1. Morphology and Syntax
Complex Words

2. Simplex words and complex words
to walk, to dance, to laugh, to kiss
to purify, to enlarge, to industrialize, to head-hunt
house, corner, zebra
collection, builder, sea horse
green, old, sick
regional, washable, honey-sweet

3. Morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that adds its own distinct bit of meaning to the word.
kill-er, work-er, print-er
wash-able, laugh-able
re-paint-ing

4. Cranberry morphemes blueberry blackberry gooseberry (goose?)
cranberry (cran???)

5. Free morphemes and bound morphemes
Free morphemes can stand on their own.
Bound morphemes, or affixes, cannot:
Q: Is that green?
A: *No, at best it’s –ish.
Q: Is she any good at football?
A: *Yes, she’s a great –er.
Q: Does he play the piano often?
A: *Yes, he –s it all the time.

6. Suffixes and prefixes Suffixes green-ish build-er wash-able solid-ify
industry-al-ize
Prefixes
en-large
re-en-act
de-throne
ex-minister

7. Circumfixes and infixes
leef ge-leef-d huur ge-huur-d
play played live lived
Infixes:
base: labas verb: l-um-abas ‘come out’
base: pasok verb: p-um-asok ‘enter’
base: bili verb: b-um-ili ‘buy’

8. Compounding Combining two free morphemes: sea + horse  sea horse
head + strong  headstrong
hand + made  handmade

9. Productivity
Some types of compounding are more productive than others.
N-N compounding is completely productive in English:
word + kitchen  word kitchen (e.g. a kitchen for morphologists)
tree + laptop  tree laptop (e.g. a laptop with a picture of a tree)
gorilla + window  gorilla window (e.g. a window through which you can see a gorilla)
window + gorilla  window gorilla (e.g. a gorilla that always sits
behind a window)

10. Derivation Making a completely new word with an affix:
buildverb  build-ernoun
largeadjective  en-largeverb
industrynoun  industry-aladjective
industry-aladjective  industry-al-izeverb

11. Inflection
Providing grammatical information about a word with an affix:
workverb-s (expresses that the verb has a third person singular subject)
workverb-ed (expresses that the event expressed by the verb took place in the past)
housenoun-s (expresses that we are dealing with more than one house)

12. Inflectional morphology can be obligatory in some syntactic contexts.
*Sylvia usually walk to work.
Sylvia usually walks to work.

13. Conversion ‘Invisible’ morphology to build – a build-er
to dance – a danc-er
to run – a run-er
to kill – a kill-er
to cook – a cook

14. Conversion between different categories:
to runVERB – a runNOUN
yellowADJECTIVE – to yellowVERB
downPREPOSITION – to downVERB
greenADJECTIVE – a greenNOUN

15. Null affixes in inflection:
I/You usually go- to the market on Saturdays.

16. Tree structures
Representing the structure of a complex word in the form of a tree diagram N
N plural
N N s
school V N
teach er

17. Structural ambiguity
This ex-president-office-manager works for Bill Clinton.
This ex-president-office-manager is now a street artist.

18. N N
N N ex N
N N manager N N
ex N office N N manager
president president office