chapter 3 morphology.doc

Morphology3.1 Definition of morphology (Q1) QI. What is morphology?Morphology is the branch of grammar that studies the internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed. It is generally divided into two fields: inflectional morphology (also called inflection) and lexical/derivational morphology (also called word-formation).3.2 The internal structure of words (Q2 Q8) Q2. Illustrate the relationship between morpheme and allomorph by examples. Morpheme is the smallest meaningful linguistic unit of language, not divisible or analyzable into smaller forms. What is usually considered a single word in English may be composed of one or more morphemes. Take disagreeable for an example, it contains three morphemes, dis-, agreeand -able. A morpheme may take various shapes or forms. For instance, -ion, -tion, -sion and -ation are the positional variants of the same suffix. They do not differ in meaning or function but show a slight difference in sound depending on the final phoneme of the preceding verb. They are called allomorphs. So an allomorph is any of the variant forms of a morpheme as conditioned by position or adjoining sounds. Q3. What is morphophonology or morphophonemics?It studies the interrelationships between phonology and morphology. Specifically speaking, it is a study of the analysis and classification of the phonological factors that affect the appearance of morphemes, and, correspondingly, the grammatical factors that affect the appearance of phonemes. For example, the negative morpheme is realized as in- in infirm, but as im- in imperfect. The change of /n/ to /m/ is due to /p/ after it, so the assimilation of /n/ is said to be conditioned by /p/. Q4. What is a free morpheme? What is a bound morpheme? Morphemes may be classified into free and bound. A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning. It can exist on its own without a bound morpheme. A free morpheme is a word, in the traditional sense. Man, book, take and red are free morphemes.A bound morpheme cannot stand by itself as a complete utterance. It must appear with at least one other morpheme, free or bound, like un- in unhappy, past tense morpheme in worked. Q5. What is a root? What is an affix? Morphemes may also be divided into roots (or root morphemes) and affixes (or affixational morphemes). A root is the basic unchangeable part of a word, and it conveys the main lexical meaning of the word. In each of the following words, dance, dancing, danced and dancer, the root is dance, which is the basic unchangeable part, carrying the main lexical meaning. Roots are either free or bound.An affix is a collective term for the type of formative that can be used only when added to another morpheme. Affixes are considered bound morphemes. They may be divided into inflectional and derivational types. Q6. What is the difference between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes? An inflectional affix serves to express such meanings as plurality, tense, and the comparative or superlative degree. It does not form a new word with new lexical meaning when it is added to another word. Nor does it change the word-class of the word to which it is affixed. The inflectional affixes today are the plural marker, the genitive case, the verbal endings, the comparative degrees and superlative degrees. Inflectional affixes have only their particular grammatical meanings, so they are also called grammatical affixes. A derivational affix serves to derive a new word when it is added to another morpheme. Derivational affix has lexical meaning, but less important than the meaning of the root in the same word, like -able in the word workable. Derivational affixes are commonly subdivided into prefixesand suffixes.Q7. How to distinguish root, stem and base?Root is that part of a word-form that remains when all the inflectional and derivational affixes have been removed. Thus in the word undesirables, the root is desire. Stem is the part of a word-form that remains when all inflectional affixes have been removed. So in the word undesirables, the stem is undesirable. Base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. This means that any root or stem can be termed a base. But a base differs from a root or a stem. Q8. Tell the root, stem and base of the following words. (1) Desirable: desire is the root or base; but there is no stem for it. (2) Undesirable: desire is the root; desirable is the base; there is no stem for it. (3) Undesirables: desire is the root; undesirable is the stem or base.(4) Desired: desire is the root, stem or base.3.3 Inflection (Q9)Q9. What is inflection/inflexion? Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, tense or case, which does not change the grammatical class of the items to which they are attached, as exemplified with boy + s boy s.3.4 Word-formation (Q1O Q26) Q10. What is affixation/derivation?Affixation or derivation is generally defined as a word-formation process by which new words are created by adding a prefix, or suffix, or both, to the base. A word thus made is called derivative. Q11. What is a prefix? What is prefixation?A prefix is an affix that is placed at the beginning of a word as un- in the word unfair. Prefixation is the formation of new words by adding a prefix to the base. Prefixes modify the lexical meaning of the base. They dont generally alter the word-class of the base; agree-disagree is an example. Q12. What are the main classifications of living prefixes? The major living prefixes are classified into the following eight categories by their meanings: (1) Negative prefixes, like un-, non-, in-, dis-, a-. (2) Reverse prefixes, like un-, de-, dis-. (3) Pejorative prefixes, like mis- ,mal-, pseudo-. (4) Prefixes of degree or size, like arch-, super-, hyper-, ultra-, mini-. (5) Prefixes of attitude, like co-, counter, anti-, pro-. (6) Locative prefixes, like super-, sub-, inter-, trans-. (7) Prefixes of time and order, like fore-, pre-, post-, ex-.(8) Number prefixes, like mono-, tri-, poly-, mega-. Q13. What is a suffix? What is suffixation?A suffix is an affix that is placed at the end of a word, as -ness in the word happiness. Suffixation is the formation of a new word by adding a suffix to the base, usually changing the word-class of the base. For example, the noun boy, by the addition of the suffix -ish, is changed into the adjective boyish. Q14. What is compounding?Compounding or composition is a word-formation process by joining two or more bases to form a new unit, a compound word. Compounds can be divided into three categories according to parts of the speech: (1) noun compounds (like heartbeat); (2) adjective compounds (like duty-free ); (3) verb compounds (like housekeep). Q15. What are the criteria of a compound word? (1) Orthographically, compounds are written in three ways: solid (like airmail), hyphenated (like air-conditioning) and open ( like air raid). (2) Phonologically, many compounds have a so-called compound accent, that is, a single stress on the first element, as in space rocket; or a main stress on the first element and a secondary stress on the second element.(3) Semantically, compounds can be said to have a meaning which may be related to, but cannot always be inferred from the meaning of its component parts. Q16. Express the following in one compound word. (1) someone who writes songs-songwriter (2) someone who cleans window-window-cleaner (3) the race for arms-arms race (4) the train in the morning-morning-train (5) a mine for gold-gold mine (6) as cheap as dirt-dirt cheap(7) tanned by the sun-sun-tanned Q17. What are reduplicative compounds?Reduplicative compounds are formed by reduplication, by which a compound is created by the repetition (1)of one word like go-go; (2)of two almost identical word with a change in the vowels such as zigzag; (3)of two almost identical words with a change in the initial consonants, as in teenyweeny. Q18. What is conversion?Conversion is a word-formation process whereby a word of a certain word-class is shifted into a word of another word-class without the addition of an affix. For example, the verb attack corresponds to the noun attack. Other terms for conversion are “functional shift” and “derivation by zero suffix”. Q19. What is full conversion? What is partial conversion? There are two types of conversion, full conversion and partial conversion. The conversion is full when the converted form takes on all the features of the word from which it is converted. Take the adjective native for example. The conversion of native to noun is full, because one can say a native, two natives, the natives language, and a returned native. Partial conversion is the conversion where the converted form takes on only some of the features of the word from which it is converted. For example, some adjectives are used as nouns when preceded by the definite article such as the poor; yet they do not take plural and genitive inflections, nor can they be preceded by determiners like a, this, my, etc.Q20. What is acronymy?Acronymy is a type of shortening by using the first letters of words to form a proper name, a technical term, or a phrase. If the shortened word is pronounced letter by letter, it is an initialism like BBC/bi:bi:si:/(for British Broadcasting Corporation ); if the shortened word is pronounced as word rather than as a sequence of letters, it is an acronym like SAM/stem/(for surface-to-air missile). Q21. Illustrate the five sub-divisions of clipping respectively by examples. The process of clipping involves the deletion of one or more syllables from a word (usually a noun), which is also available in its full form. Examples are plane from airplane, and gym from gymnastics. Clipping may be divided into five main types: (1) Back clipping: the deletion occurs at the end of the word. This is the most common type of clipping. Examples are: ad (= advertisement), auto (= automobile), memo (= memorandum). (2) Front clippings: the deletion occurs at the beginning of the word, like bus (= omnibus), phone (= telephone), quake (= earthquake). (3) Front and back clipping: the deletion occurs at both ends of a word, like flu (= influenza), fridge (= refrigerator), and tec (=detective). (4) Middle clipping: the deletion occurs in the middle of the word, like maths (= mathematics), mike (= microphone).(5) Phrase clipping: this involves the shortening of a phrase, like perm (= permanent wave) and pop (= popular music). Q22. What is blending?Blending is a process of word-formation in which a new word is formed by combining the meanings and sounds of two words, one of which is not in its full form or both of which are not in their full forms, like newscast (news + broadcast), brunch (breakfast + lunch). Q23. Why is back-formation a productive way of forming verbs in ME? Backformation is a type of word-formation by which a shorter word is coined by the deletion of a supposed affix of a longer form already present in the language. For example, the verb edit was formed from editor by dropping the supposed derivational suffix -or. The majority of backformed words are verbs, for verbs have a peculiar property to develop around them a number of deverbal nouns, such as the agent noun and the noun of action, like edit from editor. Verbs also generate various types of participial adjectives, such as creating and created. Hence people expect to find a family of derivatives attached to a verb. On the other hand, when people come across one or more apparently deverbal nouns, they often take for granted that there must be a corresponding verb, and they simply create the verb base from which the original word seems to be derived.Q24. What is analogy? Analogy means making a new word or phrase by making an analogy between the word to be made and an existing corresponding one. The following words are coined by analogy: earthquake-youthquake sunrise-earthriseoverpopulation-underpopulationQ25. What is onomatopoeia?Onomatopoeia is the oldest device of word-formation used to name a thing or an action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it. In other words, onomatopoeic words are echoic words whose sound suggests sense. In Modem English people often coin new words for the purpose of vividness and imagination. The typical example is meow (or mew, miaow), a word used to refer to the sound made by a cat. Q26. Decide which way of word formation is used to form the following sat (from communication+ satellite, by blending )motel (from motor + hotel, by blending) lase (from laser, by back-formation) memo (from memorandum, by back clipping) nightmare (from daymare, by analogy) ASEAN (from the Association for South-East Asian Nations, by acronymy )ROM (from read-only memory, by initialism) bit (from binary + digit, by blending) babysit (from babysitter, by back-formation) cock-a-doodle-do (from the sound produced by cock, by onomatopoeia)grunt (from the sound produced by pig, by onomatopoeia)3.5 Word and word classification (Q27 Q30) Q27. What is word? What is lexicon? What is lexeme? What is vocabulary? Word is a minimum free form, that is to say, the smallest form that may appear in isolation. A word is the unity of sound, form and meaning. Lexicon, in its most general sense, is synonymous with vocabulary. In its technical sense, however, it deals with the analysis and creation of words, idioms and collocations. Lexeme is an abstract unit which refers to the smallest semantic unit that can be distinguished from other smaller units. It is applied for the purpose to reduce the ambiguity of the term “word”. A lexeme can occur in many different forms in actual spoken and written texts. For example, write is the lexeme of the following words: write, wrote, writing, written.Vocabulary refers to the whole load of words used or understood by a person. Q28. How does morphology classify words? According to the number and type of morphemes they contain, words can be classified into: (1) simple words: those consisting of a single morpheme, such as man, work, kind. (2) derived words: those which are the result of a derivational process. Such words usually consist of a free morpheme and one or more than one bound morpheme, such as carefully.(3) compound word: those which are composed of two or more free morphemes, such as firewall. Q29. What are grammatical words and lexical words? Words are divided into grammatical and lexical words in terms of meaning. Those words which serve to link different parts together, such as, conjunctions, prepositions, articles, and pronouns, are grammatical words. Those words which refer to substance, action and quality, suchas, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, are lexical words. So lexical words are also known as content words and grammatical words as function words.Q30. What are closed-class words and open-class words? A word that belongs to the closed-class is one whose membership is fixed or limited. New members are not regularly added. Therefore, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc., are all closed items. The open-class is one whose membership is in principle infinite or unlimited. With the emergence of new ideas, inventions, etc., new expressions are continually and constantly being ad ded to the lexicon. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and many adverbs are all open-class items.ExercisesI. Fill in the blanks.1. Take is the _ of taking, taken and took.2. Bound morphemes are classified into two types: _ and _root.3. An _ is pronounced letter by letter, while an _ is pronounced as a word.4. Lexicon, in most cases, is synonymous with _.5. Orthographically, compounds are written in three ways: _, _, and _. 6. All words may be said to contain a root _. 7. A small set of conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns belongs to _class, while the largest part of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs belongs to _class.8. _ is a reverse process of derivation, and therefore is a process of shortening.9. _ is extremely productive, because English had lost most of its inflectional endings by the end of Middle English period, which facilitated the use of words interchangeably as verbs or nouns, verbs or adjectives, and vice versa.10. Words are divided into simple, compound and derived words on the _level.11. A word formed by derivation is called a _, and a word formed by compounding is called a _.12. The poor is an example of _ conversion.II. Choose the best answer.13. Nouns, verbs and adjectives can be classified as_.A. lexical words B. grammatical wordsC. function words D. form words14. Morphemes that represent tense, number, gender and case are called _ morpheme.A. inflectional B.free C. bound D.derivational15. There are _morphemes in the word denationalization. A. three B.four C.five D.six16. In English -/se and -tion are called _. A. prefixes B. suffixesC. infixes D. free morphemes17. Morphology is generally divided into two fields: the