Categories: All - prefixes - morphology

by Laura Ramirez 5 years ago

1380

Morphology and Syntax

The study of morphology involves understanding how words are formed and structured. It is a branch of linguistics that examines the internal structure of words, focusing on how stems, roots, prefixes, and suffixes interact to create meaning and grammatical function.

Morphology and Syntax

The plural noun is generally formed by adding -s to the singular. Cow (singular), cows (plural) Boy, boys Girl, girls Book, books Tree, trees Dog, dogs Pen, pens

Each of these independent elements is a morpheme. The definition includes "minimal" because reddens breaks down into not just redden + s, but into redd + en + s -- and no further.

cf. black+en, whit+en, short+en

redd + en

cf. talk+ing, runn+ing, sing+ing

walk + ing

cf. hand+s, cat+s, book+s

dog + s

Suffix Meaning Example -ed past-tense verbs hopped -ing verb form/present participle running -ly characteristic of quickly -s, -es more than one books, boxes -able, -ible able to be manageable, defensible -ful full of wishful

Prefix Meaning Example dis- opposite defrost in-, im-, il-, ir- not injustice impossible re- again return un- not unfriendly

Affixes ni-, Af, [AGR(su):lsg] u-, Af, [AGR(su):2sg] a-, Af, [AGR(su):3sg] tu-, Af, [AGR(su):lpl] wa-, Af, [AGR(su):3pl] na-, Af, [TNS:definite] ta-, Af, [TNS:future] ii. Verb roots -lipa, V ('pay') -penda, V ('like')

POSITION- CLASS DIAGRAMS: This method is a variation on a general approach to morphological structure that is called the ITEM AND ARRANGEMENT model. -Useful describing languages that tend to have lost morphemes.

STEP 1: Isolate the roots. As we look over the free translations of the Sierra Nahuatl data, we see that there seem to be two basic verbs invoved: one meaning "see" and another meaning "give".

-Lipstick -Basketball -Mailbox -Mother-in-law

Involves combining roots to form new stems.

Compounding

example

It is another quite rare process, whereby one or more segments are omitted from a word in order to express a particular conceptual category.

Subtractive Morphology

For example:, one could say: Singular noun + -S = Plural noun

These can be abbreviated as: CC: Comceptual Category SD: Structural Description (starting form) SC: Structural Change (ending form) The rules temselves will always have the following pathern CC:SD--->SD

Root Number cat 0 SG dog -S PL mat tree

PROCESS RULES: a process rule is a additional schemes can be described relationship among tthe various shapes of words as though they were changes that the words undergo. be represented in a simple position-class diagram as follows:.

In a process rule, the formation of the plural (and perhaps the singular as well) would be treated as a "process" that changes a root the appropiate INFLECTED form.

STEP 5: Label the columns. Positions in complex morphological structures tend to be associate with particular sets of conceptual categories. For example, verbs in a highly morphological language might have one position for tense, another position for ASPECT, another for PERSON and NUMBER of the SUBJECT, ect.

STEP 4: Analyze suffixes. This step will be very similar to the previous one, comparing 23g and h, we see that the difference in the forms of the suffixes is related to the difference between 'most honored sir', and ' most very honored sir'.

STEP 3: Begin to analyze prefixes. Since in this problem the first examples seem to contain just prefixes, we will start by trying to analyze the prefixes. Usually expresses similary in meaning.

STEP 2: Estimate the affix positions. Since in the Nahuatl examples there is material to the left and the right of the roots, we suspect there arre prefixes and suffixes.

Example

ROOT Consider the following nouns, adjectives and verbs in English: car, book, buy, sell, eat, type, run, play, dog, cat, mouse, Ú .

the process of constructing a position-class diagram for data such as these will be given belowin step-by-step fashion though the steps are more a descriptive tool than a "PROGRAM" for analizing morphology.

_In languages that express many of their conceptual categories morphologically, there are typically several "layers" of prefixes and suffixes, as a described above. _for example:, here are some data from sierra Natualt. atanipenda 'he will like me' atakupenda 'he will like you' atampenda 'he will like him' atatupenda 'he will like us' atawapenda 'he will like them' nitakupenda 'I will like you'

PROSE: written language in its ordinary form rather than poetry

Root-------No meaning on its own Imperative-------write Infinitive----------to write Present participle----- writing Past participle---------written Perfective--------------Wrote

It is common in semitic languages, it involves superimposing a pattern of vowels, and possibly other morphological pieces, on a root that consists only of consonants.

Non- Concatenative Morphology

Examples

-English sentence: I knew Aileron when she was a child. -Spanish translation #1 : yo conocia a Aileron cuando ella era niña . -Spanish translation # 2: yo conoci a Aileron cuando ella era niña.

*Oh, we’re not living together- living together *Out-of-her-mind-out-of-her-mind *Over-the-hill-over-the-hill

Involves the repetition of part or all of a root. Plurality in Ilokano is expressed by reduplicating the first syllable of the root.

Reduplication

Próject-------‘Project Presént------‘Present Récord------‘Ricord

It is a change is shape that doesn't involve consonants and vowels. Rather, it consists of adjustments in features such as stress tone, and nasalization.

Autosegmental Variation

Buy—Bought—Bought Break—Broke—Broken Begin—Began--Begun

It is a change in shape that doesn't involve the addition of any affix.

Stem modification

Embolden-------Bolder Enliven----------Livelier Enlighten--------to inform to shed light on

Is a rare morphological process in which one morpheme has two parts one that appears before the root and another after the root.

Circumfixation

Absobloominglutely Kangabloodyroo

Involves the addition of a morphme ( an infix) in the middle of a root.

Infixation

Education-------Educational Finish-------------Finished Forget------------Forgetful

Involves the addition of morpheme ( a suffix) to the end of a root. In English, the past tense is often expressed with a suffix.

Suffixation

Ease--------Disease Sect---------Dissect Connect----Disconnect Definite-----Indefinite Sleep--------Asleep

Involves the addition of morpheme (a prefix) to the beginning of a root.

Prefixation

Inflectional Categories

Inflectional Categories don't change word classes, and don't adjust the meanings of roots in major ways, they simply add some important information that may be required by the syntactic or situational context.

Derivational Categories

Derivational vs Inflectional categories

Sometimes the derivational category just significantly changes the meanings of the base stem.

Prototypical derivational categories create new stems. often the new stems created by a derivational category belong to a different word class than the stem that is the basis of the derivation.

Native English speakers who learn Spanish are often perplexed by the fact that Spanish has two " Past tenses". it seems at first that there are two ways to translate a sentence like the following into Spanish.

A good part of the art of human communication involves figuring out how our individual categorization scheme compares with the schemes of people we are trying to communicate

Morphological processes and conceptual categories

Methods For Representing Morphological Processes

Conceptual Categories and the problem of labeling

The " big ten" morphological processes