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CHAPTER 6. MORPHOLOGY Section 1. Morph There are many words in natural language which can be divided into two or more meaningful parts called the morphs. Thus, the English words in (1ii) consist of two morphs each, the ones in (1iii) of three morphs each, and a few of the much rarer words in English--with 4 or more morphs--are listed in (1iv). Very many words in English consist of just one morph (1i). (1) (i) desire, table, dog, walk, red, elephant (ii) desirable [desir+able], tables [table+s], doggish [dogg+ish], walking [walk+ing], redder [redd+er], poignantly [poignant+ly] (iii) undesirable un+desir+able], reframed [re+fram+ed], inconsistent [in+consist+ent] (iv) inconsistently [in+consist+ent+ly], nationalization [nation+al+iz+a+tion], antidisestablishmentarianism [anti + dis + establish + ment + ar + ian + ism] The division of words into morphs is completely unrelated to, and much more important than the syllabic division. While all that a syllable needs is a vowel, the morph should satisfy a number of conditions before it can be distinguished as such in a word (2). (2) Conditions for Distinguishing Morphs within a Word: A word can be divided into two or more morphs if and only if all of the following conditions obtain: (i) each candidate for a morph has a meaning; (ii) each candidate for a morph occurs with the same meaning in other words as well; (iii) the meaning of the word is the "sum" of the morph meanings.

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If a word cannot be divided into morphs according to (2), it is a one-morph word. In (1ii), what makes it possible to divide undesirable into three morphs is that all the three have a meaning (3i) and occur with the same meaning in other words (3ii) and the meaning of the whole word consists of the three meanings (3iii). (3) (i) un- reverses the meaning of the word it is attached to, desire means a certain feeling, and -able means roughly 'capable of [causing]' (ii) unhappy, undo, unpleasantly; to desire, desirability, desired; likeable, capable, movable (iii) undesirable 'the opposite of + the meaning of desire + capable of causing' Words like (1i) do not even have a candidate for a second morph but other words may have. If these candidates fail the test (2), then the word has to be described as a one-morph word. Thus, cran- in cranberry fails (2i), goose- in gooseberry fails (2ii), and understand fails (2iii) for under- and stand as the two candidates for a morph. The morphs can be divided into two important classes, lexical and grammatical. The lexical morphs in (1) include the entire (1i) line and then frame, consist, nation, and establish. All the other morphs in (1ii-iv) are grammatical (un-, -able, re-, -d, in-, -ent, ly, -al, -ize, -a-, -tion, anti-, dis-, -ment, -ari-, -an, -ism). The difference between the two classes is both in meaning and usage. The lexical morphs denote directly objects, actions, qualities, and other "pieces" of the real world. The grammatical morphs can only modify the meanings of the lexical morphs by adding a certain element to them--this is why their meanings are more general and vague and become clearer and more specific within a particular word. Grammatical morphs pluralize nouns, put verbs in the past tense, switch adjectives to adverbs or nouns to verbs, and so on. Accordingly, the lexical morphs can, as a rule, occur without grammatical morphs, e.g., (1i) (see, however, Section 3 on the zero morpheme), but the opposite is impossible--each grammatical morph must accompany a

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lexical morph, which can, in fact, be accompanied by several grammatical morphs, e.g., in (1iii-iv). Because of this difference in usage, the lexical and grammatical morphs are sometimes referred to as free, or independent, and bound, or auxiliary, respectively. It has also been noticed that while new lexical morphs are created virtually daily, within new words known as neologisms, which enter the vocabulary of a language with the new objects and concepts (see Chapter 9), hardly any new grammatical morph ever emerges. When the word sputnik was borrowed from Russian into English in 1957, the Russian suffix -nik, which has roughly the meaning of the English -er in writer or speaker, seemed for a while to be a candidate for a new grammatical morph in English. The word beatnik, with the same suffix, was still used at the time. A similar suffix chik, with a diminutive meaning, was also used very marginally in some dialects of American English under the influence of Yiddish, e.g., boychik 'little boy' (in fact, -nik in beatnik came from Yiddish rather than directly from Russian, from which Yiddish had borrowed it long ago). Neither of the suffixes "made it," which is typical, and one reason for that was that they were not at all necessary for English because the language had the native means of expressing the same meanings. The more important reason, related to the first one, is that the grammatical morphs constitute a very conservative component in any language and resist any "intrusion." The logic seems to be that all the grammatical meanings that a language needs are taken care of well by the native means, and the language does not want anything it does not have already. When an exception to this orthodox conservatism is possible, grammatical innovation does occur, but it is indeed very rare. For this reason, the grammatical morphs are sometimes referred to as the closed-list morphs while the lexical ones make up the open list. There are traditional names for some morphs, depending on their role and position in the word. The lexical morph of the word is often called the root, or the radical. The prefix occurs before the root and the suffix after the root. It is customary to designate

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the former with a hyphen after it and the latter with a hyphen before it, as has been done in the examples above. Section 2. Allomorph and Morpheme Typically, some grammatical morphs in languages fulfill the same function and carry the same meaning. A situation, similar to the allophone/phoneme situation, can be observed in morphology as well. Thus, three English suffixes, /-s, -z, -Iz/, are used regularly to pluralize English nouns; (4i-iii) contain the relevant examples. (4) (i) books, cats, caps, baths (ii) dogs, lads, tabs, clothes, tins, drums, things, ties (iii) classes, quizzes, lashes, garages, churches, judges It is easy to observe that the choice of one of the three suffixes seems to be closely related to the final sound of the singular form of the noun. In (4i) these sounds are all voiceless; in (4ii) they are all voiced; in (4iii), however, some are voiceless and the others are voiced but they all belong to the natural class of sibilants (see Chapter 5, Section 2). Other examples would also corroborate the observation but there are exceptions, exemplified in (5). (5) (i) children, oxen (ii) men, women, geese, mice, lice (iii) sheep, fish (iv) syllabi, formulae, apparata, data, cafeteria The exceptions constitute a very limited and closed list. No new words are added to it, and in fact, some words on it seem to be defecting--plurals like formulas are becoming increasingly acceptable (see Chapter 9). New words always follow the appropriate line in (4). The complete rule of English noun pluralization can then be formulated as the following flow chart (6). (6) Flow Chart for English Noun Pluralization: In order to determine how a given English noun N forms its plural, answer the following questions:

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(i) Is N on the list of exceptions? If yes, form the plural as indicated on the list. If no, proceed to (ii). (ii) Is the final sound of N a sibilant? If yes, form the plural by adding /-Iz/. If no, proceed to (iii). (iii) Is the final sound of N voiceless? If yes, form the plural by adding /-s/. If no, form the plural by adding /-z/. Obviously, (6) deals with the phonemic composition (and transcription) of the plural noun forms rather than with their spelling. However, the spelling conventions are quite straightforward as far as the regular plurals are concerned: -s is added to all nonexceptional words except for those with sibilants at the end, which do not have a mute final -e in the spelling; those words, e.g., church, have -es added. In (6iii), it does not matter whether one asks the question about the voiced or voiceless sounds because the 'no' answer will take care of the other possibility. The reason it was phrased as it was is that there are much fewer voiceless sounds in English and the purely mechanical check is accordingly easier. Now, (4-5) clearly indicate a situation with regard to the non-exceptional plurals, which is similar to complementary distribution in phonology, and it is indeed the case that /-s, -z, -Iz/ are in complementary distribution in exactly the same way. The concept of allomorph can be defined then similarly to (22) in Chapter 5, with the concept of physical similarity, useless in morphology, replaced by the same meaning or function (7). The concept of morpheme is defined accordingly (8). (7) Definition 1. Allomorph: Two morphs are allomorphs, or variants of the same morpheme if and only if the following two conditions obtain: 1) the two morphs have exactly the same meaning or function;

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2) the two morphs are in complementary distribution. (8) Definition 2. Morpheme: A morpheme is the set of its allomorphs. Any two of the three noun plural morphs are allomorphs, so all the three of them are allomorphs. The morpheme of which they are all variants is referred to as the Noun Plural morpheme and is denoted as Pl. Its relation to the allophones (9) is only slightly more complicated than in (24), primarily because it has to include as allomorphs all the various exceptions. (9) Pl /-s/ /-z/ /-Iz/ (Exceptions)

Interestingly, there are two other, totally different morphemes in English, which have the same allomorphs as Pl. The first one is Poss for the Possessive Noun case (10) and the second one is PresThirSg for the third person, singular form of the Present Tense of the verbs (11). (10ii) and (11ii) provide examples for each of the corresponding allomorphs. Unlike Pl and PresThirSg, Poss does not have exceptional allomorphs.

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(10) (i)

Poss

/-s/ /-z/ /-Iz/ (ii) cook's, boy's, judge's (11) (i) PresThirSg /-s/ /-z/ /-Iz/ (Exceptions)

(ii) he walks, he runs, he chooses, he can Section 3. Parts of Speech Since Aristotle, grammarians have been classifying words into parts of speech. A standard list of parts of speech, with the customary symbols denoting them in parentheses, is given in (12). (12) Parts of Speech: Noun (N), Verb (V), Adjective (Adj), Adverb (Adv), Numeral (Nu), Pronoun (Pron); Determiner (Det), Preposition (Prep), Conjunction (Conj) There are numerous classifications and arguments for or against each of them in the traditional grammar of any particular language and in traditional linguistics, in general. Thus, the numeral can be eliminated as a part of speech and divided between the nouns and adverbs. Particles may be added to the list, especially for other languages. Interjections may be argued to be a part of speech as well rather than a unique, non-propositional speech act (see Chapter 8, Section 5). The principles of attribution of a word to a certain part of speech have never been defined in traditional grammar, but it is clear that they are somewhat loosely associated with the meanings of the parts of speech before the semicolon in (12) and with the functions of the ones after it. Whether as a result of early exposure to traditional grammar or not, the native speakers do tend to agree with the accepted typical meanings of the parts of speech. Thus, nouns are typically associated with objects, verbs with acts, adjectives with qualities or attributes of things, adverbs with qualities or attributes of acts, numerals with numbers. Pronouns are characterized as only indicating to

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certain noun meanings rather than possessing them. Determiners, prepositions, and conjunctions are described in terms of their grammatical functions. Also, these three categories have a very limited membership in any language, and each can be easily listed. The same refers to the pronouns but not to the first six parts of speech in (12). In fact, there is a certain similarity between the dichotomy of the parts of speech indicated by the placement of the semicolon in (12) and that between the lexical and grammatical morphemes. Just as the former, the first five parts of speech in (12) are sometimes labeled independent and the last three auxiliary, with the pronoun assigned to either or neither group. The meaning-based classification into parts of speech is, however, rather unreliable. Thus, there are nouns which do not refer to objects but rather to acts, e.g., writing, qualities, e.g., redness, or numbers, eg., dozen. To the extent that the parts of speech are part of the native speaker's competence, they should be defined formally, and the apparatus set up in the previous section makes it feasible for the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. We will need a definition of the paradigm first (13)--cf. Chapter 4, Section 3. (13) Definition 3. Paradigm: The paradigm of a word is the complete set of its forms. Obviously, a word which has only one form, such as one, what, this, in, or and, has a one-word paradigm. The paradigm of a typical noun, such as boy, contains four forms (14). (14) boy boy's boys boys'

Each form is a combination of the same lexical morpheme boy with a grammatical morpheme. With the exception of the very first form, the grammatical morpheme has the same pronunciation [z] but its meaning changes dramatically (and the three different spellings try to emphasize that). In the case of boy, it makes sense to

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postulate that it also has a meaningful grammatical morpheme, which is realized as no sound, i.e., not pronounced. It is, in fact, the zero morpheme, whose meaning is clearly defined precisely by the absence of any sound after the lexical morpheme. The distribution of grammatical meanings in the paradigm of boy is shown in (15). (15) L + Sg L + Pl L + PossPl

L + PossSg

Membership in the part of speech of noun can now be defined as follows (16): (16) Definition 4. Noun: An English word which has the paradigm of (15) in part or in full is a noun. Many English nouns are not supposed to have the possessive, reserved primarily for animate nouns, i.e., animals and humans. Others do not have the plural form (and are referred to as singularia tantum). Still others lack the singular (pluralia tantum). These "defective" types of noun are illustrated in (17i-iii), respectively. (17) (i) table, brick, page, line, preposition (ii) honesty, sincerity, margarine, vinegar, wool (iii) scissors, trousers (18-21) do the same job for the English verb. (18) contains a typical verb paradigm. (19) presents it schematically, with the zero morpheme, /-s, -z, -Iz/, /-t, -d, ed/, and /- ing / expressing the four grammatical morphemes, respectively. (20) introduces the definition of the English verb. (21i-iii) list examples of defective verbs, i.e., those lacking the -s form in the present, the past, and the progressive aspect, respectively. (18) walk walks

walked walking (19) L + Pres Non-ThirSg L + Past L + ThirSg

L + Prog

(20) Definition 5. Verb: An English word which has the paradigm of (19) in

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part or in full is a verb. (21) (i) can, may, must (ii) must (iii) can, may, must The verbs in (21) are known as the modal, or defective, verbs in English, precisely because of their incomplete paradigm. It should be also noted that the Past morpheme in English has a long though definitely limited list of exceptions, which contains the so-called irregular verbs. These verbs do have the past but do not form it by adding the /t, d, d/ suffix as dressed, changed, and listed do, respectively. Instead, they have such forms as ran, sang, or even went for go. The irregular verbs also have the past participle form which, unlike with the much more numerous regular verbs, is often distinct from the simple past, e.g., wrote:written, and because of that, it is arguable that a fifth form, L + PastPart, should be added to (19). The adjective is similarly served by (22i-iv) and the adverbs by (23i-iv). The positive degree of comparison for the adjectives is usually expressed by the zero morpheme, the comparative by /- er/, and the superlative by /- est/. For some adjectives, however, especially for the polysyllabic ones, Comp and Super are realized as more or most, respectively, added to the Positive Form. This formation is obligatory for Comp and Super of the Adjective. The positive form of the adjective often contains the grammatical morpheme /li/. The defective adjectives and adverbs do not have comparative and superlative forms. (22) (i) white whiter whitest

(ii) L + Pos L + Comp L + Super (iii) Definition 6. Adjective: An English word which has the paradigm of (22ii) in part or in full is an adjective. (iv) unique (23) (i) slowly more slowly most slowly

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(ii) L + Pos L + Comp

L + Super

(iii) Definition 7. Adverb: An English word which has the paradigm of (23ii) in part or in full is an adverb. (iv) uniquely Because of the great similarity of (22ii) and (23ii), in many languages adjectives and adverbs cannot be distinguished as two parts of speech, and arguments for blending them in English as well are possible on grounds of their complimentary distribution: while adjectives modify only nouns, adverbs modify only verbs. The paradigmatic approach to parts of speech (cf. Chapter 4, Section 3) does not work well for the other parts of speech because their paradigms either contain very idiosyncratic forms or just one form without an identifying grammatical morpheme. Section 4. Inflectional and Derivational Morphemes Grammatical morphemes can be further divided into inflectional and derivational on the basis of their relation to the paradigm (24). (24) (i) Definition 8. Inflectional Morpheme: A grammatical morpheme which forms a different form of the same word is inflectional. (ii) Definition 9. Derivational Morpheme: A grammatical morpheme which forms a different word is derivational. In other words, inflection remains within the same paradigm while derivation always leaves it. All the morphemes mentioned in (14-15, 18-19, 22-23) are, therefore, inflectional. The much more numerous derivational morphemes are used for the formation of different words both within the same part of speech and--more typically-of different parts of speech (25). (25) English Derivation: N --- N: son:sonny N --- V: beauty:beautify N --- Adj: book:bookish

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V --- N: write:writer V --- V: do:overdo Adj --- N: red:redness Adj --- V: red:redden Adj --- Adj: white:whitish Adj --- Adv: free:freely In English, unlike in most other languages, a word may travel among different parts of speech with zero derivation, i.e., without changing its form. The phenomenon is known as the conversion and is exemplified in (26). (26) Conversion in English: N --- V: an impact:to impact N --- Adj: a stone: stone wall V --- N: to buy:a buy Adj --- N: poor:the poor Adj --- Adv: fast:fast English emerges from this discussion as a language with a definite preference for suffixes rather than for prefixes. Its inflection is exclusively suffixal and its derivation is predominantly so. Language in general emerges from this discussion as a nomenclature of types of words and of morphemes. The description of every particular language must include complete inventories of morphemes and words of every type. Clearly, however, language is much more than just words.

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