Nurhikma Arista

B3

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HOW TO SOLVE MORPHOLOGY PROBLEMS

When a linguist comes in contact with a new language, one of his major tasks is to

discover the meaningful units, or morphemes, out of which the language. Just as with

discovering phonemes and allophones, it is important that the linguist have procedure for

discovering these minimal units, since it is impossible to isolate morphemes by intuition.

In sum, then the initial step in doing morphological analysis is:

1.    Comparing and contrasting partially similar forms.

To give yourself practice, identify and translate the morphemes in the made-up data

below, from a hypothetical language:

                  house                   tree

                  the house              the tree

                  to the house          to the tree

Sometimes just comparing and contrasting partially similar forms is not to allow a

complete morphological analysis. Consider the following examples:

A. If we compare the following English words:

Work                broad

Worker             broader

We notice the morphemes spelled –er and pronounced [r] for both [bradr] and [wrkr].

However, if we think about it for a minute, it is an apparent that –er has two different

meanings even though phonetically it looks like the same morpheme. The –er in worker is the
same –er that shows up in words like painter, killer, lover, and actor. In each of these case, -er

attaches to verbs to form a noun, and means something like ‘one who paints’, one who kills’,

one who loves’, etc. The suffix –er in these cases is known as the agentive morpheme.

The –er in broader, on the other hand, is the same –er that shows up in words like

wider, longer, colder, prettier, and so on. In each of these case, -er attaches to adjectives to

form a new adjective, with the extra meaning ‘more’. The suffix –er in these cases is known

as the comparative morpheme.

We will want to argue, then that [r] represent two separate morphemes [r] as an agent

marker, and [r] as a comparative marker –even though they are same phonetically, i.e. are

homophonous morphemes. The [r] which is added to verbs to yield nouns and the [r] which is

added to adjectives to yield new adjectives clearly have distinct meaning.

B. If we compare the following set of words in (a), (b), and (c), we notice that each

word has a prefix which means not.

(a)   ‘Imbalance’      [imbælens]

(b)   ‘Inability’       [inəbiləti]

(c)   ‘Incomplete’   [inkəmplit]

The problem here is the inverse of the problem in example (1). Whereas in examples

(1) we had the same phonetic forms representing two different meanings, in examples (2) we

have three different phonetic forms with the same meaning. Since the phonetic forms of the

morpheme meaning ‘not’ here can be predicted on the bias of phonetic environment.

    [Im]    before labials-        [p], [b], [m]

    [Iŋ]     before velars-  [k], [g]

[In]     elsewhere (before vowels and other consonants)

 We conclude that even though the forms differ phonetically they belong to the same

morpheme, since they have the same meaning. We call [Im], [Iŋ], and [In] allomorphs of the

same morpheme. Another example of allomorph in English is the plural morpheme which is

realized as either [s], [z], or [əz] depending on the form of the root to which it attaches.

PROCEDURE FOR DOING MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Goal:

Given a set data in phonetic representation, you are asked to perform a constituent

morphological analysis of the forms.

Procedure (Keys to Analysis):

1.    Isolate and compare forms which are partially similar.

2.    If a single phonetic form has two distinctive meaning, it must be analyzed as representing two

different morphemes (as in example 1).

3.    If the same meaning is associated with different phonetic forms all represent the same

morpheme (they are allomorphs of the morpheme), and the choice of form in each case

should be predictable on the basis of the phonetic environment (as in example 2).

Some Cautionary Notes

People frequently assume that language is pretty much the same in terms of what

each language marks morphologically. For example, English speakers often assume that all

language mark the plural of nouns with an ending or that the subject and the verb agree in

person and number in other language. This is simply not true. For example, Tagalog does not

usually mark the plural of nouns (in most case, the number is clear from the context). When it

is necessary to be specific, a separate word, mga, is used to indicate plural.

‘the child’

‘the children’
When a number is specifically mentioned, no plural marker appears in Tagalog, though the

plural marker is obligatory in English (Three dog is ungrammatical):

‘two’           ‘two children’

‘five’           ‘five children’

[ŋ] is a “linker” that links numerals and adjective to the nouns they modify, English does not

use this type of device).

There is also subject –verb agreement in Tagalog for example in English / eat but he

eats. Other language also makes distinctions that we don’t. While English has only singular

versus plural, some language have a dual when just two are involved. Consider

Sanskritjuhomi ‘I sacrifice’ juhavas ‘we (two) sacrifice’, and juhumas we (pl) sacrifice.

Some languages also have two kinds of first person plural pronouns-that is, English

we. Notice that English we in we are going, for example, may include everyone in the group

the hearer is addressing (we, every one of us) or it may include some hearer(me and him, but

not you). Many language distinguish these two we’s : Tagalog has tayo (inclusive, i.e you and

I) but kami (exclusive, i.e. he and I)

The lessons to be learned here is that you cannot assume that another language will

make distinctions in the same way that English does. For example, while every language has

some method of indicating number, no all language do so in the same way or under the same

way or under the same circumstances. As we’ve seen, English uses an affix, Tagalog uses a

separate word, and Indonesian reduplicates the word to show plural. Nor can you assume that

the distinctions English makes are the only ones worth making. Language must be examined

carefully on the grounds of their own internal structures.

To sum up, how to solve morphology problem:

 Compare and contrast forms that are partially similar in meaning and form
 Identify the morphemes

 Normally, you will find a one-to-one correspondence between a certain phonetic form

and a morpheme

 If a single phonetic form has two meanings, then it represents two different morphemes

e.g. hear vs. here

 Sometimes, we find the same meaning is associated with two different phonetic forms,

then we should identify the phonetic contexts in which the allomorphs occur e.g. –ed.