Morphology, Part 3: Word-Formation Processes January 31, 2012

Problem Set Review The unemployment controversy. Esperanto + William Shatner

Gender-Free Quick Write Is it feasible for speakers of English to create gender-free pronouns?

Gender-Free Quick Write Is it feasible for speakers of English to create gender-free pronouns?

Gender-Free Quick Write Is it feasible for speakers of English to create gender-free pronouns?

Gender-Free Quick Write Is it feasible for speakers of English to create gender-free pronouns?

Find out more at: http://www.bignewsday.com/story.asp?code=BZ345203T&news=yo_being_used_as_gender-neutral_pronoun

More Word Formation Processes So far, we’ve only looked at one type of word-formation process: affixation = concatenating morphemes in a row Prefixation, suffixation, infixation, circumfixation… There are many different ways to make new words without concatenating morphemes together. compounding internal change reduplication blending, etc.

Compounding In compounding, two or more free morphemes combine to make a new word Ex: baseball, blackboard, lightbulb, podcast Compounding is very common in the world’s languages. German is particularly fond of compounding: Donaudampfschiffahrtgesellschaft Donau “danube” Dampf “steam” Schiff “ship” Fahrt “excursion” Gesellschaft “company”

Compounding Tests Stress Shifts blackbird vs. black bird lightbulb vs. light bulb Adverbs can’t modify compound nouns: *extremely gentleman vs. extremely gentle man *the very White House vs. the very white house Note: it’s also possible to form verb and adjective compounds: Verbs: dropkick, spoonfeed, whitewash… Adjectives: nationwide, redhot…

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: http://www.matefl.org/_mgxroot/page_10679.html 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 ~ sang present/past drive ~ drove present/past foot ~ feet singular/plural mouse ~ mice singular/plural import ~ import noun/verb present ~ present noun/verb

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

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’

Conversion Conversion = usage of an exising word in a new lexical category. English makes use of this process a lot. Examples: to butter to nail (N  V) a report a call (V  N) to right (a wrong) to total (a car) (A  V) Closer to home? cookie: noun to verb (cookie-ize?)

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

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: Present Past Stage 1: go went Stage 2: go goed Stage 3: go went What’s going on here? What is the child doing, as a language learner?

Clipping Clipping = shortening of an existing word. demo from “demonstration” condo from “condominium” fax from “facsimile” deli from “delicatessen” lab from “laboratory” taxicab from “taximeter cabriolet” (cabriolet = horse-drawn carriage)

Blends Blending = melding together parts of two different words. brunch from breakfast and lunch smog from smoke and fog spam from spiced and ham telethon from television and marathon chortle from chuckle and snort motel from motor and hotel chillax from chill and relax bankster from banker and gangster bricked from brilliant and wicked

The Remainders Coinage = completely making a new word up. Example: snarky, dog Eponyms = naming words after people ex: boycott, crapper, sideburns Acronyms Creating a word out of an abbreviation. ex: scuba, radar, laser