Morphology - UZH... · still cases of affixation? Can they even be called morphemes? Most people would not call things like vowel and consonant mutation affixes, but rather use the

Morphology

Class 3

Morpheme properties I:

position

FS 2016

Rik van Gijn

Morphemes I: position

Goal of this class

Learn about morphemes, morphological operations and their possible

distributions

√ Decompose words into smaller units

√ Acquire the vocabulary to talk about these units

√ Classify them in terms of their positions

√ Learn about different types of morphological processes

√ Learn about the Leipzig Glossing Rules


Simplex and complex words

Words may consist of smaller meaningful units

Are the following words simple or complex?

word sentence

worker dinner

unbelievable believable

simplicity complex

Of how many smaller units do they consist?


Morpheme

Morpheme

Smallest unit of language with its own meaning

Morpheme

Form

Meaning

Morpheme

Highly idealized picture

We will discuss different kinds

of exceptions to this basic

pattern in later classes


Morpheme

Morpheme


Form

Meaning

Morpheme

concrete abstract

concrete abstract

consistent variable

consistent variable


Morpheme

Today

We look at form, and mostly at concrete and consistent cases, but we

will also take a look at more abstract operations.

Form

Meaning

Morpheme

concrete abstract

consistent variable

concrete abstract

consistent variable


Morpheme types

Three morphologically complex words

unbearable

lightness

being

1. Divide into morphemes

2. Are all morphemes of the same kind?

Why (not)?


Smallest form-meaning units

un

bear

able

light

ness

be

ing

Morphemes are primitives of form-meaning combinations, they cannot be analyzed further in these terms


Morpheme types

un- bear -able light -ness be -ing

support weight

possibility of

absence of

of little weight

the idea of

exist the act/ state of

What is the semantic core of every word? What is each word really about?

the act/ state of


Morpheme types


support weight

possibility of

absence of

of little weight

the idea of

exist

What is the semantic core of every word? What is each word really about?

WHAT?


Morpheme types


support weight

possibility of

absence of

of little weight

the idea of

exist in the act of


Roots

Literally the root of the word, where the word ‘begins’ semantically

Another characteristic

prototypically associated with

roots is that they can stand

alone


Which of these morphemes can stand alone?

un

bear

able

light

ness

be

ing



un

bear

able

light

ness

be

ing



un

bear

able

light

ness

be

ing

/ˈeɪbl/ attrib. Having the qualifications, power, or capacity for some activity. Obs

/əbl/ Forming adjectives denoting the capacity for or capability of being subjected to or (in some complex words) performing the action denoted or implied by the first element of the complex word.

www.oed.co.uk



un

bear

able

light

ness

be

ing

(Potentially) free morpheme A morpheme that can stand on its own as a word-form.

= root?


However…

A few morphologically complex words

•grateful

•capable

Divide into morphemes


Replacement tests

Replacement tests Can you replace morphemes with free root morphemes?

A few morphologically complex words

•grateful

•capable

Divide into morphemes


Replacement tests

•grateful

Successful, colorful, mindful, etc.

Gratitude, gratuitous, etc.

•capable

Bearable, enjoyable, affordable etc.

Capacity,


Affixes

Affix

A dependent form that cannot stand on its own and which cannot be

replaced systematically with a root morpheme.


Roots and affixes

morphemes

Potentially free Obligatorily bound

Free roots Bound roots Affixes


Roots and bases

unbearable

bear root

↓

bearable base

↓

unbearable


Roots and bases

unbearable

bear root / base

↓

bearable base

↓

unbearable base

↓

unbearability


Roots and bases

Root

The smallest unanalyzable constituent morpheme of a word to which

other morphological material can be added.

Roots may be potentially free morphemes, but not necessarily

Base

Word form to which morphological material is added.

One can thus say that roots are bases, but bases are not necessarily

roots. For instance, -bear- forms the base to which -able is added,

bearable forms the base to which un- is added, but only bear is a root.


Types of affixes

Basic types of affixes are defined on the basis of their position with

respect to the base they attach to.

Prefix Affix that attaches to the left edge of a base. re-read

Suffix Affix that attaches to the right edge of a base. read-er


Types of affixes



German ge- … -en together marks the past participle

ge-lauf-en

ge-fahr-en

Circumfix: Discontinuous affix that attaches to both edges of a base.


Types of affixes



Hua

zgavo ‘embrace’ zga-‘a-vo ‘not embrace’

harupo ‘slip’ haru-‘a-po ‘not slip’

rvato ‘be nigh’ rva-‘a-to ‘not be nigh’

Haiman 1980, cited in Lieber (2009) Introducing morphology p. 77

Infix: affix that is inserted within a base, interrupting a morpheme


The attributes and behaviour of morphemes in terms of parameters

Bickel & Nichols (2007)

Description of typological variation in (inflectional) morphology in terms

of logically independent (orthogonal) parameters.

Bickel & Nichols 2007. Inflectional morphology. In T. Shopen (ed.) Language typology and syntactic

description III. Cambridge University Press.

We will use this as a basic guiding line in the first half of the course.


Typological parameter: position

Typological parameter position, determined by the position of a marker

with respect to its base*

PRAE

POST

IN

SIMUL

* B&N go one step further in including some free forms as morphemes (or formatives in their

terminology) but this pertains particularly to inflection so we’ll postpone that discussion until later.


Morpheme types: prefixes

PRAE

Yurakaré (Isolate)

ti-ja-n-kaya

1SG-3SG-BEN-give

He gave it to me.

Achinese (Austronesian)1

ji-pi-langũ

3-CAUS-swim

He makes (someone) swim.

1. From Bauer (2003: 27) Introducing linguistic morphology. Georgetown U. Press


Morpheme types: suffixes

POST

Cochabamba Quechua (Quechuan)

yanapa-wa-rqa-nki

help-1OBJ-PAST-2SG

‘You helped me.’

Turkish (Altaic)

tan-iş-tır-ıl-ma-dık-lar-ın-dan-dır

know-REC-CAU-PAS-POT-NEG-NZR-3P-ABL-3COP

‘It’s because they cannot be introduced to

each other. (lit. it is from their not being able to be made known to each other

1. From Van de Kerke (1996) Affix order and interpretation in Bolivian Quechua

2. From Bickel & Nichols (2007: 191) Inflection. In Shopen (ed.) Language typology and synatactic

description, part III. Cambridge UP.


Morpheme types: prefixes versus suffixes

Matthew S. Dryer. 2013. Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology. In: Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) WALS Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (http://wals.info/chapter/26, Accessed on 2014-02-28.)


Morpheme types: circumfixes

SIMUL

Tagalog

Intsik ka-intsik-an

‘Chinese person’ ‘the Chinese’

pulo ka-pulu-an’

‘island’ ‘archipelago’

Cavineña (Takanan)

E-ra=mi e-bawitya-u

1SG-ERG=2SG POT-teach-POT

[i-keS bawe=kwana=ke].

1SG-FM know=PL=LIG

‘Icould teachyou what I know.’

1. Schachter and Otanes 1972: 101 in Lieber (2009) Introducing morphology (CUP).

2. Guillaume (2008) A grammar of Cavineña. Mouton de Gruyter.


Morpheme types: infixes

IN

Movima (Isolate): aroso = rice

kas aro<ka>so

NEG rice<IRR>

‘There is no rice.’

Tagalog (Austronesian)

ganda gumanda

‘beauty’ ‘become beautiful’

hirap humirap

‘difficulty’ ‘become difficult’

1. From Haude (2006) A grammar of Movima. PhD thesis RU Nijmegen.

2. From Lieber (2009) Introducing morphology (CUP), cited from Schachter & Otanes 1972


Morpheme types: transfixes

IN

Arabic (Semitic)

kataba 'he wrote'

kattaba 'he caused to write'

kaataba 'he corresponded'

takaatabuu 'they kept up a correspondence'

ktataba 'he wrote, copied'

kitaabun 'book (nom.)'

kuttaabun 'Koran school (nom.)'

kitaabatun 'act of writing (nom.)'

maktabun 'office (nom.)‘

McCarthy 1981: 374 in Linguistic Inquiry 12.

Root: ktb

Transfixes: vowels that

can alter the root pattern


Morpheme

Morpheme


Form

Meaning

Morpheme

concrete abstract


Morpheme types: vowel mutation

IN

German (Germanic)

Mutter - Mütter

Vater - Väter

Tochter - Töchter

Manchu (Tungusic)

haha ‘man’ hehe ‘woman’

ama ‘father’ eme ‘mother

amila ‘rooster’ emile ‘hen’

Haenisch 1961: 34 in Lieber (2009) Introducing morphology (CUP).


Morpheme types: consonant mutation

IN

Scottish Gaelic

nom.sg.indef gen.pl.indef

[b…] bàrd [v…] bhàrd ‘bard’

[kj…] ceann [ç…] cheann ‘head’

[g…] guth [ɣ…] ghuth ‘voice’

[th…] tuagh [h…] thuagh ‘axe’

[b…] balach [v…] bhalach ‘boy’

Calder (1923: 81–93) cited in Haspelmath & Simms (2010) Understanding morphology. Hodder Education.


Morpheme types: consonant mutation

IN

Standard Arabic

darasa ‘learn’ darrasa ‘teach’,

waqafa ‘stop (intr.)’ waqqafa ‘stop (tr.)’,

damara ‘perish’ dammara ‘annihilate’)

Haspelmath & Simms (2010) Understanding morphology. Hodder Education.


Morphemes, affixes, and morphological processes/operations

Are these last few examples (we will see more like those in two weeks)

still cases of affixation? Can they even be called morphemes?

Most people would not call things like vowel and consonant mutation

affixes, but rather use the more general term morphological process

or morphological operation.

There is more variation in whether people call these processes instances of

morphemes or not. Some hardliners say that the term ‘morpheme’ should be

reserved for strings of sounds that are attached to a particular meaning (like

affixes) and not for more abstract operations.

Others allow the term morpheme to be very abstract. We will talk about

morphemes in this latter sense.


Morpheme types

SIMUL

German (Germanic, IE)

der Stab / die Stäbe

der Turm / die Türme

die Not / die Nöte

der Wald / die Wälder

das Haus / die Häuser


Morpheme types

SIMUL

Belhare

khai-ŋa-ŋŋ-ha.

go-PERF-1SG-PERF

‘I’ve gone.’

So:

‘simul’ is not the same as circumfix

‘in’ is not the same as infix

Bickel & Nichols 2007

Simulfix: Discontinuous affix.


Appendix: examples, morpheme breaks, and glossing

http://www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php

The Leipzig Glossing Rules (LGR)

(...) ten rules for the "syntax" and "semantics" of interlinear glosses, and an appendix with a proposed "lexicon" of abbreviated category labels.


Appendix: the Leipzig Glossing Rules

Rule 1: Word-by-word alignment Interlinear glosses are left-aligned vertically, word by word, with the example. E.g. Indonesian (Sneddon 1996:237) Mereka di Jakarta sekarang. They in Jakarta now 'They are in Jakarta now.'


Rule 2: Morpheme-by-morpheme correspondence Segmentable morphemes are separated by hyphens, both in the example and in the gloss. There must be exactly the same number of hyphens in the example and in the gloss. E.g. Lezgian (Haspelmath 1993:207) Gila abur-u-n ferma hamišaluǧ güǧüna amuq’-da-č. now they-OBL-GEN farm forever behind stay-FUT-NEG ‘Now their farm will not stay behind forever.’ Clitic boundaries are marked by an equals sign, both in the object language and in the gloss. West Greenlandic (Fortescue 1984:127) palasi=lu niuirtur=lu priest=and shopkeeper=and 'both the priest and the shopkeeper'



Rule 3: Grammatical category labels Grammatical morphemes are generally rendered by abbreviated grammatical category labels, printed in upper case letters (usually small capitals). A list of standard abbreviations (which are widely known among linguists) is given at the end of this document. (see website)



Rule 4: One-to-many correspondences When a single object-language element is rendered by several metalanguage elements (words or abbreviations), these are separated by periods. E.g. Turkish çık-mak come.out-INF 'to come out' Latin insul-arum island-GEN.PL 'of the islands'



Rule 5: Person and number labels Person and number are not separated by a period when they occur in this order. E.g. Italian and-iamo go-PRS.1PL (not: go-PRS.1.PL) 'we go'



Rule 6: Non-overt elements If the morpheme-by-morpheme gloss contains an element that does not correspond to an overt element in the example, it can be enclosed in square brackets. An obvious alternative is to include an overt "Ø" in the object language text, which is separated by a hyphen like an overt element. Latin puer or: puer-Ø boy[NOM.SG] boy-NOM.SG ‘boy’ ‘boy’



Rule 7: Inherent categories Inherent, non-overt categories such as gender may be indicated in the gloss, but a special boundary symbol, the round parenthesis, is used. E.g.Hunzib (van den Berg 1995:46) oz#-di-g xõxe m-uq'e-r boy-OBL-AD tree(G4) G4-bend-PRET 'Because of the boy the tree bent.' (G4 = 4th gender, AD = adessive, PRET = preterite)



Rule 8: Bipartite elements Grammatical or lexical elements that consist of two parts which are treated as distinct morphological entities (e.g. circumfixes) may be treated in two different ways: German ge-seh-en or: ge-seh-en PTCP-see-PTCP PTCP-see-CIRC 'seen‘ 'seen'



Rule 9: Infixes Infixes are enclosed by angle brackets, and so is the object-language counterpart in the gloss. Tagalog b<um>ili (stem: bili) <ACTFOC>buy 'buy' Latin reli<n>qu-ere (stem: reliqu-) leave<PRS>-INF 'to leave'

Infixes are generally easily identifiable as left-peripheral (as in the Tagalog example) or as right-peripheral (as in the Latin one), and this determines the position of the gloss corresponding to the infix with respect to the gloss of the stem. If the infix is not clearly peripheral, some other basis for linearizing the gloss has to be found.



Rule 10: Reduplication Reduplication is treated similarly to affixation, but with a tilde (instead of an ordinary hyphen) connecting the copied element to the stem. Hebrew yerak~rak-im green~ATT-M.PL 'greenish ones' (ATT= attenuative)



Recapitulation

Learn about morphemes and their distribution

√ Decompose words into smaller units

√ Acquire the vocabulary to talk about these units

√ Classify them in terms of their positions

√ Learn about different types of morphological processes

√ Learn the Leipzig Glossing Rules

Documents

Morphology - UZH... · still cases of affixation? Can they even be called morphemes? Most people would not call things like vowel and consonant mutation affixes, but rather use the