1. Morphology, Part 4: Allomorphy October 3, 2012

2. The Morphology Plan The first homework will be due on Wednesday of next week. I will post it to the course website today after class. On Friday, we will go over some more practice morphology exercises. Primarily morphological analysis (like the Esperanto problem). Let’s go back to that gender-free pronoun Quick Write…

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

4. Gender-Free Quick Write

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

6. Gender-Free Quick Write

7. 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

8. Internal Change Quick Write 88 total responses. 0. Did you bive? Yes, I… bave (1); bove (1); boved (1) 1.Did you vake? Yes, I… vade (3); voke (3); vook (2); vaken (2); viked (1) 2.Did you slike? Yes, I… sloke (4); slaught (1); sloked (1); sluck (1); slunk (1) 3.Did you neak? Yes, I… nucked (2); noke (1); nuck (1)

9. Internal Change Quick Write 4. Did you mide? Yes, I… mode (16); mid (14); made (2); miden (1) 5. Did you strink? Yes, I… strunk (31); strank (15); strinken (1); stronk (1); strought (1) 6. Did you lun? Yes, I… lan (6); land (1); lawned (1); lonned (1) Internal changes are made for the new forms to the extent that they resemble phonologically similar forms already in the language. (ride, drink, run)

10. 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’

11. Conversion Conversion = usage of an exising 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)

12. 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".

13. Conversion

14. 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”

15. 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?

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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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”

21. 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!

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

23. 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.

24. Allomorphy How about the Italian Quick Write?