Words & Structure

Morphology 1
 Three main types of
processes of word
formation
 Derivation

 Compounding

 Inflection
The Words of Language
• In spoken language we don’t pause between most
words

• So when you hear a sentence in a language you don’t

know, you won’t be able to tell where one word ends
and the next begins

• Most English speakers can pick out all of the words

in Thecatsatonthemat because they can identify all
those words
Content Words and
Function Words
• Content words: the words that convey conceptual meaning
(nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.)
– Open class: new types of content words can be added all the time
• E.g. a new noun called a flurg would be fine

• Function words: the words that convey grammatical

meaning (articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc.)
– Closed class: new function words are very rarely added to a
language
• English does not have a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun,
and rather than adopt a new pronoun, many people use they instead of
choosing between he and she.
Morphemes
• Morphology: the study of the structure of words
and the rules for word formation

• Morpheme: the minimal units of meaning

– Morphemes can be words on their own, and/or can often

be combined with other morphemes to make words
• E.g. the word book has one morpheme
• E.g. the word books has two morphemes:
book + -s
N plural marker
Morphemes
• Discreteness: In all languages, sounds
combine to make morphemes, morphemes
combine to make words, and words combine
to make sentences

• Creativity: We can combine morphemes in

new ways to create new words that can
easily be understood

– writable
– rewritable
– unrewritable
Bound and Free Morphemes
• Free morphemes can stand alone
• E.g. love is a single morpheme that can be uttered with
no other morphemes connected to it

• Bound morphemes cannot stand alone,

and must be attached to other morphemes
• E.g. un- and -ish are bound morphemes because they
cannot stand alone
The Structure of Complex Words I:
DERIVATION
The smallest meaningful units of
Language are called Morphemes

De-industri-al-iz-ation
5 morphemes:
1 free morpheme: “industry” (a
word itself)
4 bound morphemes
De-industri-al-iz-ation…
5 morphemes how do speakers
know this?:
“De” as in de-form, de-compress etc
“-al” as in nation-al, form-al etc
-”ize” as in modern-ize, rational-
ize etc..
-ation as in alter-ation, configur-
ation, combin-ation etc..
 De-industri-al-iz-ation
How does the mind forms this word? DO we simply combine all
the morphemes at once?
Or one after the other from left to right?
= de+industri+al+iz(e)+ation

NO!
The word intuitively “contains” other smaller
words!
Industry
Industrial
Industrialize
De-industrialize
…How do we explain this?
 De-industri-al-iz-ation
This word is formed by combining
morphemes two by two, starting with the free
morpheme...each combination results in a
word, which can be used as the “base” to
combine with one more bound morpheme

[ industri al]
 2nd: “industrial” merges with -”ize”
to form “industrialize.

ize

Industri al

[2 [1 industri - al 1] - ize 2]
3rd: “industrialize” merges with “de
-” to form “deindustrialize”

de

ize
industri al
[3de [2 [1 industri -al 1] ize2] 3]
Finally “deindustrialize” merges with
“ation” to form “deindustrializatio
n”

ation

de
ize
industri al
[4 [3 de[2[1 industri al1]ize2]3]-ation4]
 The diagram we have used to
represent the word structure is a
“tree”.
affixes

prefix suffixes
ation]
[ de

root ize]
[[[ [ industri al]
 Other properties of trees
1. We always merge TWO constituents

A STEM with an affix

stem

[ industry al]
stem

Ize
[[industri al] }
 stem

[de

ize]]
[industri al
stem
ation

de
ize
industri al
…so: word structure is always BINARY:

 ness *

Un happy un happy ness

Ok:
And every stem is itself a word. This is why,
e.g., -ize attaches to “industrial” before
“de” can be added:


de
* de
* ize
de industry al
*[4 [3 [2[1 de industri1] al2] ize3] ation4] because 1 is not a word!
and *[4 [3 [2de [1industri al1] 2] ize 3]ation 4] because 2 is not a word!

* ize
ation
* ize
ation

al de
de industry industry al

 ation
*de
de ation

ize ize
????
al industry al
industry
[4 [3de [2[1 industri al 1] ize 2] 3] ation4] is ok: 1, 2 and 3 are all words!
but why is *[ de [ [ [ industri al ] ize ]ation ] ] bad?After all 1,2 and 3 here are words!
Same problem here:

 ness *
un
Un happy happy ness

Ok: [[un happy] ness] * [un [happy ness]] why?

Un- can merge with a Verb or an
Adjective, but not with a noun:

 ness * -->
noun
un
Un happy happy ness

Ok: [[un happy] ness] * [un [nhappy nessn]]

*[4 [3 [2[1 de industri1] al2] ize3] ation4] because 1 is not a word!
and *[4 [3 [2de [1industri al1] 2] ize 3]ation 4] because 2 is not a word!

* ize
ation
* ize
ation

al de
de industry industry al

 ation
*de --> NOUN

de ation

ize ize
de merges with
industry al industry al Vs but not with
[4 [3de [2[1 industri al 1] ize 2] 3] ation4] is ok: 1, 2 and 3 are all words! Ns
but why is *[ de [ [ [ industri al ] ize ]ation ] ] bad?After all 1,2 and 3 here are words!
Two or more different sounds-1 meaning
(or grammatical function)

(1) Tall-ermore intelligent (comparative)

(2) A cat an egg
(3) Cat-s curch-es

Er and more in (1) are ONE and the same

Morpheme (a.k.a. “comparative” morpheme).
We say that they are allomorphs of the
SAME morpheme. The same holds for a and and
The same holds for a and an in (2)(allomorphs of
the indefinite article), and s and es in
(3)(allomprhs of the plural morpheme).

(2) A cat an egg

(3) Cats curches

This phenomenon is called:

Allomorphic Variation.
Words & Structure II
 So far:
-Morphemes vs words
-Bound and free morphemes
-Derivation and its properties
-Affixes: prefixes vs suffixes
Structure of derivatives:
-stems vs roots
-stems are words
- affixes are choosy
• Infix: morphemes that are inserted
inside another morpheme, their host.
• Bontoc (Philippines)

Fikas 'strong' fumikas 'to be strong'

Kilad
'red' kumilad 'to be red'
Fusul
'enemy' fumusul 'to be an enemy'
Our Previous claim: every stem in a
Structure is itself a word.

One Exception:
-Bound roots
BOUND ROOTS
perceive perception produce production
receive reception reduce reduction
conceive conception conduce conduction
Deceive Deception deduce deduction
induce induction
permit permission
remit remission project projection
commit commission reject rejection
submit submission
inject injection
emit emission
eject ejection
transmit transmission
• Many words in English represent word
formation operations which were based on
stems that were once words, but now no
longer are (e.g., couth)
• Sometimes, they were words in another
language (French, Latin), and English
borrowed from that language the affixed
word, without borrowing the original one.
• So, -ible (and its variant –able) are still
suffixes in English that attach to (new)
verbs to form (new) adjectives. But we
also find horrible, even though horr is not
a word in English.
Meaning and Structure
• Sometimes a single word has more
than one admissible structure.

 These words can have more than

one meaning!
 Unlockable

Cannot be locked Can be unlocked

A V

un lock un lock able

able
 Words & Structure

Morphology 2:
Compounds and Inflection
Compounds:

Fireman, Firefly , Doll house, Kitchen towel, Steam boat N+N

Greenhouse, wetsuit, redneck, A+N
Brain-dead, street-smart N+A
Blackout A+P
Make up V+P
Kitchen towel rack
Linguistics Department Chair
make up remover
Icecream truck
Blueberry
Spelling and compounds…
Fireman wetsuit red hot
jumpsuit
Ice-cream greenhouse … blackboard
kitchen towel fresh water
steam boat …
guest house
toilet paper
Spoonfeed dry clean underestimate blow dry
Nation wide….
Ice-cream truck

How can we tell compounds from simple sequences

of words?
But, wait a second…
how can I tell whether an adjective noun
combination is ONE WORD...a compound?
1. Context:

He waited under the rain for more than one

hour. When he entered the café in his wet suit
and dripping hat
she hardly recognized him.

The diver was already wearing his wet suit, mask,

snorkels, and fins…
2. Stress:
• blàckberry vs. black bèrry

• blàckbird vs. black bìrd

• grèenhouse vs. green

hòuse

• stròng man vs. strong màn

He waited under the rain for more than one
hour. When he entered the café in his wet sùit
and dripping hat
she hardly recognized him.

The diver was already wearing his wèt suit,

mask, snorkels,
and fins…
The structure of complex
(3 or more words)
compounds:
word structure is always BINARY:

 remover *

make up make up remover

The compound make up remover

contains 2 words!!! A compound,
make up, and a derivative, remover.
The structure of Compounds:

 remover
make
make up up
remover
The structure of Compounds:

 remover
make
make up up remover

In its typical interpretation it does not

contain the word up remover…
although there is no grammatical
contraint against this option
English compounds are very productive,
which is to say, it is very easy to create
new compounds in English.

Just look around you while you are walking in a

shopping mall and see how many of the store names,
for instance, are compounds. (shopping mall is itself a
compound, as is store name).
 Structure and Meaning:
N N

kitchen(N) N N Rack(N)

towel(N) rack(N) kitchen(N) towel(N)

quality rack

pàper rack quàlity paper

paper rack

tòwel rack pàper towel