1. science
2. social science
3. linguistics

English Linguistics 1
4. Meaningful building blocks: morphology
4.1 Morphological analysis
4.2 Typology of morphemes
4.3 Word formation
10.11.2010
Session 5
2
4.3 Word formation
4.3.1 New meanings in new forms
4.3.1.1 Coinage, invention
4.3.1.2 Borrowing
4.3.2 Old meanings in new forms
4.3.2.1 Clipping
4.3.2.2 Acronyming
4.3.2.3 Blending
10.11.2010
Session 5
3
4.3.3 New meanings in old forms
4.3.3.1 Derivation
4.3.3.2 Zero derivation
4.3.3.3 Backformation
4.3.3.4 Compounding
10.11.2010
Session 5
4
4. Meaningful building blocks: morphology
• morphology - originally coined by Goethe for
'form and structure of living organisms'
• in linguistics:
internal structure of words and the various
processes for producing new words
10.11.2010
Session 5
5
the basic unit of morphology is not the word,
the morpheme (G Morphem)
10.11.2010
Session 5
6
singers - one word,
-?
morphemes
10.11.2010
Session 5
7
Questions: two different words ?
singers - singer
singer - sing
form
reference to …
….
….
grammatical info …
belong to …
paradigm
….
….
10.11.2010
Session 5
lexical concepts
8
difficulties of defining 'word'
intuitive feel for the words of the language
10.11.2010
Session 5
9
suggestions:
• orthographic: what occurs between spaces in
writing
• semantic: a unified semantic concept,
conceptual unity, minimum free form
• phonological: what occurs between potential
pauses in speaking, one primary stress
• morphological/syntactical: a word is
indivisible by other units, may be modified
only externally by suffixes or prefixes
10.11.2010
Session 5
10
grapefruit
travel agency
good-for-nothing
son-in-law
money-hungry
look over
passion fruit
cannot
will not
10.11.2010
Session 5
11
ice age
icebreaker
bus conductor
bus stop
of
it
if
could
to kick the bucket
put a sock in it
10.11.2010
Session 5
12
discussion:
criterion of orthography 
~ phonology 
of, it,
travel agency
good-for-nothing
son-in-law
10.11.2010
Session 5
13
~ semantics 
~ morphology 
two good-for-nothings
two sons-in-law
son-in-law's
(behaves as a phrase and a word)
10.11.2010
Session 5
14
look over qualities of a phrase
look the information over +
….
semantic criterion 
….
10.11.2010
Session 5
15
4.1 Morphological analysis
How can we identify morphemes?
2 procedures
(1) segmentation and
(2) classification
10.11.2010
Session 5
16
The cats are chasing the dogs.
segmenting into concrete entities on the basis
of comparing similar utterances 
....
10.11.2010
Session 5
17
morph
concrete realization of a morpheme,
not yet classified
...
10.11.2010
Session 5
18
step (2) classification:
cat, dog, chasinternally indivisible lexical units with
identifiable and separate meanings
= morphemes
notational convention:
{cat} {dog} {chas-} { } between curly braces
{-ing} signals progressive aspect
10.11.2010
Session 5
19
-[s], -[z]: different phonetic forms –
two morphemes?
...
...
...
10.11.2010
Session 5
20
very often:
morpheme – one phonological form
possibility of variation:
e.g. plural morpheme
[s, z, Iz] – phonologically conditioned,
dependent on the adjacent sound
10.11.2010
Session 5
21
goose – geese, sheep – sheep, ox – oxen
lexically conditioned
form seems to be purely accidental,
linked to a lexical item
10.11.2010
Session 5
22
homonymic morphs
same sound structure - different functions
[remember 'homonymy' ch. 3.5]
[-s]
G [- ] <-er>
10.11.2010
Session 5
23
4.2 Typology of morphemes
Try to classify the following morphemes.
{run}
{skirt}
{-ly}
{he}
{-ist}
{but}
{-ian}
{un-}
10.11.2010
Which categories come to
your mind?
How can you classify them?
c. according to:
- meaning/function
- form
Session 5
24
typology
(1) based on meaning / function
lexical morphemes
grammatical morphemes
10.11.2010
Session 5
25
lexical morphemes
• content / lexical words - {sing} {cat} ...
N, V, Adj., Adv.
• derivational affixes (suffixes, prefixes), for
producing new words
e.g. {-er}
...
10.11.2010
Session 5
26
{-ize, -ment, -able, -ity ... }
common charcteristic?
...
...
{in-}
...
{re-, dis-, ultra- ... }
{de-, trans- ... }
10.11.2010
Session 5
27
grammatical morphemes
also functional morphemes
- express grammatical relationships
('abstract meanings')
function words - {if, and, the, to, she ... }
....
inflectional morphemes / affixes
...
10.11.2010
Session 5
28
(2) types according to form
• free morpheme - may stand alone as a word
contains lexical and grammatical ms.
e.g. dog, albatross, the, whether
• bound morpheme - must be attached to
another morpheme
contains lexical and grammatical ms.
e.g. un-happy, hunt-er;
hunt-s;
10.11.2010
Session 5
29
Special cases
• root morphemes / bound roots / Wurzelm.:
often foreign borrowings, free in the
source language, not free in E.
e.g. convert, revert, subvert, pervert
conceive, perceive, receive, deceive
contain, pertain, maintain
10.11.2010
Session 5
30
intuitive identification of the roots:
...
but:
...
-
10.11.2010
Session 5
31
• unique morphemes / unikale Morpheme
cranberry –
...
cran-
10.11.2010
Session 5
32
because -berry is morpheme
- not monomorphematic
 cran- = unique m. - exists only in one word
[G ....
]
10.11.2010
Session 5
33
• suppletive morphemes / Suppletive M.
not possible to show a morphological
relationship between two elements of a
paradigm,
substitution by a formally different unit
(different roots)
good – better
be – is – was ...
go – went
10.11.2010
Session 5
34
Summary:
• morph • morpheme • allomorph • homonymic morphs -
10.11.2010
Session 5
35
•
•
•
•
•
lexical – grammatical / functional morphemes
free – bound ms.
root m. unique m. suppletive m. -
10.11.2010
Session 5
36
Now try to classify the following
morphemes according to the categories
discussed.
{run}
{skirt}
{-ly}
{he}
{-ist}
{but}
{-ian}
{un-}
10.11.2010
Session 5
37
4.3 Word formation
how do languages cope with new meanings
(new ideas, tools, products, events ...)
 several ways of creating new morphemes
and new words
remember – morphemes / words are
relationships of form and meaning
 new words – not usually all new
10.11.2010
Session 5
38
three senses in which a morpheme / word
may be new
new morpheme / word may have:
1.
2.
3.
10.11.2010
Session 5
39
4.3.1 New meanings in new forms
4.3.1.1 Coinage, invention / Wortschöpfung
word completely new
Kodak –
coined according to phonotactic constraints,
....
10.11.2010
Session 5
40
geek ...
snob ...
sometimes boundary between
'invented' and 'unknown origin' unclear
rare process
10.11.2010
Session 5
41
4.3.1.2 Borrowing / Entlehnung
from foreign languages – loanwords,
G Lehnwort
karaoke - 
bistro, bidet, croissant ...
pizza, pasta, minestrone ... 
phonetic adaptations,
e.g. ['pi:/ItsK, 'pA:/æstK, mInI'strKuni]
10.11.2010
Session 5
42
Some more loan words in English
from Latin and Greek
appropriate, conspicuous, expensive,
obstruction, virus, relaxation, temperature,
crisis, disability, exaggerate
from or via French
battery, chocolate, detail, invite, passport,
probability, shock, tomato, muscle, entrance
from or via Italian
design, lottery, rocket, volcano, ballot, trill, fuse,
stanza, violin, carnival
from or via Spanish and Portuguese
apricot, banana, canoe, cockroach, guitar,
hurricane, negro, potato, tank, tobacco
From other languages
try to pair languages and words (given order is incorrect)
bamboo
bazaar
caravan
coffee
cruise
curry
easel
flannel
guru
harem
ketchup
10.11.2010
Hindi
Dutch
Persian
Tamil
Malay
Welsh
Turkish
Persian
Malay
Dutch
Arabic
Session 5
45
kiosk
landscape
pariah
raccoon
rouble
sago
shekel
troll
trousers
turban
wampum
yacht
yoghurt
10.11.2010
Dutch
Malay
Turkish
Turkish
Hebrew
Irish Gaelic
Algonquian
Dutch
Tamil
Russian
Algonquian
Persian
Norwegian
Session 5
46
see e.g. The COD (Concise Oxford Dictionary)
for the origins of the words
history of English = a history of loanwords
( ~ 60%)
nativization – adaptation of the borrowed
words, especially in pronunciation
tobacco – Sp. tobaco
skunk – AmInd. segankw
tomato – Sp. tomate
– Mex. tomatl
10.11.2010
Session 5
48