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Morphology Quiz 2 Study Sheet

The document compares inflectional and derivational morphology, highlighting that inflection modifies a word's form without changing its category or meaning, while derivation creates new words by adding affixes that can alter meaning and category. It discusses the properties, selectional restrictions, and processes involved in both types of morphology, including paradigms, syncretism, and exponence. Additionally, it covers inflectional features of nominals and verbs, types of inflectional morphology, and the assignment of morphosyntactic features.

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11 views7 pages

Morphology Quiz 2 Study Sheet

The document compares inflectional and derivational morphology, highlighting that inflection modifies a word's form without changing its category or meaning, while derivation creates new words by adding affixes that can alter meaning and category. It discusses the properties, selectional restrictions, and processes involved in both types of morphology, including paradigms, syncretism, and exponence. Additionally, it covers inflectional features of nominals and verbs, types of inflectional morphology, and the assignment of morphosyntactic features.

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Cool Blue Tunes
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Inflectional VS Derivational Morphology:

-​ Inflectional:
-​ Does not change either the category or the meaning of a
word!
-​ Modifies a word’s form to indicate grammatical
information(tense, case, number ,agreement, et.c)
-​ Morphemes occur at the edges of words.
-​ Derivational:
-​ A word formation process by which a new word is built by
adding an affix to a base
-​ It changes the meaning and/or category of the base
-​ Morphemes are typically closer to the root than inflectional
affixes
Derivational affixes:

-​ [un-]
-​ [mis-]
-​ [re-]
-​ [in-]
-​ [-able/-ible]
-​ [-tion]
-​ [-er]
-​ [-ize]
Derivation:

-​ Derivation takes one (input) lexeme and makes it into another


(output) lexeme
-​ The structure has a hierarchy. It is always binary but it
builds up
-​ Theoretically, the derivation can be infinite
-​ In reality, a word can only be finitely long and complex
Selectional restrictions of affixes:

-​ Both inflectional and derivational affixes have ‘selectional


restrictions’(preference for the base they combine with)
-​ If a word has only prefixes or only suffixes, they simply ‘pile
up’ on top of each other
-​ When both affixes and prefixes are present, we need to
determine the order of affixation
Ambiguity:

-​ Usually, a given word only has one structure


-​ However, some words can have more than one structure
-​ Two different prefixes [un-] with different selectional
restrictions
-​ It can attach to adjectives and verbs
Properties of english prefixes:

-​ Prefixes attach to the base of a certain category


-​ Some prefixes can attach to more than one category
-​ Prefixes almost never change the category of the base
Properties of english suffixes:

-​ Suffixes also have selectional restrictions(attach to the


base of a certain category)
-​ Unlike prefixes, suffixes can change the category of a
base(but not always!)
-​ The category of the word is determined by the last
derivational morpheme
Derivation & Semantics:

-​ Highly lexicalized meaning: Both words and affixes can have


a very specific meaning
-​ Polysemy: a single lexeme has one or more related meanings
-​ Polysemy is different from homophony(two or more words
are spelled and written the same, but have different
meanings)
-​ Zero derivation: a word formation process that assigns an
already existing word to a new syntactic category
Inflection:

-​ Depending on the syntactic environment, a word changes it


shape(tense, case, number, etc)
Inflectional morphemes:

-​ [-s]
-​ [-ing]
-​ [-’s]
-​ [-s]
-​ [-ed]
-​ [-er]
-​ [-en]
-​ [-est]
Derivation vs Inflection:

-​ Derivation changes the lexical category and/or meaning of a


word. Inflection doesnt
-​ Inflection is determined by syntax
-​ Inflectional morphology is more productive than
derivational(ex. Plural form of a noun)
-​ Derivational affixes typically occur closer to the root than
inflectional affixes
Paradigms:

-​ Paradigm: a set of different forms that a lexeme/word


assumes
-​ Ideal paradigm: 1-to-1 mapping
Syncretism:

-​ A single inflected form corresponds to more than one


morphosyntactic feature
-​ Within a paradigm, some forms do NOT make distinctions
that they could have
-​ Not only words but individual morphemes can be syncretic
Exponence:

-​ Exponence: realization of morphosyntactic features via


inflection(term coined by Peter Matthews)
-​ Exponent: an inflectional morpheme that represents the
morphosyntactic feature(s)
Types of Exponence:

-​ Simple: one form represents a single morphosyntactic


feature
-​ Cumulative: more than one morphosyntactic feature is
represented by a single form
-​ Extended: a single morphological feature is realized by more
than one form
More about exponence:

-​ Context-free exponence: a simple mapping between a


phonological realization and a morphosyntactic feature
-​ Context-sensitive exponence: a phonological realization of a
morphosyntactic feature is contextually-specified
Inherent vs. assigned / contextual inflection:

-​ Some morphosyntactic features are inherent: they are


marked in the mental lexicon(gender of nouns)
-​ And some features are assigned by the context(agreement)
Assigned Inflection:
-​ Inflection can be assigned by two ways: concord(agreement
& government)
-​ Concord(agreement): one element takes on the
morphosyntactic properties as another(noun-adjective
agreement)
-​ Government: one element assigns morphosyntactic features
to another(assignment of case, tense, etc)
Government:

-​ Government: one element assigns morphosyntactic features


to another(assignment of case, tense, etc)
-​ One of the examples is case assignment
-​ Case can be assigned positionally or lexically
-​ For instance, the verb itself does not have the case but it
assigns the case to the noun positionally
-​ Alternatively, we can say that subjects take the nomanitive
case, and direct objects take the accusative case
-​ Dative(indirect objects) and genetive(possessors)
-​ Certain elements(prepositions) assign the case lexically. In
different languages, various prepositions assign different
cases.
Inflectional features of nominals:

-​ The most common categories across languages are number,


gender, person, and case
-​ Gender can be based on semantics or morphological
-​ Person: all languages have first, second, and third person
-​ Some languages distinguish between exclusive and inclusive
-​ Languages may have anywhere up from 2 to 20 cases
-​ Languages have different case systems: Nom-Acc or
Ergative-Absolutive
Verbal Inflection:

-​ Tense, aspect, mood, and voice


-​ Tense: Typically, languages have morphological forms for
past, present, and future
-​ Aspect: a speaker’s view at the event with respect to the
reference time
-​ Imperfective aspect: habitual, an action in progress,
unbounded event
-​ Perfective aspect: focused on the result, bounded
Types of inflectional morphology:

-​ Affixation
-​ Apophiny: internal change
-​ Ablaut: vowel change within the root of the verb, typical for
germanic languages
-​ Umlaut: vowel change in singular-plural forms of the noun.
Umlaut is usually triggered by the phonology of the noun
-​ Root-and-pattern morphology: Roots consist of three
consonants and vowels(and other consonants) vary
depending on their morphosyntactic function.
-​ Reduplication
-​ Suppletion: grammatical contrast within a paradigm is
marked by replacing a morpheme with an entirely different
morpheme. A form of the lexeme is not phonologically
predictable
-​ Partial suppletion: the initial phonemes are preserved but
there are some internal changes and other changes. The
form of the lexeme is hard to predict.

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