HS: Morphology Winter Term 2005/2006
Morphology: Processes of Word Formation
Presenters: Denise Brilla & Carsten Litterscheidt
Session 8
20 December 2005
Reference:
Bauer, Laurie. “The Morphological Structure of Words”. Introducing Linguistic
Morphology. Edinburgh: EUP, 1988: pp. 19 – 42
Illustration:
Fromkin, Victoria, and Robert Rodman. An Introduction to Language. 4th ed.
Forth Worth, Chicago, San Franciso, et. al.: Holt, Robert and Winston, Inc.:
1988: pp. 122-154
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Your contribution to our moderation:
HS: Morphology 2 Winter Term 05/06
Please refresh your memory of the following passages:
Group 1: circumfixes p. 22 f., 3.1.3
Group 2: infixes p. 23, 3.1.4
Group 3: interfixes p. 23 f., 3.1.5
Group 4: transfixes p. 24 f., 3.1.6
Group 5: base modification: segmental changes p. 26 ff., 3.3 (21) – (24) incl. of text
Group 6: base modification: suprasegmental chg. p. 29 f., 3.3 (27) – (28) incl. of text
Group 7: subtractive morph p. 32, 3.5 – “…process.”
Group 8: endo- vs. exocentric compounding p. 33, 3.6 – p. 36 “…much rice.”
Group 9: dvanda compounds p. 36, “Many lges” – “prim. compounds.”
Group 10: incorporation p. 36, “These are…” – p. 38 (46) incl.
Group 11: neo-classical compounds p. 38, “Compounds…” – end of page
Group 12: unique morphs p. 40, 3.8
Your Task:
Please summarize briefly (!) the main ideas stated in your passage, and choose one good example to illustrate each phenomenon. Choose one spokesperson to present your findings.
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Affixation … sometimes not as easy as it seems
HS: Morphology 3 Winter Term 05/06
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Affixation
HS: Morphology 4 Winter Term 05/06
• Circumfix
• consists of a prefix and a suffix acting together to surround a base
Examples: German past participles of weak verbs
- film-en ge-film-t
‘to film’ ‘filmed’
- frag-en ge-frag-t
‘to ask’ ‘asked’
- lob-en ge-lob-t
‘to praise’ ‘praised’
- zeig-en ge-zeig-t
‘to show’ ‘shown’
if considered a single affix, ge…t = discontinuous morph (very rare)
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Affixation
HS: Morphology 5 Winter Term 05/06
• Infix
• morph inserted into the base
• used derivationally OR inflectionally
vŏh v-an-ŏh sulat s-um-ulat
‘know’ ‘wise’ ‘write’ ‘wrote’
(from Chrau, Vietnam) (from Tagalog, Phillippines)
creation of discontinuous base (very rare)
• In the same word-form, infixes can co-occur with prefixes and suffixes
Example: sulat ‘write’ base
s-um-ulat ‘wrote’ infixation
s-in-ulat ‘was written’ infixation
further preterite passives:
i-s-in-ulat second passive theme infix. + prefixation
s-in-ulat-an third passive theme infix. + suffixation
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Affixation
HS: Morphology 6 Winter Term 05/06
• Infix: speciality ‘Interfix’
• empty morph (i.e. it does not carry morphemic meaning) which
occurs only between two other forms
Examples: German compounding
Auge + Arzt Auge-n-arzt ‘eye doctor’
Bauer + Frau Bauer-s-frau ‘farmer’s wife’
Strauss + Ei Strauss-en-ei ‘ostrich egg’
Geburt + Jahr Geburt-s-jahr ‘birth year’
English neo-classical compounding
electr-o-lyte
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Affixation
HS: Morphology 7 Winter Term 05/06
• Infix: speciality ‘Transfix’
• affix which occurs throughout the base
• only appears in the Semitic languages:
- roots are created by a concatenation of consonants, they never occur in isolation
- transfixes, which always consist of vowels, are then added to the root
- each transfix occurs in a fixed position in the root
Example: Egyptian Arabic ktb (‘to write’)
΄katab ‘he wrote’
΄jiktib ‘he will write’
mak΄tuub ‘written’
mak΄taba ‘bookshops’
ma΄kaatib ‘bookshops’
ki΄taab ‘book’
΄kaatib ‘clerk’
transfixation involves two sets of discontinuous morphs
thus, transfixes are the most complex type of affix
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Internal base modifications
HS: Morphology 8 Winter Term 05/06
• involve phonological changes to the base
• are either segmental OR suprasegmental
a) segmental modifications
Consonantal Change: Voicing
N V change: mou// mou//
thie/f/ thie/v/
sing. pl. change: mouth// mou//s
hou/s/ hou/z/es
shel/f/ shel/v/s
Vowel Mutation
Umlaut = assimilation to a following vowel, e.g. f//t f/i/t
Ablaut = any other instance of vowel mutation, e.g. s//ng s//ng s/a/ng
mostly found in Germanic languages
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Internal base modifications
HS: Morphology 9 Winter Term 05/06
• involve phonological changes to the base
• are either segmental OR suprasegmental
b) suprasegmental modifications (through superfixes)
Change of stress pattern
N V change: ΄discount dis΄count
΄import im΄port
΄insult in΄sult
also called ‘replacive morphs’ = the replacement of one phonological sequence by another
similarly: m//se m//ce
controversy: this would redefine the notion of ‘morph’ to include – in addition to form – the notion of process ( replacing a morph)
other scholars refer to such processes as infixation
term ‘replacive morph’ predominates
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Subtractive Morphs
HS: Morphology 10 Winter Term 05/06
• = morphs which are removed by a morphological process
• In French: subtract the final consonant of the feminine form masculine form
• Example: mauvaise (f) mauvaix (m)
verte (f) vert (m)
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Compounding I a
HS: Morphology 11 Winter Term 05/06
Endocentric compounds
• denote a sub-class of the items denoted by one of their elements hyponym of main/head element
Example: sea-bird
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Compounding I b
HS: Morphology 12 Winter Term 05/06
Exocentric compounds
• denote something which is not a sub-class of either of the elements in the compounds
Example: egg-head
sometimes called ‘bahuvrihi compounds’
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Compounding II
HS: Morphology 13 Winter Term 05/06
‘Dvanda’ / copulative compounds
• denote an entity made up of the two or more elements mentioned in the compound together
Example: bleu – blanc – rouge
I+II = root compounds / primary compounds
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Compounding III
HS: Morphology 14 Winter Term 05/06
Synthetic (or verbal [nexus]) compounds
• head element contains a verb
Example: dish washer
Incorporation
• = a compound created in this way is itself a verb
• noun in the modifying element has same semantic function as direct object of verb involved
• frequently denote an activity
Example: Maori ‘hoko rare’ (= lolly-buy)
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Compounding III
HS: Morphology 15 Winter Term 05/06
Neo-classical compounds
• two lexemes involved in their maku up are not English lexemes Greek, Latin
Example: biology, geometry
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Unique morphs
HS: Morphology 16 Winter Term 05/06
• = only occur in one fixed expression
• bound to a particular collocation
• no own meaning, but make something a subclass
Example: cranberry
often called ‘cranberry morphs’
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Conclusion
HS: Morphology 17 Winter Term 05/06
Bauer: There is a hierarchy of word formation processes.
Compounding [norm]
Affixation
Suffixation
other affixation processes
Other word formation processes [deviation from norm]
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
Summary of
previously known processes
of word formation
HS: Morphology 18 Winter Term 05/06
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
HS: Morphology 19 Winter Term 05/06
• Suffix
• the commonest bound morpheme in all languages
• used derivationally OR inflectionally
constitut-ion-ality talo-i-ssa-an
‘house-pl-in-3rd person possessive’
from Finnish: ‘in their houses’
• When derivational and inflectional suffixes co-occur in the same word-form, the general rule is that the derivational suffixes precede the inflectional ones.
Example: égal-is-a
‘equal (V, deriv.)-3rd person sing-past (infl.)’
from French: ‘he/she/it equalised’
Affixation
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
HS: Morphology 20 Winter Term 05/06
• Suffix ctd.
How to mistake plural suffixation via analogy…
Affixation
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
HS: Morphology 21 Winter Term 05/06
• Prefix
• rarer than suffixes
• used derivationally OR inflectionally
dis-en-tangle a-si-nga-li-jua
‘he-negative-concessive-past-know’
from Swahili: ‘if he had not known’
• When derivational and inflectional prefixes co-occur in the same word-form, the general rule is that the inflectional prefix precedes the derivational prefix.
Example: jih ji-mi-langu
‘he 3rd person (younger) (infl.)-intransitive (deriv.)-swim’
from Achenese (Sumatra): ‘he swims’ (intransitive use)
• In the same word-form, prexifes and suffixes can occur in all possible combinations.
Affixation
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
HS: Morphology 22 Winter Term 05/06
• using some part of (or the whole) base more than once in a word
• far more common in the languages of the world than any affixation process
• base reduplication resembles compounding
Example: Afrikaans
dik dik-dik ‘thick’ ‘very thick’
• can also form types of affixes
Examples: Motu, Papua New Guinea redupl.:
mero me-mero ‘boy’ ‘boys’ prefix
meromero ‘little boy’ whole word
memeromemero ‘little boys’ both
Maori, New Zealand indigenous language
aahua aahua-hua ‘appearance’ ‘resemble’ suffix
• often used iconically, i.e. the form of the word reflects its meaning
often used to indicate plurality, intensity, and repetition
• usually determined phonologically: a reduplication rule states how much of the base is to be reduplicated in terms of consonants, vowels, syllables, and word-forms
Reduplication
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
HS: Morphology 23 Winter Term 05/06
• Zero morphs
o account for the difference in function between homophonous forms such as sgl-pl / N-V / N-Adj / Adj-V / …
Examples: sheep – sheep / download – to download / a round – round / emtpy – to empty / …
o processes: conversion, zero-derivation, functional shift
Relationship with no change of form
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
HS: Morphology 24 Winter Term 05/06
• Backformation = derivational process
o case where the element subtracted is / looks like a morpheme with independent existence elsewhere in the language
Examples: pointer, retriever, warbler point, retrieve, warble
o in retrospect, backformation is invisible. Only noticeable when backformation word unfamiliar
• Clipping = shortening a word without changing its meaning or part of speech, only stylistic change
Examples: deli(catessen), sci(ence) fi(ction)
Cases involving shortening the base
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
HS: Morphology 25 Winter Term 05/06
• Blends = portmanteau word
o two meanings packed up into one word
o overlap no information is lost
Example: glass + asphalt glasphalt
• Acronyms = coined from initial letters of the words in a name, title or phrase pronounced as a new word
Examples: NATO, AIDS
Alphabet-based formation
English Studies: Linguistics Processes of Word Formation
HS: Morphology 26 Winter Term 05/06
• roots so completely different
• derived from different words
cannot be derived by general rules
Examples: good – better, go – went
Suppletion