Linguistics Study Guide
Morphology – the study of word structure and word formation
Lexicon – a speaker‟s mental dictionary which contains information about the syntactic
properties, meaning and phonological representation of a language‟s words
Word - the smallest freeform found in any language
Free form – an element that can occur in isolation and/or whose position with respect to
neighbouring elements is not entirely fixed
Ex. Dinosaurs are extinct
*Dinosaur are –s extinct
Morpheme – the smallest unit of language that carries information about meaning or function
Ex. Books has two morphemes
Book + s
Simple Words – a word that consists of a simple morpheme
Complex Words – a word that consists of two or more morphemes
Free Morpheme – a morpheme that can be a word by itself
Bound Morpheme – a morpheme that must be attached to another element (the past tense
Ex. Book + s
Allomorphs – variant forms of a morpheme
Analyzing word structure
-Complex words contain a root morpheme and one or more affixes
-Root morphemes belong to a lexical category (V, N, A, Av)
-Affixes (Af) do not belong to a lexical category and are always bound morphemes
-Prefix: attached to the front of the base ex. Replay
-Suffix: attached to the end of the base ex. Vividly
-Infix: occurs within the base
ex. Tagalog: Bili „buy‟ Binili „bought‟
Infixes in Arabic
What is the main verb „write‟ based on what you can infer from the data?
„k t b‟
Infixes in English?
Some expletives in colloquial expressions ex. “fan - *(&!^@# - tás – tic” Not random, expletive precedes main stress of word
Infixes must be inserted inside another morpheme, not between
-“un- *(&!^@# - believe – able” is not evidence of infixation
English Derivational Affixes
Derivation: an affixational process that forms a word with a meaning and/or category distinct
from that of its base.
Ex. Unkind, Modernize, Destroyed, Books, Blacken, Blackened.
Derivation & Word Structure
Un + A: unable, unkind, unhurt
Un + N: unknowledgable, unhealth, uninjury *** (wrong)
Phonology in morphology
Phonological constraints on derivation
morpheme -en can attach to monosyllabic adjectives that end in obstruents (all stops, affricates,
Class 1 affixes
Affixes which cause a change in the consonant or vowel segments (phonological sound change)
-ive, -ize, -y, etc. product-productive, public-publicize, democrat-democracy
Class 2 affixes
Affixes which cause no change in the consonant or vowel segments (phonological sound change)
-ness, -ful, etc. prompt-promptness, hope-hopeful Compounding - the combination of two already existent words
Resulting compound word is a noun, verb, or adjective.
Rightmost category determines the category of the word
This word is the ‘head’
Ex. Bluebird, Underestimate, redhot, greenhouse
Properties of compounds
A + N compounds are more prominent
Phonological constraints in compounds
Stress on first component - Greénhouse vs. green house, Wét suit vs. wet suit
Tense and plural markers cannot typically be attached to the first element
* [dropped kick] vs. [dropkick]ed
* [Fridays night] vs. [Friday night]s
Compound denoting a subtype of the concept denoted by its head.
Steamboat = boat powered by steam
Air hose = hose that carries air
Airfield = a field where planes land
Other examples: Policemen, oak leaves
The meaning of the compound does not follow from the head.
Other examples: Walkman, Maple Leafs
The combination of a word (usually a noun) with a verb to form a compound verb.
English: babysitting, housecleaning
The modification of a word‟s form to indicate the grammatical subclass to which it belongs.
This can be done by:
-English has eight inflectional affixes. These are found on nouns, verbs, and adjectives, and
provide the following grammatical information: plural (-s) and possessive (-„s); third person
singular non-past tense (-s), past tense (-ed), progressive (-ing) and past participate (-enl –ed);
comparative (-er) and superlative (-est). Inflection vs. Derivation
Inflection does not change category or type of meaning
Derivation changes category and/or meaning
Derivation before inflection
Inflection vs. Derivation
Productivity - Inflectional has more freedom Other processes related to inflection
Substitute one non-morphemic segment for another to mark a grammatical contrast
Morphological process that replaces a morpheme with an entirely different morpheme in order to
indicate a grammatical contrast.
Spanish: ir (to go) fue (he/she/you went)
Marking a grammatical or semantic contrast by repeating all or part of the base to which it
gyzel gyzel (very beautifully) Partial Reduplication
lalakad (will walk)
Stress and tone placement
Tone placement: the tone placement distinguishes the words meaning or grammatical class.
Présent vs. present
Other inflectional phenomena
Case: change in it‟s word form to indicate its grammatical role (subject, object, etc.)
I vs. me = I met the man vs. The man met me.
He vs. him
Agreement: word is inflected to match certain inflectional properties of another word.
Other types of word formation
-Cliticization: the process of affixing a clitic (verbal abbreviation) onto a host (root word)
Clitics - Elements that must be attached to a host.
‟m, ‟s, ‟re = I‟m, She‟s, We‟re
t‟ = Jean t‟jaime.
Clitics are members of lexical category
Proclitics: added to beginning of host
Enclitics: added to end of host
-Conversion - Assign an already existing word to a new syntactic category
-considered zero derivation, adds no affixes Clipping - shorten a polysyllabic word (prof.)
Blends - words created from non-morphemic parts of two already existing items
brunch, smog, spam
Backformation - words created by removing an affix from another word.
donate (from donation), orient (from orientation), edit (from edition)
Acronyms - words formed by taking the initial letters of the words in a phrase and pronouncing
them as a word (UNICEF, NAFTA)
Onomatopoeia - words created to sound like the thing that they name. (cock-a- doodle-doo,
Coinage - words created from scratch
Product names: Kodak, Teflon
Brand names accepted as generic names.
Morphophonemics - rules that account for alternations among allomorphs
Example: plural morpheme marker “s”
-[s], [z], [ez] in lips, pills and judges
Rule-governed according to the internal word structure:
[s] occurs after voiceless sounds
[z] occurs after voiced sounds
[ez] occurs when vowel is needed to
-break up an illegal cluster of sounds
English syllabic structure doesn‟t allow [d3z] Syntax - the system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation in human language.
The study of how words are ordered to form phrases and phrases are ordered to form sentences.
What does it mean to be grammatical? Native speaker judges utterances to be possible
sentences or not.
–* House painted student a the.
–The student painted the house.
Transformational generative grammar
Theories that form part of Universal Grammar (UG)
According to UG, syntax must have:
–Lexicon component (mental dictionary with pronunciation, and meaning)
–Computational system (cognitive processes) that either:
Merge elements to create phrases and sent.
Move to transport elements to different parts of a sentence
–Easy to define
–(N), (V), (A), (P), (Adv)
•Non-lexical categories (functional)
–Hard to define; carry little semantic meaning
–The (Det), will (Aux), or (Con), very (Deg)
Determining a word‟s category
•The child stood near the fence. adjective
•The runners neared the finish line. verb
•The end is nearer than you might think.
We can determine the category of each by: meaning, inflection, and distribution.
–(N) name entities
–(V) designate actions, sensations, and states
–(A) designate a property or attribute of the entities denoted by nouns.
–(Adv) denote properties and attributes of the actions, sensations, and states designated by verbs.
–certain morphemes can only be attached to certain lexical categories. Distribution
–ordering of types of elements with other types.
–Sentences have a hierarchical design in which words are grouped together into successively
larger structural units.
–Unit that stands between words and sentences in syntactic structure
•Phrase has three parts: head, specifier and complement
•X‟ (“X-bar”) schema (next slide)
Heads - obligatory nucleus around which a phrase is built.
What‟s the head in the following?
–PP: in the barn
–VP: sang –NP: the man
–AP: old barn
Specifiers - words that make the head of the phrase more precise
In English, left most element
Determiners (Det): Spec of N
–the, a, this, those, no
Adverbs (Adv): Spec of V
–never, perhaps, often, always
Degree words (Deg): Spec of A or P
–very, quite, more, almost
Complements - in addition to Head and Specifier, the phrase also contains a complement.
•In English, right most element
•Provide information about entities and locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of
•A vegetarian would never eat [ NPa hamburger]
•A vegetarian would never eat [ NPa hamburger]
•NP: A hamburger is complement of V „‟eat‟‟
•Eat is a transitive verb -- takes a DO.
Merge - combine words in a manner compatible with the phrase structure schema.
This is operated by the computational system
Sentences - largest syntactic unit
-Consist of an NP (subject) and VP (predicate)
-Traditional approach S=NP VP
-Sentences have as their head an abstract category dubbed I (for inflection)
-Contemporary approach IP=NP VP
Constituents - a phrase forms a syntactic unit, or constituent, and can be verified using special
The children will stop at the corner.
=They, do so, etc.
NP=replaced by „they‟, „it‟; VP=replaced by „do so‟
They stopped at the corner.
= At the corner, they stopped.
The children stopped at the corner and looked both ways.
Complements are “what a word needs”
Complements occurs after
–VP, NP, AP, PP
–The child devoured [ NP the sandwich]
–* The child devoured. Complement Clauses
The psychic knows that the candidate will succeed.
The psychic knows [ that the candidate will succeed].
The first sentence is the Matrix Clause (everything).
Complementizers – That/Whether/If
CPs can occur as complements of
•V: They said that Mary had left.
•N: There‟s a rumor that Mary will leave.
•A: I am certain that Mary will leave.
•P: He wonders about whether Mary will leave.
Structure of an embedded CP Deep and Surface Structure
Like allophones, which have underlying phonemes representing them, all sentences have (and
many times they look the same):
•Sentence is formed in this order:
1) merge operation (according to X„ schema) to give DS
2) move operation* to give SS
If a sentence doesn‟t require movement, the SS is the same as the DS.
Sentences requiring move operation
–Can we go home?
‘Do insertion’ questions
–Do you have the tickets?
–When is the party?
Note: Chomsky and colleagues traditionally