Morphology: Cross-linguistic variation Linguistics 200

Morphology: Cross-linguistic variation

• Linguistics 200

• Spring 2002

Morphological competence

• Which words are possible/impossible?

• What are the properties of words--how can they be used?

• How are new words created? What is the structure of existing words?

Some more word formation types

• Simultaneous

• Reduplication

• Ablaut

• Affixation

• Infixation
• Portmanteau morphemes
• Position class morphology

Arabic verbal morphology: ‘write’

Arabic verbal morphology ‘write’

Simultaneous morphology

Simultaneous morphology

Simultaneous morphology

• 2. Tense/voice/participle (vowels)

•  

• /a/ perfective active

• /u i/ perfective passive

• /a/-, /a i/, /a u/, /a/ imperfective active

• /u/-, /a/ imperfective passive

• /mu/-, /a i/ active participle

• /mu/-, /a/ passive participle (1st binyan: /ma/-, /u/)

Simultaneous morphology

• 3. “Binyanim”: causative, reciprocal, reflexive, etc. (syllable structure: arrangement of consonants and vowels)

Simultaneous morphology

Simultaneous morphology

Simultaneous morphology

Reduplication

• RED (reduplicant):

• a morpheme which copies the phonological segments of the root it is attached to

• partial reduplication (affixational) vs. total reduplication (compounding)

Total reduplication

• Sahaptin inanimate plurals

• [p’ú p’u] ‘teardrops’

• English: ‘really, truly’

• red red (vs. blue red)
• home home
• India Indian

Partial reduplication: suffixing

Partial reduplication: prefixing

Partial reduplication: Prefixing

More on affixation

• Infixation: Ulwa possessive forms

Ulwa Infixation

Infixation: placement of the infix

Infixation: placement of the infix

• In Ulwa, possessive affixes follow the stressed syllable (infixation as a special case of suffixation)

Portmanteau morphemes

Witsuwit’en

• (Athabaskan, British Columbia)

Witsuwit’en morphology

Witsuwit’en morphology

• Major (affixable) lexical categories

• nouns
• verbs
• postpositions
• directional adverbs
• adjectives

Ablaut

• = Root-internal vowel substitution

• English

• present past past participle

• sing sang have sung

• ring rang have rung

Ablaut in Witsuwit’en

• verb root imperfective/optative perfective future

• -/qes/ ‘scratch hard’ –[qes] –[qez] –[qs]

• -/qz/ ‘do with arms’ –[qis] –[qz] –[qs]

• /i/ replaces // in the imperfective/optative

• // replaces /e/ in the future

Affixation to nouns

Morphological analysis

Prepositions and postpositions

• Prepositions: preposition - noun count for me 

• prep noun

• Postpositions: noun - postposition [s- pe c’otw] me for you (sg.) count

• noun postposition

• ‘count for me’

Affixation to postpositions

Morphological analysis

Morphological analysis (revised)

Affixation to verbs

• Unusual features

• Position class morphology: (prefix order restrictions)
• prefix-prefix-prefix-...-verb root-suffix
• Discontinuous morphemes

Some verbs (dictionary entry)

• -jin 'sg./du. stand'

• -tseq ‘be lightweight’

• -as ‘du./group goes, walks

Some verbs (actual words)

• Minimally: dictionary form of verb+‘tense’

• [sa na] ‘the sun/moon is going’

• sa ‘sun, moon’
• -a 'sun, moon goes'
• n- continuative (‘round-trip’)

• [sa ia] ‘the sun/moon is moving'

• /i-...- progressive

Position class morphology

Some more verb words

• 1. [tci ujin] 'he/she is picking huckleberries'

• O-u-jin 'pick O (berries) while stationary‘

• O- u - jin

• (object required) qualifier –root
• - imperfective (tense position)
•   0 / u ___

2. [c'ojin] 'he/she is picking'

• 2. [c'ojin] 'he/she is picking'
• c'- unspecified object (pronominal object/subject position)
• (c’ + u  c’o)

3. [c'onjin] 'he/she is picking (round things)'

• 3. [c'onjin] 'he/she is picking (round things)'

• n- round object (optional) (qualifier position)

4. [wec'onsji'n] 'he/she isn't picking (round things)'

• 4. [wec'onsji'n] 'he/she isn't picking (round things)'

• we- negative (negative position)

• s- non-perfective negative (tense position)

• - (negative position)

• n +   ‘n

5. [wec'onzsji'n] 'I'm not picking (round things)'

• 5. [wec'onzsji'n] 'I'm not picking (round things)'

• s- 1sg. subject (subject position)

• /s/  [z] / ___ V

Morphological structure

English

English ablaut in verbal morphology

Portmanteau morphemes

Zero derivation

• No overt affix (a.k.a. “conversion”)

Zero derivation

• Noun-verb pairs

• the bite, to bite

• the fall, to fall

• the freeze, to freeze

• the steal, to steal

• the tread, to tread

• the bridge, to bridge

• the put-down, to put down

• the kick-off, to kick off, etc.

Relatively new verbs

• to office ‘to work in an office’(?): ‘Kinko’s---the new way to office’

• to Sequim ‘to visit Sequim’: 'Thanks for Sequimming‘

• to apple(s) and orange(s) ‘to compare unlike objects, make an inappropriate comparison’: ‘You're apples and orangeing it.’

Denominal verbs

• lack ablaut or irregular verbal inflection

• Ablaut: ring (a bell), rang, rung drink, drank, drunk

•  

• Lack of ablaut: a ring (worn on finger), ringed (*rang) X ('put a ring on X'), has ringed the ink, inked (*ank) the drawing, has inked a wing, winged (*wang) it, has winged it

Denominal verbs

• Verb-noun-verb:

• to fly: the bird flew, the bird has flown

• a fly (ball)

• to fly (to hit a fly ball): flied, to have flied

• ___ has twice flied (*flown) to center field tonight.

Morphological paradigms

• = set of related words

• Some Latin nominal (noun) paradigms

• case

Morphological paradigms

Some Irish “conjugated prepositions”

• le Máire

• with Mary

•  

• liom ‘with me’

• leat ‘with you (sg.)’

• leis ‘with him’

• léithi ‘with her’

• linn ‘with us’

• libh ‘with you (pl.)’

• leofa ‘with them’

Suppletion

• A member of a paradigm may be filled in an irregular way:

Suppletion

Other types of morphology

• Ablaut = change in root vowel as phonological part of morpheme

English ablaut in verbal morphology

English ablaut in verbal morphology

German

Zero derivation

• No overt affix (a.k.a. “conversion”)

Zero derivation

• Noun-verb pairs

• the bite, to bite

• the fall, to fall

• the freeze, to freeze

• the steal, to steal

• the tread, to tread

• the bridge, to bridge

• the sample, to sample

• the puncture, to puncture, etc.

Zero derivation

• Nouns-verb compound pairs

• the kickoff, to kick off

• the show-off, to show off

• the put-down, to put down

• the push-over, to push over

• the hang-up, to hang up

• etc.  

Relatively new verbs

• to tanker ‘to carry freight by tanker’: 'Do they want to cut off all tankers or do we just want to do our level best to make tankering safe?‘

• to office ‘to work in an office’(?): ‘Kinko’s---the new way to office’

• to Sequim ‘to visit Sequim’: 'Thanks for Sequimming'

Relatively new verbs

• to apple(s) and orange(s) ‘to compare unlike objects, make an inappropriate comparison’: ‘You're apples and orangeing it.’

• to bare hand ‘to catch with bare hands’: 'I wouldn't want to bare hand that one.' (said of fly ball hit into stands)

General note on productivity:

• Which binyanim a root appears in is largely an idiosyncratic property of that root, and meanings are not totally predictable. On the other hand, neologisms and loanwords are incorporated into this system.

•  

General note on productivity:

• I: possible for nearly all roots; semantically unmarked

• IX-XI: limited to verbs of color or bodily defect

• XI-XV: rare

•  

• thus, ‘write’ actually appears in only 8 binyanim; the other forms in this table are attested with other triliteral roots

ASL kin terms

• location

• MALE forehead

• FEMALE chin

•  

• MOTHER FATHER

• GRANDMOTHER GRANDFATHER

• NIECE NEPHEW

• DAUGHTER SON

• SISTER BROTHER

• FEMALE COUSIN MALE COUSIN

ASL kin terms

• location

• MOTHER = PARENT

• 

• FEMALE

•  

• DAUGHTER = OFFSPRING

• 

• FEMALE