Morphology, Part 4: Word-Formation Processes + Allomorphy October 4, 2010

The Master Plan 1.Discussion of word-formation processes. 2.Talk about allomorphy. 3.Wednesday: work on some more morphology problem sets.

Word-Formation Processes So far we’ve discussed: 1.Affixation “Concatenation” of an affix and a root/base /re-/ + /cycle/ = recycle prefixes, suffixes, infixes, circumfixes… 2.Compounding Concatenation of two or more free morphemes baseball, blackboard, light bulb, etc. 3.Back Formations Extraction of a word out of a larger word…

Back Formations Back formations: removal of an (incorrectly perceived) affix to form a new word Ex: “edit” “editor” perceived as /edit/ + /-er/ Other examples: peddle (from peddler)swindle (from swindler) burgle (from burglar)pea (from pease) laze (from lazy)liaise (from liaison) A “reverse” backformation: Chinese (from Chinee + /-s/)

A Sipid Story of Requited Love “It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate. I was furling my wieldy umbrella...when I saw her...She was a descript person...Her hair was kempt, her clothing shevelled, and she moved in a gainly way.” --from “How I Met My Wife”, by Jack Winter Check out more at: Or consider:

Reduplication Reduplication: repetition of all or part of the stem Indonesian: (total reduplication) rumah‘house’rumahrumah‘houses’ ibu‘mother’ibuibu‘mothers’ lalat‘fly’lalatlalat‘flies’ Tagalog: (partial reduplication) bili‘buy’bibili‘will buy’ kain‘eat’kakain‘will eat’ pasok‘enter’papasok‘will enter’

Reduplication in English? There are a few examples of reduplication in English. Can you think of any? Individual words/phrases: “bling bling”, “very very”, “teeny weeny”… There is also one reduplicative process in English… schm- reduplication: fancy schmancy tired schmired football schmootball Nobel Prize schmobel prize...etc.

Internal Change A (slightly) more common word-formation process in English is internal change. = changing sounds inside a root creates a new word. Also known as alternations sing~sangpresent/past drive~drovepresent/past foot~feetsingular/plural mouse~micesingular/plural import~importnoun/verb present~presentnoun/verb

By the way... Some internal change processes have (limited) productivity in English What’s the past tense of “sing”? sangsung ring? rangrung bring? brang?brung?brought?

Internal Change Quick Write 72 total responses. 1.Did you bive? Yes, I…. bave (1); bove (1) 2.Did you vake? Yes, I… voke (5) 3.Did you slike? Yes, I… sloke (4); slike (1) 4.Did you neak? Yes, I… nuck (2); neak (2); noke (1)

Internal Change Quick Write 5. Did you mide? Yes, I… mode (13); mid (4); mide (1); mit (1) 6. Did you strink? Yes, I… strunk (16); strank (10); stronk (3) 7. Did you lun? Yes, I… lan (9); lone (2) Internal changes are made for the new forms to the extent that they resemble phonologically similar forms already in the language. (ride, drink, run)

Roots and Patterns An extreme form of “internal change” is found in Semitic languages, like Arabic and Hebrew “Root and pattern morphology” Arabic: /k-t-b/ root“write” kitaab ‘a book’kutub‘books’ alkitaab ‘the book’kaatib‘author’ maktab ‘office’maktaba‘library’ kataba ‘to write’kattaba‘to make write’ kaataba ‘to correspond’?uktaba‘to dictate’ ifkataba ’to make a copy’kutubii‘bookseller’ kuttaab ‘Koranic school’miktaab‘typewriter’

Just So You Know Note: if a word does not change form when you’d expect a particular inflectional affix to attach to it… It is said to be formed with a null morpheme. (also called a zero morpheme) Examples: moose (singular)moose (plural) sheep (singular)sheep (plural) hit (present tense V)hit (past tense V)

Conversion Conversion = usage of an existing word in a new lexical category. English makes use of this process a lot. Examples: to butterto nail(N  V) a reporta call(V  N) to right (a wrong)to total (a car)(A  V)

Awkwardizations? Football Announcer-ese: “Sanders defensed the pass.”(noun to verb) “Urlacher lost weakside contain.”(verb to noun) Corporate speak? During Hurricane Katrina: "We heard that there was a gentleman who was stuck in his boat just downstream from us so we are efforting to help rescue agencies to find him".

Conversion Just to be clear: Conversion is a type of derivation A null morpheme is a type of inflection

Suppletion Suppletion occurs when inflected forms of a word have different roots. In English, this is rare: go ~ went be ~ were compare with: walk ~ walked; cook ~ cooked Portuguese: ir“to go”comer“to eat” vou“I go”como“I eat” fui“I went”comi“I ate” ia“I was going”comia “I was eating”

Child Verb Morphology Patterns like the following are frequently found in child language acquisition: PresentPast Stage 1: gowent Stage 2:gogoed Stage 3:gowent What’s going on here? What is the child doing, as a language learner?

Clipping Clipping = shortening of an existing word. demofrom “demonstration” condofrom “condominium” faxfrom “facsimile” delifrom “delicatessen” labfrom “laboratory” blogfrom “web log” taxicabfrom “taximeter cabriolet” (cabriolet = horse-drawn carriage)

Blends Blending = melding together parts of two different words. brunchfrom breakfast and lunch smogfrom smoke and fog spamfrom spiced and ham telethonfrom television and marathon chortlefrom chuckle and snort motelfrom motor and hotel chillaxfrom chill and relax banksterfrom banker and gangster brickedfrom brilliant and wicked

The Remainders Coinage = completely making a new word up. Example: nylon, vaseline, xerox, (dog), (chap) Eponyms = naming words after people ex: boycott, sandwich, jumbo, crapper, sideburns Acronyms Creating a word out of an abbreviation. ex: scuba, radar, laser

Last but not least Sometimes an affix changes form, depending on what kind of root it attaches to. Consider English /in-/ combines with adjectives to form adjectives means “the opposite of” Examples: /in-/ + accurate =inaccurate /in-/ + tolerant=intolerant /in-/ + direct=indirect

Allomorphy What’s going on in these cases? /in-/ + legible=illegible /in-/ + regular=irregular /in-/ + legal=illegal There are two new forms of the affix: /il-/ and /ir-/ These are called allomorphs. Allomorphs = “different forms”

Allomorphy What’s going on here? /in-/ + probable=improbable /in-/ + mobile=immobile /in-/ + possible=impossible /in-/ changes to /im-/ before both /p/ and /m/. /p/ and /m/ are both produced with the lips.  To explain patterns like this, we’re going to need to know something about how we actually produce the sounds of English.  We have to study Phonetics!

Allomorphy Another English example: a dogan owl a noisean orange a strawberryan apple Here’s another: walkedinvited sprayedneeded stoppedhated firedlanded What’s the pattern?

Allomorphy One last pattern: catsmatches judgesdogs chairspasses When do we add an extra syllable? How does the pattern compare to the formation of third person singular verbs? waits, loves, shows, finds… watches, hatches, kisses, spazzes… The pattern is based entirely on the sounds involved; not on the meaning of the morphemes.

Allomorphy Italian Quick Write Finally: Morphology homework due on Friday!