Grammatical Morphology PDF

6 Grammatical Morphology Introduction to English Linguistics – Schleburg 6 Grammatical Morphology Grammatical categories of English words 9 big – bigger – biggest category...

6 Grammatical Morphology Introduction to English Linguistics – Schleburg 6 Grammatical Morphology Grammatical categories of English words 9 big – bigger – biggest category exponents part of speech type adjective: big – bigger – biggest synthetic adverb: soon – positive – sooner – soonest COMPARISON comparative – superlative adjective: more/ most eloquent analytic adverb: more/ most eloquently diachronic In all of English grammar the synthetic strategies are the older ones, the analytic strategies are of more recent date. 6 Grammatical Morphology The grammatical paradigm As a consequence of these grammatical systems, many English words occur in different variants: lexeme word- write writes wrote writing written forms citation form paradigm The complete paradigm of an English verb includes four non-finite forms (not analysable in terms of person, number and mood): infinitive: (to) write present participle: writing he was caught writing rude things on the wall past participle: written often conflated into one ›ing-form‹ gerund: writing writing rude things on the wall is childish 6 Grammatical Morphology The grammatical paradigm The inflectional paradigm of the verb ‘to write’ 1000 years ago: present past indic subj indic subj infinitive wrītan 1 sg wrīte wrīte wrāt write present ptc wrītende 2 sg wrītest wrīte write write past ptc writen 3 sg wrīteð wrīte wrāt write imperative wrīt! wrītað! pl wrītað wrīten writon writen Over the centuries most of the unstressed grammatical endings have been lost and inflectional paradigms simplified. Though some inflectional diachronic markers remain, their importance for the system has constantly decreased, and to express grammatical information Present Day English relies much more heavily on analytic strategies. 6 Grammatical Morphology What triggers the choice of the variant? The individual lexeme, e. g. the word ox or the word sheep! Irregularities Lexically conditioned choice of a particular grammatical marker: ox – ox-en What triggers the choice of the variant? sheep – sheep-Ø The morphological process, e. g. adding a plural or past tense marker! Morphologically conditioned allomorph of the stem (morphophonemic alternation): life – lives house – houses mouth – mouths say – says, said The word child demands a plural marker. tell – told The plural marker demands a stem variant. Both at the same time: child – child-ren brother – brethr-en 6 Grammatical Morphology Irregularities Portmanteau morph (fusion of two morphemes which are usually expressed separately into an unsegmentable form): man (lexical) + plural (grammatical) → men (unsegmentable) take (lexical) + past (grammatical) → took cf. fan /fæn/ + plural → fans (segmentable) bake + past → baked Suppletion: good – bett-er cf. Latin bonus ‘good’ – melior ‘better’ – optimus ‘best’ bad – worse cf. Czech zlý ‘bad’ – horší ‘worse’ be – are – was cf. Romanian fi ‘to be’ – sunt ‘[I] am’ – eram ‘[I] was’ go – went cf. French aller ‘to go’ – je vais ‘I go’ – j’irai ‘I will go’ contrastive Suppletion in nouns: German Hauptmann – Hauptleute, Russian čelovek ‘human’ – ľudi 6 Grammatical Morphology 6 Grammatical Morphology classification of languages by structures Morphological Typology Grammatical morphology is one of the criteria used by linguists to classify human languages into types. Latin: Homin- em alt- um uide- ō. man ACC + SG tall ACC + SG + M see 1ST P + SG + IND + PRS + ACT ‘I see a/the tall man’ Inflected languages use bound portmanteau morphs to express grammatical information. Vietnamese: Khi tôi đến nhà bạn tôi, chúng tôi bắt đầu làm bài. when I come house friend I PLURAL I begin do lesson ‘When I came to my friend’s house, we began to do lessons.’ Isolating languages use free grammatical morphemes and constituent order to express grammatical information. 6 Grammatical Morphology Morphological Typology Quechua (spoken in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador): állqo ‘dog’ allqócha + DIMINUTIVE allqochálla + AFFECTION allqochalláyki + POSSESSIVE (2ND PERSON SINGULAR) allqochallaykikúna + PLURAL allqochallaykikunáwan + ASSOCIATIVE allqochallaykikunapíwan + LOCATIVE allqochallaykikunapiwánpas + CONTRAST allqochallaykikunapiwanpásmi + ASSERTION ‘but it’s also in your sweet little doggies’ Agglutinative languages use chains of morphemes (one meaning each) to express grammatical information. 6 Grammatical Morphology Morphological Typology inflected agglutinative play-s Old English Modern English some put the blame on the wrong man isolating 6 Grammatical Morphology Grammatical vs. lexical revisited The difference between grammatical and lexical elements is a continuum rather than a clear division: forms can be more or less grammatical. Example 1: The plural- is more grammatical than the genitive-. several Queens of England, the guys next to you the Queen of England’s big secret, the guy next to you’s phone The plural- is added to a stem like a real suffix, while the possessive- can follow an entire phrase like a separate word. Example 2: The gerund is more grammatical than other verbal nouns. The gerund is fully productive and semantically predictable: adding, arriving, delivering, departing, forgiving, installing, robbing, walking … addition, arrival, delivery, departure, forgiveness, installation, robbery, walk … The gerund preserves the construction of the verb: accepting oneself, acknowledging the problem, behaving well *acceptance oneself, *acknowledgment the problem, *behaviour well 6 Grammatical Morphology Grammaticalisation Lexical construction: she is going to Canada (local destination) Semantic bleaching – the lexical meaning becomes less specific and thus compatible with new contexts: she is going to marry Bill (abstract destination) I am going to go home (preparation, intention) I am going to stay (incompatible with movement) it’s going to rain (incompatible with movement and intention) Reanalysis – the former main verb go is increasingly perceived as an auxiliary for the following infinitive. Phonological reduction – the unstressed grammatical construction develops a weak form (not used for lexical go): she gonna marry (*she gonna Canada) → *she ga-marry (potential grammatical prefix) 6 Grammatical Morphology Interplay of grammatical categories In the English verb phrase (old) synthetic and (more recent) analytic markers interlock in a highly complex and fascinating way: modal lexical verb perfect passive may have been being played progressive Grammatical variants of an English verb can consist of up to five elements, all but the last of which are auxiliaries (‘helpers’) contributing grammatical information to the overall meaning of the phrase. 6 Grammatical Morphology Interplay of grammatical categories It is important to realise that where a functional slot exists, ›zero‹ is not just nothing: lexical verb no perfect no passive Ø Ø Ø Ø plays no modal no progressive Within this closed system the absence of a periphrasis has as clearly defined a meaning as its presence: no progressive → ‘simple’ no passive → ‘active’ 6 Grammatical Morphology Implicit information It is important to realise that where a functional slot exists, ›zero‹ is not just nothing: ›Zero‹, i. e. the absence of an explicit signal, can have a meaning! 6 Grammatical Morphology Syntactic use of grammatical marking Besides systematically expressing differences in meaning, grammatical marking can contribute to the structural coherence of a syntactic construction: this picture – these pictures agree in NUMBER I am – you are – she is agree in PERSON and NUMBER Agreement (also called concord) occurs when several word-forms in a construction are marked for the same grammatical category (categories). Agreement can be very striking in synthetic grammars: contrastive Latin: fortissimum uirum et illis temporibus doctissimum, Marcum Catonem illum senem (CICERO) Swahili: kikapu kikubwa kimoja kilianguka ‘one big basket fell’ The most important agreement rule in English is subject-verb concord, visible mainly in the 3rd person singular: he answers 6 Grammatical Morphology Syntactic use of grammatical marking Besides systematically expressing differences in meaning, grammatical marking can contribute to the structural coherence of a syntactic construction: he sees her (not *he sees she) verbs assigns CASE for us (not *for we) preposition assigns CASE Government occurs when one word requires a certain grammatical category in another word that syntactically depends on it. Interplay of agreement and government in highly synthetic Latin: in noua fert animus mutatas dicere formas corpora contrastive in new urges mind transformed describe shapes bodies ‘[my] mind urges [me] to describe shapes transformed into new bodies’ (OVID) Beautiful, isn’t it?