LING 200 Unit 2
Derivation vs. Inflection
2 types of word formation that involve roots and affixes Derivational affixes • More than inflectional affixes • Derivation = process of creating words out of other words • Occurs usually with open lexical category items • Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs • Usually changes lexical categories (cat- catty from noun to adjective) Closed lexical category • Rarely add new words • Determiners, conjunctions prepositions Inflection • Creation of different grammatical forms of a word • Typically happens from the addition of affix morphemes to a root • Usually doesnt change lexical category (ex: stays a noun like cat, cats) • Ex: form (cat -> cats)
Co-occurrence restrictions
Affect the way phrases can occur together in a sentence Affects word order placement and if additional phrases are required (or optional) when a certain kind of phrase is uttered Ex: prepositions like "with" must follow immediately left of noun like sally finally met with that person 2 types of phrasal elements they operate on: arguments and adjuncts
Homophonous affixes
Affix that sound alike but have different meanings or functions Ex: -er can be inflectional or derivational such as taller/faster or speak, speaker
Synthetic languages
Affixes or bound morphemes are attached to other morphemes to fulfill grammatical functions 3 types - agglutinating, fusional, polysynthetic
Agreement
Aka morphosyntax The inflectional morphological form of an expression also affects an expressions' co-occurrence requirements Subjects and predicate verb must agree in person/number to contribute to formation of a well-fromred syntactic expression 12a) Sally likes Bob. 12b) *Sally like Bob. (likes agrees with Sally) Agreement in languages include: gender, plural form, verbs with nouns
How to classify English
Analytic language English uses word order to show function of nouns in sentence Some fusional elements, using inflectional and derivational affixes fairly productively Less fusional now than it was historically
Blending
Another rake on compounding- part of 2 different words are combined Breakfast + lunch → brunch Smoke + fog → smog Motor + hotel → motel
Verbs
Can express time (walked, sung, was) Can indicate manner of an event, ongoing action with -ing (sing-ing)
Classifying language
Classify by morphological How some words use or dont use processes to form words Analytic vs. synthetic Exists in a continuum from highly analytic, somewhat analytic, somewhat synthetic, highly synthetic
Forms of adjectives
Comparative (-er) for more Superlative forms (-est) for most
Word
Component of language that is made of morpheme put together Used for communication purposes
Nouns can co-occur with
Determiners (the, this, that) Adjectives (funny, wet, slippery)
Polysynthetic languages
Ex: Sora, austroasiatic language spoken in parts of india 2 or more stems combine with affixes to create highly complex words Allows incorporation of objects (subjects, instruments, etc) into verbs Most native american languages Tiwi, western greenlandic, classical ainu
Fusional language
Ex: spanish Add bound morphemes to stem, but bound morphemes are not easily separable One morphine will carry several pieces of information Suffixes are attached to the verb stem to indicate the person and number of the subject in the verb Difficult to analyze the verb form into its stem and suffix because of fusion between 2 morphemes Single affix has several meanings simultaneously ex: ablo - I am speaking abla - s/he is speaking able- I spoke
Agglutinating Language
Ex: swahili Morphemes tend to be joined together loosely Often stacked onto roots before or after, which stacking dictated by type and function of morpheme Ex: [ni-na-soma] I-present-read (I am reading) [u-na-soma] you-present-read (you are reading) [a-na-soma] s/he-present-read (s/he is reading)
affixation
Form words by adding affixes V + -able → adj: predict-able V + -er → N: sing-er Un- + V → A: un-productive V + -er → V: deep-edn, thick-en Infixing is not commonly used in English, except for curse in the middle like un-fricking-believable
How to classify words in morphology
Form, meaning, lexical category Flow chart in page 161
Types of morphemes
Free / Bound morphemes content / function morpheme inflectional morpheme
Content words
Free content morphemes in lexical category of Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverb
Function words
Function morphemes in lexical category of preposition, determiner, pronoun, or conjunctions
How to do morphological analysis
Given set of data in phonetic representation, perform morphological analysis of the forms in data, identify each morpheme, its meaning, its type Is it a prefix, suffix or infix? Does it attach directly to the root or attach after/before another morpheme 1. Identify, compare, contrast similar forms • Have a basis for comparison, using data from similar forms and recognize recurring units 2. If a single phonetic form has 2 different meanings, it must be analyzed as representing 2 different morphemes • Morphemes are homophonous • Makes it difficult • Ex: er in quieter and teacher is not the same 3. If the same function/meaning are associated with different phonetic forms, the forms represent same morpheme, and make the form predictable based on phonetic environment • Allomorph
Syntax
How sentences and other phrases can be made of smaller phrases and words Component of the grammar that deals with how elements combine to produce well-formed grammatical sentences
Word formation process
New words or forms of words are formed Rule governed / systematic combination
Pronouns vs. Determiners
Pronouns • Subjective (he/she) or objective (him, her) Determiners • Possessive (his, hers)
Subject argument
Serves as subject of the sentence
'S
The possessive s Not an inflectional morpheme Treated as grammatical item belonging to syntactic category of determiner
Determiners
Words that express definiteness, indefiniteness, and quantity (the, a, every, many, some). They often signal that a noun or adjective + noun is following (Ex., the book, many blue pencils
Prepositions
Words that govern, and usually precede, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause (Ex. the man on the platform, she arrived after dinner)
Conjunctions
Words that join other words and phrases of the same syntactic or lexical category (Ex. and, or, but)
Syntactic categories
Works differently than lexical categories Knowing the syntact categories = knowing distribution of the expressions: how they combine with other expressions, order with other expression, their argument set of expressions that have very similar syntactic properties— that is, they have the same word order and co-occurrence requirements Interchangeable in a sentence if they have the same syntactic properties Distinguished based on syntactic properties
Transitive verbs
also have a subject, and they take one complement argument. An example would be "He devoured the grapes."
Arguments vs. adjuncts
arguments • obligatory (Sally seemed HAPPY) • cannot have more than required (SALLY seemed happy) • cannot be freely ordered with respect to one another (Sally seemed CUTE happy) adjuncts • optional (the cat was sleeping ON THE TABLE) • can have as many as you like (The cat was sleeping. the GRAY FLUFFY cat was sleeping. • can be freely ordered with respect to one another (The FLUFFY GRAY / GRAY FLUFFY cat was sleeping,
Syntactic categories and their properties prepositional phrase
can be a VP or a N adjunct consists of a preposition and its NP complement ex: at the table, for Sally, under the bed
Ambitransitive verbs
can function ether as an intransitive and transitive verb. An example would be "understand," as in: a) "I understand" versus b) "I understand the problem."
Syntactic categories and their properties Sentence
can occur in Sally thinks that _____ ex: Fluffy is cute
Syntactic categories and their properties preposition
combines with an NP to form a PP ex: at, for, with
Syntactic categories and their properties Verb Phrase
consists minimally of a verb and all its complements combines with a NP to its left which results in a sentence has the same distribution as slept or did so ex: slept, wrote the letter quickly, liked Bob, walked, believed she liked that man
True or False? Arguments are an optional element of sentences that can be added to a sentence, but are not required by the valiancy requirements of the predicate occurring in that sentence.
false. Arguments are required (obligatory) elements of a sentence that must co-occur with the predicate. It is dictated by the valiancy properties of the predicate. (Predicate is another term for the main verb of a sentence.)
List of inflectional affixes in english
function: 3rd person single, present affix: -s attaches to: verb example: she waitS there at noon function: past tense affix: -ed attaches to: verbs example: she waitED there function: progressive aspect affix: -ing attaches to: verbs example: she is waitING function: past participle affix: -en, -ed attaches to: verbs example: Hack has eaten/tasted the cookie function: plural affix: -s attaches to: nouns example: the chairS function: comparative affix: -er attaches to: adjectives, adverbs example: Jill is tallER than Joe function: superlative affix: -est attaches to: adjectives, adverbs example: Ted is the tallEST
Syntactic categories and their properties Noun Phrase
has the same distribution as a personal pronoun or a proper name ex: she, sally, the cat, this cute dog, that cat under the bed
Sentential complement verbs
have a subject and take an entire sentence as their complement. An example would be thought, as in "Sally though Bob liked her."
Intransitive verbs
have a subject but they don't take any complement arguments. An example would be "He sleeps."
Ditransitive verbs
have a subject, and they also take two complement arguments. An example would be "He gave Mary a flower."
Impersonal verbs
have no true subject. Instead, they have a "dummy subject." An example of an impersonal verb is rain in the sentence "it rains."
Given the overall tendency of its head-ordering relations with phrases, would English be classified as a head-initial or head-final language?
head-initial language
In the sentence: "Sally sent Bob a letter" is a letter an argument or an adjunct? Why?
it is an argument because it is *not* an optional part of the sentence. By definition, an argument is a required (obligatory) element of a sentence that must co-occur with the predicate that appears in the sentence.
Syntactic categories and their properties Noun
needs a determiner to its left to form a noun phrase ex: cat, cute dog, cat under the bed
Syntactic categories and their properties Sentential complement verb
needs a sentential complement to form a VP ex: believed, said
Syntactic categories and their properties Transitive Verb
needs an NP complement to form a VP ex: liked, devoured
Syntactic categories and their properties Ditransitive verb
needs two NP complements to form a VP ex: gave, sent
Syntactic categories and their properties Adjective
occurs in between a determiner and a noun can be a noun adjunct and combine with a noun to its right which results in an expression that is also a noun ex: cute, fluffy, gray
Syntactic categories and their properties Determiner
occurs to the left of the noun to form an NP ex: the, every, this
Complement argument
satisfies the object transitivity and/or other valency requirements of the predicate/verb Non-subject arguments Ex: sally told polly she's leaving (POLLY and SHE'S LEAVING = complements of TOLD)
inflectional morpheme
suffix that's added to a word to assign a particular grammatical property to that word
Adjuncts
Aka modifiers Optional, possible to add as many of them Elements of a sentence added optionally to a sentence, not required by valency properties of the predicate occuring in that sentence If X is an adjunct of Y, Y is an argument of X (but not necessarily the other way around) Ex: sally likes dogs. Sally likes SMALL dogs. Sally likes SMALL FLUFFY dogs. (small and fluffy are adjuncts of DOGS) Adverbs can be adjuncts Ex: He ran. He ran QUICKLY. Prepositional phrases can be adjuncts both to noun phrases and verb phrases: Ex: that bar down the street is my favourite. Sally drove down the street
Content morphemes
Carry concrete semantic meaning Include any word of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs Derivational affixes, bound root and free roots in lexical category of Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverb
Well-formed expression
Correctly expressed in phrasing of expression, semantically logical, grammatically acceptable Word order is an aspect In english, subject before verb, then object Sometimes VSO (yes-no questions) or OSV (in topicalised sentence) can happen VSO word order is found in yes-no questions: • Is Sally a student? OSV order can also be found in topicalized sentences in English: • Sally: I know you don't like apples, Polly, so I made you peach pie. • Polly: Oh, apples I like! It's pears that I can't stand.
Word creation process
Create new words from existing words, languages employ a number of process Other processes can be used to create new grammatical forms out of existing forms affixation compounding peduplicaiton alternations suppletion conversion aka zero-derivation blending clipping
Productive
Currently used to make new words Latin words are not productive
Conversion aka zero-derivation
Existing word in one category gets "adopted" into a new category without a change in form Happens in verb-to-noun conversion and vice versa Ex: inck (a contracT), button (the shirt), (a brief) report, (a building) permit
Difference between root and stem
For the term cattiness Root is cat, but stem to which affix -ness is added is catty
How to put words together
Input (Suffix) is usually the same lexical category as the stem (output) : ie both verbs break and -able
Suppletion
Irregular relation between the words Small number of irregular verbs/adjectives in English have suppletive past tenses (is-wass, go- went) Also used in the comparative form of good and bad: good-better-best, bad-worse-worst No systematic similarity between the stems
2 types of grammatical categories in syntax
Lexical categories • Single words Syntactic categories • Phrasal categories made of combination of words that are put together in systematic ways to make utterances
Clipping
Longer words are shortened by one or more syllables Doctor, laboratory, advertisement, dormitory. Examination Bicycle (bike) Refrigerator (fridge)
Analytic language
Made of sequences of free morpheme Each words consists of a single morpheme, used by itself with the meaning and function intact
Properties of roots
Main part of the word Must be at least one in word In english, limited to 2 in a word (simple words have one, compound words have 2) Where roots are BOUND, more can occur in a word, but the number of roots in a particular word is generally small Richer, more specific semantic content Position is free with respect to other roots (photograph, telephoto)
Affixes
May have restriction to what lexical categories they can combine with May also change the lexical category of the item they combine with Some words can occur without them in English Attaches onto a stem Also exists in sign language, whether it be a change in place of articulation, handshape, movement, hand orientation and non-manual markers Simultaneous affixes that happen at the same time = simultaneous, happens in every signed language, and is inflectional
Lexicon
Mental dictionary Words available to use
Adverbs
Modify or qualify an adjective. Verb or other adverb, expressing relations of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, degree
Alternations
Morpheme internal changes Change words internally Man- men Goose-geese Sing- sang-sung Swim-swam-swum Break-broke-broken Breath- breathe
Free morphemes
Morphemes have the capability to be used as words in their own Ex: dog, cat, farm, kill, drive Usually roots except for bound roots
Bound morphemes
Morphemes that can't stand alone Ex: affixes like un-, -s, -ed, -ly Bound roots- roots that carries some kind of associated meaning (-fer in infer, confer, refer, defer) but can't occur on their own without being bound to an affix
Open lexical category
Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs New words added to language belong in these categories
Roots
Often associated with traditional word categories Nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc Part of the word to which affixes attach
Preposition
On, of, under, for
Allomorph
One of a set of non-distinctive realisations of a particular morpheme that have the same function and phonetically similar Akin to the allophone from phonological analysis Undergoes same conditioning process that an allophone can May be conditioned by the same phonological processes that condition allophone
Monomorphemic
Only made of one part Ex: catalog has nothing to fo with cat, a, log
Reduplication
Part of a free morpheme (partial reduplication) or an entire free morpheme (total reduplication) is doubled Ma ma, bye bye, humpty-dumpty (partial) Ex: do you like him as a friend, or do you like-like him Ex: I don't just want a shirt that's green-- I want it to be green-green. Reduplicant- thing being reduplicated
Form
Parts of speech Class of words that differ in how other words can be constructed out of them Ex: verb, noun, adjective, adverb
Types of Affixes
Prefix • An affixes added at the beginning of a word • Ex: un-, pre- re- Suffix • Affix added at the end of the word • Ex: -able, -ment, -ly Infix • An affix added in the middle of the word, inserted in the root morpheme • Rare in english but not other languages
Transitivity
Properties of the verb/predicate refer specifically to its object requirements
Valency
Properties of verb/predicate refer to its subject argument properties as well as any of its other non-subject argument requirement
Function morphemes
Provide grammatical function Include words of lexical categories Determiner, preposition, pronoun, conjunction, and inflectional morphemes Ex: -s [plural or 3rd person] Inflectional affixes and free roots in lexical category of preposition, determiner, pronoun, or conjunctions
Isolating languages
Purely analytic Doesn't use affixes to compose words Just words semantic/grammatical concepts communicated in other languages by affixes are expressed in isolating languages by separate words Only position of the words in a sentence show its function Nouns are not marked by affixes to show their functions
Syntactic parsing
Reconstruction of the syntactic structure of a sentence that is heard or read When we hear a sentence, we assign expressions to syntactic categories and build syntactic structure that is updated as a new word comes in
Arguments
Required elements of a sentence that must co-occur with verb (aka predicate) that appears in that sentence Requirement is dictated by the valency (properties of verb/predicate) and the transitivity (properties of the predicate/verb) Is X needs Y to occur in a sentence, Y is an argument of X. 2 types: subject argument and complement argument Ex: Sally is fond of parties (of parties = argument) For sentence to be well formed, must have all and only the arguments it needs
Internal structure of english words
See morphology in action via analysis of internal structure of English words When examining words composed of 2 morphemes (stem and affix) we know something about the way affix combined with stem 1. Certain affixes can be used with verbs, such as re-, and when it is used, the resulting word is also a verb • Ex: nounse: re-house. Re-mouse, re-horse • Adjectives: re-happy, re-purple, re-plentiful • Verbs: re-use, re-visit, re-create 2. Other affixes can only be used with verbs, as well, but when it is used, the resulting word is an adjective • Stop-able, walk-able, use-able • Useful for telling us possible combination and order of the combination Words that have an order have a layered, hierarchical relationship, with order determined by allowable combination possibilities
When are expressions interchangeable?
Share same word order and co-occurence Can Substitute one for the other and have a grammatical sentence They also have the same syntactic distribution because they have the same syntactic environment Ex: the cat vs. fully Sally likes THE CAT. Sally likes FLUFFY
Ambiguous morphemes and words
Some words are ambiguous Can be associated with more than one meaning, and their structure can be analyzed in more ways than one This happened because some affixes like the prefix /un-/, have more than one form in english • In the form of new adjectives, it has the meaning not. combined with verbs, it means "do the reverse of" Ex: unlockable - able to be unlocked, or not able to be locked 2 types: lexical ambiguity/homophony or structural ambiguity
Morphology
Study of internal structure of words Word formation, grammatical markings of words, word formation process Mental grammar, forming words from smaller meaningful pieces and other words
Affix properties
Subordinate part of word Multiple affixes can occur in a word Are dependent/bound elements Have more "schematic" (non-specific) content, often grammar-like function In english, can either precede or follow their roots (prefixes, suffixes) Position for a given affix with respect to root is fixed
Formation
Systematic relationships between roots and the words derived from them and between a word and its inflected forms
Compounding
Words are formed by combining two or more words (not affixes) Words part of the compound can be free morphemes, words derived by affixation, words formed by compounding themselves 3 types: compounding of free morphemes, words derived from affixation, or words formed by compounding themselves Head of the compound • Morpheme that determines which part of speech the compounded work will have Not represented consistently in writing - Not all compounds are written as single words, and some have spaces or hyphens (credit card, see-saw) Stress pattern is different for compounds and words - (redneck and red neck)
Word formation
Words made by one or more morphemes Roots/stem: base part of the word Affixes: supplemental parts of the word attached to the root
Morpheme
Words made of morphemes Smallest linguistic unit
Pronouns
Words that can function by themselves as a subject or and object Pronouns refer either to the participants in the discourse (e.g., I, you) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g., she, it) Note: Wh-question words are also considered pronouns by Language Files (e.g, what, which, where, when, who, whom, whose and how) Categorised as Pronouns or Determiners
Lexical categories
based primarily on morphological markings and semantic definitions for those categories Open class • Allows new members to be added to is • Made up of nouns, non-auxiliary verbs, adjectives, and adverbs Closed class • Mainly function word items • Does not allow new members to be added to it • Made up of conjunctions, prepositions, determiners, and pronouns
Syntactic categories and their properties Adverb
can be a VP adjunct and combine with a VP to its left to result in an expression in the VP category ex: fast, quickly, tomorrow
Argument requirements
predicate verbs • have argument requirements can be seen easily by observing utterance data, such as the sentences below: • 10a) *Mary devoured. • 10b) *devoured an apple. • 10c) Mary devoured an apple. • can see here the predicate verb devoured needs both a subject and one complement argument (in this case, a direct object). co-occurrence properties of predicate verbs and other predicate-verb like expressions are exact and specific. If the predicate requires one complement, it can take only one. (If it requires two, then it must take two.) • 11a) *Mary devoured. • 11b) *devoured an apple. • 11c) * Mary devoured an apple to Mark. • 11d) Mary devoured an apple.
