English Morphology – Lecture 2 David Brett Antonio Pinna University 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 Latin Circul-CircularLiber-Liberty CirculationLiberation CirculatorLiberalize CirculatoryLibertine

Problem case: Verbs of Latin origin receivedeceiveconceiveperceive revertconvertpervert relatecollatetranslate reducededuceconduce 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-dish Fam-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/, / ɪ z/ 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: 1Regular: kissed; changed; wanted Note that the –ed suffix has three, phonologically determined, realizations (i.e. three allomorphs): /t/, /d/, / ɪ d/ 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/lessOnly -fulOnly -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/lessOnly -fulOnly -less Care Use Cheer Colour Help Taste Hope Tact Fate Spoon Delight Bag Play Cup Friend Age Cease Child Defence End Effort Penny

Tree diagrams Label 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;