Morphology: Cross-linguistic variation Linguistics 200

Morphology: Cross-linguistic variation

• Linguistics 200

• Spring 2003

More word formation types

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

• More types of morphology

• Infixation
• Reduplication
• Portmanteau morphemes
• Ablaut
• Position class morphology
• Simultaneous morphology

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)

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’u] ‘teardrop’
• [p’ú p’u] ‘teardrops’

• English: ‘real, true’

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

Partial reduplication: suffixing

Partial reduplication: prefixing

Partial reduplication: Prefixing

Reduplication summary

Portmanteau morphemes

Portmanteau morphemes

Witsuwit’en

• (Athabaskan, British Columbia)

Witsuwit’en morphology

Witsuwit’en morphology

• 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 impf/opt perfective future

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

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

• Ablaut pattern:

• /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 

• verb preposition noun

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

• noun postposition verb

• ‘count for me’

Affixation to postpositions

Morphological analysis

Morphological analysis (revised)

Nouns vs. postpositions

• 1. y- 3sg. object of postposition vs. p- 3sg. possessor

• -le ‘hand’ (noun) vs. -le ‘hand to’ (postposition)
• ple yunqhat ‘he slapped his hand’
• he slapped it
• yle yinay ‘he handed it to him’
• he handed it

Nouns vs. postpositions

• 2. t- reflexive (‘-self’)

• - ‘with’ (postposition) vs. -tsen ‘brother’ (noun)
• t neyecltc ‘I’m talking to myself’
• t neyeltc ‘she’s talking to herself’
• stsen pq’sy’ ‘I love my brother’
• ttsen yq’ntsy’ ‘she loves her brother’
• t- 3 person reflexive with nouns; t- reflexive with postpositions

Affixation to verbs

• Unusual features

• Position class morphology: (prefix order restrictions)
• prefix- prefix- ...-verb root-suffix
• (position 1) (position 2) etc.
• Discontinuous morphemes

Some verbs (dictionary entry)

• -yin 'sg./du. stand'

• -tseq ‘be lightweight’

• -as ‘du./group goes, walks’

Some verbs (actual words)

• Minimal verb word: 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 uyin] 'he/she is picking huckleberries'

• [tci] ‘huckleberries’

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

• O- u - yin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• 4. [wec'onsyin’] '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syin’] 'I'm not picking (round things)'

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

• s- 1sg. subject (subject position)

• /s/  [z] / ___ V

Morphological structure

Witsuwit’en summary

• Lexical categories: nouns vs. postpositions

• Ablaut

• Affixation

• with nouns, postpositions: relatively simple (one or two bound morphemes per word)
• with verbs: multiple prefixes possible, prefixes strictly ordered (position classes), discontinuous morphemes