pronounced as a unit?

The structure of words

Giusti (2003) pp. 25-37

Having unitary meaning? A linguistic unit which cannot

appear discontinously
[V educate] + ion [N [V educat]ion]
I never saw her. Her, I never saw.
[N education] + al [A [N [V educat]ion]al]
sempre vista. la bella vista

[N person] + al [A [N person]al] English Italian

**dog good food Number Gender+Number
[A personal] + ity [N [A [N person]al]ity]
**educate, -ion is important boy(s)
**her personal good ity girl (s) bambin-o/a/i/e
kid(s)
**la sua personal(e) bella -it
child(ren)

Categorial Ambiguity
Grammatical Labels
(or zero derivation)
un-
Lexical categories
unattended, unconventional, undesirable, Noun (N), Verb (V), Adjective (A), Adverb (Adv)
unfinished, unlimited, unmistakable, (Preposition (P)).
unreliable
in- Functional categories
inappropriate, incredible, independent, Determiner (D), Preposition (P), Auxiliary
infinite, illegal, informal, immediate, (Aux), Complementizer (COMP),
irreverent, intolerable, Conjunction (Conj), etc.

..... is the suffix !
In some cases, there is no ambiguity
Affixation is hierarchical!
prefixes do not determine the
grammatical category
re+[V decide] [V re[Vdecide]]
dis+[V agree] [V disagree]
de+[V construct] [V deconstruct]
pre+[V pay] [V prepay]
un+[V do] [V undo]
un+[A happy] [A unhappy]
non+[N smoker] [N non-smoker]
[N [A un+[A happy]] + ness]
*[N un+ [N [A happy] + ness]]
[A un+ [A [N support]+ive]]
* [A[N un+ [N support]]+ive]
[A un+ [A[N mistake]+able]]]
* [A[N un+ [N mistake]]+able]