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Linguistics week 12

Linguistics week 12. Morphology 2. We looked at. Words, word-forms and lexemes She’s a good cook, but I can cook better Function words and content words. Two kinds of words. Function words Restricted in number A closed class Have a grammatical function

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Linguistics week 12

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  1. Linguistics week 12 Morphology 2

  2. We looked at • Words, word-forms and lexemes • She’s a good cook, but I can cook better • Function words and content words

  3. Two kinds of words • Function words • Restricted in number • A closed class • Have a grammatical function • Usually just one morpheme (a grammatical morpheme) • Content words • An open class • New content words often come into use in every language • Which words on this slide …? Chinese examples?

  4. You think English is hard? • Ha! When I was at school I had to do Latin • See if you can find out what this is: amo amamus amas amatis amat amant • Or this dominus domini domine domini dominum dominos domini dominorum domino dominis domino dominis

  5. They were Latin inflections • The two lists each show the different word-forms, for a Latin noun or verb • dominus is the nominative (subject form) • domine is the vocative form (Oh Master!) • dominum is the accusative (object form) • domini is the genitive (the master’s, of the master) • domino is the dative (to or for the master) • domino is the ablative (in some words, this is different from the dative) (by, with or from the master) • English has a genitive form. What is it? • Does Chinese have one? • In some lexemes, English attests nominative, accusative and genitive forms • What are these lexemes?

  6. Inflectional morphology • In English, inflection includes things like • Number • Tense • Fromkin 101 gives a complete list • Although she doesn’t explain that -s and -es (for example) are two realizations (two allomorphs!) of the same morpheme • Also on p101: does the Italian verb inflection list seem familiar? • BUT inflection does NOT allow for making a new lexeme • so sleepy is not an inflection of sleep • unkind is not an inflection of kind • artistic is not an inflection of artist (whichis not an inflection of art (Inflection and derivation task)

  7. Inflectional vs derivational morphology • Inflection does not change the word class (syntactic category, part-of-speech, 詞類) • Derivation may or may not change word class • Derivation makes a new lexeme • create creative • Inflection just changes the grammatical ending of the original lexeme • create  creates • Inflection is productive • You can add –s to any verb, to make it plural • Derivation is not necessarily productive • You cannot always add un- to an adjective, or -ive to a verb

  8. Roots and affixes • Unbelievable contains • One free morpheme • A root and two affixes • One prefix and one suffix • In English, there are derivational prefixes and suffixes • There are no inflectional prefixes • Suffixes are more common in the world’s languages • But Thai has only prefixes – no suffixes • Fromkin 78: plural in the Zapotec language is relized by a prefix, not a suffix

  9. Infixes • In Tagalog • sulat = write • sumulat = wrote • sinulat = was written • What is the root morpheme here? • What are the affixes? • Fromkin describes a kind of infix used in English • I don’t want to go to uni-bloody-versity • Is there any infixing in Mandarin, do you think?

  10. Reduplication • Afrikaans • dik = ‘thick’; dikdik = ‘very thick’ • Motu (Papua New Guinea) • mero = boy; memero = boys • meromero = little boy • How do you say ‘little boys’ in this language? • And – you guessed it – what uses does reduplication have in Mandarin?

  11. Hierarchical structure of words (Fromkin 84) • unbelievable and unsystematic have only one structural analysis each: • believe相信 + -able可相信 + un-不可相信 • Unlockable, Fromkin shows on 85-6, is morphologically ambiguous • It can be understood in two ways • Try to understand why, by looking at the trees

  12. Reading and exercises • 69 to 74 (or further if you like) • Ex 2, 3, 4, 5A, 6 • You will probably enjoy these! • You might like to take a look at my master’s thesis • It contains a short section on reduplication in Chinese • It has some ideas about compounding (for next week) • You will get an idea of the structure of a Western-style essay: study, especially, the way the references and bibliography work

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