The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

THE ROLES OF MORPHOLOGY IN ENGLISH SYNTAX

Pikir Wisnu Wijayanto (pww@politekniktelkom.ac.id) Telkom Polytechnic Bandung

Abstract
Background: Human as social creatures, in their lives can not separate from the need to interact and integrate with the environment. To interact and integrate with the environment, human used language in expressing what they think and feel. To create a relationship between societies needed a mode called language. The use of language by the speaker can also causing mixed of sound elements, morphology or syntax especially if the two languages come from different language family. Aims: The goal of the study was to discus the role of morphology in English syntax. Since it is a study of form rather than of referential meaning, and some linguists consider morphology to be a part of the syntactic system of a language Outcomes & Results: Sadocks oddly named Autolexical Syntax (1985) resembles Sciullo and Williams approach in that it distinguishes morphology rigidly from syntax. It differs from their, however, in that it disallows bracketings which are partly syntactic and partly morphological. Rather, syntax and morphology are autonomous components, each of which imposes and independent set of requirements to be met by every well-formed sentence. Conclusions: The role of morphology in English syntax means how words structure serve syntax in the expression of meaning. Language morphology is constructions where there are related forms between constituents. According the definition, the resultant forms are related forms or words, but not phrases. Therefore, we can say that morphology included word and part of word constructions, whether syntax included phrases constructions. Keywords: Morphology, Morpheme, Lexemes, Word Forms, and Syntax

A. Introduction

Human as social creatures, in their lives can not separate from the need to interact and integrate with the environment. To interact and integrate with the environment, human used language in expressing what they think and feel. Language is a verbal communication which is used by human, as the most effective and efficient communication means in society.
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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

Nababan (1993 p.5) said that in general language has a function as social communication means. To create a relationship between societies needed a mode called language. The use of language by the speaker can also causing mixed of sound elements, morphology or syntax especially if the two languages come from different language family. The revival of morphology as a subject of study by theoretical linguists has been announced more than once in recent years. But this new atmosphere has not affected the status of morphology as an optional extra in most linguistics programs (McCarthy, 1992 p.3). Morphology is the study of the smallest units of meaning of a language and the processes by which words become created and modified. They are of two general types: free and bound. Free morphemes are words such as 'cat' to which are assigned referential meaning. Bound morphemes are 'pieces of words' to which meaning can be assigned, but which must accompany a stem to form a unit, such as the plural '-s' on 'cats.' Morphology is not the study of meaning, but of the attached or otherwise associated bound forms. Since it is a study of form rather than of referential meaning, some linguists consider morphology to be a part of the syntactic system of a language (http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu). Another typology of morphemes is the distinction made between bound morphemes that either modify words or create new ones: inflectional and derivational morphemes respectively. Based on the introduction above, this paper will discus the role of morphology in English syntax. B. Lexemes and Word Forms The word "word" is ambiguous in common usage. To take up again the example of dog vs. dogs, there is one sense in which these two are the same "word" (they are both nouns that refer to the same kind of animal, differing only in number), and another sense in which they are different words (they can't generally be used in the same sentences without altering other words to fit; for example, the verbs is and are in The dog is happy and The dogs are happy). The distinction between these two senses of "word" is probably the most important one in morphology. The first sense of "word," the one in which dog and dogs are "the same word," is called lexeme. The second sense is called word form

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology). It is thus said that dog and dogs are different forms of the same lexeme. Dog and dog-catcher, on the other hand, are different lexemes; for
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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

example, they refer to two different kinds of entities. The form of a word that is chosen conventionally to represent the canonical form of a word is called a lemma or citation form. Given the notion of a lexeme, it is possible to distinguish two kinds of morphological rules. Some morphological rules relate different forms of the same lexeme; while other rules relate two different lexemes. Rules of the first kind are called inflectional rules, while those of the second kind are called word-formation. The English plural, as illustrated by dog and dogs, is an inflectional rule; compounds like dog-catcher or dishwasher are an example of a wordformation rule. Informally, word-formation forms "new words" (that is, lexemes), while inflection gives you more forms of the "same" word (lexeme). There is a further distinction between two kinds of word-formation: derivation and compounding. Compounding is a kind of word-formation which involves combining complete word forms into a compound; dog-catcher is a compound, because both dog and catcher are words. Derivation involves suffixes or prefixes that are not independent words; the word independent is derived from the word dependent by prefixing it with the derivational prefix in-, and dependent itself is derived from the verb depend. The distinction between inflection and word-formation is not at all clear-cut. There are many examples where linguists fail to agree whether a given rule is inflection or word-formation. However, the next section will clarify this distinction further. C. Words in Different Classes of Languages In synthetic languages, a single word stem (for example, love) may have a number of different forms (for example, loves, loving, and loved). However, these are not usually considered to be different words, but different forms of the same word. In these languages, words may be considered to be constructed from a number of morphemes (such as love and s) (Pike and Pike, 1976 p.23). In polysynthetic languages, the number of morphemes per word can become so large that the word performs the same grammatical role as a phrase or clause in less synthetic languages (for example, in Yupik, angyaghllangyugtuq means "he wants to acquire a big boat"). These large-construction words are still single words, because they contain only one content word; the other morphemes are grammatical bound morphemes, which cannot stand alone. Matters seem easier for analytic languages. For these languages, a word usually
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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

consists of only a root morpheme, which is often single-syllable. However, it is common even in those languages to combine roots into a compound stem. D. Syntax Syntax, originating from the Greek words (syn, meaning "co-" or "together") and (txis, meaning "sequence, order, arrangement"), can in linguistics be described as the study of the rules, or "patterned relations" that govern the way the words in a sentence come together. It concerns how different words (which, going back to Dionysios Thrax, are categorized as nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.) are combined into clauses, which, in turn, are combined into sentences (Wolf and Dale, 1988 p.56). There exist innumerable theories of formal syntax theories that have in time risen or fallen in influence. All theories of syntax at least share two commonalities: First, they hierarchically group subunits into constituent units (phrases). Second, they provide some system of rules to explain patterns of acceptability/grammaticality and

unacceptability/ungrammaticality. Most formal theories of syntax offer explanations of the systematic relationships between syntactic form and semantic meaning. Syntax is defined, within the study of signs, as the first of its three subfields (the study of the interrelation of the signs). The second subfield is semantics (the study of the relation between the signs and the objects to which they apply), and the third is pragmatics (the relationship between the sign system and the user). In the framework of transformational-generative grammar (of which Government and Binding Theory and Minimalism are recent developments), the structure of a sentence is represented by phrase structure trees, otherwise known as phrase markers or tree diagrams. Such trees provide information about the sentences they represent by showing how, starting from an initial category S (or, for ID/LP grammar, Z), the various syntactic categories (e.g. noun phrase, verb phrase, etc.) are formed. There are various theories as to how best to make grammars such that by systematic application of the rules, one can arrive at every phrase marker in a language (and hence every sentence in the language). The most common are Phrase structure grammars and ID/LP grammars, the latter having a slight explanatory advantage over the former. Dependency grammar is a class of syntactic theories separate from generative grammar in which structure is determined by the relation between a word (a head) and its dependents. One difference
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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

from phrase structure grammar is that dependency grammar does not have phrasal categories. Algebraic syntax is a type of dependency grammar. A modern approach to combining accurate descriptions of the grammatical patterns of language with their function in context is that of systemic functional grammar, an approach originally developed by Michael A.K. Halliday in the 1960s and now pursued actively in all continents. Systemic-functional grammar is related both to feature-based approaches such as Head-driven phrase structure grammar and to the older functional traditions of European schools of linguistics such as British Contextualism and the Prague School

(http://www.cuttingedge.org/news). E. Syntactic Hierarchy The syntactic hierarchy (from smaller to larger units) is as follows

(http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/syntax/ppframe.htm): 1. Morpheme 2. Word 3. Phrase 4. Sentence (clause) 5. Text F. Paradigms and Morphosyntax The notion of a paradigm is closely related to that of inflection. The paradigm of a lexeme is the set of all of its word forms, organized by their grammatical categories. The familiar examples of paradigms are the conjugations of verbs, and the declensions of nouns. The word forms of a lexeme can usually be arranged into tables, by classifying them by shared features such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender or case. For example, the personal pronouns in English can be organized into tables, using the categories of person, number, gender and case. The categories used to group word forms into paradigms cannot be chosen arbitrarily; they must be categories that are relevant to stating the syntactic rules of the language (Bauer, 2003). For example, person and number are categories that can be used to define paradigms in English, because English has grammatical agreement rules that require the verb in a sentence to appear in an inflectional form that matches the person and number of the subject. In other words, the syntactic rules of English care about the difference between dog and dogs, because
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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

it determines which form of the verb must be used; but in contrast, no syntactic rule of English cares about the difference between dog and dog-catcher, or dependent and independent. The first two are just nouns, and the second two just adjectives, and they generally behave like any other noun or adjective behaves. The major difference between inflection and word formation is that inflectional forms of lexemes are organized into paradigms, which are defined by the requirements of syntactic rules. The part of morphology that covers the relationship between syntax and morphology is called morphosyntax, and it concerns itself with inflection and paradigms, but not with wordformation or compounding (Phythian, 1996 p.1). The factors which have led to the new morphosyntactic reconvergence before examining some of them more closely in the following sections (McCarthy, 1992: 91-92): 1. The existence of extremely productive phenomena traditionally regarded as on the borderline between syntax and morphology, especially secondary, verbal-nexus or syntactic compounds in which the first (nominal) component is in a quasi-syntactic relationship (usually that of direct object) to a verbal element in the second component (e.g. meat eating, road sweeper, slum clearance). 2. The problems of clitics bound forms which are phonologically part of an adjoining word but which behave grammatically more like independent words than like affixes, such as s in the men next doors car and ill in well go. 3. Mismatches between semantic and phonological-morphological structure of the kind which have come to be called bracketing paradoxes (e.g. nuclear physicist, whose meaning suggests a bracketing [[nuclear physic]ist] but whose grammatical structure implies [nuclear [physic-ist]]). 4. Parallels between the order of affixes corresponding to syntactic phenomena such as causative, reflexive and passive, on the one hand, and the order, or nesting, of the syntactic processes themselves: Bakers (1985) Mirror Principle. 5. Increased interest on the part of linguistic theorist in polysynthetic or incorporating language such as Eskimo. 6. Radical changes in Chomskyan syntactic theory since 1970, with a new framework (Government-Binding or Principles-and-Parameters) incorporating new levels of representation (D-structure, S-structure, Phonological Form and Logical Form) and

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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

new ways of relating these levels, the role of syntactic transformations being sharply reduced in favour of a variety of interacting sub theories and principles.

Of these factors, the one whose relevance to the syntax-morphology issue is perhaps least obvious at first sight is (3) the bracketing paradox.

G. Coanalysis and Autolexical Syntax

There are various versions of coanalysis, classifiable as follows (McCarthy, 1992: 145-146): a. Two distinct structures, one wholly syntactic, the other partly syntactic and partly morphological (Zubizarreta 1985; Zubizarreta and van Haaften 1988; Di Sciulio and Williams 1987). b. Two distinct structures, one syntactic and one morphological) Sadock 1985; 1988). For Principles-and-Parameters morphologists, an obvious problem is that it is hard to reconcile morphosyntactic affixation with the Stray Affix Filter of Baker (1988a). In Bakers framework, having determined that some X0-level constituent is an affix, we know at once that it must be combined (morpho-) phonologically with some other X0 constituent in order to yield a well-formed S-structure; for otherwise the Stray Affix Filter will be violated. Moreover, Baker assumes tacitly that affixhood is an inherent, lexically determined property of an item; that is, if a given item is an affix in one context, it is an affix in all contexts. But if morphosyntactic and morphophonological affixes are distinct, neither of this assumption can be made. An affix may be of the purely morphosyntactic kind, in which case it undergoes a new kind of affixation requiring it to be adjacent to its stem while permitting it to remain morphophonologically a stray. Sadocks oddly named Autolexical Syntax (1985) resembles Sciullo and Williams approach in that it distinguishes morphology rigidly from syntax. It differs from their, however, in that it disallows bracketings which are partly syntactic and partly morphological. Rather, syntax and morphology are autonomous components, each of which imposes and independent set of requirements to be met by every well-formed sentence. A simple illustration is provided by the English sentence Johns here:

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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

[N John

V]w s

Adv here

John [[N]NP

s [V

here Adv]VP]S

Here the upper bracketing is morphological (with W standing for Word) while the lower is syntactic. Notice that the sentence is analyzed into the same basic constituents both morphologically and syntactically, and that they appear in the same order (so that the association lines between the two representations do not cross). Neither of these characteristics applies to all autolexical analyses, although the second is much more general than the first.

H. The Role of Morphology in English Syntax

As it is written in the introduction of this paper, morphology is the study of the smallest units of meaning of a language and the processes by which words become created and modified. A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together. Typically a word will consist of a root or stem and zero or more affixes. Words can be combined to create phrases, clauses and sentences. A word consisting of two or more stems joined together is called a compound. The role of morphology in English syntax means how words structure serve syntax in the expression of meaning. Language morphology is constructions where there are related forms between constituents. According the definition, the resultant forms are related forms or words, but not phrases. Therefore, we can say that morphology included word and part of word constructions, whether syntax included phrases constructions.

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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

It is encountered that a variety of attitudes to the relationship between the meaning of a complex (derived or compound) word and its composition, from the point of view of lexical listing. Despite their differences, these attitudes share the presupposition that at least for some complex words one can identify an expected meaning, derivable from its composition, from which the actual meaning may or may not deviate. When a complex word has only two components, any such deviation from the expected meaning must be independent of structure, because there is only one way to bracket a string of two items. But where a complex word or phrase has more than two ultimate components, the possibility exists that the difference between expected and actual meanings may involve structure; that is, the bracketing suggested by the meaning of the whole complex differs from the bracketing suggested by its grammatical structure (where grammatical means phonological, morphological, syntactic or some combination of these) (http://research.chtsai.org/papers/morphology-lexicon.html). For example, a comparable situation exists in English adjectives. The comparative suffix er is, broadly speaking, restricted to bases which are monosyllabic or disyllabic with an unstressed second syllable (e.g. riper, kinder, happier, etc). On the other hand, if an adjective has a suffixal comparative form, then any corresponding derived adjective with the prefix un- also has a suffixal comparative form, even though this derived adjective may be trisyllabic or endstressed (unriper, unkinder, unhappier). The phonological constraint on the suffixation of comparative er suggests that the suffix is added before the prefix is, implying bracketings such as [un[kind-er]], [un[happi-er]]; on the other hand, since unkinder means more unkind rather than not more kind, the bracketing which makes sense semantically is [[un-kind]er], [[un-happi]er]. A quite similar dilemma affects the analysis of phrasal collocations such as nuclear physicist; a nuclear physicist is someone who does nuclear physics, not a physicist who is nuclear. Generally, morphologist construction is more detail on the syntax constructions. There is more and often unarranged modification and modulation featuresmeans that, limited on the certain constructions and fusions. The constituents order are almost tight and consequent, and impossible for the connotative variances just like John ran away: Away ran John. Chosen features in detail and often odd in limiting the constituents which is possible gathering in a complex forms. Therefore, language is more different in morphology than syntax. As the example of morphology arrangement which is relatively simple we may take a derivation construction in the pluralist nominal (glass-es) and past tense verb (land-ed).

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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

About the choice, the related forms are unique in both cases, but the original forms including the two big forms class: pluralist nominal from the singular nominal (such as glasses from glass) and past tense verb from infinitive verbs (such as landed from land). Beside, the chosen of additional respects will be discussion in further. If we observe the English pluralist nominal, there would be appear soon that the given information be valid for the forms with many in number, but not for certain exceptions with limited number. In some cases, a constituent forms of pluralist phonetically different with the basic of singular nominal: knife [najf] mouth [maw] house [haws] : knives [najv-z) : mouths [maw-z] : houses [haws-ez]

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The 4th International Seminar 2010: Bringing Linguistics and Literature into EFL Classrooms

Bibliography Anonim. Grammar. http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1506ch13.html ______. Morphology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology. ______. Syntax. http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/syntax/ppframe.htm Bauer, Laurie. (2003). Introducing Linguistic Morphology (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. McCarthy, Andrew C. (1992). Current Morphology. London: Routlegde. Nababan, P.W.J. (1993). Sosiolinguistik: Suatu Pengantar. Jakarta: Utama. Gramedia Pustaka

Phythian, B.A. (1996). Bahasa Inggris yang Baik dan Benar. Jakarta: Kesaint Blanc. Pike, K.L. and Pike, E.G. (1976). Grammatical Analysis. Arlington: University of Texas. Platt, Elizabeth. 2000. Understanding Language and Second Language Learning. (Revised). http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu Tsai, Chih-Hao. Morphology and the http://research.chtsai.org/papers/morphology-lexicon.html Mental Lexicon.

Wolf, J.C. dan Dale, Paulette.(1988). Speech Communication for International Students. New Jersey: Prentice.

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