Word Structure

Part 1

The Structure of Words: Morphology

Fundamental concepts in how words are composed out of smaller parts The nature of these parts The nature of the rules that combine these parts into larger units What it might mean to be a word

Today
I. II. Morphemes Types of Morphemes

III. Putting Morphemes together into larger structures

Words with internal structure Interesting properties of compounds

I. Morphemes
Remember that in phonology the basic distinctive units of sound are phonemes

In morphology, the basic unit is the morpheme

Basic definition: A morpheme is a minimal unit of sound and meaning (this can be modified in various ways; see below)

Some Examples
Many words can be divided into smaller parts, where the parts also occur in other words:
dogs walking blackens player-hater

dog-s

walk-ing

black-en-s

play-er hat-er

Compare: cat-s; runn-ing; dark-en-s; eat-er (note: in some cases there are spelling changes when we add morphemes; ignore this)

Parts, cont.
The smaller parts occur consistently with many words:
-s: forms the plural consistently
-ing: forms a noun from a verb -en: forms a verb meaning become ADJ from an adjective ADJ -er: forms an agentive nominal from a verb, a person or thing who does that activity

Consistent Sound/Meaning
Notice that this is not the only way we can divide up words into smaller parts; consider
Tank, plank, flank, drank, rank, etc.

In these words, we could easily identify a component -ank However, this is not a morpheme
There is no consistent meaning with this -ank The leftover pieces t-, pl-, fl-, dr-, r- are not morphemes either

Connections between Sound and Meaning

Remember that a phoneme sometimes has more than one sound form, while being the same abstract unit: /p/ with [p] and [ph] A related thing happens with morphemes as well In order to see this, we have to look at slightly more complex cases

Morphemes and Allomorphs

We will say in some cases that a morpheme has more than one allomorph This happens when the same meaning unit like [past] for past tense or [pl] for plural has more than one sound form
Past: one feature [past]

kick / kick-ed leave / lef-t hit / hit- The last example shows a case in which the phonological form of the morpheme past is zero, i.e. it is not pronounced

Allomorphy, cont.
In the case of phonology, we said that the different allophones of a phoneme are part of the same phoneme, but are found in particular contexts The same is true of the different allomorphs of a morpheme Which allomorph of a morpheme is found depends on its context; in this case, what it is attached to:
Example: consider [pl] for English plural. It normally has the pronunciation s (i.e. /z/), but

moose / moose- ox / ox-en

box/*box-en/box-es
So, the special allomorphs depend on the noun

An Additional Point: Regular and Irregular

In the examples above, the different allomorphs have a distinct status. One of them is regular.
This is the default form that appears when speakers are using e.g. new words (one blork, two blorks) For other allomorphs, speakers simply have to memorize the fact that the allomorph is what it is Example: It cannot be predicted from other facts that the plural of ox is ox-en Demonstration: The regular plural is /z/; consider one box, two box-es.

Default cases like the /z/ plural are called regular. Allomorphs that have to be memorized are called irregular. Irregular allomorphs block regular allomorphs from occurring (ox-en, not *ox-es or *ox-en-s).

Two types
There are in fact two types of allomorphy. Think back to phonology
The Plural morpheme in English has different sound-forms: dog-s/cat-s/church-es
These are predictable, based on the phonological context In the case of Past Tense allomorphy, it is not predictable from the phonology which affix appears We can find verbs with the same (or similar) sound form, but with different allomorphs: break/broke, not stake/*stoke If you think about this case for a while, though, you will notice some patterns; more on this later

II. Morpheme Types

Well now set out some further distinctions among morpheme types

Our working definition of morpheme was minimal unit of sound and meaning
A further division among morphemes involves whether they can occur on their own or not:
No: -s in dog-s; -ed in kick-ed; cran- in cran-berry Yes: dog, kick, berry

Some Definitions
Bound Morphemes: Those that cannot appear on their own Free Morphemes: Those that can appear on their own In a complex word:
The root or stem is the basic or core morpheme

The things added to this are the affixes

Example: in dark-en the root or stem is dark, while the affix in this case a suffix is -en

Further points
In some cases, works will use root and stem in slightly different ways

Affixes are divided into prefixes and suffixes depending on whether they occur before or after the thing they attach to. Infixes-- middle of a word (e.g. fan-f*ing-tastic)
For the most part, prefixes and suffixes are always bound, except for isolated instances

Content and Function Words

Another distinction: Content Morphemes: morphemes that have a referential function that is independent of grammatical structure; e.g. dog, kick, etc.
Sometimes these are called open-class because speakers can add to this class at will

Function morphemes: morphemes that are bits of syntactic structure e.g. prepositions, or morphemes that express grammatical notions like [past] for past tense.
Sometimes called closed-class because speakers cannot add to this class

Cross-Classification
The bound/free and content/function distinctions are not the same. Some examples:
Content Bound cranFunction -ed

Free

dog

the

Aside: Non-Affixal Morphology

In the cases above, we have seen many affixes associated with some morphological function In other cases, there are additional changes; e.g., changes to the stem vowel:
sing/sang goose/geese

Examples of this type are not obviously affixal, as there is no (overt) added piece (prefix or suffix). Rather, the phonology of the stem/root has changed

Some examples
Stem changing: Present sing begin sit Past sang began sat Participle sung begun sat

come

came

come

Another pattern
While in many cases the stem change does not co-occur with an affix, in some cases it does:

Examples:
break tell freeze broke tol-d froze brok-en tol-d froz-en

Use of stem changing patterns

In some languages, stem-changing is much more important than it is in e.g. English In Semitic languages, extensive use is made of different templatic patterns, that is, abstract patterns of consonants and vowels:
Arabic noun plurals:

kitaab book; kutub books

nafs soul; nufus souls

III. Internal structure of words

Words have an internal structure that requires analysis into constituents (much like syntactic structure does)

For example:
Unusable contains three pieces: un-, use, -able

Question: If we are thinking about the procedures for building words, is the order
derive use-able, then add un-; or derive un-use, then add -able

Word Structure
Possibilities: Structure 1 Structure 2

un use able

un use able

Word Structure, Cont.

Consider:
With able, we create adjectives meaning capable of being V-ed, from verbs V

Break/break-able; kick/kick-able
There is no verb un-use This is an argument that Structure 1 is correct:

[un [use able]]

This analysis fits well with what the word means as well: not capable of being used. Structure two would mean some thing like capable of not being used

Another example
Consider another word (from the first class): unlockable. Focus on un Note that in addition to applying to adjectives (clear/unclear) to give a contrary meaning, unapplies to some verbs to give a kind of undoing or reversing meaning: do, undo

zip, unzip
tie, untie Note now that unlockable has two meanings

The Unlockable example

Two meanings:
1) 2) Not capable of being locked Capable of being unlocked

These meanings correspond to distinct structures:

1)

2)

un lock

able

un lock able

Unlockable, cont.
The second structure is one in which able applies to the verb unlock This verb is itself created from un- and lock

The meaning goes with this: capable of being unlocked

In structure 1, there is no verb unlock So the meaning is not capable of being locked

Some General Points

The system for analyzing words applies in many cases that are created on the fly Complex words and their meanings are not simply stored; rather, the parts are assembled to create complex meanings Another example of the same principle applies in the process of compounding

Introduction to Compounding
A compound is a complex word that is formed out of a combination of stems (as opposed to stem + affix) These function in a certain sense as one word, and have distinctive phonological patterns Examples: olive oil shop talk shoe polish truck driver Note that the different elements in these compounds relate to each other in different ways...

Internal structure
Like with other complex words, the internal structure of compounds is crucial There are cases of ambiguities like that with unlockable Example: obscure document shredder
1) Person who shreds obscure documents

[[obscure document] shredder]

2) Obscure person who shreds documents [obscure [document shredder]]

Compounding, cont.
An interesting property of compounds is that although they are words, they form a productive system, without limits (as far as grammar is concerned, not memory). Note also that compounds have special accentual (stress) properties:

judge trial judge murder trial judge murder trial judge reporter

murder trial judge reporter killer

murder trial judge reporter killer catcher murder trial judge reporter killer catcher biographer
murder trial judge reporter killer catcher biographer pencil set