Essentials of Morphology

Introduction to contrastive grammar studies

dr Michał Lisecki
Katedra Anglistyki ATH
mlisecki@ath.edu.pl
 THE VOCABULARY

The Vocabulary items:

(1) Identifying index: /perestroika/ /bInd/

Syntactic category: Noun Verb
Meaning: “reorganization, “to make secure
reconstruction” by tying”
Syntactic features: [+abstract] [+transitive]
Morphological features: none zero inflection
ablaut
 PARTS OF SPEECH
• Nouns
• Verbs
• Adjectives
• Adverbs
• Prepositions
 SIMPLE AND COMPLEX WORDS

dog, boy, bind = Simple words

Complex words:
(2) a. high school, easy chair, black board, gentleman [A + N]N

b. un-wise, un-happy, un-natur-al, un-woman-ly [un + A]A

c. woman-ly, other-word-ly, heaven-ly, weather-ly [N + ly]A

d. black-ness, un-poison-ous-ness, gentlemanli-ness [A+ness]N

(3) [[ un [ [ [gentle]A [man]N]N li]A ]A ness]N

[ anti [ [ [ dis [ establish]V ]V ment]N arian ]A ]A ism ]N

 INFLECTIONAL AND DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY

• Inflectional morphology
boy vs boy-s
child vs. child-r-en
love vs. love-s vs. love-d
go vs. goe-s vs. went

• Derivational morphology

drink vs. drink-able

inflect vs, dis-infect
 Morpheme
• Morphemes are the structural units of words

(4) tinbeq 'I will walk.'

(cf. Nida (1949, 6) A form from Kekchi (a Mayan language of Guatemala)

tatbeq 'you (sg.) will walk'

ninbeq 'I am walking'

• t- 'future' (contrasting with n- 'present progressive'),

• -in- 'first person singular subject' (contrasting with -at- 'second person
singular subject')
• -beq 'walk.’
(5) Swahili (East Africa).
1. ninakusikia 'I hear you'
2. ninamsikia 'I hear him'
3. ninakisikia 'I hear it'
4. ninawasikia 'I hear them’
5. anakusikia 'he hears you'
6. anamsikia 'he hears him'
7. anawasikia 'he hears them'
8. anatusikia 'he hears us'
9. unanisikia 'you hear me'
10. unawasikia 'you hear them'
11 tunakisikia 'we hear it'
12. wanakusikia 'they hear you
13. ninakujibu 'I answer you'
14. nitakujibu 'I will answer you'
15. nimekujibu ’ I have answered you'
16. nilikujibu 'I answered you'
17. unamjibu 'you answer him'
18. utamjibu 'you will answer him'
19. umemjibu 'you have answered him'
20. ulimjibu 'you answered him'
21. mnanisikia 'you (pl.) hear me'
22. mmewasikia 'you (pl.) have heard them'
23. mtatusikia 'you (pl.) will hear us'
24. mlikisikia 'you (pl.) heard it'
25. ninamjua 'I know him'
26. niliwajua 'I knew them'
27. atanisaidia 'he will help me'
28. wamekusaidia 'they have helped you'
 The order of morphemes
(6) subject tense object verb
prefix prefix prefix stem

(7) subjects tenses objects stems

ni- 'I' -ta- 'future' -ni- 'me' -sikia 'hear'
u- 'you' -na- 'present' -ku- 'you' -jibu 'answer'
a- 'he' -me- 'perfect' -m- 'him' -jua 'know'
tu- 'we' -li- 'past' -ki- 'it' -saidia 'help'
m- 'you (pl.)' -tu- 'us'
wa- 'they' -wa- 'them'

PROBABLE new words made up of these same morphemes in the correct order.

(8) atamsikia tumekijua

walitujibu nimemsaidia
 Root – Stem - Base
• Root is the smallest meaningful part of a word.
• Stem is any morpheme which a syntactical affix can be added to
• Base is any morpheme which an affix can be added to.

disagreement / disagree
 Bound and free morpheme
Bound morphemes do not occur in isolation.

(9) gentle, usurp, difficult, dog, man

Bound stems/roots (cf Aronoff (1976):

(10) -ceive -port -here -mit

im-port in-here
re-ceive re-port re-mit
ad-here ad-mit
 Affixes
Prefixes = aff. + X and Suffixes = X + aff.

ex.:a word formed with the suffix -ion is a noun

a word formed with the suffix -ize is a verb

Affixes are not freely combinable:

(11) seren-ity *shop-ity * proverb-ity *machin-ity

regular-ize scandal-ize *usurp-ize *develop-ize

Reason: -ity is added to adjectives, but not to nouns or verbs

-ize is added to adjectives and nouns, but not to verbs
Bound morphemes may be assigned morphological templates like the following:

(12) i. [ [ X ] A + ness] N : gentleness, grammaticalness, uneasiness

ii. [ un+ [ X ]A ]A : ungrammatical, unaware, unconscious

iii. [ [ X ]A +ity ]N : serenity, grammaticality, electricity

iv. [ [X]N +ly]A : godly, gentlemanly, husbandly, daily

v. [ [ X]A +th]N : truth, width, breadth, depth

vi. [ per + stemLat.]A: permit, pertain, perform

vii. [###]Stem: -mit, -tain, -sist, -form

Open and closed classes
of morphemes
 TYPES OF AFFIXES

1. PREFIXES:
a. Prespecified (English)
work re-work
likely un-likely
like dis-like

b. Reduplicated (Tagalog)
bili 'buy' bi-bili 'will buy'
kuha 'get' ku-kuha 'will get'
punta 'go' pu-punta 'will go'
sulat 'write' su-sulat 'will write'
tawa 'laugh' ta-tawa 'will laugh'

2. SUFFIXES:
work work-ed
likely likeli-ness
bake bak-er
3. INFIXES
Tagalog
bili 'buy' b-um-ili 'to buy'
kuha 'get' k-um-uha 'to get'
sulat 'write' s-um-ulat 'to write'
punta 'go' p-um-unta 'to go'
tawa 'laugh' t-um-awa 'to laugh'

4. CIRCUMFIXES
em-bold-en en-light-en

5. NULL MORPHOLOGY
Noun/Adjective Verb
a frame to frame
dry to dry
a run to run
 STEM CHANGES
I. Ablaut:

strike struck struck

teach taught taught
drive drove driven
ring rang rung
 Stem Changes

II. RESYLLABIFICATION: The Semitic binyans.

Arabic root /ktb/

katab ‘write’ perfective active
kutib 'was written’ perfective passive
aktub 'is writing’ imperfective active
uktab 'was being written’ imperfective passive

Hebrew root /gdr/

Active Passive
gadar 'enclosed’ ni-gdar 'was enclosed’
goder 'encloses’ ni-gdar 'is enclosed'
yi-gdor 'will enclose’ yi-gader 'will be enclosed'
gdor 'enclose!’ hi-gader 'be enclosed!'
li-gdor 'to enclose’ le-hi-gader 'to be enclosed'