Harvard Linguistics 110 - Class 15 Morphology Ii

Linguistics 110 Class 15 (11/18/02)

Zhang/Öztürk/Quinn

Morphology II (0) Midterm distribution: 90-100 12 80-89 6 <79 6 Average = 86.75 (1) Homework 4: • •

Read Chapter 2 of Fromkin. Do the following exercises, due Nov 25 (Monday): p.30: Ex. 2.3 p.36: Ex. 2.5 p.59: Ex. 2.18

(2) A closer look at inflectional affixes (continued). • Swahili (Bantu, East Africa): hatutawapikishia cakula

•

‘we will not have food cooked for them’

ha-

tu-

ta-

wa-

pik-

ish-

NEG

we

FUT

them

cook

CAUS APPL

i-

a-

c-

akula

INDIC

CL7

food

Grammatical functions of inflections: (a) Consider English: The lizard caught the fly. The fly caught the lizard. (b) Consider Latin: ‘lizard’ ‘fly’

Nominative lacertus mosca

Lacertus moscam cepit. Moscam lacertus cepit. Lacertus cepit moscam. Moscam lacertus cepit. Cepit lacertus moscam. Cepit moscam lacertus. •

Accusative lacertum moscam

Genitive lacerti moscae

‘The lizard caught the fly’

Where do inflectional affixes occur in relation to derivational affixes?

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English: Darwinians, *Darwin-s-ian, *Darwin-ian-s-ism. class-ifi-es, *class-es-ify. Tolkapaya (Yuman, Arizona): Paa’’úuvchma ‘we see them’ Paa’’úu -v -ch st pl. obj. 1 sub. look -able pl. sub.

-ma non-future

(3) Morphology (the process of word-formation) is hierarchically structured • Long distance dependency: unpalatable—which structure is correct? (a)

Adjective ei unAdjective ei Noun -able | palat

(b)

Adjective ei Noun -able ei unNoun | palat

(b)

Noun ei Adjective -ness ei unAdjective ru Verb -ive | attract

How about unattractiveness?

•

(a)

Noun ei unNoun ei Adjective -ness ru Verb -ive | attract

(c)

Noun ei Adjective -ness ei Verb -ive ei unVerb | attract

Ambiguity: undoable—which structure is correct? (a)

Adjective ei Verb -able ei unVerb | do

(b)

2

Adjective ei unAdjective ei Verb -able | do

•

Long distance dependency and ambiguity can be accounted for by a hierarchically structured system, but not by a linear system.

(4) Trees with inflectional affixes Can you draw trees for Darwinianisms and itemized? (5) Trees for compounds Noun Noun ru ru Noun Noun Adjective Noun | | | | peanut butter black board

Noun ru Verb Noun | | kill joy

•

English compounds are “head-final”.

•

Can you draw the tree for feminist writer critic?

Noun ru Preposition Noun | | over shoot

(6) Other forms of morphological marking •

Reduplication (a) Lakhota (Siouan, South Dakota) Sg. gí ská shá thó zí

Pl. gigí skaská ‘ shashá thothó zizí

Gloss ‘to be rusty brown’ ‘to be white’ ‘to be red’ ‘to be blue or green’ ‘to be yellow’

(b) Agta (Austronesian, The Philippines) bari mag-saddu ma-wakay takki ulu

‘body’ ‘leak’ ‘lost’ ‘leg’ ‘head’

barbari-k kid-in mag-sadsaddu ma-wakwakay taktakki ululu

‘my whole body’ ‘leak in many places’ ‘many things lost’ ‘legs’ ‘heads’

(c) Yoruba (Niger-Congo, Nigeria) lo¢ dùn

‘to go’ ‘to be tasty’

lílo¢ ‘(nominalization)’ dídùn ‘(nominalization)’

Reduplication often marks plurality, repetition of action, etc. But not always. •

Ablaut 3

sing ~ sang ring ~ rang spring ~ sprang

cling ~ clung fling ~ flung sting ~ stung

wear ~ wore swear ~ swore bear ~ bore

mouse ~ mice louse ~ lice

locus ~ loci focus ~ foci

tooth ~ teeth foot ~ feet

Noun house life teeth bath

Verb house live teeth bathe

➥ Ablaut is often irregular. wing ~ winged spouse ~ spouses

booth ~ booths

boot ~ boots

➥ Irregular related forms are called suppletion. English be is fully suppletive: be, am, are, is, was, were, being, been. •

Tone marking Chichewa (Banta, Malawi) ndi-

1st sg. subj.

ndi-ná-fótokoza ndi-na-fótókoza ndí-nâ:-fótókoza ndi-ku-fótókoza ndí-ma-fotokózá ndi-ma-fótókoza ndí-dzá-fótokoza

fotokoza

‘explain’

simple past recent past remote past progressive present habitual past habitual future

(7) Types of morphological systems • Isolating morphology: lacks derivational and inflectional morphology; each word tends to be a single isolated morpheme. Chinese:

does not mark gender, number, case on nouns or pronouns; does not mark tense on verbs; these are usually expressed by separate words.

wo# ge#i le ta@ I give past him “I gave him three books.” ge#i:

give, gave

→

sa@n three

be#n meas.

shu@ book

tense not marked

4

ta@: shu@: •

he, him, she, her → book, books →

gender and case not marked number not marked

Agglutinating morphology: words are typically polymorphemic, but are easily separable into morphemes, and each morpheme corresponds to a single lexical meaning or grammatical function. (a) Greenlandic Eskimo: qajar-taa-va asirur-sima-vuq kayak-new-his break-done-it “His new kayak has been destroyed.” (b) Turkish: ev ev-ler ev-ler-de ev-ler-den

“house” “houses” “in the houses” “from the houses”

tanis#tirildilar “they were introduced to each other.” tani -s# -tir -il know recip. caus. pass. •

-di past

-lar 3 pl.

Inflectional morphology: words are also polymorphemic, but the parts often fuse together several meanings or grammatical functions. (These morphemes are sometimes called portmanteau morphemes.) Russian: (a) Noun inflections: Case Nominative Accusative Genitive Dative

Singular Zena Zenu Zenu Zene

Plural Zëny Zën Zën Zënam

(b) Present-tense verb inflections: Person 1st person 2nd person 3rd person •

Singlular piSu piSeS piSet

Plural piSem piSete piSut

What kind of morphology does English have??

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