Morphology: Morphemes

• Morphology is the study of the internal structure of complex words and their meaningful elements

Morphemes

• The word /kæts/ consists of two components: /kæt/ (meaning 'cat') and /s/ (meaning 'more than one'), together meaning 'more than one cat'
• /kæt/ itself consists of three phonological segments
• It cannot be further divided into meaningful components
• Only the combination /kæts/ means 'more than one cat' and /kæt/ means ‘cat' on its own
• /s/ means ‘more than one’ only when attached to a noun.
• A morpheme is a string of one or more phonemes that conveys a particular meaning
• /kæt/ (‘cat’) and /s/ (‘more than one’) both are morphemes.
• A free morpheme, like /kæt/, can be used alone to convey meaning
• A bound morpheme, like the plural marker /s/, must be attached to another morpheme to convey meaning
• A bound morpheme is also called an affix
• Morphemes are the smallest units that carry meaning while phonemes are the smallest units that signal a difference in meaning
• Affixes attached to the end of the host are suffixes, such as the plural marker/s/
• Prefixes attach to the beginning of the host word as /ri-/ in /ritaj/ ('retie', meaning ‘tie again’) and /ən-/ in /ənbəlivəbl/ ('unbelievable', ie ‘not able to be believed’)
• Infixation, is rare in English, involves affixes placed inside the host morpheme

Oaxaca Chontal Plurals

• Plurals are formed by infixing /l/ 'more than one'
• The placement of the infix follows a strict rule
• Inserting /l/ after the first vowel works for Oaxaca Chontal plurals

Agta Tense Formation

• Agta uses the suffix /an/ to indicate present tense
• Past tense is created by infixing the morpheme /in/ into the verb root after the first consonant

Katu Infixation

• Instrument nouns derive from verbs using the infix /an/
• This infix follows the initial consonant of the verb

Northern Tepehuán Reduplication

• Plurals are formed by taking the initial consonant and vowel of the base morpheme and prefixing them in their original order

Agta Reduplication

• Reduplication in this example prefixes the initial vowel plus consonant sequence.
• The doubling segments mean intensification

Southern Barasano

• Pronouns 'he,' 'she,' and a combined 'I/you' are rendered using suffixes
• 'Really' corresponds to /koa/ shown by "I/you really go" comprising /wa/ 'go' + /koa/ 'really' + /bɪ/ ‘I/you.'
• Unexpected actions expressed by /boa/, continuing actions are expressed with /rūtũ/
• Verbs include /wa/ 'go', /bɪ̃dĩ/ 'go upstream', and /tɪdi/ 'return'.
• Infixes go inside morphemes, whereas suffixes attach to the end of a verb, before other suffixes

Morphological Problem

• The simplest morphological problem is segmenting complex words into component parts
• Morphemes are to be identified as free or bound.
• Bound morphemes can be prefixes, suffixes, infixes, or reduplication
• In the case of multiple affixes, their order must be stated

Michoacán Nahuatl

• Examples provided demonstrate morphemes for "my," "your," "his," "house," "dog," and "cornfield"

Isthmus Zapotec

• Examples show morphemes for "chin," "ear," "father," "his," "your," and "our"

Pocomchí

• Intensification involves full reduplication of simple form morphemes

Morphemes and Allomorphs

• Some English nouns pluralize with /s/, others use /z/.
• English regular plurals add /s/ after voiceless segments and /z/ after voiced ones.
• Nouns ending in an alveolar or alveo-palatal fricative or affricate get /əz/
• The variant realizations of a morpheme is called allomorphs, as the variant realization of a phoneme are known as allophones.
• Rules for the English Regular Plural Formation are that if a noun ends in an alveolar fricative or an affricate, add /əz/, if it ends in a voiceless consonant add /s/ and if it ends in a voice consonant add /z/

Allomorph

• Choose one of the regular plural allomorphs (/s/, /z/, or /əz/) as the underlying morpheme
• By positing two rules, you can produce two allomorphs
• The third allomorph will be the result of doing nothing at all to the underlying morpheme, and thus does not require a rule at all
• If you assumed /s/ was the underlying form you would need to insert schwa before this /s/ if the noun to which the plural marker was attached ended in an alveolar or alveo-palatal fricative or affricate
• You also need a rule that assimilated /s/ to the voicing of the segment immediately preceding it
• Finally, a statement that the first rule applies before the second (since the forms affected by the first rule need to come out /əz/, not /əs/)

Regular Plural Allomorph Creation Rule

• The first rule is to insert a schwa if the plural morpheme follows an alveolar or alveo-palatal fricative or affricate.
• The second rule is that z turns to s after voiceless consonants before s

Sierra Popoluca Possessed Form

These tell you what kind of affix expresses possession by the speaker in Sierra Popoluca

Productivity

• Productive morphemes freely combine with new lexical items
• Unproductive morphemes can not be freely used and new ones can not easily create
• While some words can make words in /-θ/ abstracts it is limited
• Default morphology is predictable, and productive. Unpredictable morphology is irregular and non-productive
• In zero morpheme plurals, the plural form appears identical to the singular form.
• The plural suffix is indicated by ‘o’ (zero), which blocks the productive plural /-z/

Hierarchical Structure in Morphology

• Lexical ambiguity comes from different meanings associated with an identical phonological form in the lexicon
• Structural ambiguity arise where the same elements may be combined in more than one order with interpretation matching the order of combination
• Encoding structure through sisterhood and categories, for order, closeness, and relationships

The ‘cranberry’ problem

• 'Cranberry morphemes' like "cran-" in "cranberry" do not carry a clear, independent meaning and creates the problem of what makes words simple or complex since some words such as "cranberry" appear to be both at the same time