323 Morphology The Structure of Words 1.1 What is Morphology? Morphology is the internal structure of words. V: walk, walk+s, walk+ed, walk+ing N: dog, dog+s A: cold, cold+er, cold+est Grammar syntax morphology conceptual (logical) form (meaning within grammar) argument structure lexicon One morpheme or two tax /tæks/: one morpheme tacks /tæks/: two morphemes: tack+s lapse /læps/: one morpheme laps /læps/: two morpheme: lap+s Words containing two or more morphemes are called complex words.

1.1 What is Morphology? Definition 1 (Haspelmath) Morphology is the systematic covariation in the form and meaning of words. Definition 1 (DeArmond) Morphology is the systematic covariation in the form, function and sign of words. Form refers to whether a morpheme is a root, base, stem, affix or clitic. Function includes meaning. Some morphemes have no meaning. Sign refers to the phonological representation of a morpheme. Definition 2 (Haspelmath & DeArmond) Morphology is the study of the combination of morphemes to yield words This definition does not work in all cases. The term morphology is ambiguous in that it may refer to the study of morphology as a discipline or to the morphology of a specific language such as Sanskrit.

1.2 Morphology in Different Languages A particular language may express a certain function through morphology — the use of inflectional or derivational affixes: English plural: affix (suffix): book, book+s. Or plurality may be expressed by a distinct word: Yoruba: okùnrin man, àwon okùnrin men. Actually, English uses both methods to form the comparative and superlative of adjectives: red, redd+er, redd+est (positive, comparative, superlative). stupid, more stupid, most stupid. Today, many younger speakers tend to use both methods: more redder (or sometimes more red). Synthetic, Analytic and Isolating These terms refer to the degree which affixes are used: Synthetic refers to systems where affixation is used frequently to express certain functions: Russian, Czech, Sanskrit, Latin, German, Japanese Analytic refers to systems where affixation is modestly used:English, Dutch, Frisian, Swedish. Polysynthetic refers to systems where there is frequent affixation and perhaps compounding and phrasal incorporation: Greenlandic Eskimo (Inuit), Turkish, Salishan languages. Isolating refersto

1.3 The Goals of Morphological Research The goal of morphological research is to describe (determine the best analysis) and to explain the morphological patterns of human languages. (i)Elegant description: