ENGLISH II

� Module Title: Introduction to English

Morphology;

� I Semester: Tuesday-Thursday 15:00-16:30;

� Prof. Stefano Mochi;

E-mail: stefano.mochi@uniroma1.it;� E-mail: stefano.mochi@uniroma1.it;

� stefano.mochi54@gmail.com

� Office Hours: Tuesday-Thursday 16:30-17:15;

Room 207

� Further material to be decided during the course

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INGLESE II - PRESENTAZIONE

� Il modulo esamina le nozioni di base e i processi

fondamentali della morfologia inglese quali la differenza

tra morfologia flessiva e morfologia derivativa, le varie

definizioni di parola, i processi di formazione con cui le

parole vengono costruite partendo da unità più piccole e la

loro produttività.loro produttività.

� Vengono inoltre approfonditi alcuni fenomeni morfologici

più specifici quali i tratti interni delle parole, il modo con il

quale esse influenzano la costruzione delle frasi, la

differenza tra parole lessicali e parole funzionali, il legame

tra morfologia e fonologia, la produttività e l'organizzazione

mentale del lessico.

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INGLESE II - OBIETTIVI

� -conoscere, comprendere e analizzare la struttura

delle parole, la loro produttività, le loro proprietà

morfologiche, sintattiche, semantiche, fonetiche e

fonologiche;

� -conoscere, comprendere e analizzare il modo in � -conoscere, comprendere e analizzare il modo in

cui si costruisce e si interpreta la definizione di

parola;

� -applicare, sintetizzare e valutare le conoscenze

di cui ai precedenti punti nell' analisi di parole,

frasi e testi in inglese.

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INGLESE II - BIBLIOGRAFIA

� Modulo 12 crediti

-Plag, Ingo (2003) Word Formation in English,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Tutti i

capitoli);

-McCarthy, A.C. (2002) An Introduction to -McCarthy, A.C. (2002) An Introduction to

English Morphology Words and Their Structure,

Edimburgh:Edinburgh University Press

� -Aronoff , M. and Fudeman, K.(2011), What is

morphology?, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

(Capitoli 6-7-8, pp.159-253)

� Eventuali testi ad integrazione4

INGLESE II - BIBLIOGRAFIA

� Modulo 6 crediti

� -Plag, Ingo (2003) Word Formation in English,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Tutti i

capitoli);

-Aronoff , M. and Fudeman, K.(2011), What is -Aronoff , M. and Fudeman, K.(2011), What is

morphology?, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

(Capitoli 6-7-8, pp.159-253)

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WHAT IS A WORD?

� 1.Words are units of the writing system (i.e.

ortographic criterion): ‘a word is an

uninterrupted string of letters which is preceded

by a blank space and followed by either a blank

space or a punctuation mark’;space or a punctuation mark’;

� Consider: how many words are there in the

sentence below?

� ‘Students love studying English morphology.’

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WHAT IS A WORD?

� How many words are there in the sentence

below?

� The housekeeper’s wife lived in a five-room flat in a

five-storey building.

� Is the ortographic criterion reliable?� Is the ortographic criterion reliable?

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WHAT IS A WORD

� Words are units of the sound system

(i.e.phonological criterion): ‘a word is a unit of

speech sorrounded by pauses’;

� Consider: how would you utter the sentences

below?below?

� 1.Whatdidyousay?

� 2.What did YOU say?

� 2.That’s really a-ma-zing!

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WHAT IS A WORD?

• Phonological criterion: stress;

• Words have a primary (/΄/) and a secondary (/ˌ/)

stress;

• If spoken in isolation words have only one main

stress: /ˈglæmərəs/; /ˈhaʊsˌkiːpəʳ/; /ˈbɪldɪŋ/stress: /ˈglæmərəs/; /ˈhaʊsˌkiːpəʳ/; /ˈbɪldɪŋ/

• The main stressed syllable is the most prominent

syllble in a word;

• Prominence of a syllable is a function of

loudness, pitch and duration;

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WHAT IS A WORD?

• Longer words also have secondary stress/es:

• Consider:

– /ˌmænəˈtobə/; /ˈfotəˌɡɹæf/; /ˈdɛləˌɡet/;

• Does the ortographic criterion match with the

phonological criterion?phonological criterion?

• Compare:

– ‘Five-room’: how many words? How many main

stresses?

– ‘Housekeeper’s:’ how many words? How many

stresses?

– ‘Building site’: how many words? How many

stresses? 10

WHAT IS A WORD?

� Not all words bear stress: function words, for

example, don’t;

� Consider the words below:

� /ðə/; /æt/; /hæv/;

Is the phonological criterion reliable?� Is the phonological criterion reliable?

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WHAT IS A WORD?

• Words are indivisible: (i.e. integrity crieterion):

words are indivisible units into which

intervening material may not be inserted’;

• Any modification occurs at the edge of words,

never inside words:never inside words:

• Consider:

• ‘usual’ vs ‘unusual’ vs *’usunual’; ‘normal’ vs

‘normalize’ vs *’normizeal’; ‘student’ vs ‘students’

vs *’studenst’

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WHAT IS A WORD?

� Yet, consider the following words:

� ‘Sons in love’;

� ‘Absobloodylutely’;

� ‘Absobloominglutely;’

� ‘Theojollylogical’;� ‘Theojollylogical’;

� ‘Beawfullyware;’

� Is the integrity criterion reliable?

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WHAT IS A WORD?

� Words are expressions of meaning (i.e. semantic

criterion): ‘a word expresses a unified semantic

concept’;

� However, not every unified semantic concept

corresponds to one word in a given language:corresponds to one word in a given language:

� Consider the following phrases:

� ‘the man whom you saw’; the student in the next room’; ‘the

woman who lived twice’

� The phrases above refer to a specific person. Hence,

according to the semantic criterion, they express a

unified concept. Yet, such a concept is expressed by

more than one word; 14

WHAT IS A WORD?

�Words are syntactic atoms (i.e. syntactic

criterion): ‘words are considered to be the

smallest elements in a sentence’;

�Words belong to certain syntactic classes

which are called ‘parts of speech’; ‘word

classes’ or ‘syntactic categories’: i.e. nouns,

adjectives, prepositions and so on);

�The position of given words in a sentence

depends on the syntactic rules of the

language; 15

WHAT IS A WORD?

� For example, a word like ‘the’ belongs to the

word-class ‘articles’ (or ‘determiners’) and there

are rules that determine where such words occur

in a sentence: articles are usually placed before a

noun and its modifier;noun and its modifier;

� We can test, then, if a morphological unit is a

word by checking if it belongs to a such a word

class;

� Also, only words can be moved to different

positions in a sentence. Smaller units can’t;

� Compare; ‘The train comes’ vs ‘There comes the

train’ vs *‘The comes train’. 16

WHAT IS A WORD?

� Words are ambiguous: the same form may refer

to different words:

� ‘go’: bare infinitive;

� ‘go’: 3rd pers. sing. simple present

� ‘go’: subjunctive� ‘go’: subjunctive

� Hence, the word form ‘go’ is used to express

three different grammatical words: 3° pers.

sing. simple present, subjunctive;

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WORD-FORMATION

What is the difference among the words in the

lists below?

� Addressee

� Actor

� Useless

• Parking lot

• Wardrobe

• Steam-engine

Redskin

7A 7B7A

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� Useless

� Madness

� Unreliable

� Depauperization

• Redskin

• Father-in-law

7C

• Desk

• Eye

• Mind

• Arrive

WORD-FORMATION

� All the words in colums 7A and 7B are complex

words: that is to say, words composed of smaller

units that have more complex meanings;

� What smaller units constitute the complex words

in columns 7A and 7b?in columns 7A and 7b?

� The samller units the words in colums 7A and 7B

are made up of are called morphemes;

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WORD-FORMATION

• The words in colums 7C are, instead, simple

words; that is to say, words that cannot be

divided into smaller units. They are, in fact,

mono-morphemic words;

• Consider again the words in columns 7A and 7B. • Consider again the words in columns 7A and 7B.

Which units within them can occur alone and

which need be attached to other words?

• The units that occur alone are called ‘free

morphemes’ while those which need be

attached to other words are called ‘bound

morphemes’;20

WORD-FORMATION

• Look again at columns 7A and 7B. Which boundmorphemes must be attached before the centralmeaningful element of the word?

• Which bound morphemes, instead, must be attachedafter the central meaningful element of the word?

• The bound morphemes that are attached before the • The bound morphemes that are attached before the central meaningful element are called ‘pre-fixes’;those attached after the central meaningful elementare called ‘suffixes’; finally, those inserted into othermorphems are called ‘infixes’;

• Pre-fixes, suffixes and infixes belong to the superordinate category ‘affixes’. The centralmeaningful elements are instead called ‘roots’, ‘stems’ or ‘bases’; 21

WORD-FORMATION

� A Base: the part of a word an affix is attached to;

� A Root: a base that cannot be divided into

further morphemes. The indivisible central part

of a complex word;

� A Stem: a base for inflectional and sometimes� A Stem: a base for inflectional and sometimes

also for derivational affixes;

� The derived word is often called a ‘derivative’;

� Consider the complex word ‘untouchables’: which

part is the root, which the base and which the

stem?

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WORD-FORMATION

� ‘touch’= root (it cannot be divided into further morphemes.

Remember: all roots are bases, but bases cannot be roots

because they are divisible);

� ‘touchable’ = base (it can be divided into ‘touch’ + ‘able’).

� ‘untouchable’= stem (a stem is a base for inflectional

suffixes). Remember: all stems are bases because they can suffixes). Remember: all stems are bases because they can

attach inflectional morphemes, but bases are not

necessarily stems, because they can also attach non

inflectional morphemes. See below:

� 1.‘touchable’=stem + ‘-s’ inflectional morpheme.

� 2.‘touchable’=base + ‘un-’ non inflectional prefix.

� Conclusione: according to the type of morpheme we attach

to it, ‘touchable’ can function either as a base or a stem, as

examples 1 and 2 above show.23

WORD-FORMATION

� Pre-fixes and suffixes are very common in

English, while infixes are not;

� Compare the morphemes ‘bloody’ and ‘al’ in the

complex words below:

� ‘Absobloodylutely’;� ‘Absobloodylutely’;

� ‘Decolonialization’;

� They both appear within words:, why, however,

the former is an infix and the latter is not?

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WORD-FORMATION

• Words are not made up of only bases, roots and affixes. Another way of combining words is also throughcompounding;

• The words below, for example, consist of two bases:– Greenhouse; girlfriend; pickpocket;

• All word-formation processes seen so far are were realizedthrough concatenation, that is to say, by linking basesthrough concatenation, that is to say, by linking basesand affixes in a sequential order;

• There are, however, also other processes that are non-concatenative;

• Examples of non-concatenative processes are realized byturning nouns into verbs without adding any furtherelement: e.g. water (N) vs water (V); fast (Adj) vs fast (Adv); go (v) vs have a go (N)

• The process above is called conversion or zero-affixationor transposition;

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WORD-FORMATION

• Another case of non-concatenative morphology is

deletion;

• Deletion occurs when a word is shortened by

deleting parts of the base word. Consider the

words below:words below:

– Demonstration vs Demo ; Laboratory vs Lab

• This morphological process of deletion is called

truncation or clipping;

• When truncation and affixation occur we have

diminutives:

– Andy= And(rew) + y

– Patty= Pat(ricia) +ty26

WORD-FORMATION

� Blends, which occur when parts of two different words are mixed into

one:

� Smog= smoke+fog;

� Modem=modulator + demodulator;

� Brunch= breakfast + lunch;

� Acronyms, which occur when the initial letters of different words are

combined to form a new word but the word is pronounced as if it were a combined to form a new word but the word is pronounced as if it were a

whole word:

� Nato= North Atlantic Treaty Organization;

� Unesco: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization;

� Initialism: when an abbreviated word is pronounced letter by letter:

U.K.=United Kingdom; U.S.A= Unitied States of America;

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WORD-FORMATION

� 2A

� Student + s =

Students;

� Eat + ing= Eating

� Play + s= Plays;

� 2B

� Work + er= Worker;

� Use + less= Useless;

� Truth + full=

Truthfull;

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� Play + s= Plays;

� Arrive+d= Arrived;

� Are the derivatives

above new words?

Truthfull;

� Real + ity= Reality;

� Are the derivatives

above new words?

WORD-FORMATION

• Suffixes like participial ‘-ing’, plural ‘–s’ or thirdperson singular ‘–s’ create new word-forms;

• Suffixes like ‘–er’, ‘-ee’, ‘-ity’, ‘-full’ create newlexemes;

• On the bases of the criterion above a distinctionis made in morphology between inflection and On the bases of the criterion above a distinctionis made in morphology between inflection and derivation.

• We can speak, thus, of inflectional and derivational morphology;

• The former mainly consists of word-formationrealized through those processes that in traditional grammar are called conjugation or declension. The latter through compounding; 29

WORD-FORMATION

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN INFLECTIONAL AND

DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY

• Derivation:

• Encode lexical meaning;

• Is not syntacticallyrelevant;

• Can occur inside derivation;

• Inflection:

• Encodes grammaticalcategories;

• Is syntactically relevant;

• Occurs outside allderivation;

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derivation;

• Often changes the part of speeh;

• Is often semanticallyopaque;

• Is often restricted in itsproductivity;

• Is not restricted tosuffixation;

derivation;

• Does not change part ofspeech;

• Is rarely semanticallyopaque;

• Is fully productive;

• Always suffixational (in English);