Chapter Four Morphology.doc

Chapter Four Morphology 0. Introductioni. In Chapter 1, we have mentioned that all human languages have the feature of duality of structure. That is to say, each language has two levels: the sound-meaningless level and the grammatically-meaningful level.ii. In Chapters 2 and 3, we studied two sub-branches of linguistics: phonetics and phonology. Phonetics deals with the speech sounds available in a language. But phonology is concerned with the sound system of a language. Although they study different things, they work at the same level - the sound-meaningless level.iii. From now on, we shall move to the second level - the grammatically-meaningful level. The following chapters all work at this level. iv. What does morphology study? It studies the smallest meaningful units in the grammatical system. Then what is the smallest unit in the grammatical system?1. Morphemesi. Introduction: traditionally, words were regarded as minimal meaningful units at the grammatical level, mainly because words in written form are clearly separated from one another by spaces. But is that right?ii. Definition: Technically, a morpheme is defined as a minimal meaningful unit in the grammatical system of a language. 2. Classifications of morphemes 2.0 Introduction Morphemes can be classified both semantically and structurally.A. Semantically, morphemes are grouped into general categories: root morphemes and affixational morphemes: simply speaking, roots and affixes. B. Structurally speaking, they fall into two classes: free morphemes and bound morphemes. 2.1 Roots, affixes, free morphemes and bound morphemesi. Definition of the termsA. root - the root is the most important part of a word that carries the principal meaning. B. affix - affixes are lexically dependent on roots and do not convey the fundamental meaning of words. C. free morphemes - free morphemes are those that can stand by themselves as individual words. D. bound morphemes - bound morphemes are never found alone as words, but are always joined with other morphemes.举例：disagree, meaningless, receiveii. Classification of free morphemes:Free morphemes can be further divided into two sub-groups: A. lexical morphemes - The lexical morphemes include nouns, adjectives, adverbs and verbs which carry the content of the messages we convey. B. functional morphemes - The functional morphemes include conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns.iii. Interrelations between semantic and structural classifications of morphemesA. All free morphemes are roots. B. Not all roots are free morphemes. C. All affixes are bound morphemes. D. Not all bound morphemes are affixes. 2.2 Prefixes, suffixes and infixesAffixes can be further classified in terms of their position or in terms of their function. Along the dimension of position, we may divide affixes into three groups: i. prefixes - The affixes that are placed before roots are called prefixes.ii. suffixes - The affixes that are placed after roots are called suffixes. iii. infixes - The affixes within roots are called infixes.2.3 Inflectional and derivational affixesAccording to function, affixes are classified into inflectional and derivational affixes.Differences:i. function:A. inflectional affixes（屈折变化形式词缀）1) mark grammatical relations such as number, gender, tense, aspect, case and degree2) never create new words3) never cause a change in grammatical classB. derivational affixes（派生词缀）1) create new words2) very often cause a change in grammatical class (but not always)ii. position:A. Inflectional affixes are always suffixes; they are always after derivational affixes if both are present in the same word.B. Derivational affixes are prefixes or suffixes; they always before inflectional suffixes if both are present in the same word.Question: Are -ing and -ed inflectional or derivational affixes?Answer: Both are possible.3. Morphs and allomorphsi. Three phonological terms:A. Phonemes are minimal distinctive units in the sound system of a language. / /B. Phones are the realizations of phonemes in general. C. Allophones are the realizations of a particular phoneme. ii. Three morphological terms:A. Morphemes are minimal meaningful units in the grammatical system of a language. B. Morphs（语子、形素）are the realizations of morphemes in general. / /C. Allomorphs（词位变体）are the realizations of a particular morpheme. / /iii. Examples:The morphemezmay be realized by three allomorphs: /s/, /z/ and /iz/.The morphemedmay be realized by three allomorphs: /t/, /d/ and /id/.The morphemehausmay be realized by two allomorphs: /haus/ and /hauz/.4. Identifying morphemes（鉴别词位）4.0 Introductioni. Identifying morphemes generally involves two major stages:A. cutting sound sequences into morphs（把语音的序列划分为语子）B. grouping morphs into morphemes（把语子归类为词位）ii. Before we move to the question as to what should be done at each stage, two points have to be clarified:A. Morphs are obtained on the basis of phonemic data rather than on spelling forms of words.B. A morpheme is not equated with a syllable.4.1 Cutting sound sequences into morphs（把语音的序列划分为语子）i. What is the basic technique of cutting sound sequences into morphs?The basic technique of cutting sound sequences into morphs is comparison. For example: ii. Four principles of judging whether two or more minimal meaningful sequences of phonemes are the same morph or different morphs: If two or more minimal meaningful sequences of phonemes A. are identical in both form and meaning, then they are regarded as one morph;B. are the same in form but different in meaning, then there are as many morphs as there are meanings;C. are the same in meaning but different in form, then there are as many morphs as there are forms;D. are different both in form and meaning, there are as many morphs as there are different forms and meanings.4.2 Grouping morphs into morphemes（把语子归类为词位）i. PrincipleIf two or more morphs are semantically identical and also in complementary distribution, they are then said to be allomorphs of the same morpheme.ii. Classification of allomorphsA. phonologically conditioned allomorphs音位环境变体B. morphologically conditioned allomorphs词位环境变体4.3 Empty morph and zero morphi. empty morph - It is defined as a morph that has form but no meaning.ii. zero morph - It is defined as a morph that has meaning but no form.5. Morphemic analysis 1) What is the relation between the morphemes of a word?Generally speaking, there are two kinds of relations.i. Superficially, they are linked to each other like beads in a string, that is, the linear order线性顺序 of morphemes.ii. Internally, they are arranged in hierarchical structure, that is, the hierarchical order等级顺序 of morphemes. It has to be revealed by IC analysis.2) What is IC analysis?i. Definition:IC analysis means that we divide the morphemes of a word into two groups and then divide each group into subgroups, and so on, until we reach single morphemes.ii. Examples:iii. Three terms:A. ultimate constituents（最终成分）- The forms at the bottom of the tree-branch diagram are called ultimate constituents.B. immediate constituents（直接成分）- The forms under each point where the tree branches are called immediate constituents of the form on one level above.C. constituents - All the forms in the tree-branch diagram except the word itself are called the constituents of the word.iv. Is IC analysis arbitrary segmentation?v. Two basic principles of IC analysisA. Divisions depend on meaningful relations between morphemes, that is, divisions depend on meaningful relations between morphemes.例如：untouchable disgraceful B. Divisions should be compatible with morphological rules.vi. What are morphological rules?A. Definition: Morphological rules are the rules that determine how morphemes are combined to form new words.B. Rules:1) un + adj, participle adj2) n, adj + ify vt3) v + able adj4) adj + ly adv, n + ly adj5) in, il, ir, im + adj adj6) adj + ness n7) v + ment n8) v + ence, ance n9) re + v v10) en + adj, n v 11) adj, n + en v12) dis + v v13) adj + ize v14) de + v v15) n + ful adjC. Examples:untruly, unmanly, unmentionable, disagreement6. The role of morphology in English 6.1 Grammatical functions of inflectional morphologyi. Inflectional endings: -s, -s, -ed, -ing, -er, -estii. The primary function of inflectional morphemes is not to transmit information, but to convey grammatical meanings.iii. Example:Several students discussed how to improve their English yesterday afternoon.6.2 Derivational morphology派生词法 and word-formation processes构词法i. three ways to obtain new wordsA. borrowing words from other languagesB. creating entirely new wordsC. forming new words from existing morphemes and wordsii. word-formation processes1) Main processesA. Affixation（词缀法）a. Definition: When a new word is formed by putting an affix to the base, the process involved is called affixation.b. Attention: Do such affixes include inflectional affixes? Does the term base necessarily refer to root of a word?c. Examples: 参见105页第三段下面。d. Classification: prefixation and suffixationB. Conversion（转类法、转化法）a. Definition: Some new words are created simply by changing their parts of speech. The process involved is called conversion.b. Examples: paper, butter, bottle, vacation, pen, box, ship, doctor, dog; guess, look, talk, rest; dirty, empty; up, down; Dont trouble trouble until trouble troubles you. But me no buts.C. Compounding （复合法）a. Definition: If two or more separate words are conjoined to produce a form which is used as a single word, this combining process is known as compounding.b. Examples: 参见107页第一段下面2) Minor processesA. Blending（拼缀法）a. Definition: It is a process in which a compound is made by blending parts of two words.b. Examples: 参见108页第一段下面B. Clipping （截短法）a. Definition: It refers to the process whereby a word is shortened without a change in the meaning and in the part of speech.b. Three cases:C. Acronymy（首字母缩略法）a. Definition: It is the process by which words are formed by putting the initial letters of several words together.b. Two types: They are pronounced as a new word. - acronyms（首字母拼音词）例如：TOEFL，TESOL，ELTS，NATO，TESL，TEFL They are pronounced as a sequence of letters. - initialisms（首字母缩略词）例如：BBC，VOA D. Back-formation（逆序造词法、逆生法）a. Definition: Back-formation may be regarded as the opposite case of suffixation. By back-formation, we delete a suffix from an apparently complex form instead of adding a suffix.b. Examples:Exercises 1. What are the differences between morphemes and allomorphs?Morphemes are minimal meaningful grammatical units. Allomorphs are the realizations of a particular morpheme. Morphemes are more abstract than their allomorphs. In order to make a distinction between morphemes and their allomorphs, morphemes are represented in braces ; the allomorphs are between two slanting lines / /.2. What are the differences between morphs and allomorphs?Morphs are the realizations of morphemes in general and allomorphs are the realizations of a particular morpheme. For example, /s/, /z/ and /iz/ are the allomorphs of the plural market z; /t/, /d/ and /id/ are the allomorphs of the past tense marker d. /s/, /z/, /iz/, /t/, /d/ and /id/ are all morphs in the English language.3. How do inflectional affixes differ from derivational affixes?The major difference between inflectional affixes and derivational ones are summarized in terms of two aspects: function and position. Functionally speaking, the former serve to indicate grammatical relations, such as number, gender, tense, aspect and case. When they are attached to other morphemes, they never produce new words and never cause a change in grammatical class. In contrast, derivational affixes are used to create new words. Many of them can change the grammatical class of a word and the others do not. In terms of position, inflectional affixes in English are always suffixes but derivational ones can be either prefixes or suffixes. When these two types of affixes both appear in a word, the inflectional one is always after the derivational one.4. Give an example to illustrate what are immediate constituents, ultimate constituents and constituents. As the above diagram shows, book, store and s are the ultimate constituents; bookstore, s, book, store are the constituents; bookstore and s are the ICs of bookstore; book and store are the ICs of bookstore.5. What are the major processes of creating new words? And what are the important minor ones? Please give two examples for each process.6. Divide the following words into separate morphemes by placing a + between each morpheme and the next: Example: bookshelf = book + shelf9. The indefinite singular article in English is either a or an as in the following phrases:a hotel a boy a wagon a univ