SEUWeek3APPTENG401.pptx
Chapter 3: A word and its parts: roots, affixes and their shapes
Prepared by: Dr. Mona Alfaifi
Derived from:
An Introduction to English Morphology: Words and Their Structure
Edinburgh University Press
By: Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy
Chapter 3: A word and its parts: roots, affixes and their shapes
Content
3.1 Taking words apart 16
3.2 Kinds of morpheme: bound versus free 18
3.3 Kinds of morpheme: root, affix, combining form 20
3.4 Morphemes and their allomorphs 21
3.5 Identifying morphemes independently of meaning 23
3.6 Conclusion: ways of classifying word-parts 26
Objectives
At the end of this lecture students will be able to :
1- classify words parts.
2- differentiate between free morphemes and bound morphemes.
3- distinguish roots from affixes.
4- give examples of different allomorphs.
5- identify morphemes independently of meanings.
3.1 Taking words apart
Do we need to list all words in dictionaries?
NO, because some meanings are completely predictable (such as dioeciously), and many cannot be listed simply because they may never have been used (such as un-Clintonish).
These are all words which are not lexical items.
3.1 Taking words apart
What’s the difference between words that are lexical items and words that are not?
Words that are not lexical items must be complex (composed of two or more morphemes).
But lexical-item words can be complex too.
Words that are lexical items do not have to be monomorphemic (consisting of just one morpheme).
Lexical items that are so complex as to extend over more than one word, namely Idioms.
But recognising the existence of lexical items that are polymorphemic (consisting of more than one morpheme) has an important bearing on the relationship between morphemes and meaning, as we shall see.
3.1 Taking words apart
What is the basis of their semantic predictability?
It must be that these unlisted and unlistable words are composed of identifiable smaller parts (at least two), put together in a systematic fashion so that the meaning of the whole word can be reliably determined.
un-Clintonish: un, Clinton, ish
In this chapter we will focus on these smaller parts of words, generally called morphemes.
3.1 Taking words apart
What is morphology?
The area of grammar concerned with the structure of words and with relationships between words involving the morphemes that compose them is technically called morphology, from the Greek word morphe ‘form, shape’; and morphemes can be thought of as the minimal units of morphology.
3.1 Taking words apart
How can we know that this is a morpheme?
What are the characteristics of morphemes?
1. be identifiable from one word to another.
2. contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole word.
3.1 Taking words apart
What permits the same morpheme to be identified in a variety of different words?
A morpheme cannot, after all, be just any recurring word-part.
attack, stack, tackle and taxi.
These all contain a syllable pronounced like the word tack; but we can’t say that the same morpheme -tack- is identifiable in each, because the meaning of tack has nothing to do with the meanings of the other words, and all of them must surely be listed separately in any dictionary.
So, we can link characteristic 1. tightly to 2., making the identification of morphemes dependent on their meaning.
Morphemes are not merely the smallest units of grammatical structure but also the smallest meaningful units.
3.1 Taking words apart
Morphemes do not have to be of any particular length.
catamaran and knickerbocker: consist of just one morpheme;
A single-syllable word (tenths): contain as many as three morphemes (ten, -th, -s).
What this shows?
The morphological structure of words is largely independent of their phonological structure (their division into sounds, syllables and rhythmic units).
This reflects a striking difference between human speech and all animal communication systems: only speech (so far as we know) is analysable in two parallel ways, into units that contribute to meaning (morphemes,
words, phrases etc.) and units that are individually meaningless (sounds, syllables etc.).
3.2 Kinds of morpheme:
bound versus free
helpfulness
The core, or starting-point, for the formation of this word is help;
the morpheme -ful is then added to form helpful,
which in turn is the basis for the formation of helpfulness
Why “help” is considered the core of the word?
1- help supplies the most precise and concrete element in its meaning, shared by a family of related words like helper, helpless, helplessness and unhelpful.
2- Another reason is that, of the three morphemes in helpfulness, only help can stand on its own. That is clearly not true of -ness, nor is it true of -ful.
3.2 Kinds of morpheme:
bound versus free
What is the difference between free morphemes and bound morphemes?
Morphemes that can stand on their own are called free, and ones that cannot are bound.
English differs from many other languages – is that a high proportion of complex words are like helpfulness and un-Clintonish in that they have a free morpheme (like help and Clinton) at their core.
3.2 Kinds of morpheme:
bound versus free
| A | B |
| read-able | leg-ible |
| hear-ing | audi-ence |
| en-large | magn-ify |
| perform-ance | rend-ition |
| white-ness | clar-ity |
| dark-en | obfusc-ate |
| seek-er | applic-ant |
What is the difference between words in column A and words in column B?
3.2 Kinds of morpheme:
bound versus free
1- Words in column a. all contain a free morpheme, respectively read, hear, large, perform, white and dark. By contrast, in the words in column b. both the morphemes are bound.
2- most of the free morphemes in (1a) belong to that part of the vocabulary of English that has been inherited directly through the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family to which English belongs, whereas all the morphemes in (1b) have been introduced, or borrowed, from Latin, either directly or via French.
3- Words in (1b) are on the whole somewhat less common, or more bookish, than those in (1a).
There is still a strong tendency for complex words to contain a free morpheme at their core in English Language.
3.2 Kinds of morpheme:
bound versus free
Is it possible for a bound morpheme to be so limited in its distribution that it occurs in just one complex word?
The answer is yes. This is almost true, for example, of the morpheme leg- ‘read’ in legible at (1b): at least in
everyday vocabulary, it is found in only one other word, namely illegible, the negative counterpart of legible. And it is absolutely true of the morphemes cran-, huckle- and gorm- in cranberry, huckleberry and gormless.
A name commonly given to such bound morphemes is cranberry morpheme.
What does cran- mean?
Arguably, nothing at all; it is only the entire word cranberry that can be said to be meaningful, and it is certainly the entire word, not cran- by itself, that is in any dictionary.
3.3 Kinds of morpheme: root, affix, combining form
What is the meaning of root?
The core >> the root
The morpheme that makes the most precise and concrete contribution to the word’s meaning.
The root of a complex word is usually free.
What are prefixes and suffixes morphemes?
Those that precede the root (like en- in enlarge) are called prefixes, while those that follow it are called suffixes (like -ance in performance, -ness in whiteness and -able in readable)
There are indeed more suffixes than prefixes in English.
What is the meaning of affix?
An umbrella term for prefixes and suffixes (broadly speaking, for all morphemes that are not roots)
3.3 Kinds of morpheme: root, affix, combining form
Can we consider all affixes to be bound morphemes?
Affixes are indeed always bound.
Can we say that all roots are free morphemes?
No.
all the words in (1b) have roots that are bound. But for most of the examples in (1b) it is possible to find other words in which the same roots appear, such as audible, auditory and audition alongside audience.
A cranberry morpheme can be thought of as a bound root that occurs in only one word.
3.3 Kinds of morpheme: root, affix, combining form
There are two main kinds of complex word:
ones with a single free root, as in (1a), and ones with a single bound root, as in (1b).
So, can we say that a word can contain no more than one root?
Certainly not – indeed, such words are very common; they are compounds, already mentioned in connection with cranberry morphemes. Examples are bookcase, motorbike, penknife, truck-driver.
If a complex word can be formed out of two (or more) free roots, it is natural to ask whether a word can contain two or more bound roots?
The answer is yes – although, in the light of the English language’s preference for free roots, they are not nearly so common as ordinary compounds. Examples of words with two bound roots are electrolysis, electroscopy, microscopy, microcosm, pachyderm, echinoderm
3.3 Kinds of morpheme: root, affix, combining form
Other words which, like cranberry, contain one bound and one free root are microfilm, electrometer and Sino-Japanese (assuming that Japanese contains the free root Japan). These are uncommon.
Unlike ordinary compounds, these words are nearly all technical terms of scientific vocabulary, coined self-consciously out of non-English elements, mostly from Latin and Greek.
Many linguists and dictionary-makers classify these bound morphemes as neither affixes nor bound roots (such as we encountered in (1b)) but place them in a special category of combining forms.
3.3 Kinds of morpheme: root, affix, combining form
Can a morpheme in a combined form changed into a free morpheme?
if a word made up of combining forms is in common use, the morphemes within it should tend to acquire the status of free morphemes.
For example, the word photograph existed, as a learned technical term composed of combining forms, before the word photo; but photo must now be classified as a free morpheme. Other combining forms that have more recently ‘acquired their freedom’ are micro- and macro- (as in at a micro level or on a macro scale) and retro-, as applied to music or fashion.
3.4 Morphemes and their allomorphs
Is every morpheme pronounced the same in all contexts?
No, many morphemes have two or more different pronunciations, called allomorphs, the choice between them being determined by the context.
How are the plurals of most English nouns formed?
cats, dogs and horses with cat, dog, horse respectively, by adding -s’. But English spelling is notoriously unreliable as a guide to pronunciation.
-s suffix has three allomorphs:
[s] (as in cats or lamps),
[z] (as in dogs or days),
[iz] or [əz] (as in horses or judges).
3.4 Morphemes and their allomorphs
Can we say that everyone learning English must learn individually for each noun which of the three allomorphs is used in its plural form?
It is based on the sound immediately preceding the suffix, thus:
• when the preceding sound is a sibilant (the kind of ‘hissing’ or ‘hushing’ sound heard at the end of horse, rose, bush, church and judge), the [iz] allomorph occurs
• otherwise, when the preceding sound is voiceless, i.e. produced with no vibration of the vocal folds in the larynx (as in cat, rock, cup or cliff ), the [s] allomorph occurs
• otherwise (i.e. after a vowel or a voiced consonant, as in dog or day), the [z] allomorph occurs.
Our ‘decision’ is quite unconscious.
-ed, used in the past tense form of most verbs. Its allomorphs are [t], [d] and [id] or [əd].
3.4 Morphemes and their allomorphs
Can we say that the allomorphy involved here (i.e. the choice of allomorphs) is not really a morphological matter because it depends so much on phonology?
No, Consider the noun lie meaning ‘untruth’. Its plural form is lies, with [z] – just as predicted, given that lie ends in a vowel sound. But this is not because either [s] or [əz] would be unpronounceable here, or would break some rule of English phonology. If we experiment by replacing the [z] of lies with [s], we get an actual word (lice, the plural of louse).
So phonologically determined allomorphy need not just be a matter of avoiding what is phonologically prohibited.
3.4 Morphemes and their allomorphs
It is not only phonology that may influence the choice of allomorphs of a morpheme. Instances where grammar or vocabulary play a part in the choice are extremely numerous in English.
Vocabulary:
laugh and cliff end in a voiceless consonant
Therefore, according to the formula given above, the allomorph of the plural suffix that appears on them should be [s]. And this is correct.
But what about wife and loaf ?
These end in the same voiceless consonant. Yet their plurals are not *wifes and *loafs but wives and loaves. In fact, there are quite a few nouns which, in the singular, end in a voiceless f, s or th sound but which change this in the plural to the voiced counterpart (not always reflected in the spelling).
knives, lives, hooves, houses, paths and baths.
3.4 Morphemes and their allomorphs
Grammar:
What’s more, wife, knife and the rest do not use their voiced allomorph (wive etc.) before any morpheme except plural -s – not even before the ‘apostrophe s’ morpheme that indicates possession, as in my wife’s job.
So the allomorphy here is determined both lexically (it is restricted to certain nouns only) and grammatically (it occurs before the plural suffix -s but not before other morphemes).
This state of affairs suggests a refinement to the bound-free distinction:
as a morpheme, wife is clearly free, but, of its two allomorphs wife (with final [f ]) and wive (with final [v]), only the former is free, while the latter is bound.
3.5 Identifying morphemes independently of meaning
The prefix re- and its possible allomorphs. This prefix can be added to verbs quite freely, contributing the meaning ‘again’, as in rewrite, reread, repaint, revisit.
It can be represented phonetically as [ri]. But something that looks very much like the same prefix occurs also in verbs such as revive, return, restore, revise, reverse, this time pronounced with a so-called ‘reduced vowel’, [ri] or [rə].
many of these words have a meaning in which it is possible to discern an element such as ‘again’ or ‘backward movement’:
For example, revive means ‘bring back to life’, return means ‘come back’ or ‘give back’, restore means ‘bring back to a former condition’, and revise means ‘look at again, with a view to changing’. It may therefore seem natural to treat [ri] and [rə] as allomorphs of the same morpheme.
3.5 Identifying morphemes independently of meaning
Can we consider rejecting the analysis of revive, return, restore, revise and reverse as consisting of a prefix plus a root, and instead treat them as monomorphemic?
No, because If revive and revise are single morphemes, that amounts to saying that they have no parts in common (except phonologically) with survive and supervise. But that is unwelcome, because it inhibits us from recognising sur- and super- as morphemes that recur in surpass and superimpose.
3.5 Identifying morphemes independently of meaning
More words with a prefix–root structure (the root being usually bound), but without any clear consistent meaning being ascribable to either the prefix or the root.
| refer | prefer | confer | defer | transfer | infer |
| reduce | conduce | deduce | induce | ||
| revoke | convoke | invoke | |||
| reserve | preserve | conserve | deserve | ||
| relate | collate | translate | |||
| remit | commit | transmit | |||
| pretend | contend | intend | |||
| revolve | devolve | involve |
3.5 Identifying morphemes independently of meaning
If we adhere strictly to the view that individual morphemes must be meaningful, then all these words must seemingly be treated as monomorphemic.
But a consideration of allomorphy shows that that would be unsatisfactory. If reduce, conduce, deduce and induce have no morpheme in common, then the fact that for all of them there is a corresponding noun in which -duce is replace with -duct- (reduction, conduction etc.) seems to be a pure accident. However,
this shared pattern of allomorphy is just what we expect if -duce is a root morpheme that they all share (one of its allomorphs being -duct-), while they differ prefixally.
all these complex words must clearly be lexical items that need to be listed in a dictionary.
3.6 Conclusion: ways of classifying word-parts
We have introduced the following distinctions:
• morphemes and allomorphs, bound and free
• roots, affixes and combining forms
• prefixes and suffixes.
Allomorphy, concerned as it is with differences in how a morpheme is pronounced, may seem at first to have little connection with meaning.
One must acknowledge that, in large swathes of English vocabulary (in words such as unhelpfulness, un-Clintonish or de-Yeltsinise, for example) a close relationship between morphemes and meaning is discernible.
The existence both of words in which morphological structure and meaning seem closely associated, and of many words in which the relationship is obscure.
Thank for Learning
