Morphology

Chapter 3 – The grammar of English

Morphology

inflectional morphology deals with changes in the form of words that have grammatical meaning

e.g. -est signals the superlative of adjectives

derivational morphology deals with the process of new word formation

e.g. happy unhappiness (see Chapter 4)

What is a morpheme?

unhappy un-happy cats cat-s

• A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function

• free: can stand alone as words- lexical e.g. pen, book- functional e.g. if, the

• bound: cannot stand alone and must be linked to another morpheme (called base or root) e.g. -ly, un-, -able, -ee- derivational e.g. -ness, -able- inflectional e.g. -s, -ing

morphemes and morphs

played play-ed {PLAY}+ {past }unhelpful un-help-ful {negative} + {HELP} +

{adjective}impolitely im-polite-ly {negative} + {POLITE} +

{adverb}

words morphs morphemes (concrete) (abstract)

Root, baseroot= the core of the word, the morpheme which determines the meaning of the word e.g. happy is the root of happiness

bound root= a root that is not independente.g. dent- in dentist, dental, dentistry (Latin dens, dentis)

base= part of the word to which any affixes are attached (inflectional or derivational)e.g. happy is the base of unhappy; unhappy is the base of unhappiness

allomorphs

-ed

the morph that indicates past tense can be realised phonetically in different ways (allomorphs) depending on the phonological context:

e.g. raised [d] looked [t]

decided []

Exercise 1.1 p. 173 Identify the units (clauses, phrases, words, morphemes) in the following sentences:

Example: The young lady bought a pair of very expensive shoes and walked out of the shop. (Sentence)

Clauses: the sentence consists of two clauses which are joined by the coordinating conjunction and:the young lady bought a pair of expensive shoes walked out of the shop.

Phrases: the young lady (NP), bought (VP), a pair of very expensive shoes (NP), walked (VP), out of the shop (PP).

Words: the, young, lady, bought, a, pair, of, very, expensive, shoes, and, walked, out of, shop.

Morphemes: the, young, lady, buy, -ed (inflectional morpheme), a, pair, of, very, expense, -ive (derivational morpheme), shoe, -s (bound inflectional morpheme), and, walk, out, of, shop

Exercise 2 p. 174 Morpheme identificationIdentify the morphemes in the following words:Handwriting, unmarried, uncomfortable, walked, volleyball, smaller, unhappiness, employee, unemployment, blackboard, pubs, businesswoman, headteachers, cheerful, unkindness, unfaithfulness, dishonest, singers.

hand+write+ingun+marry+edun+comfort+ablewalk+edvolley+ballsmall+erun+happy+nessemploy+eeun+employ+ment

black+boardpub+sbusy+ness+womanhead+teach+er+scheer+fulun+kind+nessun+faith+ful+nessdis+honestsing+er+s

Exercise 2.2 p. 174 E.g. Unthinkable: un- (bound, derivational prefix), think (free, root), -able (bound, derivational suffix)Actors: act (free, root), -or (bound, derivational suffix), -s (bound, inflectional suffix).Computerize: compute (free, root), -er (bound, derivational suffix), -ize (bound, derivational suffix).Unbelievable – incredible - decolonialised

Unbelievable: un- (bound, derivational prefix), believe (free root), -able (bound, derivational suffix)

Incredible: in- (bound derivational prefix), cred- (bound root), -ible (bound derivational suffix)

Decolonialised: de- (bound derivational prefix), colony (free root), -al (bound derivational suffix), -ise (bound derivational suffix), -ed (bound inflectional suffix)

PDE regular inflections

nouns -s plural, nouns -’s possessive caseverbs -s 3rd pers. sing.verbs -ed past tense, verbs -ed past participleverbs -ing gerundadjectives -er comparativeadjectives -est superlative

number in English nouns

• most nouns add -s e.g. girls, toys, cars• some nouns add -es e.g. tomatoes, branches,

knives

• the pronunciation of the inflectional ending -s/-es depends on the phonetic context, i.e. there are three allomorphs of the plural morpheme -s

e.g. cakes = [s] (preceded by the voiceless consonant [k])

beans = [z] (preceded by the voiced consonant [n])

judges= [iz] (preceded by the affricate consonant

[]

• some nouns have irregular plural endings e.g.children, teeth, mice, oxen, curricula,

sheep (see p. 131)

• uncountable nouns: e.g. evidence, advice, equipment,

information

POSSESSIVE CASE IN ENGLISH NOUNSThe ’s genitive versus the of-form

Synthetic versus analytic option

Say whether the following examples are all acceptable and discuss the rule of the ’s genitive versus the “of form”

1. John’s car is fast 2. The car of John is fast3. The students’ protest is still going on4. The protest of the students is still going on5. The car of the friend who is visiting me was stolen last

night6. The friend who is visiting me’s car was stolen last night7. Yesterday’s newspaper8. The newspaper of yesterday9. The journey’s end 10. The end of the journey11. The legs of the table 12. The table’s legs

verb inflections most English verbs are regular and have a paradigm of 5 word forms and 4 verb inflections

e.g. love / loves / loved / loved / loving

there is a smaller number of very frequently used irregular verbs e.g. take, took, taken put, put, put speak, spoke, spoken lose, lost, lost go, went, gone

auxiliaries are very irregular, e.g. the verb to be has forms that differ from one another, e.g. am, are, is, was, were, been, being (suppletion)

most modal verbs do not inflect and have only two forms, e.g. may, might, can, could

gradability of adjectives and adverbs

synthetic comparison: -er ending (comparative) e.g. warmer -est ending (superlative) e.g. finest

analytic comparison more and most e.g. more/ most interesting more quickly

• irregular comparison (process of suppletion)e.g. good better best; little, less, least; much, more, most; well, better, best; bad, worse, worst

pronoun inflection

Pronouns, and personal pronouns in particular, have retained a certain degree of inflection in PDE.

e.g. personal pronouns express number, gender and case often through suppletive formsI - me; we - us, you - you, he - him, she - her, it - it, they - them

phrase

• a unit of syntax made up of one or more words

• it contains an obligatory head element and optional modifiers

The black labrador (NP) was chewing (VP) a juicy bone (NP) very noisily (AdvP)

types of phrases

Noun Phrase (NP)Verb Phrase (VP)Adjective Phrase (AdjP)Adverb Phrase (AdvP)Prepositional Phrase (PP)

• except for prepositional phrases (PP) phrases can be constituted by a single lexical item

• all phrases can be extended by pre-modification or post-modification

types of Noun Phrases

determiner pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

- - John -

my leather (n.) suitcase -

a large, old, blue (size, age, colour)

suitcase with wheels (PP)

more Noun Phrases

det. pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

The London experience -

- London’s churches -

The - London I know (clause)

build Noun PhrasesDeterminer pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

The ugly tabby cat on Paul’s computer desktop/ on the desktop of Paul’s computer

A nice, Australian

bloke with a red Ferrari

The tall modern building in the centre of town

ambiguity in NPs

• The French history teacher

the (det.) French (pre-mod.) history (pre-mod.) teacher (head)

[the] [French] [history teacher]

(the teacher of history is French)

[the] [French history] [teacher]

(the teacher teaches French history)

tree diagram (the teacher of history is French)

NP

det. mod. head NP

mod. head

The French history teacher

tree diagram (the teacher teaches French history)

NP

det. Mod. NP head

mod. head

The French history teacher

TREE DIAGRAM “An interesting government report about air

pollution”

NP

det. mod.(adj.) mod.(n.) head mod.PP

head C (NP) mod.(n.) head

An interesting government report about air pollution

relative clause as a post-modifier of a NPThe man who came to dinner

NP

det. head (n.) mod. (clause)

the man who came to dinner

relative clause as a post-modifier of a NPThe man who came to dinner

NP det. head (n.) mod. (clause) S:NP P:VP V A:PP

h(prep.) C:NP h(pron.) h(v.) h (n.)

the man who came to dinner

complex post-modification

• The proposal for a new building which the committee put forward last week

- for a new building (PP)

- which the committee put forward last week (relative clause)

activity

• Analyse the constituent parts of the following NPs illustrating with tree diagrams:

1) A luxury apartment in the heart of Oxford

2) A rather disgustingly dirty carpet

3) A very interesting book about Renaissance art in Italy

frequency of NPs in English

• pre-modification is more common than post-modification in all registers

• complex pre- and post-modification is typical of some registers such as written academic prose and newspaper headlines

English / Italian NPsTranslate these noun phrases into Italian and notice the differences

between the two languages

1. The Los Angeles Police Department Il Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles2. Air pollution L’inquinamento dell’aria3. The Birmingham train Il treno per/da /di (?) Birmingham 4. Stansted airport

L’aeroporto di Stansted5. The proposal of a national curriculum La proposta di un curricolo nazionale 6. The country’s leading expert on youth culture Il maggior esperto del paese sulla cultura

giovanile

Italian versus English NPs

English favours premodification (to the left of the head). NPs are concise and at times ambiguous

• The Los Angeles Police Department

Italian favours postmodification (to the right of the head) and the use of prepositions. NPs are longer and more explicit

• Il Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles

Verb Phrases : finite/ non-finite

• finite verbs or VPs: marked by tensee.g. John plays the guitar

I enjoyed the concert

• non-finite verbs or VPs: not marked by tense, person or numbere.g. To arrive on time was their objective

She travelled accompanied by her father She broke her leg while skiing

Verb Phrases: tense versus time

• tense: property allowing the verb to differentiate between present and past

e.g. Jane likes music / Jane liked music

• Unlike in Italian, there is no morphologically marked form to express future time in English (but a range of forms such as will/shall+ infinitive, going to, simple present, present progressive etc. see 148-149)

Verb Phrase: aspect

property allowing the verb to give information about the state or the action

• Progressive (or continuous) : the action is in progressSarah is helping her sister

• perfect: the action is complete, that is it occurred at an earlier time and continues to the time of utterance or is relevant to itSarah has helped her sister to take her degree

• perfect+progressive: (often called ‘duration form’) stresses

continuity in the past and includes the time of utterance Sarah has been helping her sister since she was 12

Translate into Italian and identify the main

differences between the two languages

1. Sarah helps her sister every Thursday

2. Sarah is helping her sister a lot3. Sarah has helped her sister to

recover from illness4. Sarah helped her sister one year ago

when she was ill5. Sarah has been helping her sister

since last May

Translate from Italian into English

1. Sono andata a Londra molte volte

2. Vivo a Londra

3. Vado a Londra ogni anno

4. Vivo a Londra da 5 anni e ne sono felice

5. Ho vissuto a Londra per cinque anni prima di tornare in Italia

6. Vivevo a Londra quando ho incontrato John

verb phrase : voice

• The singer performed the song• The song was performed by the singer

• NP1+VP+ NP2 NP2 +be+VPed+ by+NP1

• The singer was performing the song• The song was being performed by the

singer

functions of the passive

• the agent is unknown or irrelevantMr Constable has been murdered• the focus is on the process to convey

objectivity, especially in academic prose The results of the tests have been checked

several times• to disclaim responsibilityHe is said to be a womanizer

More frequent in scientific writing and in the press

Discuss the concepts of “tense” and “aspect” in the English verb and illustrate with examples. 

Tense and aspect are grammatical categories of Tense and aspect are grammatical categories of verbs. Tense refers to the distinction between verbs. Tense refers to the distinction between present and past forms of verbs (I think vs I present and past forms of verbs (I think vs I thought), while aspect refers to the state of the thought), while aspect refers to the state of the action (progressive or perfect). In English we action (progressive or perfect). In English we may distinguish between progressive and perfect may distinguish between progressive and perfect aspects: aspects: I’m reading a book I’m reading a book describes an action describes an action in progress and still incomplete, while in progress and still incomplete, while I’ve read I’ve read an interesting book an interesting book describes a completed action describes a completed action which is still relevant to the time of the utterance. which is still relevant to the time of the utterance.

In English it is also possible to combine the In English it is also possible to combine the progressive and the perfective aspect in progressive and the perfective aspect in sentences like sentences like I’ve been living in London for five I’ve been living in London for five years/ I’ve been living in London since 2007years/ I’ve been living in London since 2007 ..

Unlike Italian, English does not have a Unlike Italian, English does not have a morphologically marked future tense. To morphologically marked future tense. To express future events the most common forms express future events the most common forms are will+verb, be+ going to+verb or the present are will+verb, be+ going to+verb or the present progressive form, eg progressive form, eg We are going to buy a new We are going to buy a new car. car. Tense does not coincide with time. In fact, it Tense does not coincide with time. In fact, it is possible to say is possible to say The games start next week. The games start next week.