Linguistics PDF

UNIT SIX Words and pieces of words  Definition of a word Nobody has yet proposed a satisfactory universal definition of the notion ‘ word ’ ! - A word : is single piece of meaning. Play is one piece, books two pieces of meaning, walked (two pieces of meaning ‘walk and past tense) B...

UNIT SIX Words and pieces of words  Definition of a word Nobody has yet proposed a satisfactory universal definition of the notion ‘ word ’ ! - A word : is single piece of meaning. Play is one piece, books two pieces of meaning, walked (two pieces of meaning ‘walk and past tense) Bloomfield (American Linguist) - A word is a minimal free form. (can stand alone with meaning)  The types of words 1-Lexical items ( dictionary entry). fly ( noun and verb) 2-Phonological words. - Flaw (flo:) before consonants - Flaw (flo:r) before vowels 3- Syntactic words Fly (n) : singular and plural  Identifying Words There are two criteria by which we identify words: 1- They should be uninterruptible (uninterruptibility) 2- They should be mobile ( mobility) Chicken : you cannot put modifier between them but you can put it at the beginning. Chicken chic-little-ken X Little chicken Mobile ( initial , medial , final ) Room - Room 18 is taken. - This is a room I want - This is the best room.  Morpheme A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function in a language. Morphemes vary in size. * The owl look-ed up at the cloud-y sky.  Types of Morphemes Free morphemes: These are morphemes that can stand alone as words. They have meaning on their own and do not need to be attached to other morphemes. E.g: Look, book, run Bound morphemes: Cannot stand alone and must be attached to the free morphemes to convey meaning. E.g: prefixes (un-, re-, dis-), suffixes (-s, -ed, -ing)  Two Types of Bound morphemes Inflectional Morphemes: add grammatical information to a word (Provide further information), such as tense, plurality, possession, or comparison… but they do not change the word's core meaning or part of speech. Examples: walk → walked (past tense); cat → cats (plural); (comparative). John’s car Derivational Morphemes: These morphemes create new words or change the word’s part of speech. E.g: happy → unhappy (prefix "un-" adds a negative meaning); joy → joyful (suffixes "-ful, ness, ment, er …" changes a noun to an adjective).  Examples of Morphemes in Words Cats: – "Cat" is a free morpheme (the main noun). – "-s" is an inflectional bound morpheme that shows plurality. Unbelievable: – "Believe" is a free morpheme (the main verb). – "Un-" is a bound derivational morpheme, adding a negative meaning. – "-able" is a bound derivational morpheme, changing the verb into an adjective. Running: – "Run" is a free morpheme (the main verb). – "-ing" is a bound inflectional morpheme, indicating a progressive or continuous action.  Allomorphs Allomorphs are variations of the same morpheme (word), used to express the same grammatical or semantic function (convey the same meaning). (Cats , dogs , horses , sheep , oxen , geese) all contain the English plural morpheme  Types Allomorphs Phonologically Conditioned Allomorphs: The form of the morpheme changes due to the sounds around it. - For example The English plural "-s" has three allomorphs: ( /s/ , /z/ , /ɪz/) or (ed) (Cats , dogs , horses) Lexical Conditioning Allomorphs: Some allomorphs are chosen based on the particular word rather than general rules. Irregular forms often fall into this category, as in ox, sheep, and goose "ox" (plural: oxen) rather than oxes.