Morphology

Morphology

The study of words

Morpheme

Morpheme

A minimal unit of meaning

A string containing one or more sounds that can be associated with minimal units of meaning.

Does not need to be a word on its own.

Example

un = “to reverse an action” - morpheme, but not a word.

Morphemes are identified on the basis of meaning - morphemes that mean the same in different words are considered instantiations of the same morpheme.

At the same time, the same phrase might be different morphemes in different words.

Example

un in undo, untied: reverse action (attaches to verbs) un in unfair, unsafe: not (attaches to adjectives)

Allomorphs

Slightly different forms of a morpheme (based on pronunciation, not spelling)

Allomorphs of the same morpheme must mean the same meaning.

The indefinite article a, an are allomorphs - both are indefinite articles: non-specific things

Past tense t, d, ed are allomorphs - both indicate an event took place in the past

Allomorphs tend to be phonetically similar. Similar to allophones, allomorphs in complementary distribution with one another.

Remark

There is no particular convention (whether to use the IPA notation, or the spelling) as morphemes specify meaning instead of pronounciation.

Inflection and Derivation

Inflectional morphemes

Does not change the core meaning and word class of a word An obligatory affix for a certain grammatical context

white & whiter - the r does not change the core meaning and word class (adjective)

core meaning of the word does not change.

While there still is a change in the meaning - the

There are only 7/8 inflectional affixes:

• s: 3rd person singular present tense agreement
  • ~ walks
• ing: progressive
  • ~ (is) walking
• en, ed: past participle
  • ~ (has) eaten, (has) walked
• ed: past tense
  • ~ walked
• s: plural
  • ~ cats
• er: comparative
  • ~ taller
• est superlative
  • ~ tallest
• 's: possesive (debated)
  • ~ John’s

Derivational morphemes

Changes the core meaning and/or word class of a word. Creates a new word with a different meaning

Class maintaining but meaning change do, undo - class maintaining (verb → verb), but meaning has changed

Class changing & meaning change white, whiten - class changing (adjective → verb), and meaning has changed

Hierarchical Structure

Monomorphemic

Word that contains only one morpheme.

(Also called a simple word)

Polymorphemic

Word that contains more than one morpheme

(Also called a complex word)

When words contain more than one morpheme, there exists a word-internal structure. Morphemes are then added incrementally to form complex words.

piglets

pig → piglet → piglets

Derivation occurs closer to the root than inflection.

disappeared dis- is derivational, -ed is inflectional disappear must be formed, before disappeared.

This is as derivation changes the meaning of the inflected word - dis-appeared with dis meaning not is different to disappeared.

Root

Morpheme where word formation begins

The most atomic form of the stem/base.

Stem/base

Part of a word that a morpheme attaches to

Free and Bound

Free

Morphemes that can occur on their own

Affixes

Morphemes that cannot occur on their own - they are bound morphemes that attach to stems.

• Prefixes occur before the stem
• Suffixes occur after the stem
• Infixes occur inside the stem
• Circumfixes occur around the stem

Ignore bound roots

For the purpose of this mod, the scope will only be complex words with relatively transparent morphemic structure - (morphemes that are Latinate roots for example)

Structural Ambiguity

Word formation is an incremental procedure, and reflects its formation history.

Every step must produce a well-formed word.

Structurally ambiguous

A word that has more than one possible structure and meaning. Each meaning is associated with a different internal structure.

For a word to be structurally ambiguous, it first has to be ambiguous (more than one meaning).

disappearance

disappearance only has one meaning, so even though it can have two possible internal structures

• appear > disappear > disappearance
• appear > appearance > disappearance the meaning only applies to the first possible internal structure.

unlockable

unlockable has two meanings, with two different internal structures.

lock > unlock > unlockable (able to be unlocked) lock > lockable > unlockable (not able to be locked)

Word Formation

Affixation

Affixation

Adding morphemes before (prefix), after (suffix), inside (infix), and around (circumfix)

Clipping

Clipping

Removing part of a word

bro

brother > bro

Back-formation

Removing what looks like (but wasn’t) an affix

edit

editor < edit

Compound

Compound

Putting together two or more free stems

Borrowing

Borrowing

Words that are borrowed from another language

Generally, the meaning or pronunciation is adapted in the borrowing language.

Anime

The word animation was borrowed into Japanese anime - which was reborrowed back to specifically mean Japanese animation

Eponyms

Eponyms

Words formed from people or trade names

erotic Eros > erotic

Conversion

Conversion

Changing word class without adding/removing anything

google

Google > google (verb)

Initialism

Initialism

Initials pronounced as letters

MRT, KFC, NUS

Acronyms

Acronyms

Initials pronounced as a word.

LOL, LMAO