Linguistics 105 * Words and Sounds Lecture Number Seven Introduction to Morphology
- The Nature of Morphemes
- The Morpheme
A MORPHEME is the minimal meaningful linguistic sound
- A MORPHEME consists of a sound + meaning pairing defined in terms of
- the category of the base to which it attaches
- the category of the derivative it produces and
- whether it is a prefix, suffix, circumfix, infix, etc.
- Lexical versus Grammatical Morphemes. This sometimes parallels the bound/free distinction, but is of linguistic relevance only in some languages. More important is the distinction between LEXEMES and GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES, both of which come in bound and free variants.
Table 1: Bound and Free
Lexemes and MorphemesLexical Morphemes Grammatical Morphemes free bound free bound cat fel-(ine) of -'s (mother's) tooth dent-(-al) are -'re (we're) dog can-(ine) not -n't (have-n't) eye ocul-(ar) will 'll (I'll)
- There are four properties which distinguish lexemes from (grammatical) morphemes.
Table 2: Lexemes and Morphemes Lexical Morphemes Grammatical Morphemes 1. Lexical categories have meaning 1. Grammatical categories, function 2. Become inflected and derived 2. Inflectional, derivational markers 3. Prespecified phonological formant 3. Null & empty variants 4. Never contract, affix or cliticize 4. Contract, affix, cliticize
- Exercises: Morphological Analysis
- Types of Morphemes
- Prefixes
- Prespecified
work re-work likely un-likely like dis-like
- Reduplicated
bili 'buy' bi-bili 'will buy' kuha 'get' ku-kuha 'will get' punta 'go' pu-punta 'will go' sulat 'write' su-sulat 'will write' tawa 'laugh' ta-tawa 'will laugh'
- Suffixes
work work-ed likely likeli-ness bake bak-er
- Infixes
Tagalog Infixes bili 'buy' b-um-ili 'to buy' kuha 'get' k-um-uha 'to get' sulat 'write' s-um-ulat 'to write' punta 'go' p-um-unta 'to go' tawa 'laugh' t-um-awa 'to laugh'
- Circumfixes
em-bold-en en-light-en
- Prosodic morphemes
rejõct rõject suspõct sáspect survõy sárvey rerán rõrun
- Stem mutation
strike struck struck teach taught taught drive drove driven ring rang rung
- Revowelling –– The Semitic Binyans
Table 3: The Arabic Stem *ktb- katab 'write' perfective active kutib 'was written' perfective passive aktub 'is writing' imperfective active uktab 'was being written' imperfective passive
Table 4: The Hebrew Stem *gdr- Active Passive gadar 'enclosed' ni-gdar 'was enclosed' goder 'encloses' ni-gdar 'is enclosed' yi-gdor 'will enclose' yi-gader 'will be enclosed' gdor 'enclose!' hi-gader 'be enclosed!' li-gdor 'to enclose' le-hi-gader 'to be enclosed'
- Null morphology (Conversion) ––
frame to frame dry to dry to run a run
- Conclusion
- The morpheme is the minimal meaningful element of language. There are two kinds of these: (a) lexical (the lexeme) and (b) the grammatical morpheme. The former belong to an open class and refer to the real world, always have a prespecified phonological element which never contracts or cliticizes, and undergo lexical derivation and inflection. The latter belong to closed classes and refer to grammatical categories; they need not contain a prespecified phonological element and, if they do, it may contract and cliticize.
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