Two types of inflectional morphology that are sensitive to grammatical relations: case and agreement. Case Case is a grammatical category that shows the functions of noun or noun phrase in a sentence changes (by inflection) to show the different function. Case is morphological differences in noun phrases, depending on what role they play in the…
NONLINEAR AFFIXATION Other types of affixation Linear is combining one morpheme with another. It includes prefixation, suffixation, and compounding. Although much morphology is linear, some is not. Nonlinear morphology is unusual (that, is most morphology is linear), but at same time it is not uncommon for a language to have at least one or…
English noun plurals: Morphophonemics and stem suppletion Morphophonemics and stem suppletion Morphophonemics refers to allomorphy which results from regular phonological rules; STEM SUPLETION refers to irregular inflection. The data Most nouns form their plural by adding suffix –(e)s, which has three spelling forms: /-z/, /-s/, and /-iz/. (1) a. /boI-z/ boy-s /tri:-z/ tree-s /kaʊ-z/ cow-s…
Some of the typical differences between inflectional and derivational morphology. (1) Inflection Derivation Changes one lexical entry into another No Yes Changes syntactic category No Often Productivity Virtually total Partially at best Organized in paradigms Yes No Type of meaning Grammatical Usually lexical Derivational morphology changes one word into another, often changing it into a…
Inflection morphology in a formal grammar Inflectional morphology can be fit together with syntax in a formal grammar. Grammar builds a sentence in two phases: first syntax, then inflectional morphology. In the syntactic phase, the phonological material of inflectional…
Basic questions to ask about morphology When we study the morphology of a language, that is, the structure of its words, there are two basic questions that we always need to be asking ourselves. Think of these questions especially when analyzing an affix. What is its meaning? How is that meaning expressed? Question (a)…
Verbal morphology Verbal morphology typically involves many more grammatical meanings than noun morphology. TENSE refers to the relation between the time of the situation described by the verb and the moment of speech. You’re probably already familiar with the distinction between PAST, PRESENT, and, FUTURE. Some languages only make a two-way distinction in their morphology,…
A. morpheme The smallest meaningful unit in a language. A morpheme cannot be divided without altering or destroying its meaning. For example, the English word kind is a morpheme. If the d is removed, it changes to kin, which has a different meaning. Some words consist of one morpheme, e.g. kind, others of more than…
As reflected in many chapters in this book, English is probably the most well studied language in the history of linguistics, so that there is a vast pool of examples of both excellent description and insightful theoretical analysis to be found in the literature. Still, concepts like ‘description’ and ‘theory’ are anything but clear. The…
An Introduction to English Morphology is mainly taken from Bickford, J. Albert. 1998. Tools for Analyzing the World’s Languages Morphology and Syntax. Summer Institute of Linguistics, Inc. and it is compiled from some sources. It is intended to provide students with a morpheme, basic coverage of most of the topics dealt with in courses described as either…