English Morphology – Lecture 2
David Brett
Antonio PinnaUniversity of Sassari 2007
Distinguishing between morphemes:
• Bound and free morphemes: • Free morphemes can occur on their own:
– happy, change, select, green, house, …• Bound morphemes can occur only if they are attached to
other morphemes:– Affixes (un-, -ness, -able, de-, -ive, -er, …)– Binding forms liber-, oper-, circul-, legitim-, materi-, …
• Eg. liber-ation, oper-ate, circul-ar, legitim-(a)cy, materi-al
• Cran-berry (berry, straw-berry, black-berry)
• Dis-gruntle-d
• Gorm-less
• Cranberry morphemes
Bound morphemes as core elements: words derived from LatinCircul- Circular Liber- Liberty
Circulation Liberation
Circulator Liberalize
Circulatory Libertine
Problem case: Verbs of Latin origin
receive deceive conceive perceive
revert convert pervert
relate collate translate
reduce deduce conduce
Should these be considered to be composed of a single morpheme? Or prefix + bound morpheme?
General tendency
• The core vocabulary of English is generally composed of words of Anglo-Saxon origin
• There is a general tendency for core elements to be free morphemes
• E.g. Hand
• Hand-y, hand-le, hand-ful, mis-hand-le,
What is the difference between these two sets of complex words
Fast-er
Sing-ing
Open-ed
Car-s
Write-s
Bigg-est
Treat-ment
Rude-ness
Un-kind
Fam-ous
Use-less
Help-ful
Ir-regular
Red-dish
Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed,
Car-s, Write-s, Big-gest
• These affixes do not change the word class (verb, noun etc.), but rather contribute to meeting grammatical constraints. These are called:
Inflectional morphemes
Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dishFam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular
These affixes do not necessarily change the class of the word, but this is normally the case, e.g. fame (n.)> famous (adj.)
• Since these words derive from others these morphemes are called:
Derivational morphemes
• He go to the park every day
• She speaks to me yesterday
• He is a very fame actor
• He gave me very good treat
Inflectional morphemes: Plurals #1
• Cat > cats; dog > dogs; case > cases
• N.b. these are pronounced /s/, /z/, /ɪz/
• These different realizations are called allomorphs of the inflectional morpheme for plurals
Inflectional morphemes: Plurals #2
• Irregular plurals are also considered to be allomorphs e.g.
• Foot > feet; man > men; child > children
• Sheep > Sheep; Fish > fish etc.
Inflectional morphemes: Verbs #1
• English is particularly low on inflectional morphemes for verbs cfr. Italian (amare 1st person> amo, amavo, amai, amerò, ami (subjunctive), amassi, amerei x 6)
• English: love, loves, loved (past simple and p.part.), loving
• BE has the largest number of realizations:
• Be, am, are, is, was, were, been, being
Inflectional morphemes: Verbs #2
• Verbs in the past and p. participle form can be:
• 1 Regular: kissed; changed; wanted• Note that the –ed suffix has three,
phonologically determined, realizations (i.e. three allomorphs): /t/, /d/, /ɪd/
• The following lines rhyme:You were the first one I kissed
Because you were at the top of my list
Inflectional morphemes: Verbs #3
• Verbs in the past and p. participle form can be:• 2 Irregular• Involving no change> hit-hit-hit• Involving vowel change> drink-drank-drunk• Involving consonant change > make-made-
made• Involving vowel and consonant change> leave-
left-left• Suppletion (i.e. with no phonological relation)>
BE> was-were; GO> went
Inflectional morphemes: Adjectives
• Comparatives
• HOT> hott-er – hott-est
• IMPORTANT > more important – most important
• Note suppletion in
• GOOD > better – best
• BAD > worse – worst
Derivational morphemes
• Far more numerous than inflectional morphemes
• Allow productivity (involved in the coining of new words)
• Can be prefixes, or suffixes, not circumfixes
• Suffixes usually, but not always, change word class
• Prefixes, usually don’t
Derivational morphemes: some examples
• Verbs > Nouns: work-er, act-or, treat-ment, elect-ion
• Nouns > Adjectives: colour-ful, friend-less, fac-ial, fam-ous
• Verbs > Adjectives: bor-ing, interest-ed honour-able, access-ible
-ful/less Only -ful Only -less
Age, Bag, Care, Cease, Cheer, Child, Colour, Cup, Defence, Delight, Effort, End, Fate, Friend, Help, Hope, Penny, Play, Spoon, Tact , Taste , Use,
Derivation with –ful and –less
• Which words can be derived by adding the following suffixes
-ful/less Only -ful Only -less
Care
Use
Cheer
Colour
Help
Taste
Hope
Tact
Fate
Spoon
Delight
Bag
Play
Cup
Friend
Age
Cease
Child
Defence
End
Effort
Penny
Tree diagramsLabel the boxes in the diagram
Greed >
Greedy >
Greediness
N.b. Specif- is a bound root cfr. Specif-y
Draw tree diagrams for the following words
• Unwholesome
• Rulership
• Underdeveloped
• Overachiever
• Operational
• Indispensable
Productivity – the creation of new words
• There a six main ways of creating new words• By combining two or more core elements: this process is called
‘compounding’– truck driver, mother-in-law, download;
• By adding parts to a core element: this process is called ‘affixation’– clockwise, credible, coarsely, kingdom;
• By changing the word class of a given word: this process is called ‘conversion’
– Bottle > to bottle; to call > a call;• By clipping a longer word: this process is called ‘truncation’
– Veterinary Surgeon > vet; Zoological gardens > Zoo;• By amalgamating parts of different words: this process is called ‘blending’
– Smoke + fog > smog; Motor + Hotel > Motel; Camera + Recorder > Camcorder• Acronyms• - North Atlantic Treaty Organization > NATO; Absent without leave >
AWOL; Personal Identification Number > PIN
• We can also find multiple processes e.g.
• Camera > web camera (Compounding) > webcam (Truncation)
• Ball > snowball (Compounding) > to snowball (Conversion)
Exercise for next lecture
• Produce tree diagrams of the following multiply affixed complex words:
• airworthiness; speechlessness; non-specialization; developmental; antihistorical; miscarriage;