Morphology: The Study of Word Structure PDF

MORPHOLOGY The Study of Word Structure DR. KAMEL A. ELSAADANY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT COLLEGE OF ARTS KSU  What is Morphology? 2 — Language is an arbitrary method of communication that has many aspects, from speech production, compre...

MORPHOLOGY The Study of Word Structure DR. KAMEL A. ELSAADANY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT COLLEGE OF ARTS KSU  What is Morphology? 2 — Language is an arbitrary method of communication that has many aspects, from speech production, comprehension, and even evolution in terms of the extinction of some words or languages and the creation of new. — However, language is also highly structured and can be broken down into smaller units such as phrases, words, morphemes, and phonemes. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  What is Morphology?.. 3 — Since words are just a set of arbitrary symbols, have you ever wondered how words are structured so that we understand their semantic meaning? — See the breakdown of the levels of language Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  What is Morphology?.. 4 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  What is Morphology?.. 5 — The term morphology is generally attributed to the German poet, novelist, playwright, and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who coined it early in the 19th century in a biological context. — Its etymology is Greek: ¡ Morph- means ‘shape, form’ — Morphology is the study of the form and structure of organisms, and in geology it refers to the study of the configuration and evolution of land forms. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  What is Morphology?.. 6 — In linguistics, morphology refers to the mental system involved in word formation or to the branch of linguistics that deals with: — words, — their internal structure, and — how they are formed. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  What is Morphology?.. 7 — Although the existence of morphology has been long known, it was overshadowed by phonology and syntax in the early days of generative linguistics. — If the internal structure of words was considered at all, it was simply placed among syntax or phonology (Spencer and Zwicky, 1998). — The era of classic linguistics came to an end with the works of Chomsky who initiated generative grammar, in which a system of rules is capable of generating an infinite number of sentences (Katamba, 1993). Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  What is Morphology?.. 8 For example, in Aspects of Theory of Syntax, Chomsky claimed that certain types of complex words must be treated in a separate or expanded lexicon, effectively separating derivational morphology from syntax (Aronoff, 1983). Due to the influence of Chomsky and others, the discipline of morphology began to flourish and is now a primary aspect in the study of language. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY: Words 9 A word is dead When it is said Someday. I say it just Begins to live That day. ¡ Emily Dickinson, “A Word Is Dead,” Complete Poems, 1924 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY: Words.. 10 — Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and of the rules by which words are formed. — Words are an important part of linguistic knowledge and constitute a component of our mental grammars, but one can learn thousands of words in a language and still not know the language. — Without words, we would be unable to convey our thoughts through language or understand the thoughts of others. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY: Words.. 11 — There are two basic types of words in human language- — simple/monomorphemic/simplex and complex/polymorphemic. — Simple /monomorphemic/simplex words are those that cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful units while complex/polymorphemic words can be analyzed into constituent parts. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY: Words.. 12 — The word houses, e.g., is made up of the form house and the plural marker {–s}, neither of which can be divided into smaller morphemes. — While many English words consist of only one morpheme, others can contain two, three, or more. — See the following examples. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY: Words.. 13 Examples boy One morpheme desire morph (“to change form”) hospital boy + ish Two morphemes desire + able morph + ology hospital + ize boy + ish + ness Three desire + able + ity morphemes hospital + ize + ation gentle + man + li + ness Four morphemes un + desire + able + ity hospital + ize + ation + s More than four un + gentle + man + li + ness anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY: Words.. 14 — Someone who does not know English would not know where one word begins or ends in an utterance like Thecatsatonthemat — We separate written words by spaces, but in spoken language there are no pauses between most words. — Without knowledge of the language, one cannot tell how many words are in an utterance. — Knowing a word means knowing that a particular sequence of sounds is associated with a particular meaning. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY: Words.. 15 — A speaker of English has no difficulty in segmenting the stream of sounds in six individual words – the, cat, sat, on, the, mat – because each of these words is listed in his or her mental dictionary, or lexicon (the Greek word for dictionary), that is part of a speaker’s linguistics knowledge. — Similarly, a speaker knows that uncharacteristically, which has more letters than Thecatsatonthemat, is nevertheless a single word. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY: Words.. 16 — When you know a word, you know its sound (pronunciation) and its meaning. — Because the sound-meaning relation is arbitrary, it is possible to have words with the same sound and different meanings (bear and bare) and words with the same meaning and different sounds (sofa and couch). — Because each word is a sound-meaning unit, each word stored in our mental lexicon must be listed with its unique phonological representation, which determines its pronunciation, and with a meaning. — For literate speakers, the spelling, or orthography, of most of the words we know is included. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  MORPHOLOGY Words.. 17 — Each word in your mental lexicon includes other information as well, such as whether it is a noun, a pronoun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, a preposition, or a conjunction. — That is, the mental lexicon also specifies the grammatical category or syntactic class of the word. — A form like love is listed as both a verb and a noun, but as a speaker you have such knowledge, as shown by the phrase I love you and You are the love of my life. — Without such information, we would not know how to form grammatical sentences, nor would we be able to distinguish grammatical from ungrammatical sentences. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens 18 — The type-token distinction was first drawn by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), between signs considered as abstract things (types) or as particular instances (tokens). — For example, the number of words, the word count in a text (tokens) is much larger than the number of different words (types). Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 19 — The word “type” is defined in Wikipedia as follows: "A type is a category of being. A human is a type of thing; a cloud is a type of thing; and so on. A particular instance of a type is called a token of that thing; so Socrates was a token of a human being, but is not any longer since he is dead. Likewise, the letter "A" is a token of the first letter of the Latin alphabet. " (Wikipedia, 2006b) Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Definition of Types and Tokens 20 — A token refers to each individual occurrence of a word (or morpheme) in a text. Every time a word appears, regardless of whether it is repeated, it is counted as a token. Example: In the sentence "The cat chased the cat," there are 5 tokens: o "The" (1st occurrence), o "cat" (1st occurrence), o "chased", o "the" (2nd occurrence), o "cat" (2nd occurrence). Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Definition of Types and Tokens 21 — A type refers to each unique word (or morpheme) form in a text. Even if a word appears multiple times, it is counted only once as a type. Example: In the same sentence "The cat chased the cat," there are 3 types: "The" (regardless of how many times it occurs), o "cat", o "chased". o — Each unique word is counted as one type, even if it appears multiple times Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Key Differences Between Types and Tokens 22 Tokens count every occurrence of a word in a text, regardless of repetition. Types count each unique word form only once, no matter how many times it appears. — Practical Example: — Consider the following sentence: — "Dogs bark and dogs run." Token Count: 5 tokens (each word occurrence is counted): 1. 1. Dogs 2. 2. Bark 3. 3. And 4. 4. Dogs 5. 5. Run Type Count: 4 types (each unique word is counted once): 1. 1. Dogs 2. 2. Bark 3. 3. And 4. 4. Run — Here, "dogs" is counted twice in the token count but only once in the type count because it is the same word form. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 23 — Here is a way of thinking about the “type”/“token” distinction. — Look at this box: mind body love love hate mind mind love body — How many words does the box contain? Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 24 — It depends on how you count. — In one sense, the box contains nine words, arranged in a 3x3 square. — But in another sense, it contains only four words—four different words, that is “mind,” “body,” “love”, and “hate.” — The reason for the disparity is that the box contains more than one token of the same word-type. — There are three different tokens, or occurrences, of the word(-type) “mind,” and three tokens or occurrences of “love,” and two of “body,” and just one of “hate.” — That adds up to nine tokens, but there are only four types represented in the box. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 25 — Types are word-forms and tokens are occurrences of word-forms. — In the sentence, ‘The cat sat on the mat’, there are two tokens of the type ‘the’ and one token each of the types ‘cat’, ‘sat’, and ‘mat’. — Again, word tokens are existing objects or events, inscriptions or utterances of words, whereas types are “significant forms” of such tokens. — Types do not exist but have reality and are said to determine things that exist. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 26 — The type-token distinction is relevant to the notion ‘word’ in this way. — Sentences (spoken or written) may be said to be composed of word-tokens, but it is clearly not word-tokens that are listed in dictionaries. — It would be absurd to suggest that each occurrence of the word ‘next’ merits a separate dictionary entry in the following sentence (T.B., p. 5): ¡ Mary goes to Edinburgh next week, and she intends going to Washington next month. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 27 — See also the following example: ‘To be or not to be, that is the questions’ — It contains eight word types. — Both be and to occur twice, and so they are not counted after their first occurrence. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 28 — Consider also the number of words in the Gertrude Stein from her poem Sacred Emily on the page in front of the reader’s eyes: Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. — In one sense of ‘word’, we may count three different words; in another sense, we may count ten different words. — Words in the first sense are called “types” and words in the second sense “tokens”. — Types are generally said to be abstract and unique; tokens are concrete particulars, composed of ink, pixels of light on a computer screen, electronic strings of dots and dashes, smoke signals, hand signals, sound waves, etc. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 29 — Words are listed in dictionaries entries are, at one level, types, not tokens- even though, at another level, one may talk of distinct tokens of the same dictionary entry, inasmuch as the entry for month in one copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary is a different token from the entry for month in another copy. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 30 — Problems with counting: — Some of the problems with counting types include deciding what to do about capital letters (are High and high two types or one?) — What do we do with identical types that have different meanings: ¡ ‘generation (of electricity) and ¡ (the younger) generation — If our reason for counting is related to vocabulary learning, then we need to choose a unit of counting that reflects the kind of knowledge that language users draw on. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 31 — There is evidence (Nagy et al., 1989) that language users see closely related word forms (mend, mends, mended, mending) as belonging to the same word family and it is the total frequency of a word family that dominates the familiarity of any particular number of that family. — In other words, the regular word-building devices create items that are seen as being very closely related to each other. — A major problem with counting word families is in deciding what should be counted as a member of a family. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 32 — The most conservative way is to count ‘lemmas’. — A lemma is a set of related words that consists of the stem form and inflected forms that are all the same part of speech. — So, approach, approaches, approached, approaching would be members of the same lemma because they have the same stem, include only the stem and inflected forms, and are all verbs. — As a less conservative definition of a word family would also include items made with derivational affixes, such as un-, and non-, and suffixes, such as –ly. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 33 — There are some groups of words, such as good morning and at the end of the day, which seem to be used like single words. — Some of the groups may be items that have not been analyzed into parts but are just learned, stored, and used as complete units. — Others may be constructed from known parts but are used so often that it is more efficient to treat them as a single unit. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Words: Types and Tokens.. 34 — Pawley and Syder (1983) suggest that native speakers speak appropriately and fluently because they have stored very large numbers of these ‘multi- word units’ (MWUs) that they can draw on when using the language. — These MWUs go by several names: ¡ ‘Preformulated language’ (emphasizing how MWUs can be stored as a single units which are ‘ready to go’). ¡ ‘Formulas’ (emphasizing how MWUs can be repeatedly used instead of having to generate new ways of saying things). ¡ ‘Lexical phrases’ (emphasizing how certain phrases are typically used to achieve particular functions in everyday life, e.g., Have you heard the one about____ is commonly used to introduce a joke). Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Significance of the Type-Token Distinction 35 — The distinction between types and tokens is important for several reasons: — 1. Understanding Word Frequency: — By distinguishing between types and tokens, linguists can better understand the frequency with which specific words (tokens) appear in a text, as well as how varied the vocabulary is (types). — This helps in identifying common vs. rare words and understanding language patterns. — 2 Studying Language Complexity: — Texts with a higher number of types relative to tokens are considered to have more complex vocabulary. In contrast, texts with a high token count but a low type count may indicate simpler or more repetitive language. — This is useful in evaluating the complexity of different genres, registers, or authors' writing styles. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Significance of the Type-Token Distinction 36 — 3 Measuring Morphological Productivity: — In morphology, the more types a morpheme generates, the more productive it is considered. For example, if the morpheme -er can form many unique types (e.g., runner, painter, teacher), it is highly productive. — The more tokens each of these types generates, the more frequently the morpheme is used in actual language. — 4.4 Informing Lexicography: — Lexicographers (dictionary makers) use type-token analysis to determine which words to include in dictionaries. High token frequency often suggests that a word is common and widely used, whereas low token frequency for a unique type may indicate that the word is rare or specialized. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Exercises: Types and Token 37 — Count the number of tokens and types in the following sentences: 1. The dog barked at the cat and the cat ran away. 2. She sells seashells by the seashore, and she sells more shells. 3. Ahmed, Ahmed, Ahmed! Where is Ahmed? 4. Apples, bananas, and oranges are all fruits, but apples are my favorite. 5. Reading, reading, reading can improve your knowledge. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Exercises: Types and Token 38 6. Consider the following short paragraph. — "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The dog sleeps all day.” ¡ Count all the Tokens and Types that the paragraph includes. 7. Consider the excerpt from a well-known nursery ehyme: "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are.” ¡ State how many Tokens and Types it contains. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Exercises: Types and Token 39 8. Consider this excerpt from a hypothetical news article: — "The company announced that the new product would be launched next month. The CEO stated that the company aims to improve sales with this launch." ¡ Count the Tokens and the Types of this excerpt. 9. Cats are great pets. Cats can be very affectionate. 10. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. 11. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It then runs quickly back. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: The Smallest Meaningful Unit 40 “They gave it me,” Humpty Dumpty continued, “for an un-birthday present.” “I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a puzzled air. “I’m not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I mean what is an un-birthday present?” “A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.” — LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871. — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5FC6E5Gh4E — In the foregoing dialogue, Humpty Dumpty knows that the prefix un- means “not”, as further shown in the following pairs of words: Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: The Smallest Meaningful Unit.. 41 A B desirable undesirable likely unlikely inspired uninspired happy unhappy developed undeveloped sophisticated unsophisticated Thousands of English adjectives begin with un-. If we assume that the most basic unit of meaning is the word, what do we say about parts of words like un-, which has a fixed meaning? In all the words in the B column, un- means the same thing- “not”. Undesirable means “not desirable”, unlikely means “not likely”, and so on. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: The Smallest Meaningful Unit.. 42 A B C phone phonology phoneme phonetic phonologist phonemic phonetics phonological allophone phonetician telephone euphonious phonic telephonic symphony Just as un- occurs with the same meaning in the previous list of words, so does phon- in the above words. Phon- is a minimal form in that it cannot be decomposed. Ph does not mean anything; pho, though it may be pronounced like foe, has no relation in meaning to it; and on is not the preposition spelled o-n. In all the words on the above list, phon has the identical meaning of “pertaining to sound”. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: The Smallest Meaningful Unit.. 43 A. Morpheme Definition — A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language that meets three criteria: — 1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning. — 2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or without meaningless remainders. — 3. It occurs in differing verbal environments with a relatively stable meaning. — Let us examine the word straight / streIt / in the light of these criteria. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes.. 44 — First, straight / streIt / is a word and is listed as such in any dictionary. — Second, it cannot be divided without violation of meaning. For example, we can, by dividing straight / streIt /, get the smaller meaningful forms of trait /treIt/, rate / reIt /, and ate /eIt /, but the meanings of these forms violate the meaning of straight. ¡ Furthermore, when we divide it in these ways, we get the meaningless remainders of /s-/, /st-/, and /str-/. — Third, straight recurs with relatively stable meaning in such environments as straightedge, straighten, and a straight line. — Thus, straight meets all the criteria of a morpheme. — Solve the problems in Exercises 8.1 & 8.2 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes.. 45 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Free and Bound Morphemes 46 B. Free and Bound Morphemes — Morphemes are of two kinds, free and bound. — A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning. For example, in reply to “What are you going to do now?” you might answer “Eat”. This is a free morpheme. — A bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It is always annexed/attached to one or more morphemes to form a word. For instance, ante-, re-, - ly, -er, and un- cannot be uttered in isolation forms.[cf. antedate, replay, manly, keeper, and unable]. — Solve the problems in Exercise 8.3. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Free and Bound Morphemes.. 47 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Free and Bound Morphemes.. 48 C. Bases — Another classification of morphemes puts them into two classes: bases and affixes. — A base morpheme is the part of a word that has the principal meaning. — A base is a linguistic form that meets one or more of these requirements: ¡ 1. It can occur as an immediate constituent of a word whose only other immediate constituent is a prefix or suffix, e.g. react, active, fertilize. ¡ 2. It is an allomorph of a morpheme that has another allomorph that is a free form, e.g. depth (deep), wolves (wolf). ¡ 3. It is a borrowing from another language in which it is a free form or a base, e.g. biometrics, microcosm, phraseology. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Bases/Roots /Stems 49 C. Bases.. — The italicized morphemes in these words are bases: denial, lovable, annoyance, re-enter. — Bases are very numerous, and most of them in English are free morphemes; but some are bound, like –sent in consent, dissent, and assent. — A word may contain one base and several affixes. ¡ Readability contains the free base read and the two affixes –abil and –ity; and unmistakable has the free base take and the affixes un-, mis-, and – able. ¡ Solve Exercise # 8.4. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Free and Bound Morphemes.. 50 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Bases/Roots /Stems.. 51 C. Bases.. — All the bases in Ex. 8.4 are free bases. — Now we shall look at bound bases, to which it is sometimes hard to attach a precise meaning. — A good number of bound bases in English come from the Latin and Greek, like the –sent in sentiment, sentient, consent, assent, dissent, resent. — The standard way to pin down the meaning is to search for the meaning common to all the words that contain the base (in these words, -sent means “feel”). — Solve Exercise 8.5 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Bases/Roots /Stems.. 52 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Bases/Roots /Stems.. 53 C. Bases.. — An easier way for knowing bases is to look up in your dictionary the base in question, like consent, and in the etymology find out the Latin or Greek meaning of the base. — Under consent you will find that –sent means “feel” in Latin, and this area of meaning seems to have been retained for the base of all words in the –sent list. — Also, you will find some of the more common base morphemes listed as separate entries. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Bases/Roots /Stems.. 54 C. Bases.. — The following are all separately entered in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary: — phot-, photo- (light); xer-, xero- (dry); bi-, bio- (life); mis-, miso- (hate); ge-, geo- (earth); biblio- (book); -meter (measure); tele-, tel- (distant); -phil, -phile (lover); -logy (science or study of). — Solve the problems in Exercise 8.6. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Bases/Roots /Stems.. 55 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Bases/Roots /Stems.. 56 — Morphologically complex words consist of a morpheme root and one or more affixes. — Examples of English roots are paint in painter, read in reread, ceive in conceive, and ling in linguist. — A root may or may not stand alone as a word (paint and read can do; ceive and ling don’t). — Semitic languages like Arabic and Hebrew have a unique morphological system. — Nouns and verbs are built on a foundation of three consonants, and one derives related words by varying the pattern of vowels and syllables. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Bases/Roots /Stems.. 57 — For example, the root for “write is ktb, from which the following words (among others) are formed by infixing vowels: ¡ katab “he wrote” ¡ kaatib “writer” ¡ kitaab “book” ¡ kutub “books” — When a root morpheme is combined with an affix, it forms a stem. — Other affixes can be added to a stem to form a more complex stem, as shown in the following examples: Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Bases/Roots /Stems.. 58 Root Chomsky (proper) noun Stem Chomsky + ite Noun + suffix Word Chomsky + ite + s Noun + suffix + suffix Root believe Verb Stem believe + able Vern + suffix Word un + believe + able Prefix + verb + suffix Root system Noun Stem system + atic Noun + suffix Stem un + system + atic + al Prefix + noun + suffix + suffix + Word un + system + atic + al + ly Prefix + noun + suffix + suffix + suffix Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Bound Roots 59 — Bound roots do not occur in isolation and they acquire meaning only in combination with other morpheme. — For example, words from Latin origin such as receive, conceive, perceive, and deceive share a common root/base, ceive; and the words remit, permit, commit, submit, transmit, and admit share the root/base mit. — For the original Latin speakers, the morphemes corresponding to ceive and mit had clear meanings, but for modern English speakers, Latinate morphemes such as conceive and mit have no independent meaning. Their meaning depends on the entire word in which they occur. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Bound Roots.. 60 — A similar class of words is composed of a prefix affixed to a bound root/base morpheme. — Examples are ungainly, but no *gainly; discern, but no *cern; nonplussed, but no *plussed; downhearted but no *hearted, and others. — The morpheme huckle, when joined with berry, has the meaning of a berry that is small, round, and purplish blue; luke when combined with warm has the meaning “somewhat”. ¡ Both previous morphemes and others like them (cran, boysen –e.g., boysenberry) are bound morphemes that convey meaning only in combination. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Content Words & Function Words Open Class & Closed Class 61 “… and even … the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury found it advisable—” “Found what?” said the Duck. “Found it,” the Mouse replied rather crossly; “of course you know what ‘it’ means.” “I know what ‘it’ means well enough, when I find a thing,” said the Duck; “it’s generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?” - LEWIS CAROLL, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Content Words & Function Words Open Class & Closed Class 62 Ø Read this cartoon and see what it suggests. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Content Words & Function Words Open Class & Closed Class.. 63 Content words – Open Class Words: — Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are content words that denote concepts such as objects, actions, attributes, and ideas that we can think about like children, anarchism, soar, and purple. — Content words are also called open class words because we can and regularly add new words to these classes, such as Bollywood, blog, and 24/7, pronounced “twenty-four seven.” Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Content Words & Function Words Open Class & Closed Class 64 Function Words – Closed Class Words — Function words do not have clear lexical meanings or obvious concepts associated with them, including conjunctions such as and, or, and but; prepositions such as in and of; the articles the and a/an, and pronouns such as it. — Such function words specify grammatical relations and have little or no semantic content. ¡ For example, the articles indicate whether a noun is definite or indefinite – the boy or a boy. The preposition of indicates possession, as in “the book of yours,”, but this word indicates many other relations too. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Content Words & Function Words Open Class & Closed Class 65 — The ‘it’ in it’s raining and the archbishop found it advisable are further examples of words whose function is purely grammatical – they are required by the rules of syntax, and as the cartoon suggests, we can hardly do without them. — Function words are also called closed class words. It is difficult to think of any conjunctions, prepositions, or pronouns that have recently entered the language. — The small set of personal pronouns such as I, me, mine, he, she, and so on are part of this class. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Content Words & Function Words Open Class & Closed Class 66 — The difference between content and function words can be illustrated by the following test. Test — Count the number of F’s in the following text without reading further: FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Content Words & Function Words Open Class & Closed Class 67 — Most people come up with three, which is wrong. If you come up with fewer than six, count again, and this time pay attention to the function word of. — This little test illustrates that the brain treats content and function words (like of) differently. — The two classes of words also seem to function differently in slips of the tongue produced by normal individuals. ¡ For example, a speaker may inadvertently switch words producing “the journal of the editor” instead of “the editor of the journal”, but the switching or exchanging of function words has not been observed. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Content Words & Function Words Open Class & Closed Class 68 — The linguistic evidence suggests that content words and function words play different roles in language. — Content words bear the brunt of the meaning, whereas function words connect the content words to the larger grammatical context. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis 69 — The identification of morphemes is not as tidy as a business as may appear in these exercises and that there are serious, perhaps insoluble, difficulties in morphemic analysis. — The first difficulty is that you have your own individual stock of morphemes just as you have a vocabulary that is peculiarly your own. — An example will make this clear. — Ahmed may think of automobile as one morpheme meaning “car”, whereas Ali may know the morpheme auto- (self) and mobile (moving), and recognize them in other words like autograph and mobilize. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 70 — On the other hand, Huda may consider chronometer to be a single morpheme, a fancy term for “watch”, but Nancy sees in this word two morphemes, chrono- (time) and meter (measure), which she also finds in chronology and photometer, and Amira finds a third morpheme { -er } in it, as in heater; thus, mete (verb) to measure, + -er, one who, or that which. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 71 — The second difficulty is that persons may know a given morpheme but differ in the degree to which they are aware of its presence in various words. — For instance, it is likely that most speakers of English know the agentive suffix / - ər / (spelled –er, -or, -ar) meaning “one who, that which” and recognize it in countless words like singer and actor. — But many may only dimly sense this morpheme in professor and completely overlook it in voucher, cracker, and tumbler. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 72 — Thus, we can say that sweater has enough pulse in its –er to be considered a two- morpheme word? This will vary with the awareness of different individuals. — A less simple case is seen in this group: nose, noseful, nosey, nasal, nuzzle, nozzle, nostril, nasturtium. — Only a linguistically knowledgeable person would see the morpheme nose in each of these words. — Others will show considerable differences in awareness. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 73 — Thus, we conclude that one individual’s morphemes are not those of another. — This is no cause for deep concern, though it may be a source of controversy in the classroom, for we are dealing with the morphemes of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, not merely with the individual morpheme inventories of Ahmed, Ali, Nancy, and Amira. — But in the language itself there are problems of morphemic analysis because the language is constantly changing. — One problem is that of obsolescence. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 74 — Morphemes may slowly fade away into disuse as the decades and centuries roll by, affecting our view of their morphemehood. — For example, we can be sure that troublesome, burdensome, lonesome, and cuddlesome are two-morpheme words consisting of a base/root morpheme plus the suffixal morpheme –some. — However, winsome has an obsolete base (Old English wynn, pleasure, joy), so that the word is now monomorphic. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 75 — Between these two extremes are words like ungainly. — This means of course “not gainly”, but what does gainly mean? — Certainly, it is not in common use. — In current dictionaries it is called “rare” or “obsolete” or “dialectal”, or is unlabeled. — Then should we call ungainly a word of one or two or even three morphemes? Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 76 — Another problem results from the fact that metaphors die as language changes. — Let us take the morpheme –prehend- (seize) as an example. — In apprehend (= to arrest or seize) and prehensible it clearly retains its meaning, but in comprehend the metaphor (seize mentally) seems to be dead, and the meaning of the word today is merely “understand”. — Does it then still contain the morpheme – prehend-? Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 77 — Another case is seen in bankrupt (bench broken). — The morpheme bank, in the sense of a bench, may be obsolete, but –rupt is alive today in rupture and interrupt. — The original metaphor is dead, however, and the meaning of these two metaphors does not add up at all to the current meaning of bankrupt. — Is the word then a single morpheme? Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 78 — The last matter, additive meaning, is a problem in itself. — Meaning is very elusive, and when morphemes combine in a word, their meanings tend to be unstable and evanescent; they may even disappear altogether. — For example, consider the morpheme pose (place). — In “pose a question” the meaning is clear, and it is probably retained in interpose (place between). — But in suppose and repose the meaning appears to be evaporated. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 79 — Between these extremes are words like compose, depose, impose, propose, and transpose, in which the sense of pose seems to acquire special nuances in combination. — Which of all these words, then, may be said to contain the morpheme pose (place)? — Such are some of the problems in morphemic analysis that have plagued linguists. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 80 Exercise 8-7: — This exercise is an excursus into dead metaphors, simply to show you a fascinating aspect of words that many people are unaware of. — Look up the etymology of the following words in your desk dictionary and note the original meaning that underlines the words. A little thought will show you the connection between the original meaning and the present sense. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis.. 81 Word Original Meaning that Underlines the Words 1 Daisy 2 Muscle 3 Supercilious 4 Window 5 Easel 6 Hazard 7 Calculate 8 Spurn 9 Stimulate 10 Stagnate Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 82 Affixes: - Prefixes - Suffixes - Infixes Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 83 D. Affixes.. — An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before or within or after a base. — There are three kinds of affixes, prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. — 1. Prefixes are those bound morphemes that occur before a base, as in import, prefix, reconsider. — Prefixes in English are a small class of morphemes, numbering about seventy-five. — Their meanings are often those of English prepositions and adverbials. — Solve Exercise 8.8. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 84 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 85 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 86 D. Affixes.. — 2. Infixes are bound morphemes that have been inserted within a word. — Infixes are rare in English. Occasionally, they are additions within a word, as in un get at able, where the preposition at of get at is kept as an infix in the –able adjective, though the preposition is usually dropped in similar words, like reliable (from rely on) and accountable (account for). — Infixes in English are most commonly replacements, not additions. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 87 D. Affixes.. — Infixes in English occur in a few noun plurals, like the –ee- in geese, replacing the –oo- of goose, and more often in the past tense and past participles of verbs, like the –o- of chose and chosen replacing the –oo- of choose. — Such infixes are precisely called “replacive allomorphs”. — Arabic “Broken Plurals” are good examples for infixes. — Solve Exercise 8.9. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 88 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 89 D. Affixes.. — 3. Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base, like shrinkage, failure, noisy, realize, nails, dreamed. — Suffixes may pile up to the number of three or four, whereas prefixes are commonly single, except for the negative un- before another prefix. — In normalizers we perhaps reach the limit with four: the base norm plus the four suffixes –al, - ize-, -er, -s. — When suffixes multiply like this, their order is fixed: there is one and only one order in which they occur. — Solve Exercises 8.10 & 8.11 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Morphemes: Affixes 90 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Inflectional Morphology 91 Ø Look at and read this cartoon. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Inflectional Categories and Affixes of English 92 Word Class to Which Inflectional Category Regular Affix Used to Express Category Inflection Applies Nouns Number / Plural -s, -es: book / books, bush / bushes Possessive -'s, -': the cat's tail, Charles' toe Verbs 3rd person singular -s, -es: present it rains, Karen writes, the water sloshes Past Tense -ed: paint / painted Perfect aspect -ed: paint / painted ('has painted) (past participle) Progressive or -ing: Fall / falling, write / writing Continuous aspect (present participle) Adjectives Comparative (comparing -er: tall / taller two items) Superlative (comparing -est: tall / tallest +2 items) Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Inflectional Suffixes 93 — The inflectional affixes can be schematized as follows: Inflectional affix Examples Name 1 { -s pl } Dogs, oxen, mice Noun plural 2 { -s sg ps } Boy’s Noun singular possessive 3 { -s pl. ps } Boys’, men’s Noun plural possessive 4 { -s 3rd } vacates Present third-person singular 5 {-ING vb} discussing Present participle 6 { -D pt } Chewed, rode Past tense 7 { -D pp } Chewed, eaten, swum Past participle 8 { -ER cp } Bolder, sooner, nearer Comparative 9 {-EST sp } Boldest, soonest, nearest Superlative Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Inflectional Suffixes.. 94 — Stems: the words to which the previous affixes (suffixes and infixes) are attached are called stems. — The stem includes the base or bases and all the derivational affixes. Thus, the stem of playboys is playboy and that of beautified is beautify. — The inflectional suffixes differ from the derivational suffixes in the following ways, to which there are few exceptions. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Inflectional Suffixes.. 95 — 1. They do not change the part of speech. ¡ Examples: sled, sleds (both are nouns); cough, coughed (both verbs); cold, colder (both adjectives) — 2. They come last in a word. ¡ Examples: shortened, villainies, industrializing — 3. They go with all stems of a given part of speech. ¡ Examples: He eats, drinks, dreams, entertains, motivates. — 4. They do not pile up; only one ends a word. ¡ Examples: flakes, working, higher, written — The exception here is the {-s pl ps }, the plural possessive of the noun, as in “The students’ worries.” — Solve Exercise 8.12. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Inflectional Suffixes.. 96 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Morphology 97 Ø Look at and read the following cartoon. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Morphology.. 98 — Derivational morphemes makes new words from old ones. Thus creation is formed from create, but they are two separate words. — Derivational morphemes generally: 1. Change the part of speech or the basic meaning of a word. ¡ Thus -ment added to a verb forms a noun (judg-ment). re-activate means "activate again." 2. Are not required by syntactic relations outside the word. ¡ Thus un-kind combines un- and kind into a single new word, but has no particular syntactic connections outside the word -- we can say he is unkind or he is kind or they are unkind or they are kind, depending on what we mean. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Morphology.. 99 3. Are often not productive -- derivational morphemes can be selective about what they'll combine with, and may also have erratic effects on meaning. ¡ Thus, the suffix -hood occurs with just a few nouns such as brother, neighbor, and knight, but not with most others. e.g., *friendhood, *daughterhood, or *candlehood. ¡ Furthermore "brotherhood" can mean "the state or relationship of being brothers," but "neighborhood" cannot mean "the state or relationship of being neighbors." Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Morphology.. 100 4. Typically occur between the stem and any inflectional affixes. ¡ Thus, in governments,-ment, a derivational suffix, precedes -s, an inflectional suffix. 5. In English, may appear either as prefixes or suffixes: ¡ pre-arrange, arrange-ment. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Suffixes.. 101 — Derivational suffixes consist of all the suffixes that are not inflectional. — Among the characteristics of derivational suffixes there are three that will be our immediate concern. — 1. The words with which derivational suffixes combine is an arbitrary matter. To make a noun from the verb adorn, we must add – ment- no other suffix will do- whereas the verb fail combines only with –ure to make a noun, failure. — Solve Exercise # 8.13. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Suffixes.. 102 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Suffixes.. 103 — 2. In many cases, but not all, a derivational suffix changes the part of speech of the word to which it is added. ¡ The noun act becomes an adjective by the addition of –ive, and to the adjective active we can add –ate, making it a verb, activate. — You should be able to distinguish between nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, as you are asked to do in the next exercise. — Solve Exercise # 8.14. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Suffixes.. 104 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Suffixes.. 105 — 3. derivational suffixes usually do not close off a word; that is, after a derivational suffix one can sometimes add another derivational suffix and can frequently add an inflectional suffix. — For example, to the word fertilize, which ends in a derivational suffix, one can add another one, -er, and to fertilizer one can add the inflectional suffix –s, closing off the word. — Solve exercises 8.15 & 8.16. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Suffixes.. 106 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Derivational Suffixes.. 107 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones 108 — Some suffixes, both inflectional and derivational, have homophonous forms (identical in pronunciation). — Homophone: a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same or not. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones – {-ER cp } 109 — Some suffixes, both inflectional and derivational, have homophonous forms. — The inflectional morpheme {-ER cp} has two homophones. — The first is the derivational suffix {-ER n}, which is attached to verbs to form nouns. ¡ This is a highly productive suffix, that is, it is used to produce hundreds of English nouns like hunter, fisher, camper, golfer, lover. It is often called the agent –er and conveys a meaning of “that which performs the action of the verb stem”, as in thriller and teacher. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones – {-ER cp } 110 — It may be attached to non-verbal stems, e.g. probationer, New Yorker, teen-ager, freighter. — The –er on such words could be said to convey a more general meaning of “that which is related”; and since this meaning is inclusive of the previous one, both –er suffixes can be considered to belong to {-ER n}. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-ER cp } 111 — The second derivational –er appears at the end of words like chatter, mutter, flicker, glitter, patter. This {-ER rp} conveys the meaning of repetition. — The acceptance of this {-ER rp}, however, is problematic and raises questions about the analysis of the remainders in words of this class. — For example, if the –er in glitter is a morpheme meaning repetition, we are left with the reminder glitt-, whose morphemic status is dubious. — Solve Exercise # 8.18. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-ER cp } 112 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-ING vb } 113 — The verbal inflectional suffix { -ING vb } has two homophones in –ing. — The first one is the nominal derivational suffix {-ING nm}, which is found in words like meetings, wedings, readings. — This nominal { -ING nm } is obviously derivational since it permits the addition of an inflectional suffix to close it off, the noun plural { -s pl }. — When such a word occurs alone without the inflectional suffix, e.g., meeting, the –ing is ambiguous, for it could be either { -ING vb }, as in “He is meeting the train” or {-ING nm}, as in “He attended the meeting.” Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-ING vb } 114 — The second homophone of {-ING vb} is the adjectival morpheme {-ING adj}, as in a charming woman. — There are three tests by which the verbal {- ING vb} can be distinguished from the adjectival {-ING adj}. 1. The verbal { -ING vb } can usually occur after as well as before the noun it modifies, e.g., ¡ I saw a burning house. ¡ I saw a house burning. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-ING vb} 115 2. The adjectival {-ING adj} can be preceded by a qualifier like very, rather, quite, or by the comparative and superlative words more and most, as in ¡ It is a very comforting thought. — This is a more exciting movie. — But not ¡ *I saw a rather burning house. — Also, compare ¡ That interesting snake ¡ That crawling snake Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-ING vb } 116 3. The adjectival {-ING adj} can occur after seems: ¡ That snake seems interesting. — Whereas the verbal {-ING vb} cannot: ¡ *That snake seems crawling. — Now solve Exercise # 8.19. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-ING vb } 117 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-D pp } 118 — The verbal inflectional { -D pp } has a homophone in the adjectival derivation { -D adj }, as in ¡ Huda was excited about her new job. ¡ She was a devoted mother. — The adjectival { -D adj } is characterized by its capacity for modification by qualifiers like very, rather, quite, and by more and most. ¡ Example: A rather faded tapestry hung over the fireplace. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-D pp } 119 — The verbal { -D pp }, on the other hand, does not accept such modifiers. We would not, for example, say ¡ *The very departed guests had forgotten their dog. — The seems test for adjectival { -ING adj } is applicable to adjectival { -D adj }; for example, ¡ “The tapestry seems faded” but not “The guests seem departed.” — Solve Exercises # 8.20 & 8.21. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-D pp } 120 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-LY adv } 121 — The adverbial derivational suffix {-LY adv} is added to most adjectives to form adverbs of manner, as in rich, richly; kind, kindly; formal, formally; happy, happily. — A small group of adjectives does not take this {- LY adv}, among them big, small, little, tall, long, fast. — The adverbial {-LY adv} has a homophone the derivational suffix {-LY adj}, and adjectival morpheme that is distinguished as follows: — 1. It is added to monosyllabic nouns to form adjectives that are inflected with –er, -est. ¡ Examples: love, lovely; friend, friendly; man, manly. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-LY adv } 122 — 2. It is added to nouns to form adjectives that are not inflected with –er, -est. ¡ Examples: king, kingly; beast, beastly; scholar, scholarly; mother, motherly; leisure, leisurely. — 3. It is added to a few adjectives, giving alternate adjectival forms that are also inflected with –er, -est. ¡ Examples: dead, deadly; live, lively; kind, kindly; sick, sickly — Here the adjectives kindly and lively are homophonous with the adverbs kindly and lively, which end in {-LY adv}. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-LY adv } 123 — For example, we see the adverb in “She spoke kindly to the children,” and the adjective in “She was the kindliest woman in the village.” — 4. It is added to a short list of “time” nouns to form adjectives. ¡ Examples: day, daily; hour, hourly; month, monthly — These are not inflected with –er, -est, and some of them undergo functional shift to become nouns, e.g., “He subscribes to two dailies and three quarterlies.” — Now solve Exercises # 8.22 & 8.23. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-LY adv } 124 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Suffixal Homophones.. {-LY adv } 125 Exercise 8-23 Continued:.. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  English Derivational Affixes- Chart 126 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  Inflectional vs Derivational 127 — The following table sums up the differences between inflectional and derivational morphemes. Inflectional Derivational Grammatical function Lexical function No word class change May cause word class change Small or no meaning change Some meaning change Often required by rules of Never required by rules of grammar grammar Follow derivational Precede inflectional morphemes in a morphemes in a word word Productive Some productive, many nonproductive Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  English Morphemes - Chart 128 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words 142 — Morphemes are added in a fixed order. This order reflects the hierarchical structure of the word. — A word is not a simple sequence of morphemes. It has an internal structure. — For example, the word unsystematic is composed of three morphemes: un-, system, and –atic. The root/base is system, a noun, to which we add the suffix –atic, resulting in an adjective, systematic. To this adjective, we add the prefix un- forming a new adjective, unsystematic. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 143 — In order to represent the hierarchical organization of words, linguists use tree diagrams. — The tree diagram for unsystematic is as follows: Adj Aff Adj N Aff un system atic Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 144 — The previous tree represents the application of two morphological rules: 1. Noun + -attic Adjective 2. un- + Adjective Adjective — Rule 1 attaches the derivational suffix –atic to the root/base noun, forming and adjective. — Rule 2 takes the adjective formed by Rule 1 and attaches the derivational prefix un-. — The tree diagram shows that the entire word – unsystematic – is an adjective that is composed of an adjective – systematic – plus un-. — The adjective is itself composed of a noun – system – plus the suffix –atic. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 145 — Hierarchical structure is an essential property of human language. — Words have component parts, which relate to each other in specific, rule-governed ways. — Although at first glance it may seem that, aside from order, the morphemes un- and –atic each relate to the root system in the same way, this is not the case. — The root system is “closer” to –atic than it is to un-, and un- is actually connected to the adjective systematic, and not directly to system. — Indeed, *unsystem is not an English word. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 146 — Further morphological rules can be applied to the given structure. ¡ For example, English has a derivational suffix –al, as in egotistical, fantastical, and astronomical. In these cases, -al is added to an adjective – egotistic, fantastic, astronomic – to form a new adjective. The rule for –al is as follows: — 3. Adjective + -al Adjective — Another affix is –ly, which is added to adjectives – happy, lazy, hopeful – to form adverbs happily, lazily, hopefully. Following is the rule for –ly: — 4. Adjective + -ly Adverb Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 147 — Applying these two rules to the derived form unsystematic, we get the following tree for unsystematically: Adv (Rule 4) Adj (Rule 3) Adj (Rule 2) Adj (Rule 1) Aff N Aff Aff Aff un system atic al ly Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 148 — Unsytematically is a complex word. Despite its complexity, it is well-formed because it follows the morphological rules of the language. — On the other hand, a very simple word can be ungrammatical. Suppose in the above example we first added un- to the root system, which would have resulted in the nonword *unsystem. *N Aff N un system Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 149 — *Unsystem is not a possible word because there is no rule of English that allow un- to be added to nouns. — The large-soft-drink company whose add campaign promoted the Uncola successfully flouted this linguistic rule to capture people’s attention. — Part of our linguistic competence includes the ability to recognize possible versus impossible words, like *unsystem and *Uncola. — Possible words are those that conform to the rules; impossible words are those that do not. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 150 — Tree diagrams make explicit the way speakers represent the internal structure of the morphologically complex words in their language — Inflectional morphemes are equally well represented. The following tree shows that the inflectional agreement morpheme –s follows the derivational morphemes –ize and re- in refinalizes V V V Aff Adj Aff Aff re final ize s Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 151 — In the previous diagram, the tree shows that re- applies to finalize, which is correct as *refinal is not a word, and that the inflectional morpheme follows the derivational morpheme. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 152 Word Structure Ambiguity — The hierarchical organization of words is even more clearly shown by structurally ambiguous words, words that have more than one meaning by virtue of having more than one structure. — Consider the word unlockable. — 1. Imagine you are inside a room and you want some privacy. You would be unhappy to find the door is unlockable – “not able to be locked.” — 2. Now imagine you are inside a locked room trying to get out. You should be very relieved to find the door is unlockable – “able to be unlocked.” — These two meanings correspond to two different structures, as follows: Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 153 1. “not able to be locked” 2. “able to be unlocked” Adj Adj Adj V Aff V Aff Aff V Aff un lock able un lock able - An entire class of words in English follows this pattern: unbuttonable, unzippable, and unlatchable. - The ambiguity arises because the prefix un- can combine with and adj, as in Rule 2, or it can combine with a verb, as in undo, unstaple, unearth, and unloosen. Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 154 — Solve Exercise # 8.27 and 8.28. More examples: — unfearful — globalization — denationalization — disorganization — unhappiness — hospitalization Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 155 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU  The Hierarchical Structure of Words.. 156 Dr. Kamel A. Elsaadany KSU