THE EMERGENCE OF MORPHOLOGY

1. What is morphology?
1.1 Definition

“… the branch of linguistics which is concerned with the forms of words in different uses and
constructions”. (Matthews 1974).

“Morphology is the study of the meaningful structure of words. The word cats meand what it
means because it contains structural elements which, in construction with each other, mean
“more than one cat”. (Bauer 2019:1)

1.2 Subdivisions

INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY

Deals with word forms of individual lexemes, word-forms

WORD-FORMATION (DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY)

Dealing with formation of new lexemes

Derivation and compounding

2 functions of morphology

- Creation of different shapes of words to fit in syntactic structure and then create
grammatically correct sentences (inflection)
- Creation of new lexemes constantly from scratch or by taking existing words and
changing them or by borrowing them from other languages.

1.3 Interfaces

The morphology-phonology interaction:

‘Permit (noun) vs per ‘ mit (verb)

Some phonological rules (in the case, stress position, are sensitive to morphosyntactic
properties (in this case, the distinction between verb and noun).

An article vs a European Country- the distinction is not the beginning letter, but the beginning
sound (Eu semi consonant). It’s a phonological condition.

The form of a morpheme (a/an) is influenced by the phoneme that realises neighbouring
morphemes.
The morphology-syntax interaction:

Inflection

- Agreement: it is necessary to look back to the syntactic context, in this case whether
the subject is singular or plural, in order to decide the form of the verb.

Ex: John walks vs the children walk- children is plural.

- Choice of determiners: whether the noun is countable or uncountable (some advice,

an excuse).
- Case: choose between the accusative form or the nominative form of the pronoun
depending on the syntactical function. (I like him vs he is nice).

Compounding: a combination or sequence of at least two words.

Sequence of lexemes

- Created spontaneously: they are not very likely to be found in the dictionary and
neither to become a new word (look at the sandwich man).

Ex: The let’s-all-be-supportive-of-each-other-atmosphere (Lodge)

- Equivalent to syntactic constructions:

 gold ring (cf. golden ring)
 dog house (cf. dog’s house)
 man eater (somebody who eats men, Subject-Object)
 recursiveness occurs when compounding has been applied more than once
(government pay -> government pay review -> government pay review policy).
Gòvernment pay
Reviéw …

Recursiveness- causes ambiguity

Argument structure

Morphosyntactic semantic property that gives morphological information of the words.

The arguments structure of a verb (or valency) is the number of arguments it takes.

Arguments, in turn, are those phrases that are semantically necessary for a verb or are implied
by the meaning of the verb.

The syntactic constructions in which a verb may appear are determined by its argument
structure (a morphological property).

Ex: run= semantically one participant, the agent. It’s intransitive syntactically speaking because
its morphologically condition.
The participant suffering an action can be either singular or plural.

Jog (x1) Ag

John is jogging (* John is jogging a race).

Intransitive structure

Devour (x1) Ag (x2) Go

John devours an apple (*John devours)

Transitive verbs

Give (x1) Ag(x2) Theme (x3) Rec

John gives the book to Mary (x1 CAUSES x2 to be at x3)

John gives Mary (recipient) the book (x1 CAUSES x3 to have X2)

The book reads good= El libro se lee bien.

The syntactic constructions in which a verb may appear are determined by its argument
structure (a morphological property )

The number of participants that the action denoted by a verb requires. Arguments are those
phrases that are semantically necessary for a verb or are implied by the meaning of the verb.

Clitics

Bob’s, insn’t, the king of Spain’s daughter.

Borderland creatures (unclear nature)

Affixes attached to words that have a syntactic function.

Not free morphemes (bound to their hosts) and not affixes (not stress, a single
phonological word with their host, unselective of their host, can be attached to any
syntactic category and to phrases).

They have their own independent functions in syntactic phrases, for example, marker of
genitive case in the king of Spain's daughter [indicates possession].

There is connection btw morphology and syntax.

Cross-linguistically

Some morphological structures correspond to syntactical structures in other languages.

(exotic language) Wichá-wa-kte (Lakhota) 1 word (morphology)

3plObj- 1singSubj- kill

“I killed them” (In English) 1 clause (syntax)

2. Historical background (when, who, why)

2.1 19th century

Introduction of morphology as a sub‐branch of linguistics as a diachronic discipline. It has a

central role in reconstruction of Indoeuropean, tried to trace back the origins of languages.
Important names connected to the role of morphology:

‐ Franz Bopp (1816): Comparison of grammatical endings of words in Sanskrit, Latin, Persian &
Germanic languages. They were descended from a common ancestor.

‐ Jacob Grimm: Deutsche Grammatik (1819-1837). Comparison of sound systems and word
formation patterns. He shows evolution of grammar of Germanic languages and their relations
to other Indoeuropean languages.

-Max Müller (1899): Study of 400‐500 basic roots of the Indoeuropean. Claim that study of
evolution of words was the key to understanding origin of human language.

2.2 20th century. Morphology in American Structuralism

- Synchronic discipline
- Bloomfield 1933, Language- connected with structuralism and phonology.

2.3 Morphology in Amerian structuralism: 1940 – 1960.

‐ Focus on the different linguistic levels (phonology, morphology, syntax and

semantics).

‐ Time to study morphological issues- Morphology (1940‐1960, Bloomfield,

Harris, Hocket, Nida).

‐ Adoption of the morpheme as the basic unit of linguistic analysis, to react

against a word‐based grammar. Difficulty in identifying words in a language. Reaction
against the notion of word.

‐ However, the fundamental insight behind the morpheme was not particularly
new. People have intuitive knowledge about that notion.

3. The notion of ‘word’

Minimal units that can be alone in a sentence.

 3.1 Different dimensions -> terminological distinction

Love, loves, loving,loved -word form

Love – lexeme

Loved (past- used in isolation), loved (p. participle), (difference grammatical words, their
properties are different)-grammatical wor

Word form: all the possible shapes that a lexeme might have in order to be placed in different
slot in the syntactic environment and to perform different functions on the sentence.

Grammatical word: syntactic context in which the words appear are different (loved as a p.p.
or as the past tense), so the morphological description is different. A word defined in terms of
its place in the paradigm, a word with a specific function, realizing a number of
morphosyntactic features. It is also called morphosyntactic word (Plag 2013- different term for
the same concept).

Ex: The sheep is being shorn (sheep is a sg N)

The sheep are being shorn (sheep is a pl N)

I can never hit the bullseye (hit is a verb in present tense form)

I hit the bullseye las night for the first time ( hit is a past verb).

Different morphosyntactic word- morphosyntactic properties are different (the same case as
“loved- past/past participle) even though the word form is the same.

Lexical item: a lexical item is any item, which, because of its lack of predictable semantics or
form, must be listed, in the mental lexicon. Lexemes are a subset of lexical items. For example,
the word play should be included in the dictionary because its form cannot predict its
meaning. Lexical items also include:

‐ Phrasal verbs (e.g. put up with).

‐ Phrasal compounds (e.g. forget‐me‐not).

‐ Idiomatic expressions/ idioms (e.g. be between a rock and a hard place / red herring).

‐ Fixed figurative expressions (e.g. be between a rock and a hard place).

‐ Proverbs (e.g. too many cooks spoil the broth).

4. Criteria for “worhood”

How many words are there in the following clause?

Bob’s linguistics professor isn’t a do-it-yourself kinda guy, isn’t it?

Bob’s, – one word and something else

Linguistic,

Professor, linguistic professor?

Isn’t, one word and something else

A,

Do-it-yourself one or three?

Kinda, one word and something else

Guy,

Isn’t one word and something els e

It

4.1 Orthographic units

Words are units (combination of letters) surrounded by blank spaces.

Problems:

Bob’s (1 orthographic word?)

linguistic professor (2orthographic words, 2 words?)

do‐it‐ yourself (3 orthographic words, 3 words?)

What about unwritten languages?

They don’t have words.

Coronavirus disease- 1 word or 2?

4.2. Semantic units.

Words are units of sense. However, (orthographic) word division does not always correspond
to meaning division:

‐ More than one orthographic word correspond to one unit of meaning:

idioms (e.g. to kick the bucket -> to die)

collocations (words that occur together with a higher frequency, but they are not new
concepts) (e.g. heavy smoker -> not a smoker that is heavy- it also exits different kind of
smokers- light smoker/ to cope with a problem)
 compounds ( are stablish units referring to different concepts) (e.g. yellow fever -> a specific
illness) and

complex predicated (e.g. make and offer ->means offer/ give a look-> look).

‐ An orthographic word corresponds to different bits of meaning: one word is associated with a
meaning

derived words (e.g. singer -> sing + agentive)

words liable to semantic decomposition> discomposed in different semantic components

(e.g. ewe -> lamb + female), (ram (lamb´male)

compounds (e.g. backache -> back + ache) and

inflected words (e.g. sang -> sing + past).

What do these examples show?

They show that

A unit of meaning may correspond to different orthographic words,

Or

An orthographic word may correspond ….

4.3. Phonological or phonetic units.

Words as units before and after which potential pauses are produced. However:

‐ Feature of abnormal speech. Ex: What is a word? (4 orthographic words-NOT-> indeed 2

phonological words.

‐ Possible pause within words: for example, (fattish) when there is a vowel‐initial suffix there is
only one prosodic word and (snackless) when there is a consonant‐ initial suffix, 2p. w., there
are two prosodic words.

‐ Clitics: a single phonological word with their host, but independent functions in syntactic
phrases (bob’s, isn’t).

There are some distinct features of sounds of a language mark words. For example, fixed
stress, in which one orthographic word correspond to one stress. However, compound words
have two stresses: 'White House [1 stress, 2 orthographic words] or 'beat her= 'beater
[grammatical words have no stress].

4.4 Grammatical units

Syntactic freedom

What kind of noun is this? Uncountable

Words considered as syntactic freedom. However:

‐Some words cannot be used in isolation (grammatical words like a, the).

‐Conversely, some units that are not words can be used alone (‐ness- is a very productive
suffix). Thatcher is unique among her predecessors in having given the English language a
brand new ism, created from her own name.

‐ Words are minimal units of positional mobility (this we must see (emphasise) / we must see
this), but this movement is limited. Can be move around in a sentence. Relative flexibility in a
sentence.

‐ Words are unit of internal stability, they can be move around a sentence but we cannot
rearrange the elements forming a word (doghouse / housedog) although there are some
exceptions (horse‐zebra = zebra‐horse). Ex: uncountable *unablecount, *countableun,
*countunable

-Uninterruptability: words can be introduced between words (ex: little boy, little English boy),
but no material can be inserted within word:

Ex: un totally countable, *

although there are some exceptions (fan‐freaking‐tastic).

‐ Lexical integrity: idea about lexemes are units, you can’t divide them.

its parts cannot be separated Ex: He took the pot of tea and poured it into the cup-> it refers to
tea. He took the teapot and poured it into the cup (it can’t refer to tea).

Ex: Pat visited a winery and hated its taste-> it refers to wine, not the taste of the winery,
which doesn’t make sense, a winery doesn’t’ got taste.

These are sentences which are semantic anomalous- we can’t refer back to the words.

Syntactic operations cannot separate pieces of words, in this case, we cannot refer to parts of
a previous word.

‐ Words are the syntactic building blocks of sentences. They are members in a syntactic
category, resulting in a specific distribution (e.g. the + noun)

However:

What about: the more you… the more… ?

It’s not even true that all words are connected to a syntactic category.
CONCLUSION:

Difficulty to develop a notion of word satisfactory and consistent to act as unit of grammar
within one language, even more so cross‐linguistically.

5. Morphological typology- different type of language depended on the different types of

words

‐ Analytic (or isolating) languages, Chinese: every morpheme or bit of meaning corresponds to
a word and words are monomorphemic. E.g. Ta ba shu mai le -> he OM book buy Asp -> He
bought a book.

Each morpheme tends to occur as a word in isolation.

‐ Agglutinating languages (or agglutinative languages), Turkish: words consist of more than one
morpheme which are easy to identify because there is a 1‐1 correspondence between one
morpheme=meaning and its formal representation.

E.g. el “the hand”

elim “my hand” (possessive)

eller “the hands” (plural)

elimde “in my hand” (locative)

ellerim “my hands”

ellerimde “in my hands”.

Words can have more than one morpheme but there tends to be a more or less one to one
matching between morphemes and their realizations (morphemes).

‐ Inflecting languages (or synthetic, fusional lgs), Latin, Greek and Sanskrit: One morph may
represent different morphemes simultaneously or in different contexts. E.g. rosae can be
nominative plural or genitive singular.

‐ Incorporating (polysynthetic) languages, Eskimo, Native American languages and aboriginal

languages in Australia: long and complex words with very extensive agglutination and
inflection. E.g. t‐me‐let‐t‐rkn -> 1sgSubj‐big‐head‐ache‐Imperf ->"I have a terrible headache".

‐ Infixing languages, Arabic and Hebrew: different word forms and different derived lexemes
are formed by infixing different vowels in the middle of a consonantal root. E.g. kitab “book”,
katab “wrote”, katib “writer”.
These types are established on the basis of the typical patterns of word‐formation or the
dominant tendencies found in one particular language. Probably, no language has a pure
morphological system.

To which morphological type does English belong in your opinion?

‐ Isolating: cat, in, be.

‐ Agglutinating: nation‐al‐ity.

‐ Inflectional: me, thought.

‐ Infixing: eco‐fucking‐nomics; passer-s-by

CONCLUSION: Difficulty in developing a satisfactory and consistent notion of word, not only
within one language but also when comparing different languages.

A alternative morphemes:

By using the morpheme concept, languages seemed more immediately comparable, and it
might even be possible to obtain a considerable simplification.

Words are one or more morphemes than can stand alone in a language.

STRUCTURALIST TASK

Apply methods for separating out and categorizing the elements that make up complex words
(discovery procedures). Nida proposed six principles for identifying the component parts of
complex words and for formulating the nature of those parts. Nida’s Principle 1: “Forms which
have a common semantic distinctiveness and an identical phonemic form in all their
occurrences constitute a single morpheme.”

Example of structuralist task: to isolate the form‐meaning distinctions in datasets like inexact,
indecent, impolite, inclement, irrelevant, illegal and account for variation in form where
necessary and notice the meaning of a recurrent element and its different representations and
which where the conditions where different forms where found. They tried to spot the
morphemes by separating the different pieces of meaning in those words.