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Derivational Morphology
Mihaela Tnase-Dogaru, Fall semester 2014
Course design: Ileana Baciu (2004). English Morphology. Word formation (EUB)
Lecture 8

The Constituent Structure of Words. Lieber (1983)

Argument Structure and Affixation

1. Main features
- in Liebers theory, all morphemes, bound (derivational and inflectional) or free, are listed in the lexicon
with the following information:
a) their syntactic category membership,
b) semantic representations
c) phonological representations
- affixes are also provided with a subcategorization frame which states what categories affixes must attach
to.
Similar to Selkirk (1982)?
- there is a minimal phrase structure grammar, which generates binary-branching unlabelled trees
corresponding to possible word structures.
- lexical items, stems and affixes, are inserted under the terminal nodes of these trees according to their
subcategorization frames;
- they determine the labelling of the whole tree by percolating their features upwards. The percolation of
the features is accomplished by means of four Feature Percolation Conventions (FPC) which account
for morphologically complex words obtained by affixation or compounding.
- word structures are projected from the Lexicon, SO there is no need to repeat lexical information in a
separate set of word structure rules such as those proposed by Selkirk.
- by proposing a symmetrical system of feature percolation which allows the outermost affix at any stage
of word formation, whether suffix or prefix, to determine the category and features of the word as a
whole, Lieber does away with the need for Williams RHHR
- this is rejected on the basis of two sorts of data:
(i) the existence in English of a few category changing prefixes
(ii) the existence of languages (e.g. Vietnamese) which have left-headed morphology.
2. FPCs
- the first two FPCs relate to those formatives that have their own lexicon features to assign:
(1)

FPC I:
FPC II:

the features of a stem are passed to the first dominating non-branching node.
the features of an affix are passed to the first dominating node which branches.

- a stem = a morpheme that lacks a subcategorization frame

- an affix = a morpheme with a subcategorization frame

(2)
a)

b)

====> (morpheme insertion)

==> (FPC I)

false hood

N [+PL]
c)

d)
A

false
[A]

hood
[N]

====> (FPC II)

N
A
false
[A]

N
hood
s
[N] [N, + PL]

- the first two FPCs create structures in which:

(i) affixes know whether they are attaching to a stem of the right category;
(ii) the most recently attached affix will function as the head of the word.
FPC III relates to those formative that have no features of their own to assign.
- this occurs with prefixes such as counter- and with diminutives.
- most prefixes are not category changing affixes, SO the syntactic category of a word formed with
counter- = the category of the word it attaches to.
(3) counter-sign (V), counter-intuitive (A), counter-example (N)
- the lexical entry for counter- will include a subcategorization frame allowing it to attach to any verb,
noun or adjective but will not specify its own syntactic class membership. The third FPC allows this
structure to be labelled by taking the label of the word to which the affix has attached:
(4)

FPC III:
If a branching node receives no features by FPC II then it is labelled by the next
lowest labelled node.
V

(5)

V
counter

=======> (FPC III)

V
counter

sign
[+V]

sign
[+V]

- in Liebers system inflectional and derivational affixes are treated exactly the same.
- there are no morphological differences between the two sorts of affixes. Both types of affixes admit the
same type of allomorphy

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- stems to which affixes attach dont distinguish between inflectional and derivational affixation. The
differences in the behaviour of derivational and inflectional formatives arise from the interaction of fully
formed words and the syntax.
3. Concluding remarks
- Selkirk (1982) and Lieber (1980,1983):
1. the word lies at the interface of syntax and morphology
2. complex words have a hierarchically ordered constituent structure, just as phrases in syntax have a
hierarchically ordered constituent structure.
- both models of morphology we discussed = the Strong Lexicalist Hypothesis, because they lump
inflection together with derivation and regard them as reflexes of the same phenomenon, namely
affixation.
- morphology is a thoroughly lexical phenomenon, i.e. morphology is essentially a property of the
lexicon, and word structure, while similar in some respects to sentence structure, obeys different
principles.
BUT certain aspects of word structure are nonetheless accessible to syntactic rules, such as for instance
the rules of agreement.
- since the earliest days of generative grammar it has been usual to assume that inflectional morphology is
an aspect of syntax.
- many linguists agree that some morphological processes (specifically derivational processes), are
performed in the lexicon while regular inflections are the result of syntactic rules rather than lexical rules
= the Weak Lexicalist Hypothesis or the syntactic affixation hypothesis.
- morphological processes which affect syntactic valency (or grammatical functions) are the result of
syntactic processes
NEXT: how do morphological processes (affixation in particular) affect/ alter the syntactic valency of
base verbs?
4. Argument Structure and Affixation
One of the most important issues in the theories of syntax and morphology concerns the valency of verbs
= the kinds of complements a verb takes.
- at least three classes of verbs are traditionally distinguished: transitive (monotransitive, ditransitive)
intransitive and copulative.
- in early GTG, valency is represented by subcategorization frames; the notions transitive, intransitive are
encoded in distributional frames, as in the examples in (1) below:
(6)

a) meet: V, [___ NP ]
b) sleep: V, [ ____ ]
c) give: V, [ ___NP, PNP ]

Mary will meet [Tom]NP

Mary is sleeping.
Mary gave [the book]NP [to Tom]P NP .

- morphology: the application of WFRs usually involve a change of the subcategorization frame of the
base due primarily to the fact that a WFR implies a shift of lexical category.
- REMEMBER Aronoff (1978) - frames can be inherited (as in 7a), frames can be deleted (as in 7b) or
frames can be added (as in 7c):

(7)

a) The enemy destroyed the city.

a) The enemys destruction of the city.
b) They broke the plate into pieces.
b) The plate is breakable *into pieces
c) He ran.
c) He outran Mary.

- in GB, whether a verb is transitive or not follows from the type of action or state expressed by the verb,
from its meaning. A verb like meet expresses an activity that involves two participants. This approach has
been applied to language in terms of the general notion of argument structure or thematic structure.
- the arguments are the participants minimally involved in the activity or state expressed by the verb.
- Meet involves two participants SO it will take two arguments. One argument is realized as the subject
NP of the sentence and one is realized as the VP-internal complement NP.
- predicates that take two arguments are two-place predicates, and the transitive verbs of traditional syntax
correspond (approximately) to the two-place predicates.
- the arguments of verbs represented as NPs (in our particular case) are cast in various
conceptual/thematic roles (or case-roles, cf. Fillmore (1977) such as Agent, Patient, Location etc.
depending on the meaning of the predicate, and express relations between the participants in an event.
The combination of thematic roles (or theta-roles) that may be associated with a given predicate is called
the thematic structure, theta-grid or argument structure of a predicate.
Agent (Ag) -------->
the (usually animate) instigator of an action
Instrument (Instr) ->
the object with which an action is performed
Patient (Pat) ------->
an entity which suffers an action, undergoes a change
Goal (Go) ---------->
the entity toward which motion takes place
Source (So) -------->
entity from which motion takes place
Location (Loc) -----> the place where something is or takes place
Beneficiary (Ben) --> person on behalf of whom action is carried out
Experiencer (Exp) -> (passive) recipient of a sensation or mental experience
Theme (Th) ---------> entity undergoing motion (with verbs of motion), entity in a certain state
(with verbs of location).
Q: is there systematic correspondence between roles and morphologic case / roles and syntactic
functions?
(8)

a)
b)
c)
d)

Tom opened the door (with his key). (Agent)

Judith loves Tom. (Experiencer)
The window broke./ The balloon rose up (Patient/Theme)
This key opened Harriets door. (Instrument)

(9)

a)
b)
c)

Judith loves Tom.

It seems to me that you are tired.
You surprised your teachers with your theory.

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- there is no systematic correspondence between roles and morphologic cases (i.e. Nominative,
Accusative etc.), or between roles and syntactic functions.
- the Nominative case and the subject function may correspond to an Agent in (8a), to an Experiencer in
(8b), to a Patient/Theme in (8c), to an Instrument in (8d), etc.
- one and the same role may surface in more than one morphological case, having different syntactic
functions. The Experiencer is a Nominative Subject in (9a), a Dative Indirect Object in (9b) and an
Accusative Direct Object in (9c):
- the earliest representations of the roles associated with a verb assumed the form of an unordered set of
roles. Fillmore (1968) proposed the following lexical entry for the change of state verb break:
(10)

break: <(Agent), Patient, (Instrument)>

- the verb break takes three arguments, out of which the Patient is obligatory while the other two may be
optional:
(11)

a)
b)
c)
d)

John broke the window with a hammer (<Agent,Patient,Instrument >)

The hammer broke the window. (<Instrument,Patient>)
The window broke. (<Patient>)
Windows break easily. (<Patient>)