Assignment I-Sample Solution

LING 111. 02

A. MORPHOLOGY
1. Consider the three English words below.
rewhitened

homelessness

computationalists

a. Find the free morphemes

white, home, compute

b. Find four bound morphemes

re-, -en, -ed, -less, -ness, -ation, -al, -ist, -s

c. Find two inflectional morphemes

-ed, -s

d. Find three stems

whiten, homeless, computational etc.

e. Find four derivational morphemes

re-, -en, -less, -ness, -ation, -al, -ist

2. Draw the tree diagrams of the English words below. Make sure that you indicate the word
classes (i.e. lexical category) at every stage of derivation. Note that if there is a structural
ambiguity, you are expected to draw separate trees for its different meanings.
a. unfoldable

b. ungracefully

Adjective
un-

Adjective

Adjective
Verb

Verb

-able

un-

fold

-able

Verb
fold

[not able to be folded]

Adverb

[able to be unfolded]

Adjective
un-

-ly

Adjective
Noun

-ful

grace

3. Consider the following sets of words from Somali, the official language of Federal Republic of
Somalia.
Set A
buug
fool
jid

book
face
street

buugag
foolal
jidad

books
faces
streets

Set B
baabaco
ilmo
qado

palm
tear
lunch

baabacooyin
ilmooyin
qadooyin

palms
tears
lunches

a. The type of morphological process, e.g. compounding, affixation etc., exemplified in Set A is
reduplication and the one in Set B is suffixation.

b. Formulate a general statement (a morphological rule/s) that states how to form the plural forms of
nouns in Somali.
i)

ii)

If a noun ends in a consonant, {a + the last consonant of the root} is added to the end of the
noun.
If a noun ends in a vowel1, {-oyin} is suffixed to the noun.

c. If albaabab means doors in Somali, the form corresponding to door is albaab.

4. Consider the data below from Laz, a South Caucasian language spoken in Northeast of
Turkey.
gziri

I saw you

gzires They saw you

gzirit We saw you.

mzires They saw me

mzirit You (pl.) saw me

mziru S/he saw me

a. Identify all the morphemes you can detect, and give their meanings.
-es: 3rd person plural subject marker
m-: 1st person object marker
-u: 3rd person singular subject marker
g-: 2nd person object marker
st
-it: 1 person plural subject marker
zir-: saw/ to see (the root)
nd
-it: 2 person plural subject marker
-i: 1st person singular subject marker
(P.S. It should be noted that in this language 1st and 2nd person plural subject markers are the same in
form.)
b. How is the verb constructed? That is, what kinds of morphemes are strung together and in what
order?
Verb= Object marker + Verb Root + Subject Marker
c. If {car} means giving food/ feeding in Laz, how would you say the following sentences:
(1) You (pl.) fed me. mcarit
(2) S/he fed you

gcaru

B. SYNTAX
1. In terms of selectional restrictions, explain why the following are ungrammatical
/unacceptable.

a. *John put the book.

Put as a verb selects for two complements: An NP and a PP which describes a location (such as on
the desk etc.) The absence of the latter renders this sentence ungrammatical because the C-selection
requirement of the verb is violated.

It should be noted that in all instances in the data under B, the vowel is [o]. So, this suffix might be special
only for the roots that end in [o]. However, we need further data to make such a claim.

b. !The angry books beat the disrespectful ideas.

This sentence is unacceptable because no obvious understandable meaning can be derived from it
even though it is syntactically well-formed. This is due to the fact that the S-selection requirements of
words are violated (books are inanimate so they cannot be angry and cannot beat ideas etc.) This
sentence is an example of semantic anomaly.

2. Write the phrase structure rules that can generate the Korean sentence below.
Terry-ka

chinkwu

eykey

Terry

friend

to

chayk-ul
book

cwuessta.
gave

TP T

VP V

PPP

T NP VP

V PP V

PNP P

NP N

V NP V

NN