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CHAPTER 4
Morphology: Word Structure
FRANCIS KATAMBA
4.1 Morphology: the study of word structure
Morphology is the component of grammar that is devoted to the study of the internal structure of words. It is concerned not only with speakers’ knowledge of the structure of existing, well-established words (e.g., shopkeeper is analysa-ble as shop-keep-er ) but also with the rules used to form or interpret new words. Look at the words below. I suspect some of them will be new to you; they are relatively recent additions to the English lexicon. Explain how you might work out their meanings without resorting to a dictionary:
If you’re unsure about some of these words, help is at hand in Table 4.1. You know many things about word-formation, including the fact that words have internal structure. New compound words can be formed by combining two existing full words, for example, ear-witness (the analogy with eyewitness is
obvious; and by combining chunks of words you can create a new blended word like televangelist (from television- evangelist ). You know also that a new word can be formed by combining the first letters of words in a phrase as in f.i.n.e. or imho. In addition, you bring to the task of word structure analysis considerable shared cultural knowledge. For instance, you have views about the classiness (or otherwise) of McDonald’s that inform your interpretation of the likely meaning of McJob. The intended wordplay on wardrobe in wordrobe will not escape you; in the compound disorient express you see the allusion to the Orient Express , a train eponymous with luxury long- distance travel (with a touch of intrigue). Much of this knowledge is subconscious. The study of morphology aims to make it explicit. Morphology is the study of word structure. The problem is that although everyone knows what a word is, it is very difficult to give a simple definition of the word and to provide reliable criteria for recognizing words. A standard definition of a word is this: ‘a word is a minimum free form’ (Bloomfield, 1935: 178). This means that a word can occur on its own as an utterance. For instance, you could say, Boys! (with a sigh in exasperation, on seeing boys behaving badly). In fact, the word not only is the smallest form that can occur by itself as an utterance, it is also the smallest unit that can be manipulated by syntax. Consider the sentences below:
Table 4.1 Some relatively new words in English
EARWITNESS, n. An individual who hears an incident occur, especially one who later gives a report on what he or she heard [blend of ear and eyewitness]. Context and source: ‘I didn’t see what happened, I just heard it. I guess I was an earwitness.’ (Conversation) IMHO, n. acronym (In My Humble Opinion) Context: Acronym used on the internet
relocated in a new position in the sentence by a syntactic rule. Hence the ungrammaticality of the examples in [4.2c]–[4.2f] respectively. Of course, phrases like the burglar and the neighbour’s dog are free forms capable of occurring in isolation, or being moved from one position to another in a sentence. But they are not words since they are not the smallest units that syntax manipulates. They can be broken down into smaller free forms, namely the words the , neighbour’s and boys.
ADVANCES BOX 2.
ADVANCES BOX 4. Neologisms – are you a shlumpadinka? Neologisms appear every day. Few of them become established words that the speech community broadly recognizes and which get listed in august dictionaries like Merriam-Webster or the Oxford English Dictionary. Shlumpadinka is one that seems to have made it. Slang words, especially those used by celebrities who are the high priests of popular culture, probably have a better chance of catching on than words like those listed in [4.1] that are created by anonymous speakers. Notice how this one introduces into English from Yiddish a consonant cluster in the Shl (/ʃl/) syllable onset that is not already found in the language (see also Shm – reduplication on page 53). shlumpadinka ڢ \shlum-puh-DINK-uh\ noun : a woman who dresses like she has completely given up on herself and it shows : a dowdy and unstylish woman Example Sentence: There you are running out to get the paper looking like a shlumpadinka. – Oprah Winfrey (27 April 2007) Did you know? ‘I have to practice not looking like a shlumpadinka on the air’, said Oprah Winfrey on her eponymous show, broadcast 15 April, 1997. Oprah has occasionally separated shlumpa and dinka , the constituent parts of the word, for emphasis: ‘You are watching right now in your sweats ڦ the same sweats you had on yesterday and the day before ڦ you are a shlumpa and a dinka and you know it!’ Oprah has also used the word shlumpadink to refer to a masculine subject, although this form is somewhat less frequently heard. Oprah has often used shlumpadinka
attributively to modify another noun, as in ‘It’s my shlumpadinka shoes!’ or ‘You’re watching me right now in your shlumpadinka pajamas.’ By permission. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary © 2008 by Merriam- Webster, Incorporated (www.merriam- webster.com).
This is not the problem completely solved yet. We still need to clarify what we mean by word. The term ‘word’ is used in a variety of senses. These are summarized in Table 4.2.
4.2 Simple and complex words
Is a word the smallest unit of morphological structure? The answer has to be no. Take the word boys : it contains two meaningful structural units, boy and –s (plural). The minimal unit which has a meaning (e.g., boy ) or a grammatical function (e.g., –s (plural)) is called a morpheme. Identify the morphemes found in each of the following words:
[4.3] dog childish undeservedly rewriting
Table 4.2 Distinguishing between the senses of the term ‘word’
What is a word?
Word-form A word-form is a shape that represents a word in speech or writing. In the written language we call word-forms orthographic words. Thus, the last sentence has nine orthographic words. Normally, an orthographic word is preceded and followed by a space (or a punctuation mark). I say ‘normally’ because sometimes a compound word is
I expect that your solution is like the one in [4.4].
[4.4] Words Constituent dog dog childish child-ish undeservedly un-deserv-ed-ly rewriting re-writ-ing
We can distinguish between simple words which contain just one morpheme (e.g., dog ) and complex words containing more than one morpheme, for example, child- ish , un-deserv-ed-ly and re-writ-ing. Observe that they can be classified as free morphemes or bound morphemes. A free morpheme can occur in isolation (as a word), for example, dog , write , deserve and child. But a bound morpheme cannot occur in isolation, for example, in [4.4] the forms –ish , un– , –ed , –ly , re– , –ing are bound morphemes. Furthermore, any form that is used to represent a morpheme is called a morph. Thus the word child-ish has two morphs and re-writ-ing has three. Many mor-phemes are represented by more than one actual form. In other words, they have a number of variants that realize them in different contexts. Such vari-ants are called allomorphs. (The parallelism between morph, allomorph and morpheme on the one hand, and phone, allophone and phoneme on the other (Chapter 3, Section 3.1) should be obvious.) Allomorphs are distinct with regard to form. But they have the same grammatical or semantic function. Allomorphs are always in complementary distribution, just like allophones. Each allomorph is restricted to appearing in its allotted contexts. For instance, the indefinite article in English has two allomorphs a ~ an. (The symbol ~ means ‘alternates
with’ or plainly ‘or’.) These two forms have exactly the same meaning. But they occur in different contexts (i.e., in complementary distribution):
4.3 Word structure: a closer look
In this section, we shall consider the various types of morpheme, on the basis of their location and role in the word.
Root, base and affix
A base is a unit to which elements can be added in word- formation. For instance, starting off with the base write , we can add the bound morpheme –ing to form writing. Then writing can be used as a base to which we attach re– to form rewriting. An affix is a bound morpheme that must be attached to a base. If it precedes the base it is called a prefix and if it follows the base it is called a suffix. In [4.4] re– and un– are prefixes while –ish , –ed , –ly and –ing are suffixes. The base of a word may be a root. The root is the rump of a word that remains when all the affixes have been stripped away. Write is both a root and a base. But a base need not be a bare root. In many cases the base contains a root and one or more affixes; for example, we can take a root like write as the base, and add to it the prefix re– to obtain the word rewrite. This word, already containing a root and a prefix, can be used again as a base to which we add the suffix –ing to obtain the word rewriting. As mentioned above, at the start of this chapter, we can also form a compound word by combining two bases that are
Unlike inflection, derivation is not motivated by the syntax. Rather, its role is to create new lexical items. Derivation involves one or both of these two things: creating a new lexical item with a different meaning from that of the original word or changing the syntactic class of the input lexical item, as seen in [4.7]:
In this section we will focus on the notion of inflection and the general morphological properties of inflectional morphemes, and we return to derivation in Section 4.6. English has a very small number of inflectional morphemes, and they are all suffixes. Inflectional suffixes form a closed set. The language no longer adds to its inventory of inflectional endings. But historically English used to have considerably more complex inflectional morphology (see Chapter 16). Inflectional suffixes are listed in Table 4.3. The next chapter provides an opportunity to see how these inflectional suffixes are used in grammar. The fact that inflection is syntax driven has already been highlighted. Many inflectional processes involve agreement. This refers to cases where the head of a grammatical unit requires elements in construction with it to take on certain morpho-syntactic properties of the head. In [4.8], for example, the morpho-syntactic property number that is associated with the head of the noun phrase (NP) (see Chapter 6, Section 6.5) dictates the choice of
identical, as in probably [pɹɒbəbli] probly [pɹɒblij]. Likewise, when a singular noun or a plural noun ending in [–s] or [–z] is put in the genitive, haplology occurs. Since the genitive suffix is spelled and is phonologically realized as [s] ~ [z] (or [ɪz]), it is too similar to the final sound of the base for comfort. So, it is elided in many people’s pronunciation and is normally omitted in the written form of the language (cf. Jones’s house Jones’ house , Charles’s agents ‘Charles’ agents , etc.). The genitive in these situations is indicated merely by the presence of the apostrophe.
Table 4.4 Noun–verb stress doublets
Stress placement
In a minority of cases, derivation is effected by changing stress placement. Nouns can be derived from verbs and verbs from nouns by the rule introduced above (Chapter 3, Section 3.4).
Reduplication
Reduplication is the creation of a new word by repetition of an existing word in its entirety, or in part. Repetition of the entire word is called full reduplication to contrast it with partial reduplication where only part of a word is repeated. Full reduplication is exemplified by words like bang bang , bye-bye, night-night and go-go. Partial reduplication has traditionally involved rhyming, as in airy-
fact that certain morphological rules are very closely bound to morphological operations. We will return to this in the section below.
4.6 Derivation
As we noted in Section 4.3, derivation creates a new lexical item with a new meaning or grammatical category. In this section we will examine more closely the derivational morphology of English. The processes used are of three types: affixation , conversion and compounding.
4.6.1 Affixation
The most important method of derivation is affixation. Table 4.5 lists examples of English derivational affixes. Many well-established affixes are productively used to create new words, for example, the word retraditionalization that I saw in an advertisement for a sociology conference at the university. The set of derivational suffixes is large, and unlike the list of inflectional suffixes, it can have new members added to it (see Table 4.5). I will illustrate the open-endedness of the derivational affix inventory with the suffix –lite. The word lite (a play on ‘light’) entered the language as part of the compound word Miller Lite , the brand name of a beer launched on the US market in 1967. Soon lite was appropriated by many food and beverage manufacturers, who used it to indicate that their products were low in calories and hence good for you. Subsequently, lite , which had been an independent word, was converted into a suffix and attached to bases as –lite. With regard to meaning, the favourable connotations of the suffix –lite were eventually eclipsed by ironic usage. I recently heard marriage-lite being used to refer to a marriage regarded by a speaker as
FIGURE 4.2 Compounds containing an affixed compound
Endocentric compounds must be distinguished from compounds like those in [4.15] whose meaning is not compositional. Such words are called exocentric compounds. They must be listed in the lexicon; they must be memorized.
[4.15] green tax (N) greenhouse (N) cold turkey (N) bag lady (N) golden handcuffs (N) stonewall (V) cold shoulder (N,V) carbon footprint (N)
Of course, there is the added complication that the same expression may be an exocentric or endocentric compound, depending on context. Take the adjective knee-deep. It can mean literally ‘sunk right up to the knees’, in which case it is compositional and hence endocentric; or it can be figurative, meaning ‘deeply involved with’, in which case it is noncompositional and hence exocentric. Now, here is another conundrum. Compound words are made by combin-ing words. And so are syntactic phrases. So, how do we distinguish compound words from syntactic phrases? To clarify, the issue here is distinguishing
(* micetrap ); the plural of bean feast is bean feasts (* beans feast , etc.).
ADVANCES BOX 4.
Cranberry words The impression that might have been given so far is that the difference between compounding and affixation is always clear-cut. Reality is more complex. The norm is to recognize affix morphemes as word-building elements that recur in many words, for example, re –, – er , – ing , non –. This principle serves us well in most cases. But from time to time the evidence is indeterminate. If a form appears in only one word, should we recognize it as a bound morpheme? Should we do so even if its meaning is totally obscure? These questions arise when we consider the words in [4.17]:
The words in [4.17a] are clearly compounds; they are made of the words black , blue and berry. The words in [4.17b] also appear to be compounds, for the same reason. But there is a problem here. Present-day speakers of English for the most part do not comprehend the meaning and relevance of straw , rasp and goose in these words and view them as simple, mono- morpheme words. The problem is even more severe in [4.17c]. The bound morphs cran– , mul– and huckle– occur only in these forms in the entire language. Their specific meaning is elusive. Nor is it clear whether they are root morphemes or prefixes. If they are root morphemes, the words in [4.17c] are compounds. Otherwise, in [4.17c] what we have is a prefix followed by a root. Should a form that is encountered just once in the language and which has no clear meaning be recognized as a morpheme? Those with a cautious disposition would and do argue for treating such forms as simple words with a single morpheme. The knotty issues raised by cranberry words are of wider relevance. There are many other situations where the zeal with which the linguist identifies morphemes has to be tempered. It is uncontroversial to say that dislike and disagree contain two morphemes each. But what about disgruntled , disturb and dismay? If dis– is identified as a morpheme, the forms – gruntled (from –gruntle ?) and –may cut unconvincing figures as morphemes since neither of them recurs nor has an independent meaning. For analogous reasons, highfalutin is problematic. Segmenting it into high and falutin gives a compound with a dubious second element. There are many words borrowed from Latin or Greek with a root whose meaning classical scholars can identify but which is hidden from the rest of us. For instance, the study of etymology shows that the root – pol– from a
Greek word meaning ‘city’ or ‘state’ is found in words like police , politic , policy , monopoly , metropolis , etc. Should – pol– be recognized as a root morpheme in all those words in a description of present-day English? I would suggest not. Since the task of the linguist is primarily to describe what current speakers of a language know about their language, there is no justification for identifying forms as morphemes if speakers in general are completely unaware of them and they have no relevance to their linguistic competence.
4.7 Further sources of English words
Derivation using affixation, conversion and compounding are the principal methods used to create vocabulary items. But there are also other methods. They are sketched out below.
Coinage
Word manufacture without recycling existing words and morphemes is called coinage. It is rare. It is mostly found in names of corporations and their commercial products; for example, according to the Oxford English Dictionary , nylon is an invented word. It was coined in 1938 by the DuPont pharmaceutical company by combining the fabricated stem nyl– with the pseudo-suffix –on found in other names of textile fibres (cf. rayon , cotton ). Likewise, the New Yorkers Reuben and Rose Mattus fabricated the name Häagen-Dazs for their ice cream brand.
Eponyms
Eponyms are new words created by widening the meaning of a personal name to refer to a place, concept or product associated with that person, for example, Kafkaesque (from Franz Kafka); lynching (from Charles Lynch); mesmerize
In the more recent past and in present-day English, backformation has been used to derive automate from automation , adulate from adulation , auto-destruct from auto-destruction , bulldoze from bulldozer , choreograph from choreography , babysit from babysitter , text (V) from
text message.
ADVANCES BOX 4.
Backformation on the march in current journalistic writing (after Neal, 2006) There are interesting developments in the use of backformation in current journalistic writing, extending the process in an innovative way, as the excerpt below explains: The backformations that usually catch my eye (or ear) are those in which a noun or adjective form of a verb (i.e., a gerund or participle) is compounded by putting a noun or adjective in front of it, and then the – ing or –ed is stripped off to yield a new verb. For example, in performance-enhancing drugs , we have a noun+adjective compound ( performance plus enhancing ), and the whole thing functions as an adjective, modifying drugs. But in Ruben Bolling’s Tom the Dancing Bug comic strip of 18 Dec. 2004, one character tells another: You’ve been performance-enhancing! Sure, it still sounds the same, but now performance-enhancing is the progressive form of a verb, not an adjective modifying something else. In the future, look out for finite verb forms, such as He performance- enhanced illegally , None of our players performance-enhance , or Everyone performance-enhances! Other examples of this kind of backformation where a noun glued to the beginning of the verb takes the place of a direct object after the verb: ڢ Adam’s therapist mentioned that he ‘emotion-shared’ at some point. ڢ ‘The decision puts Limbaugh back near square one and is likely to reinvigorate the criminal investigation into whether he “doctor- shopped”’ (‘Justices won’t hear Limbaugh appeal’, Palm Beach Post , 29 April 2005). ڢ From a Bionicle comic in a Lego magazine: ‘We came, we scouted, we all-conquered.’
Blending
Chunks of words may be blended to form new words. Less commonly, and mainly in the realm of IT, it is the initial chunks of two words that are combined, for example, modulator + demodulator gives modem ; Wireless Fidelity gives Wi Fi. More commonly, the initial chunk of the first word is combined with the final part of the second word, for example, brunch ( breakfast lunch ), insania ( insanity mania ), chugger ( charity mugger ), etc. Adidas was formed from a blend of the name of the company founder Adolf ( Adi ) + Dassler. Thus it exemplifies the use of both eponymy and blending.
Clipping
Shortening long words by dropping a part is called clipping. Some clipped forms like fab (from fabulous ) and brill (from brilliant ) are slang but others like bus (from omnibus ) and gym from ( gymnasium ) are very much part of the standard language. We can distinguish between three types of clipping with regard to structure. First, there is ‘fore clipping’, that is, deleting the first part and keeping the final part, for example, varsity (from university ) and phone (from telephone ). Second, there is ‘middle clipping’, that is, deleting both the first and last part and keeping the middle part, which is rare, for example, jams (from pyjamas ) and flu (from influenza ). Finally, there is ‘back clipping’, that is, deleting the second part and keeping the first part, for example, exam (from examination ), brill (from brilliant ), ad (from advertisement ). It is widely used with names, for example, Max (Maximilian) and Rich (Richard). Clipping may interact with compounding. Compounds can be clipped, for example, pub from public house ; and compounds can be created from clipped words, for
