Dispensa intera MORFOSINTASSI INGLESE, Dispense di Lingua Inglese

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ARIANNA HUBNER

UNIVERSITÀ CATTOLICA DEL SACRO CUORE

MORFOSINTASSI INGLESE

TOPICS

by means of inflection (=synthetic language). [= nonostante la lingua inglese sia più analitica che

sintetica, ci sono degli esempi che mostrano la natura sintetica della lingua. L’inglese era

esclusivamente una lingua sintetica come il latino!].

o English used to be a highly synthetic language, but what about today English, that is more analytic?

How old English looked like and sounded like? Some examples of Old English nouns, pronouns,

adjectives, definitive article à English still maintain some forms that has been inherited. In English all

these categories (up there) were inflected for:

§ Case à nominative, genitive, accusative, dative. Old English possessed 4 different cases:

o Nominative case is the case of the subject

o Genitive case is the case of possession

o Accusative is direct object

o Dative case is the case of indirect object (place, time…)

§ Number à nouns, pronouns, adjectives, definitive article were inflected for number. In Old

English it included

singular and plural and the existence of a

dual form , but only for the 1

st

and

nd

plural person pronom. Is it still maintained in Present English? YES!

• Ex: Both à you both, both of you, we both, both of us.
• Ex: Neither à neither of us, either nor, either or [DUAL FORM].

Sono le uniche forme in cui si continua il numero duale.

§ Gender (that was grammatical) à it means: the gender that a noun received has nothing to

do with the sex that the noun had in the real world.

• Ex: Table à which in the real world is an object, in Old English could be a sign of

masculine gender. We all know that the feminine gender is for entities which in the

real world are feminine. [Il genere maschile è per oggetti che nella realtà sono

maschili. Femminile per il femminile MA nel genere grammaticale sopra elencato un

oggetto può avere genere femminile].

• Ex: Mädchen (ragazza in tedesco) nella realtà è un’entità femminile; quindi, dovrebbe

essere femminile nella lingua tedesca di OGGI, ma invece l’articolo è NEUTRO (DAS).

In Old English gender was only grammatical. Today English still has feminine, masculine,

neuter gender, but

gender assignment (unlike old English) is NOT grammatical but

NATURALE: it follows the sex of the entity that has in the real world.

Ex: boy è maschile, girl è femminile, lord è maschile, lady è femminile. In

italiano: signore/signora, ragazzo/ragazza. Casi in cui il genere

grammaticale è uguale al genere naturale. Pensiamo a forme come

“pianest / singer”: potrebbero essere maschile o femminile. L’inglese

contemporaneo ha anche il “ common gender ” come in “singer”.

WHAT IS LEFT IN PRESENT ENGLISH?

Some of the old forms of English continue also today

1. OLD ENGLISH NOUNS were inflected according to gender, case and number: “stān” can be “stone” in

English; “grief” – “gift”; “hunt” – “hunter” (this one is common gender)

2. OE PERSONAL PRONOUNS: In OE we had dual form for 1

st

person singular. For example: “wit” (we two)

and “git” (ye two) but in PE we have also dual form for the 3

rd

person plural, which is “both of them”

and “they both” that appeared much later. Some of these forms continues in present English but for

example “ic” didn’t continue in fact we have “I”. That form continued for example in modern German

“ich”. The second person “du” remained as “you”.

OE ADJECTIVES

: In OE we had two different forms: strong declension and weak declension (these are

types of inflection). In present English “weak declension” is lost but continues in modern German.

English and German are very closed.

THE DEFINITE ARTICLE IN OE

: It was inflected for number, gender, and case. For example, the 3

rd

neutral form continues in English as “that”, also plural forms for all genders continue in PE.

WHAT CONTINUES IN PRESENT ENGLISH?

Case: Nouns

o Genitive (it can be expressed in synthetic form [which is reflected in saxon genitive (it continues the

old English inflection /s/) and the genitive case in PE can be expressed also by an analytic periphrasis

with the preposition “of”. Basically, English is moved from being predominately synthetic language to

being a prominent analytic language.

o Accusative continues in English only in word order: when a noun is in accusative case it is because of

the position that the word occupies in the sentence. Accusative follows the verb.

o Dative + other indirect cases in Present English nouns in dative case are no longer inflected but dative

case is only expressed by analytic periphrasis (so there is a proposition followed by a noun which is

not inflected) [ex: by somebody]

Case: Pronouns

o They are still inflected for the genitive case (relative + possessive pronouns). The genitive case can be

expressed by means of inflection (whose/whom) [synthetic and analytic periphrasis].

o Accusative for relative pronouns is only synthetic (whom)

o Dative + other indirect cases: in PE pronouns in dative case à by means of periphrasis. It means that

they are introduced by a proposition followed by the inflected form of the relative pronoun (whom/for

whom…)

Case: adjectives and articles lost. We just utilize THE in every form.

Number: Pronouns and nouns

o They are inflected for singular and plural number

o For pronouns à dual form à for all person’s plurals. The Dual number in present English is expressed

by means of periphrasis (that it’s analytic)

Gender: Grammatical gender is lost in PE vs Old English. In PE, gender, is neutral (and that is why English is

different from other Germanic and European languages). [in Italian: la mano, English: (the) hand]. There is no

way for us by means of which we can distinguish gender by simply looking at the article or the way the word

is inflected (sing/plu). Unless we make references to the sex that it has in the real world.

VOCABULARY AND GENETIC RELATEDNESS/RELATIONSHIP

As regards grammar, syntax and morphology English changed from being purely synthetic to predominantly

analytic because of the loss of verbal and nominal inflection. What about vocabulary? In PE more than 120

languages are recorded to be sources of present English vocabulary. We must know the contacts that English

had during the past. We need to focus on how English is related to other languages in terms of its origins but

also, we need to focus on the contacts that English had with a variety of languages.

o Genetic relatedness : English is related to other languages in a genetic way. We need to discover its

historical principles. English shares many features with other languages because of a common

linguistic ancestor (stessa lingua madre = parent language)

o Common linguistic ancestor : English and those languages share same similarities and principles.

English belongs to the Germanic family, it is a big family, it includes many modern languages. In proto-

Indo-European group there are: Germanic, Slawig and Italic. In Germanic group there are: north

Germanic, east Germanic, and west Germanic. West Germanic is divided in High German and Low

German, English is classified in Low German. English has some features, characteristics in common

with Afrikaans, Dutch, Frisian, and Modern German, and less with danish, Norwegian and Swedish. All

those languages have something in common, basic features. Other features are shared by only few

languages. Dutch and Danish have base features in common but no other ones.

Question: what makes PE like the other languages in its subfamily? How much of its Germanic origins does PE

still maintain?

COMMON FEATURES OF PE AND OTHER GERMANIC LANGUAGES

They have in common:

o Regular sound correspondences and other phonetic evidence

o Grammatical and morphological evidence

o Basic vocabulary, lexical features. Many words entered in English as a “borrowing” (prestito) à

vocabulary is least reliable

Regular sound correspondences à Grimm’s Law (mutamenti regolari dei suoni delle lingue del gruppo indo-

germanico). For example: Latin (lux), English (light), German (Leicht)= a “stop” at the end preceded by a vowel

sound. The word “light” is maintained in its graphic way but in the past was pronounced /light/ not /lait/. Other

phonetic evidence is the i-umlaut (i-mutation) it’s a modification of internal vowel caused by - i/-j in following

syllable. Ex: foot/feet; blood/bleed; mouse/mice (influence of French in English for mice). The original vowel

changes by the influence of /i/ sound and disappear (bisyllabic words).

Word stress is fixed on root/first syllable of multisyllabic words. English as many Germanic languages tens to

place word stress on the first syllable of bisyllabic or multisyllabic words. (Not on the prefix; suffix - able- is not

stressed). Syllables that follow the root are always unstressed and weak. As a result of this, the weakness of

unstressed syllable resulted in the loss of inflectional endings (all the vocalic endings). That’s why in PE, words

do no longer exhibit any inflectional endings (there still is - s for 3

rd

person singular). [le desinenze che

indicavano genere, caso etc. si sono perse nel PE].

GRAMMATICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE BETWEEN ENGLISH AND OTHER GERMANIC

LANGUAGES

o Strong verbs vs weak verbs

o Strong verbs: 7 classes

o Past tense of weak verbs: dental suffix

o The comparative and superlative degree of adjectives and adverbs (-er/-est)

o Flexibility and resourcefulness of vocabulary= in Old English, much more than in present English, new

words were created from an original word by putting two or more words together to get long words

(compounding) or by means of derivation

a. Derivation (prefixes and suffixes)

b. Compounding

c. Synonyms for the same concept

LEXICAL CORRESPONDANCES

Much of present English vocabulary is a result of a process known as “borrowing”: 120 languages = sources of

PE vocabulary. Ex: take < OE niman à German: nehmen

1. Germanic settlements
2. Vikings à a lot of words
3. Norman invasion
4. Renaissance mixing à French, Latin, Greek, Italian
5. Empire imports à by the colonies

Even though English is a Germanic language, in terms of its vocabulary PE better qualify as a Hybrid language

(=its vocabulary is melting pot of a variety of languages). So, in PE vocabulary we can distinguish 2 different

layers (which represent where English words come from): the

Native layer or Anglo-Saxon layer being

represented by those words, which has always been in the language, and which get back to its Germanic

origins. Native layer is also called Anglo-Saxon core (words that are not the result of borrowing, but they still

existed). The basic vocabulary of PE is represented by words which belongs to the native layer: words that are

present to all recorded language history and they are not easily replaced by other words. In the contrary, many

words have been borrowed from other languages. They are a result of a process called “borrowing” (they

represent the Foreign layer) [starting from late 400s thanks to Celts and Romans]. A high proportion of word

in PE had been created by a word-formation process (compounding, using prefix and suffix) using words

already presented in the language (native layer) or/and foreign layer.

• Ex: skyline à “sky” is not English! It’s a borrowing from northern languages. [“skirt” “skin”].

“skyline”à compounding: borrowing (1000 year) + Latin word “line” (2 prestiti).

Ex: homework à compounding: 2 words native layer. So, can combine the first two.

• Ex: grandmother à hybrid: French and English.

New words arrive in English by means of a process known as “phonosymbolism”: creating words by sounds

(typically by children) Phonosymbolism is also presents in onomatopes.

Vocabulary: from purely GERMANIC to HYBRID: borrowing < foreign influence = language contact

WE DISCUSS ABOUT THE HISTORY OF VOCABULARY LATER!

MORPH, MORPHEMES AND ALLOMORPHS [BOOK CHAPTER. 4]

MORPHEME VS MORPH

We must start by identifying the morpheme, the smallest meaningful unit in a language. The morpheme is not

necessarily equivalent to a word but may be a smaller unit of it. For example, the word “ headphones” consists

of the three morphemes head, phone, and - s ; the word ringleader consists of three morphemes, ring, lead,

and - er. Some of these morphemes may stand alone as independent words ( head, phone, ring, lead ), others

must always be attached to some other morpheme (- er, - s ). A morpheme has the following characteristics:

o it is internally indivisible; it cannot be further subdivided or analyzed into smaller meaningful units

o it has internal stability since nothing can be interposed in a morpheme

o it is externally transportable

o it has positional mobility or free distribution, occurring in various contexts

Morphemes are represented within curly braces {}. Based on meaning, there are several types of morphemes,

as shown in Figure below. The

morph is the concrete realization of a morpheme, or the actual segment of a

word as it is spoken or pronounced.

There are two types of morphs:

Free morphemes (morph)

Bound morphemes (morph)

Free morphemes can stand alone. Most

words are free morphemes, like the words:

house, book, bed, light, world, people and

so on. Bound morphemes, however,

cannot stand alone, they must always be attached to another morph.

A free morph is always a root , it carries

the principal lexical or grammatical meaning. Roots are also occasionally bound morphs. These are called

bound roots. Bound roots are often foreign borrowings that were free in the source language, but not free in

English. For example

o Vert à convert, revert, subvert, introvert, pervert

o Mit à transmit, commit, remit, admit, omit, submit

o Ceive à conceive, perceive, receive, deceive

o

Fer à transfer, refer, prefer, defer, confer (from latin “ferre” = portare)

o Den à dental, dentist, dentistry (teeth)

This is the shared form between words with the same meaning, that’s what connects all the words =

the shared form, the morph, is responsible of the meaning of each word/lexeme.

However - vert , - mit , - ceive, and - fer cannot stand alone as independent words, and we would also find

it very difficult to state the meaning of any of these roots, unless we know Latin, from which these

words derive

Free morpheme is divided in content words that are usually nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Then,

function words help us connect important information. Function words are important for understanding, but

they add little meaning beyond defining the relationship between two words. Function words include auxiliary

verbs, prepositions, articles, conjunctions, and pronouns. Looking at the image on the right we can distinguish

grammatical morphemes vs lexical morphemes.

[then we will talk about affixes].

Lexical morphemes express lexical meaning. They

can be categorized into the major lexical

categories, or word classes: noun, verb, adjective,

or adverb; these are frequently called “content

words”. Lexical morphemes are generally

independent words (free roots) or parts of words

(derivational affixes and bound roots). Grammatical morphemes refer to a limited number of common

meanings or express relations within the sentence. Grammatical morphemes may be parts of words

(inflectional affixes) or small but independent “function words” belonging to the minor word classes:

preposition, article, demonstrative, conjunction, auxiliary.

zero morph: no concrete realization. For example, plural fish consists of the morphemes {fish} + {pl},

but the plural morpheme has no concrete realization (Ex. The singular and plural forms of fish are both

pronounced /fI∫/). We say that a morpheme is “realized” as a morph. [Sheep, deer, fish, keep]

AFFIXES

Unlike a root, an affix does not carry the meaning. It is always bound to a root. English has two kinds of affixes,

prefixes, which attach to the beginnings of roots, and suffixes, which attach to the end of roots. Some

languages regularly use “infixes”, which are inserted in the middle of words. In Modern English, infixes are

used only for humorous purposes, as in im-bloody-possible. Prefixes are derivational, suffixes are both

derivational and inflectional.

Affix’s function: creation of new lexemes in the language .

o A derivational affix in English is either a prefix or a suffix. There may be more than one derivational

affix per word. A derivational affix has one of two functions:

a. to convert one part of speech to another (in which case, it is class changing)

b. (and/or) to change the meaning of the root (in which case, it is class maintaining)

o An inflectional suffix in English it’s a particular inflectional affix attacheD to all (or most) members of

a certain word class. The function of inflectional suffixes is to indicate grammatical meaning, such as

tense or number. Suffix always occur last, following the root and any derivational affixes, which are

central to the meaning or class of the root.

A derivational affix is an affix by means of which one word is formed (derived) from another.

An inflectional affix has a grammatical function, such as creating a plural form, a comparative form etc.

of not produces marginally acceptable forms in some cases (e.g. mayn’t, mightn’t ) or unacceptable forms in

other cases.

Contracted auxiliaries

will, shall > ’ll à won’t, shouldn’t

would, had > ’d à wouldn’t, hadn’t

is, has > ’s à isn’t, hasn’t

have > ’ve à haven’t

am > ’m à *am’t – I am not (ain’t)

are > ’re à aren’t

was > *’s à wasn’t

The importance of the distinction between morph and morpheme is that there is not always a one-to-one

correspondence between morph and morpheme, and morphemes can combine or be realized in a different

way. We can analyze words in two different ways:

1. into morphs following formal or structural divisions, or
2. into morphemes, recognizing the abstract units of meaning present.

MORPHOLOGICAL REALISATION RULES

We can distinguish languages in terms of the type they belong to (language typology – -> synthetic

[agglutinative and fusional] and analytic). One of the criteria that linguistics uses to classify languages is looking

at how morphs and morphemes are combined. In English we have words (lexemes) that have a one-to-one

correspondence between morphs and morphemes and others that haven’t.

How can morphemes combine or be realized in English? : morphological and morphemic analysis.

Morphological analysis: morphological realization rules. We need to consider every morph and the information

that each morph realizes. Rules by means of which morphs and morphemes combine.

Four morphological realization rules: applied to PE (not equally applied to every language)

• Ex. FEET; DOGS; TWO FISH; WORKED; CAUGHT

We can subdivide these examples in two categories: plural form – verbs in past tense.

o Different lexemes in the same group (plural number)

o Different lexemes in the same group (grammatical group)

We say that they all represent the inflected form in the plural of different lexemes. For what do you distinguish

those words according to plural?

Ü

REGULAR PLURAL: S (INFLECTIONAL SUFFIX)

“Dogs” How many morphs? Two. What kind of morph is dog? It’s a free morph. Is it a root or affix? It’s a root

and the - s is an affix (suffix). What kind of suffix? It’s an ending. What kind of information does DOG realize?

It’s lexical information and it’s an animal. What about - s? it’s grammatical. It realizes grammatical morpheme

of plural number.

DOGS= 2 morphs, 2 morphemes (each morph realizes a morpheme) = one-to-one relationship between morph

and morpheme. We see that rule every time we talk about regular plural. [regular plurals = one-to-one

relationship]

WORKED= 2 morphs (work-ed), WORK is free, it’s a root and ED is bound and an ending à action of working,

• ED is past tense and/or past participle. 2 morphemes (work and ed) à

one-to-one relationship (=dogs)

Ü IRREGULAR PLURAL

FEET= one morpheme, two morphemes which are “foot” and plural number. What’s the difference between

dogs and feet? The same morph realizes two morphemes, so there is

no longer a one-to-one relationship

between morph and morpheme. So, in FEET, the morphemes are not realized by distinct morphs. [il numero

di morfemi supera il numero di morfi à plurali irregolari (non tutti)]. The morpheme of plural number in

“FEET” à by a phonetic-change realization [like in FEET= FOOT, singular /u/, plural /i/ à vowel sound is

changed]

TWO FISH= one morph (TWO= plural) two morphemes (fish [animal] and two [plural number]). We see that

fish is plural thanks to “two” that represent the quantity. [= many, several…]. # DOGS (we understand that we

are dealing with the plural thanks to the - s # for “two fish” that is explained by “two” = quantity). The

morpheme of plural number in “TWO FISH” à # dogs # feet à Fish= no difference singular plural noun (the

way we pronounce the word). The morpheme of plural number is there but it’s a different phonetic and

orthographic realization = the morpheme is said to be realized by a ZERO MORPH.

CAUGHT

= one morph, 2 morphemes (verb to catch, and morpheme of past tense). à 1 morph realize two

morphemes, the root-vowel is different and the root-consonant too (like FEET)

THE RULES

AGGLUTINATIVE RULE

The examples in BLACKBOARD: COWS, SLOWER, TALLER à 2 morphs 2 morphemes. Each morpheme is

realized by a distinct morph. Morphs are simply GLUED together

FUSIONAL RULE

Ex. CAUGHT: 1 morph 2 morphemes. Morphemes realized by morph which do not remain distinct but are

FUSED together

See also

o We: 1 morph; 3 morphemes {person: 1st} + {number: pl} + {case: nom}

o Him: 1 morph; 4 morphemes {person: 3rd} + {number: sg} + {gender: m} + {case: obj}

o Its: 2 morphs; 4 morphemes {person: 3rd} + {number: sg} + {gender: n} + {case: poss}

o

Teeth : 1 morph; 2 morphemes {TOOTH} + {number: pl} Wrote/written

Mouse – mice à =

o

Shelf – shelves à Plural: - es + root allomorphy

o Sheep – sheep à Plural: zero morph

o Buy – bought à past simple/past participle: dental suffix - t + root allomorphy

Sweep – swept à =

o Sing – sang – sung à past simple + past participle: root allomorphy

LINGUISTIC FOSSILS

Certain plural nouns are grammatically conditioned. These endings are not productive: they are either

linguistic fossils (remnant forms from an earlier stage of English) or foreign borrowings. Note that if a noun

such as mouse took a productive ending, it would be the [6z] allomorph, child would take /z/, and tooth would

take /s/. Let’s look at one set of forms that does not seem to follow the morphemic rule for plural allomorphs

given above. We would expect the plural allomorph of words ending in /f/ (a voiceless non-sibilant consonant)

to be /s/, as in the following words:

EXAMPLES

o belief – beliefs proof – proofs

o chief – chiefs safe – safes

However, what we find in the following set of forms is not /s/, but instead the plural allomorph /z/, with a

simultaneous voicing of the final root consonant: EXAMPLES

o wolf – wolves o elf – elves o leaf – leaves o life – lives

o knife – knives o shelf – shelves o loaf – loaves o calf – calves

o sheaf – sheaves o thief – thieves o wife – wives o self – selves

In some cases, we also find variation between the phonologically expected and unexpected forms: EXAMPLES

o wharf – wharfs/wharves hoof – hoofs/hooves

o dwarf – dwarfs/dwarves scarf – scarfs/scarves

A similar irregularity appears in the following words ending in /s/; the expected /6z/ allo- morph is found, but

there is also voicing of the final root /s/: EXAMPLES

o house – houses blouse – blouses

How do we account for these irregularities in the plural forms? We could have a morphological realization rule

which changes final voiceless fricatives to voiced fricatives when {pl} is added. However, such a rule would

have to apply generally to all roots ending in voiceless fricatives, and it does not. Instead, we say that there

are two predictable variants of the root, what is called root allomorphy. The two allomorphs of the root are

grammatically conditioned, by the presence of either a following {sg} and {pl} morpheme. The rule for

leaf/leaves is as follows: {lif} → [liv]/ - {pl}. Many irregularities can be better explained diachronically (PDE VS

OE). English isn’t rich in allomorphy. Root allomorphy à is most common type of allomorphy à

diachronic/historical perspective.

SUPPLETIVE ALLOMORPHY

Suppletion: etymologically unrelated forms used in the paradigm of same lexeme. Occurs in all European

languages with the same concepts/meanings. More or less. See also: EXAMPLES

o Fr. Aller: il va; Être ~ suis ~ est ~ sommes ~ etait

o Germ. Sein ~ bin ~ bist ~ ist ~ war

o It Andare – io vado-noi andiamo

o Hot Hotter Hottest # Good Better Best

o Work Worked Worked # Go Went Gone

THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH WORDS

We refer to how English words can be analyzed and all the processes that we can use to create new words

and new meanings. There are notions that can be apply just to English.

Word formation: some linguistic processes for coining new words from existing ones (= native or borrowed)

EXAMPLES: some different lexical items like:

• Protrude
• Protrudes
• Protruding
• Protruded

How many words can we see? Do these words share something/have something in common? = they have the

same grammatical category (verb). What distinguish protrudes – protruding – protruded from the first one? =

they represent three different inflected forms of the same verb.

If we say that there are 4 words, in linguistic it corresponds to the notion of: WORD FORM

When we refer to the basic form of the verb or noun (regardless of the form it takes according to the

context) we refer to: LEXEME (in this case is Protrude)

The action is the same, what changes is the grammatical meaning (“protrudes” 3 pers.sing. Present vs

Protruded past)

All the inflected forms have the same lexeme and lexical meaning

EXAMPLES:

• High, higher, highest à HIGH (lexeme)
• Cut, cuts, cut, cutting à CUT
• Cat, cats, cat’s, cats’ à CAT

[Il processo di formazione di parole non da origine a forme di parola dello stesso lessema, perché il numero di

forme che posso prendere da un lessema è limitato (se ho un nome, posso avere soltanto singolare plurale]

COLUMN 2: semantic meaning= person. These are all plural and are “regular plural= they have a - s” à shared

grammatical meaning. Exception for “irregular plural= men, women à internal modification, same function

as ending). Formal relationship.

COLUMN 3: they exabit an important relationship: /ly/ à their relationship is reflected in a shared form. Then,

they belong to the same grammatical category: adjectives. Is the relationship reflected in a shared meaning?

Yes, LY= “in the same way as”.

COLUMN 1 VS COLUMN 3= NEW LEXEMES

Ex: Assembly, belly, early, Lily, Silly = ending in - ly. They share some formal feature with the lexeme in column

3. Do they share the same meaning? Not at all. No semantic likeness. This is simply a

Phonological/orthographic relatedness.

COLUMN 4: lexical united related by the exabit (li)-NESS. LI is coined by column 3 /ly/. Relationship is reflected

in a shared meaning, it’ “a state of condition”. Ex. Beggarliness is a state of condition of beggar.

If we read this table horizontally: each lexeme can take a different form and turned into new lexemes

EXERCICE: A set of related words? EXAMPLES

1. SHOPKEEPER

2. PARTY-GOER

3. SINGER

4. HIGHER

1 - 2 - 3 are nouns, 1 - 2 are compounded lexemes, same /ER/ suffix (only phonological), 4 is an adjective, shared

meaning in 1- 2 - 3 “the person that does the action”. /ER/ in Higher is a suffix for comparative degree adjective.

The first three are lexemes from: shop keep, party-go, sing.

a. STRETCHER

b. COOKER

c. SPREADER

d. TOOTH-PICKER

e. HAMMER

f. CORNER

Do these words exabit a shared form? Are these words/lexical units related? How is this relatedness reflected

by?

From a grammatical and morphological point of view they exabit a shared form /ER/ at the end. Does ER

perform the same function? No: in a-b-c-d /ER/ performs the function of “the person that performs the activity

represented by the verb” …is it right? It’s not completely right. It’s a suffix here. In e-f /ER/ is not a suffix, it has

been added to an original lexeme to coin a new lexeme: you cannot separate ER from the rest.

Attention, the point is: in all these examples, the /ER/ doesn’t refer to the person that performs the

action but the OBJECT, the instrument that is used to perform the action. (a-b-c-d).

It’s right saying that we can create a noun from a verb by adding ER: read à reader … but not in this

case.

These are DUAL-SUFFIXES: ED: past participle, adjectives (verbal meaning)

EXAMPLES:

o Deforestation à conversation, manifestation, transformation

o Dogs à cats, hats, books

o Parliamentarian à humanitarian

o Inexpensive à inactive

o Laughed à played, worked

o Competitive à active, impressive

All the words can be segmented: de-forest-ation (3 morphs) FREE VS BOUND

Each constituent element into which a word can be segmented is MORPH

SUMMARY We discussed about different types of morphs and morphemes in PE and how we can classify

them according to several criteria. Morphs can be classified by their distribution within word form and lexemes (they can

stand on their own as independent lexical unit – independent words à we distinguish free morphs from bound ones.

This distinction is particularly common in English because it has poor inflectional morphology. Also, morphs can also be

classified according to the type of function they performed – type of meaning they realize. For example, in a lexeme we

distinguish roots (= it represents the most important element) that can be segmented in constituent elements. His

function is to convey the meaning, the lexical meaning. Morphs are followed or preceded by affixes; while most roots in

PE are free, a small number of roots consist of bound roots (words from Latin). So, roots are preceded ad followed by

other morphs (affixes à prefixes and suffixes). A further distinction can be made between inflectional suffixes and

derivational ones. The firsts are those bound morphs responsible several word form while the seconds are responsible

for new lexemes out of existing ones. Inflectional suffixes are also known as endings. Each morph à lexical information

(dictionary) and grammatical information (number, verb, degree…). Free morphs realize also grammatical morphemes

(conjunction, preposition…)

AFTER: PROCESSES OF WORD FORMATION!