Morphology. Words, their parts and their classes

Morphology – an internal branch
Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of words.
Words are structured both in terms of form and in terms of meaning. The first type of structuring has relevance for syntax, the second for semantics and lexicology.
Morphology is a separate level of linguistic patterning comprising two subsystems which may share some of the means of encoding (exponents): grammatical (inflectional) and lexical (derivational) morphology .

WORD
Orthographic – babysitter vs. jack-of-all-trades
Phonological – [hiz] – he is, he has, his (pause and stress)
Semantic – travel agency; try out
Morphosyntactic – work, works, worked, working
Grammatical – round (n, adj, adv, prep, v)
Word vs. Lexeme

Morphemes (general)
Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of a single morpheme. There is a fundamental functional distinction between a morpheme and a word.
Monomorphemic words (simple) are distinguished from polymorphemic or complex words.

Morpheme
The morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language. (lexical and grammatical meaning)
A morpheme must have a meaning, and it is the smallest unit of meaning (the smallest sound-meaning union which cannot be further analyzed into smaller meaningful units).

Morphemes - properties
The properties which uniquely differentiate morphemes from other linguistic units are these:
A morpheme is the smallest unit associated with a meaning (independent, e.g. -man or contributory e. g. -ly in largely).
Do all these words car, care, carpet, cardigan, caress, cargo, caramel contain the morpheme car? How do we identify morphemes?

Morphemes - properties
Morphemes are recyclable units. One of the most important properties of the morpheme is that it can be used again and again to form many new words (lexical and related if derivational morphemes and morphosyntactic/grammatical and unrelated, if inflectional).
In examples cardigan and caramel is car a morpheme? One way of finding out would be to test whether the remaining material can be used in other words, i.e. whether it is (an)other morpheme(s).

Morphemes - properties
-digan and -amel do not meet our first definition of a morpheme, they are not contributors of independent meanings, nor are they recyclable in the way in which the morphemes care+ful, un+care+ing, care+give+er are.
Recyclability can be deceptive, as it is in the case of carrot, carpet, caress, cargo.
Though all morphemes can be used over and over in different combinations, non-morphemic parts of words may accidentally look like familiar morphemes.

Morphemes - properties
The test of what makes a sequence of sounds a morpheme is based on the segment’s ability to convey independent meaning, or add to the meaning of a word. In some cases, a combination of tests is required. If we try to parse the word happy, we can easily isolate happ- and -y as morphemes. The latter adds to the meaning of words by turning them into adjectives. But what about happ? - e.g. mishap, happen, hapless, unhappiness. The recyclability of hap(p)- in the language today confirms its status as a morpheme, even without the etymological information.

Morpheme ≠ Syllable
Morphemes must not be confused with syllables. A morpheme may be represented by any number of syllables, though typically only one or two, sometimes three or four.
Syllables have nothing to do with meaning, they are units of pronunciation. In most dictionaries, dots are used to indicate where one may split the word into syllables. A syllable is the smallest independently pronounceable unit into which a word can be divided.
Morphemes may be less than a syllable in length. Cars is one syllable, but two morphemes.

Morpheme ≠ Syllable
Some of the longest morphemes tend to be names of places or rivers or Native American nations, like Mississippi, Potawatomi, Cincinnati. In the indigenous languages of America from which these names were borrowed, the words were polymorphemic, but the information is completely lost to most native speakers of English.

Morphemes (summary of properties)
The four essential properties of all morphemes: 1) they are packaged with a meaning;
2) they are constantly recycled;
3) they may be represented by any number of syllables;
4) morphemes may have phonetically different shapes in different contexts

Morpheme
The word lady can be divided into two syllables (la.dy), but it consists of just one morpheme, because a syllable has nothing to do with meaning.
The word disagreeable can be divided into five syllables (dis.a.gree.a.ble), but it consists of only three morphemes (dis+agree+able).
The word books contains only one syllable, but it consists of two morphemes (book+s) (Notice: the morpheme –s has a grammatical meaning [Plural])

The internal structure of words
Words can have an internal structure, i.e. they are decomposable into smaller meaningful parts. These smallest meaningful units we call morphemes.
read+er re+read en+able dark+en
Mary+’s print+ed cat+s go+es
Lexical or Grammatical
Genitive case
Past tense
Plural marker
3rd singular
Present-tense
grammatical/inflectional morpheme

books /-s/
pigs /-z/
boxes /-iz/
A morph is a physical form representing a certain morpheme in a language.
Sometimes different morphs may represent the same morpheme; i.e., a morpheme may take different forms. If so, they are called allomorphs of that morpheme.
Morpheme, Morph, Allomorph
two different spelling forms， and three different phonological forms, but these different forms represent the same grammatical meaning [Plural])

Complementary Distribution
Allomorphs are morphs in complementary distribution (receive vs. reception) or in free variation (-ity vs. -ness, e.g. uniformity vs. happiness). They are never found in identical contexts, or in overlapping distribution. The choice of allomorph used in a given context is normally based on the properties of the neighboring sounds, the lexical item itself or morphological conditions.
Example: The third person singular verb suffix and the plural nominal suffix –s in English
[s]
[z]
[iz]
morpheme
morph
morph
morph
allomorphs
PLURAL

Allomorphy
Allomorphy affects both free and bound morphemes. A great part of allomorphy is phonologically conditioned, but there are also cases of lexically and morphologically (grammatically) conditioned allomorphy. In derivational affixation, the choice of a specific affix among numerous potential choices is an instance of lexically conditioned allomorphy: happy – ity, -ation, -hood, -ment = happiness

Allomorphy
Allomorphy affects both roots and affixes:
receive but reception (root allomorphy)
dwarf but dwarves (root allomorphy)
buses [iz] but nooks [s] (phonetically conditioned allomorphy of an inflectional affix {pl})

An analogy: Chameleon

Chameleon
The skin color is determined by the color of the nearby environment.
Two different skin colors cannot occur in the same environment.
Although a chameleon’s skin color may change, the essence remains unchanged. It is not grass when its skin color is green.

Complementary Distribution
morpheme
negative morpheme in-
morph1: im morph2: in morph3: in
impossible indecent incomplete
[imp---] [ind---] [iŋk---]
bilabial
stop
velar
nasal
alveolar
stop
allomorphs
bilabial
nasal
alveolar
nasal
velar
stop

Conditioning factors for allomorphy
Phonological conditioning - the three phonetic variants of plural morpheme in English - /s/, /z/ and /iz/
Lexical – In lexical conditioning, the choice of allomorph depends on the particular word the morpheme is attached to. A typical example of this is the /n/ (-en, orthographically) used to mark the plural form of the noun ox.
Morphological/Grammatical – the choice of allomorph may be grammatically conditioned, i.e. it may be dependent on the existence of an established grammatical class: a. walk walked vs. b. weep wept/ sweep swept vs. c. shake shook/take took
Suppletion: allomorphs of a morpheme are phonologically unrelated: go/went; be/am/is/ was; good/better; one/first

Classification of Morphemes
Morphemes can be classified in various ways.
free or bound
root or affix
inflectional or derivational
prefix or suffix or infix or circumfix or superfix or interfix positional
NB! interfix (linking morpheme with no meaning) ≠ infix (a meaningful morpheme)

Free and Bound Morphemes
We can divide reader into read and –er. However, we cannot split read into smaller morphemes. This means that the word read is itself a single morpheme.
A morpheme which can stand alone as a word is called a free morpheme. By contrast, -er has to combine with other morphemes. So it is a bound morpheme.

Root, stem, base & affix
nature
natural
naturalist
naturalistic
naturalism
unnatural
Stem: a root plus affixes
Affixes: bound morphemes which attach to roots or stems.
Root: the basic morpheme
which provides the central
meaning in a word
simple word
Complex Word
nature + al = natural
un + nature + al = unnatural

Base
Linguists sometimes use the word “Base” to mean any root or stem to which an affix is attached. In this example, nature, natural, and unnaturally would all be considered bases.
nature + al = natural
un + nature + al = unnatural
un + nature + al + ly = unnaturally

bound root morphemes
-ceive:
receive;
perceive;
conceive;
deceive
-mit:
permit;
commit;
transmit;
admit;
remit;
submit
All mophemes are bound or free. Affixes are bound morphemes. Root morphemes, can be bound or free.
ceive was once a word in Latin ‘to take’, but in Modern English, it is no longer a word, so it is not a free morpheme.

Example of bound root
revive
vitamin
vital
vivacious
vivid
viv-id: having the quality of life
re-vive: to live again, to bring back to life
vit-amin: life medicine
Latin root viv-/vit- meaning “life” or “to live”.
vit-al: full of life
viv-acious: full of life

Portmanteau morpheme = single indivisible morpheme realising more than one feature. (The term is applied when the features are realised by separate morphemes in the same language, and less frequently in other languages.): were (BE+past), she (3rd person+singular+feminine+subject). Known as fusional.
Clitics: a mongrel or a crossbreed between an affix and a word. They are phonologically so short they can’t be pronounced alone, they need to be joined to other words. Like words, their position is determined partly by syntactic rules. They are sometimes short forms of larger words:
(a) I’m, he’s, you’ve, puis-je les lui donner? j‘y vais
(b) Hasn’t she gone? (Contrast with parallel question with non-clitic not.)
(c) [the man in the kitchens]'s wife (the possessive clitic)

Clitic vs. affix

What can be in a word?
Natural ordering of elements in a word:
proclitic + inlexional prefix + derivational prefix + root + derivational suffix + inflectional suffix + enclitic

PREFIX – a morpheme attached in front of a base/stem, e.g. unhappy
SUFFIX - a morpheme attached in front of a base/stem, e.g. unhappiness
CIRCUMFIX – if a prefix and a suffix act together to realise one morpheme and do not occur separately, e.g. in German gefilmt, gefragt.
INFIX – it is an affix added in the word, for example, after the first consonant, as in Tagalog, sulat ‘write’, sumulat ‘wrote’, sinulat ‘was written’.

INTERFIX – a kind if affix-like element which is placed between the two elements of a compound, e.g. in German: Jahr-es-zeit, Geburt-s-tag. Interfixes do not have meaning contribution synchronically.
SUPRAFIX – realised by different stress in a word: e.g. ‘discount, dis’count; ‘import-im’port, ‘insult-in’sult...
ZERO MORPHS – There is no transparent morph to mark a regular grammatical distinction, e.g. deer-deer, fish-fish, sheep-sheep...

ANALYTICAL MARKER – a combination of a free standing function word and a grammatical suffix which jointly realize a single value of a grammatical category, e.g.
progressive in English – be + V-ing

Inflectional and Derivational Morphemes
Affixes can be divided into inflectional morphemes and derivational morphemes.
Derivation
Inflection
Helps to make new
lexical words
Helps to ‘wrap’
lexical words for various
grammatical functions

Inflectional Morphemes
Inflectional morphemes do not change grammatical category of the base to which they are attached. They do not change the meaning of the base. They only carry relevant grammatical information, e.g. plural. Thus, book and books are both nouns referring to the same kind of entity.
The number of inflectional affixes is small and fixed. NO new ones have been added since 1500.

Examples of Inflectional Affixes

Derivational Morphemes
Derivational morphemes form new words
either by changing the meaning of the base to which they are attached
kind ~ unkind; obey ~ disobey
accurate ~ inaccurate; act ~ react
cigar ~ cigarette; book ~ booklet
or by changing the grammatical category (part of speech) of the base
kind ~ kindly; act ~ active ~ activity
able ~ enable; damp ~ dampen
care ~ careful; dark ~ darkness

Examples of Derivational Affixes

Sum: Inflection and Derivation
Derivational morphemes are used to create new lexical items (lexemes).
Inflectional morphemes only contribute to the inflectional paradigm of the lexemes, which lists all the word-forms or the morphosyntactic words of the lexeme.
morpheme
Free
free root
Bound
bound root
inflectional affixes
derivational affixes
affixes

Lexical
creation of a new lexeme;
encoded specific conceptual meaning;
not syntactically relevant;
recursive;
complex constraints on productivity;
frequently semantically opaque results;
changes in part of speech membership;
highly creative – allows nonce formations and occasionalisms;
numerous concurrent patterns;
replaceable – can be periphrastically expressed.
Grammatical
creation of new morphosyntactic word forms;
encodes features of grammatical categories (abstract conceptual oppositions);
highly syntactically relevant;
non-recursive;
fully productive;
fully predictable meaning;
appears outside all derivation;
doesn’t change part of speech membership;
one pattern per meaning;
abstract meaning contribution;
obligatory.

Parts of speech – criteria (mostly language specific)
1) Notional/semantic – doll vs. destruction; lie vs. jump;
2) Morphological marking and susceptibility to grammatical categories – painting: was painting, the painting, paintings, painting men(amb.);
3) Distribution – next round, came round, round book, round the corner, rounded the corner
4) Syntactic function – To know is to have power. I want to know. The things to know.Be in the know

Parts of speech in English

Grammatical categories
Grammatical categories are abstract relational, conceptual categories which function as skeletons for linguistic reasoning. E.g. Tense – relation between a communicative act and SoA talked about; Definiteness – discourse familiarity with a referent.
Different sets of grammatical categories apply to different lexical classes (parts of speech).

Grammatical categories
A great deal of morphologic, syntactic and semantic categories are ordered in hierarchic arrangements. The principles for the hierarchic arrangements of morphologic, syntactic and semantic categories are seen to be universal, whereas the categories themselves, subcategories, their members and their hierarchic arrangements are more or less language specific. The principles for the hierarchic arrangements of morphologic, syntactic and semantic categories are subject to empirical investigation. The hierarchic arrangement of categories is responsible for the fact that grammatical rules usually refer to subclasses of paradigms (the cross-sections between parts of speech, grammatical categories and exponence).

Grammatical exponence
Agglutination
Inflexion
Fusion
Isolation
Analytical/discontinuous marking
Root and vowel pattern
Vowel harmony
Ablaut

Agglutination
- a process in linguistic morphology in which complex words are formed by stringing together morphemes, with clear inetmorphemic boundaries, each with a single grammatical or semantic meaning. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages, e.g. Turkish the word evlerinizden, or "from your houses," consists of the morphemes, ev-ler-iniz-den with the meanings house-plural-your-from.

Inflexion
the process of adding affixes to or changing the
shape of a base to give it a different syntactic
Function without changing its form class as in forming served from serve, sings from sing, or harder from hard. Inflexions usually combine multiple meanings – s: 3rd p., sg., pr.t., s.a., indic., non-modal, etc. Languages that add inflectional morphemes to words are sometimes called inflectional languages, which is a synonym for inflected languages.

Isolation
– using separate monosemantic morphemes for the encoding of grammatical categories. An isolating language is a language in which almost every word consists of a single morpheme. E.g. Vietnamese
khi tôi dên nhà ban tôi, chúng tôi bát dâu làm bài.
when I come house friend I Plural I begin do lesson

Root and vowel pattern
- non-concatenative morphology of the Afro-Asiatic languages (described in terms of apophony). The alternation patterns in many of these languages is quite extensive involving patterns of insertion of harmonized vowels in consonantal roots. The alternations below are of Modern Standard Arabic, based on the root k–t–b "write”:

kataba "he wrote"(a - a - a)
kutiba "it was written"(u - i - a)
yaktubu "he writes"(ya - ∅ - u - u)
yuktiba "it is written"(yu - ∅ - i – a)
kuttaab "writers"(u - aa)
maktuub "written"(ma - ∅ - uu)
kitaabah "(act of) writing"(i - aa - ah)
kitaab "book"(i - aa), etc.

Vowel harmony
- a type of conditioned progressive phonological assimilation which takes place when vowels come to share certain features with contrastive vowels elsewhere in a word or phrase (Crystal 1992: 168) in the encoding of grammatical meanings. A front vowel in the first syllable of a word would require the presence of a front vowel in the second syllable. E.g. Turkish – adam – adamlar (man-men) vs. anne – annelers (mother – mothers).

Ablaut
- (vowel gradation, root vowel mutation) – a system of unconditioned root apophony (vowel change) signalling different grammatical meanings, e.g. English – sing –sang – sung.

Grammatical categories of variable lexical classes in English