-ɑ, be-sʊr-ɑ, nɘ-d̪ɪd̪-a, nɘ-kɘm-a, nɘ-lɘdʒ-a

 Suprafix/Superfix: realised by stress in a word: e.g. dis’count, im’port,

(a morpheme showing stress, intonation, or features with the syllables )

 Simulfix (change of vowel(s) to change meaning ) man→ men,

 FUNCTIONS OF AFFIXES

a) To produce inflected forms; called inflectional affixes

 Three types of changes in lexical forms: 1) Pluralisation, boy/boys

2) To Change Degrees of adjectives e.g. small/smaller/smallest

3) To Change Forms of verbs e.g. learn / learned / learnt / learning

 -ing both as inflectional/derivational affix; Changes lexical form

e.g. I am learning; derives a new word e.g. learn (V) / learning (N)

b) To derive new / complex words; called derivational affixes

 New/complex words derived by affixation e.g. learn / learner

 WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

 Introduction

 The two functions of affixes help in word formation processes

 Two key types of word formation processes 1) inflection 2)

derivation

 Word formation may also involve; allomorphy, ablaut & consonant

changes, stress shift, conversion and cliticization.

2) Derivation by Affixation/Compounding/Other Minor Processes

 Derivation by Affixation

 Derivation by affixation, a major word formation process

A grammar rule deriving words with new meaning; often new category

 e.g. work/worker; most English word-formation affixation or

compounding

 Derivation by Compounding

 Combination of two or more words to derive nouns/verbs adjectives

e.g. football / blackboard (English); nur-e-həq, kʊt̪ʊb mela (Urdu)

 Compounding illustrates an important aspect of language: Recursion
film society committee chairman election report writer

Types Of Compounds

Endocentric Compound

A hyponym of one of the constituent e.g. kʊt̪ʊb mela; ɑ:b-e-hejɑ:t̪

‘water of life’; may be more than one interfixes e.g. Khial-e-rukh-e-dost

Exocentric Compound

Gives figurative meanings e.g. mɪʈʰi tʃʰʊri; ʃah xərtʃ

Copulative Compound

A compound with two independent/semantic heads e.g.

zəmin-o-asman; xas-o-am
 Other Word Formation Types

 Alternation

Substituting one non-morphemic segment for another non morphemic

segment to mark a grammatical Contrast. e.g. sing → sang; foot (sg) →

feet (pl)

 Backformation: The reverse of affixation; e.g. caller/call, statement /

state, dramatist/ drama,
Blending: blending parts of two words to form a new one

e.g. smog (smoke/fog) camcorder), Oxbridge,

Clipping:; Word formation process by reducing a word to a part
exam(ination), math(ematics), and lab(oratory)
Acronym: A word formed from the initial letters of words in a phrase
 Reduplication: Doubling a word (total reduplication) or doubling a

part of a word (partial reduplication) e.g. honey-boney, humpty-dumpty,

hocus-pocus

Inkelas (2005): The double occurrence of a morphological constituent

meeting a particular morpho-semantic description: miʈha miʈha

 Cliticization: A morpheme’s act of attaching to a word as a clitic;

 Pronounced like an affix, but works as a phrase e.g. Peter’s, it’s,

Suppletion
Replacing one free morpheme by another e.g. go → went; is → was

Differences between compounds & minor word-formations

 Stress Shift (v/n):

per.mít / pér.mit (n/v), con.trást / cón.trast (n/v), re.córd / ré.cord

(n/v),

 Conversion (no morphological operation); different from stress shift

 Called zero-derivation/functional shift, No morphological change

 e.g. import (v/n), contract (v/n), call (v/n), white (adj/n)

MORPHOLOGICAL PRODUCTIVITY

 Hockett (1958): a property to say sth new; Chomsky (1965) creativity

 Potential for creation of new lexemes/ word forms (Bauer, 2001)

 Property of word formation process in systematic fashion (Plag, 1999)

 Productive and unproductive word formation processes

 Productivity related to regularity

 Regularity in shape & meaning different (McCarthy, 2002)

 Regular inflection/derivational processes more productive than others

 -ness & -ity productive with adjectives

 -ness forms more abstract noun; general/formal, but *longness/length

 -ity less general to form quite regular noun

 Derivational process semantically regular, if meaning consistent

 Semantics and morphological regularity can diverge

 Their meaning often not in accordance with base adjective meaning

 partial : ‘incomplete’ /‘favourable bias’; Urdu baqɪ → baqɪjat̪

 partiality ‘incompleteness’ /‘favourable bias’; radʒput̪→radʒput̪ana

 Productivity in Compounding

 Primary/secondary compounds regular in form; but only secondary

compounds regular semantically

 Some compounds vague in semantics partial support

 Semantic interpretation relies on context and general knowledge

 Scale or Measuring Productivity

 A process productive, if it forms brand new lexemes, or neologisms

 Degrees of productivity:

1) Productive 2) Semi-productive 3) nonproductive

 Synchronic and diachronic approaches to analyse productivity

 Degree of productivity can vary diachronically

 -ity high in number of words but not in availability for neologisms

 -ness high in number of words & in availability for neologisms

 -i /‫ی‬productive & available for neologism; ɪlmi ‫ علمی‬/ nakami ‫ناکامی‬

dramai ; -ɪjət̪‫ت‬
/ S ‫ ی‬not productive but offers neologism ‫ت‬SS‫بوری‬/ borɪjət̪

 Degree of productivity depends on the structural, lexico-grammatical

 Examples of Productive English Derivational Affixes

 -ing e.g. teaching Very productive

 -ness e.g. happiness Very productive

 -ity e.g. ability Productive

 -ion/ation/ition e.g. conservation Productive

-hood e.g. brotherhood Productive

 -ance/ence e.g. acceptance Productive

 -er/-ar/-or e.g. actor Productive

 un- e.g. unpleasant Productive

 re- e.g. relocate Productive

 MORPHOLOGY BASED CLASSIFICATION OF
LANGUAGES

 Classic classification of languages based on morphology since 19thc

 Isolating languages e.g. Chinese, Vietnamese; little/no morphology

 Agglutinative languages e.g. Turkish, Urdu; Separable morphemes

 Fusional / Inflectional languages e.g. Latin/Greek; Morphemes fused

 A morpheme may have two or more meaning units

 Poly-synthetic languages e.g. Inuit (Eskimo) Native American

languages

 A word consisting of many lexical/bound morphemes

 The classic classification ideal rather than practical

 Looking at various world languages, not clear classification

 Some very isolating languages e.g. Chinese; but most mixed types

 Some fit in more than one e.g. Urdu considered agglutinative

 But also looks a fusional language ɪlmi / bɪlli; -i a fem & deriv marker

 English grammatical relations by prepositions like isolating languages

 But partly agglutinative/fusional due to derivation/inflectional morpho

 A scale of complex morphology to consider languages

 By Classical typology, inflectional languages called fusional language

 Little fusion with word formation or synthesis of morphemes

 Inflection, a relational synthesis; derivation, a derivational synthesis

 Languages classified also as synthetic / analytic

 By word formation (synthetic); By syntactic phrases (analytic)

 For analysis of word formation, some key models of morphology

 PRINCIPAL APPROACHES TO MORPHOLOGY

1) Morpheme Base Morphology: Item & Arrangement Approach

2) Lexeme Base Morphology: Item-and-Process Approach

3) Word Base Morphology: Word-and-paradigm Approach

4) Lexical Morphology Hypothesis

1. Morpheme Base Morphology

 Addresses agglutinative languages

 Morpheme, a basic unit of word formation whether root / affix

 refer remit resume receive reduce

 defer demit consume deceive deduce

 hʌmɪjət̪ hʌmrɑz hʌmdʒoli hʌmɑvɑz

 bʌrbʌrɪjət̪ bʌrɑmʌd̪ bʌrɑvʌr bʌrdʒəst̪ɑ

 Word forms analyzed as collection of morphemes like beads on

string

 The morphological theory Item-and-arrangement approach

 Key point (for further study and references: Beard, 1995)

 Two aspects in the theory; called Bloomfieldian / Hockettian flavours

a) To Bloomfield (1933), morpheme a minimal form with meaning; not

meaning itself

 Morphemes dual signs of phonological form & meaning

 Called Bloomfield’s sign base morpheme hypothesis:

 Following Bloomfield, Halle (1973), Siegel (1974), Kiparsky (1982)

Morpheme,: a random union of sound/meaning; minimal meaningful

unit

b) To Hockett, morpheme meaning element, NOT a form e.g. plural -s,

 Other supporters of the theory e.g. (Lieber, 1992); Bresnan ,1982)

2. Lexeme Base Morphology: Item-and-Process Approach

 Fits in fusional languages

 Lexeme, a basic unit of word formation and morphemes attach to it

 Word form not a set of morphemes; result of rules (Aronoff, 1976, 94)

that modify a word/stem to produce a new word

 For example, there are inflectional and derivational rules

 An Inflectional rule shows: the no. of N , the degree of A & form of V

A derivational rule derives new (category) words e.g. tʃand̪ → tʃand̪ni

‫چاند → چاندنی‬
The theory emphasises two unstructuralist assumptions

1) Morpheme not the basic unit of morphological structure

2) Morphology and syntax are not one and the same

 Lexemes are signs: affixes, reduplication, revowelling, metathesis etc

mark phonologically independent derivational operations

 Lexeme-based morphology follow the Separation Hypothesis

(Beard 1995); the derivation of meaning and the realization of

phonological marking are distinct processes in word-formation

 Other promoters of the theory; (Anderson,1992; Beard,1966,1995;

3. Word Base Morphology

 Fits in fusional languages

 Word basic unit of word formation (Aronoff 1976; Scalise (1984), and

a particular form (e.g. Pluralisation) is a model

 Called Word-and-Paradigm Approach; paradigm a central notion

 Generalizations b/w the forms of inflectional paradigms e.g. plurals

 Morpheme /Lexeme Base rule not applicable on many generalizations

 An inflectional morpheme corresponds to grammatical categories e.g.

3rd Person Plural

Recommended Readings
1. Anderson, Stephen. 1992.  A-Morphous Morphology.  CUP, Cambridge
2.Aronoff, Mark.  1994.  Morphology by itself.  MIT Press, Cambridge.
4. Ayto, J. 1999. Twentieth Century Words, Oxford: OUP .
5. Baker, Mark. 1988.  Incorporation: a Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. 
University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
6. Bauer, L .2006/‘Compounds and Minor Word-formation Types’ In Aarts, B. & McMahon A.
The Handbook of English Linguistics. Blackwell
7. Bauer, L. 2001. Morphological Productivity, Cambridge University Press
8. Beard, Robert. 1995. Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology.  Suny Albany Press, Albny
9. Carstairs, Andrew. 1987.  Allomorphy in inflection.  Croom Helm, London.
10. Carter, R. 1998. Vocabulary: Applied Linguistics Perspectives. (2nd edit. London: Routledge.
11. Chen, Matthew. 1987.  'The syntax of Xiamen tone sandhi.' Phonology 4: 109-150.
12. Chomsky, Noam. 1970. 'Remarks on Nominalization.'  In: Readings in Transformational
Grammar, ed. R. A. Jacobs and P. S. Rosenbaum.  Ginn, Waltham, MA, 184-221
13. Halpern, Aaron. 1995. On the placement & morphology of clitics. CSLI
Publications,Stanford
14. Hoey, M. (1991). Patterns of Lexis in Texts. Oxford: OUP .
15. Hoey, M. 2005. Lexical Priming: A new theory of language. London: Routledge.
16. Inkelas, Sharon .2005. Morphological Doubling Theory:“Evidence for Morphological Doubling
in Reduplication.” In Hurch, Bernhard (Ed.). (2005). Studies on Reduplication. Empirical
Approaches to Language Typology (No. 28). Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 65-88
17. Kiparsky, Paul. 1982.  'Lexical phonology and morphology.'  In Linguistics in the Morning
Calm, vol. 2, ed. I. S. Yang.  Hanshin, Seoul, 3-91.
19. Marantz, Alec. 1988. 'Clitics, morphological merger, & the mapping to phonological
structure.' In Michael Hammond and Michael Noonan, eds., Theoretical Morphology:
Approaches in Modern Linguistics.  Academic Press, San Diego, 253-270.
20. McCarthy, (2002). English vocabulary in use. Cambridge: CUP.
21. Plag, I. (2002). Word-formation in English. CUP.
22. Selkirk, Elisabeth O. 1996.  'The Prosodic structure of function words.' In Signal to syntax:
Bootstrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition, ed. James L. Morgan and
Katherine Demuth.  Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, 187-213.
23. Zwicky, Arnold. 1985a.  'Clitics and particles.'  Language 61: 283-305.
24. Zwicky, Arnold. 1985b. 'How to Describe Inflection.' Proceedings of the Berkeley
Linguistics
Society 11: 372-386.  Berkeley, California.
25. Zwicky, Arnold & Geoffrey Pullum. 1983.  'Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n't.' 
Language 59: 502-13.
26. Zwicky, Arnold and Geoffrey Pullum. 1992. A misconceived approach to morphology. In
Proceedings of WCCFL 91, ed. D. Bates. CSLI, Palo Alto, 387-398.
27. McCarthy, A. C. 2002. An Introduction to English Morphology: Words and Their Structure,
Edinburgh University press
.Stubbs, M. (2001). Words &Phrases: Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell .28

MAJOR BOOKS
1. Aronoff, Mark.  1994.  Morphology by itself.  MIT Press, Cambridge.
2. Bauer (2003) Introducing Linguistic Morphology--Edinburgh University Press
3. BASICS OF WORDS AND WORD FORMATION (MORPHOLOGY).
4. Booij (2005) The Grammar of Words--An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology