6 morphology syntax

7/27/2019 6 Morphology Syntax

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Morphology and Syntax

February 21, [email protected]


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Plan Morphology:

Hierarchical structure of words

Dissecting word structure

Exercises

Syntax:

Word classes

Phrasal structure


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Word - Sentence Level

Phonetics: acoustics and articulation of speech

Phonology: relevant sound segments

Morphology: minimal units of meaning

Syntax: sentence structure

Semantics: sentence meaning

Pragmatics: language in interaction


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Morphology Recap Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in language

Not equal to words

Free (independent words) and Bound (must attach to a free)

Derivational: Can change the category of the word its attached to,will result in new dictionary entry (edit -> editor)

Inflectional: Cannot change the category of the word it attaches to,

only adds grammatical information (goes, walked, eating)


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Ordering rulesA word is not just a sequence of morphemes

Each word has internal structure

Morphemes are added in a strict order - reflecting a hierarchy within

the wordTake the word unsystematic

If we put it together step by step, we could have

Noun + un = *Unsystem

However, this results in a nonexistent word, as the order violatesthe hierarchy


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Ordering rules Unsystematic

Noun + atic = Systematic

un + adjective = Unsystematic

The first step attaches a derivational suffix atic to the (free) rootnoun. This forms an adjective

The second step takes this adjective and attaches a derivational

prefix un, creating a new word, with the same category

We use a tree structure to show the steps involved


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Tree structure


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Structure Structure is key to human language

Words and sentences have component parts, relating to each other

in rule-governed ways

Well see trees again in syntax - sentence structure

Theyre common to many areas of linguistics


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Some rules Noun + atic = Adjective (Systematic)

Un + Adjective = Adjective (Unhappy)

Adjective + al = Adjective (Egotistical, Fantastical)

[Noun + al = Adjective (Autumnal, National)]

Adjective + ly = Adverb (Happily, Hopefully)

Using these rules, work out the tree structure for unsystematically


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Unsystematically (Adverb)


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More rulesVerb + able = Adjective (Adorable, Desirable)

Adjective + en = Verb (Darken)

Noun -> Adjective = ish/esque/ous/ate/ful/ic/like

(boyish, picturesque, joyous, affectionate, healthful, alcoholic, lifelike)

Verb -> Noun = al/ance/ation/ence/er/ist/ion/dom

(acquittal, clearance, accusation, conference, singer, conformist,

prediction, freedom)

Adjective -> Adverb = ly (exactly, quietly)

Noun -> Verb = ize/ate/ish/n (moralize, vaccinate, brandish, hasten)


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More rules Not all derivational morphemes cause a change in grammatical

class

friend+ship, human+ity, un+do, re+cover, in+flammable

This is often the case with prefixes: a+moral, auto+biography, ex

+wife, super+human, re+print, semi+annual

And suffixes: vicar+age, old+ish, America+n, music+ian

There is a vast list of morphemes, and many rules to do with

ordering etc. Best to be familiar with a few examples of Noun ->

Adjective, Adjective -> Adverb, Verb -> Adjective, Adjective -> Verb,Verb -> Noun


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Rule breakers Some combinations of root + affix are not allowed in English (as

weve seen, morphological rules differ cross-linguistically, so this

may well be different in different languages)

E.g. *Unsystem is disallowed as its a combination of un + Noun

7Up used the slogan of The Uncola in the 70s

This may have worked as its unusual - grabs our attention

What about Untruth? Probably a back-formation from untruthful

Not made up of un + truth


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TreesThese are hypothetical ways in which people represent the internal

structure of morphologically complex words

We have a complex mental structure which we are unaware of

Some words are structurally ambiguous

Unlockable

Why is this ambiguous? Work it out!

Un + Verb = Unlock (V) + able = Adjective

Verb + able = Lockable (Adj) + un = Adjective


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Unlockable


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Some more exercises Draw the trees for:

befriended

endearment

unpalatable

mistreatment

deactivation.


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Answers


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Answers


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Answers


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Bound Roots So far weve only looked at words with free roots

We said that bound morphemes have to attach to a root

This is true, however, the root can also be bound

In this case, the bound root and the bound morpheme affixescling to one another

Think of words like unkempt, horrify, vengeance, inept, salvation

Based on our knowledge of morphology so far, we can select the

affixes, leaving us with the bound root. This cannot exist on its own


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Trees with bound roots


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Types of word formation Conversion

Clipping

Blends

Back formation

Acronyms

Compounds


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ConversionThis is when an already existing word is assigned a new syntactic

category

Even though theres no overt morpheme added, it still resembled

morphological derivation because of the change in category and

meaningThis is sometimes called zero derivation (as if theres an invisible

derivational morpheme)

N to V = butter (butter the bread)/ ship (ship the package)

V to N = a permt from to prmit/ a cntest from to contstAdj to V = dirty (to dirty a shirt)/ empty (to empty the bin)


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Clipping Clipping forms new words by deleting syllables

Most common are names: Robert - Rob etc

Some words which you may not know are examples of clippings

are: (ham)burger, lab(oratory), (omni)bus, porn(ography),

deli(catessen), zoo(logical garden)


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Blends Words that are created from non-morphemic parts of two already

existing words, usually the start of one word and the end of another

brunch from breakfast and lunch

smog from smoke and fog

telethon from telephone and marathon

chunnel from channel and tunnel

motel from motor and hotel


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Back formation Sometimes words enter our language because of an incorrect

morphological analysis

Here, a new word is created by removing an affix from an existing

word

Resurrect was backformed from resurrection

Enthuse from enthusiasm

Lots of examples such as edit from editor, housekeep from

housekeeper


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AcronymAcronyms are formed by taking the first letters of a phrase or title

and reading them as a word

AIDs for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

UNICEF for United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund

Sometimes, acronyms enter normal vocabulary, so speakers arent

aware of their provenance

RADAR for Radio Detecting and Ranging

SCUBA for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

Textspeak examples have entered the language - lol/rofl


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CompoundsAnother way to build words involves compounding, the

combination of lexical categories (nouns, adjective, verbs,

prepositions)

Usually, the resulting compound is a noun, verb, or adjective

Examples of compounds are words like greenhouse, spoonfeed,

nationwide

In compounds, we use the Right Hand Headrule to work out the

category of the word

Greenhouse is a Noun, because its rightmost morpheme is a NounThe morpheme that determines the category for the word is known

as the Head


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Right Hand Head Work out the heads for each of these compounds:

fire-engine

after-thought

white-wash

drop-kick

red-hot

in-grown.


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Compounds & stress English orthography is inconsistent in how it represents compounds

- sometimes theyre presented as single word, sometimes

hyphenated, sometimes as separate words

This is where stress can help

gren-hose vs gren hose

blckbord vs blck bord

wt sut vs wt sut

In non-compounds, the second element is usually stressed


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Compounds & tense/pluralAnother way of distinguishing compounds is looking at tense and

plural markers

These cannot typically be attached to the first element, but to the

compound as a whole

*The player dropped kick the ball

The player drop kicked the ball

The foxes hunter did not have a licence

The fox hunters did not have a licence


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Endocentric vs ExocentricThere are two main types of compound

In most cases the rightmost component of a compound determines

something about the meaning of the entire compound.

These compounds are called Endocentric

However, in some cases, the meaning of the compound does not

follow from the meaning of its parts

These compounds are called Exocentric

Endocentric = the head is contained within the word

Exocentric = the head is not contained within the word


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Examples Endocentric compounds

steamboat = a type of boat

water hose = a hose that carries water

bath tub = a tub in which people bathe

bath towel = a towel used after bathing

Exocentric compounds

bluebottle = not a bottle that is blue, but a fly

redneck = not a neck that is red, but a hick


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ExerciseAre these compounds endocentric or exocentric?

party hat

bluestocking

sugar-daddy

dimwit

underdog

turncoat

raincoat.


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Summary of Morphology Words consist of meaningful units called morphemes

These, when affixed to a root, can change the meaning and/or

category of a word

Operations which can modify and combine morphemes include

affixation, internal change, suppletion, reduplication

Two basic forms of word formation = derivation (using derivational

morphemes) and inflection

Key to remember is that morphemes are the smallest meaningful

units

Words have internal structure in a similar way to sentences, as well

see next


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Break


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Syntax Now were moving on from structure at a word level, to structure at

a phrasal and sentence level

Syntactic theory is about the rules and principles that determine

how people combine words to make meaningful sentences

Again, sentences are not just strings of words (in the same way thatwords are not just strings of morphemes)

There are strict syntactic rules about the structure of sentences

We know how to combine words in specific way to reach a certain

meaning


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Bag of words Consider these words: Bit A The Dog Cat

A cat bit the dog

The cat bit a dog

A dog bit the cat

The dog bit a cat

All of these have specific, and different meanings

These different meanings come about solely from our combinations

of words


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Syntax Languages differ not only in sounds, or the way words are put

together, but also the ways in which words can be put together into

larger units

This is Syntax

Rules about how words can be put together differ according tolanguage spoke, dialect spoken, social group, time frame etc

They know not what they do - does not follow the rules we use

for modern English, but was totally normal in the 17th Century

Even though the word meanings havent changed, the syntax has


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Prescriptive vs DescriptiveThis is where this argument is very important

Linguists do not tell people how they shouldbe combining words,

theyre describing what they actually do

When a syntactician talks about rules, they mean generalisations

based on observation of what actually happens, rather thaninstructions on how to behave

When we describe a sentence that is considered ungrammatical,

well use an asterisk beside it. This holds for most of linguistics

Keelin ate the chocolate

*Ate Keelin chocolate the


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Word classes People are often taught ways to remember word classes in school

Noun = Person, place or thing

Verb = Doing word

Adjective = Word that describes a noun

However, as well see as we learn more, these definitions can be

too simple

Chrissy gave us some definitions last week

We need to look at operational definitions - how words functionwithin a sentence


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Definitions of word classes We need definitions based on the function of words within a

sentence

Verbs (V): Finite verbs are verbs which indicate the tense, person,

number of an element in the sentence

e.g. She dreams of retiremente.g. I walkedhome yesterday

We also have verb forms which dont express tense - infinitive

Harry wants to leave the country

In the future tense, we also use the infinitive form, but without to

Keelin will eatthe chocolate cake later


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Verbs (V) Keelin will eat the chocolate cake later

Here, we appear to have two verbs - whats going on?

The will is known as an auxilliary verb

will is telling us information about the tense, but eat is the mainverb

English is an SVO (Subject Verb Object) language, so if we have a

declarative sentence, the verb can usually be found directly after

the subject (which tends to be an NP)


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Nouns (N) We have multiple kinds of nouns, with multiple distinctions

A noun that can take a plural is known as a count noun

house - houses, cat - cats, etc

However, we also havemass nouns. These are nouns that cannotbe pluralised

water - *waters, gold - *golds, etc

Another distinction is abstract vs concrete

abstract = luck, love, hate, justice concrete = bottle, floor, apple, etc


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Nouns (N) How do we determine if something is a noun?

Nouns can be combined with a determiner

definite = the, indefinite = a/an/some, demonstrative = this/that/

these/those

Proper nouns (names) dont fit this criterion

* The Keelin

But, if we modify the noun slightly it works

She is no longer the Keelin I used to know

Verbs cannot combine with determiners: *The walked, *a breathes


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Nouns vs VerbsVerbs can combine directly with nouns

Keelin examines books

But nouns cannot combine directly with other nouns

*Keelins examination booksKeelins examination of books

Note: pronouns (it, he, she, etc). These stand for another noun. It

should be clear from the context which noun they refer to


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Adjectives (Adj)Adjectives qualify a noun or noun phrase

One way to test for adjectives is superlatives

cold - colder - coldest, big - bigger - biggest etc

Some are irregular: good - better - best

Some add more and most: enthusiastic - more enthusiastic etc

We talk about two kinds of adjective - predicative and attributive

John is ill, Keelin is blonde, Chrissy is tall = predicative

An ill man, a blonde woman, a tall woman = attributive


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Adverbs (Adv)Adverbs qualify a verb

As we saw in morphology, adverbs are often hallmarked by the

suffix -ly

Keelin quickly ate all the cake

But, as ever, we have exceptions - Chrissy often laughs, Simon

presented well


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Prepositions (P) Prepositions can express ideas of place (in, on), time (during,

throughout), direction (towards) etc

They usually combine with a noun to their right

Keelin ate cake in France


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Phrase structure We have rules in syntax about what word classes can pattern

together in phrases

NP -> (Det) N

This means that Noun Phrases can be made up of Determiners and

Nouns. Determiners are optional

The girl

Keelin

Both of these are NPs - they each contain a N, and the first also

has a determiner


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Phrase structure We also have rules about Verb Phrases, Adjective Phrases,

Prepositional Phrases etc

NP -> (Det) N

PP -> P NP

VP -> V NP

AP -> A NP

Again, we use trees to represent this


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Phrase Trees


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Sentence structureThis allows us to build up sentences from phrases

If I want to analyse the sentence the cat sat on the mat, I look at

the internal phrases

The cat sat on the mat

Det N V P Det N

NP VP PP NP

However, there are rules in syntax (as is morphology) about what

order these interact in

Its not just a bag of words!


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ConstituencyA sentence is divided into groups of words. The connections

between words in one group is closer than between words

belonging to different groups

A group of words that cling together is called a constituent

To test whether a group of words is a constituent, we have 3 tests:

Replacement/Substitution: a constituent can be replaced by a

single word

Movement: a constituent as a whole, can be placed in a different

position in a sentence

Clefting: Change sentences to it was...


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Constituency tests Replacement tests: we can use slightly different tests to test the

constituency of different phrase types

NPs can be replaced by pronouns

PPs can be replaced by adverbs

Adj Ps can be replaced by so

VPs can be replaced by do so


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Examples If I want to check whether a car is a constituent of bought in the

sentence Keelin bought a car, I use

Replacement: Keelin boughtit

Movement: A car, Keelin bought

Clefting: It was a car that Keelin bought

All of these new sentences are grammatical.

This means that a car is a constituent of bought

In a way, it is licensed by the verb

We can show this graphically like this:

[NP] [VP [NP]]


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Examples I want to test whether over the hill is a constituent of the verb in

the sentence She went over the hill

Replacement: She went there

Movement: Over the hill she went

Clefting: It was over the hill she went

All of these sentences are grammatical, and so I know that over

the hill is a constituent of the V went

She went over the hill

[NP] [VP [PP]]


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Test Exercises She collected leprechaun statues - is leprechaun statues a

constituent of the Verb?

The water went under the bridge - is the bridge a constituent of

the Preposition?

Keelin felt sick - is sick a constituent of the Verb?


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Answers She collected leprechaun statues - is leprechaun statues a

constituent of the Verb?

She collected them / Leprechaun statues, she collected/ It was

leprechaun statues that she collected. YES!

The water went under the bridge - is the bridge a constituent ofthe Preposition?

The water went under it / The bridge, the water went under / It

was the bridge the water went under YES!

Keelin felt sick - is sick a constituent of the Verb?

Keelin felt sick, and so too did Chrissy / Sick, Keelin felt / It was

sick that Keelin felt YES!


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Next week Constituency

Syntactic trees

More complex trees

Semantics

6 morphology syntax

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