Understanding Morphological Processes in Linguistics
Morphological processes, as discussed by Dr. Monira I. AL-Mohizea, involve key concepts such as zero morph, internal change, exponence, suppletion, syncretism, haplology, reduplication, and stress placement. Conversion and affixation are two important methods of word formation explored in the context of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Examples and explanations highlight how language morphology impacts word structure and syntax.
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MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES Dr. Monira I. AL-Mohizea
morphological processes there are a set of important (inflectional) morphological processes involving mainly (phonological) changes that must be taken into perspective: Zero morph Internal change Exponence Suppletion Syncretism Haplology Reduplication Stress placement
Consider the following: a. Put it in the bin (n.) b. Bin (v.) it! Take a fast (adj.) train The train goes very fast (adv.) He has short legs (n.) We legged (v.) it
(1) Conversion Conversion is a very productive method of deriving words, especially verbs from nouns and nouns, from verbs. Definition: (also called 'zero-derivation') when conversion is used, a new word is formed by assigning an existing word a new syntactic category (part of speech) without changing its form in any way. The word class of the derived word can be detected by looking at the context in which it appears. Examples??
(2) Affixation Affixation is word-building involving the use of affixes. It is extremely common. Affixes can be classified as prefixes and suffixes depending on whether they precede or follow the root. Another type of affixation is the infixation which is very marginal in English. Expletive infixation is used commonly for expressive purposes, as of McCarthy (1982) but it has no grammatical role. Consider the following: Fan-bloody-tastic
Consider the following: A sheep was walking along the river. vs. 20 sheep were walking along the river.
(3) Zero morph In this process, the word sheep unlike other nouns, has no overt marking of number even when its meaning is plural. (Twenty) clearly indicates plurality as well as the auxiliary verb (were) which indicates that. English syntax recognizes the plurality of this noun and requires the verb agreeing with it to be plural. Likewise many monosyllabic verbs, as let, cut, hit, are not marked overtly when they occur in a context where the syntax requires past tense inflection on the verb. E.g. I cut it yesterday.
Consider the following: Nouns Singular Plural foot [fot] feet /fi:t/ Mouse [maus] mice [maIs] Verbs Present Past Past participle ride rode ridden sing sang sung
(4) Internal change Definition: Sometimes inflection is done by changing a vowel in the root. This is called internal change or (apophony). In some cases, apophony may be accompanied by affixation as in the case of (Ridden). Think of other examples??
Consider the following: In sweets [s] realizes ?? In parked (the actual pronunciation of -ed) is ?? it realizes: ?? Or ??, or ??
(5) Exponence Definition: Exponence is the realization of morpho- syntactic features via inflection. The morpheme [s] in (sweets) is the exponent of the morpho-syntactic feature plural, and [t] (the actual pronunciation of ed in parked) realizes past tense or past participle. The relationship between morphs and morpho-syntactic features such as plural, past tense, present tense, etc. is one of realization (or representation) rather than composition.
Simple vs. Cumulative exponence Simple exponence: one morpheme for one morphosyntactic feature. E.g. [s] in (sweets) realizes plural. Cumulative exponence: more than one morphological feature maps onto a single morpheme. E.g. [s] in (she thinks), realizes third person, present tense, and singular.
Consider the following: A. Parked B. Lived Missed Ruled Watched Spied
Normally allomorphs of a morpheme are phonologically related. The regular past tense ending in English is realized as [t] after a verb whose last sound is voiceless. (e.g. parked (pa:kt). If the verb s last sound is voiced (e.g. lived [livd], it is realized as [d]. The sounds [t] and [d] are similar, both are alveolar stops.
(6) Suppletion Occasionally we find allomorphs of the same morpheme whose phonological shapes are unrelated. If a phonological relationship is totally non existent, we speak of total suppletion (E.g. good & better, go & went). The term partial suppletion is used to describe situations where residual phonetic similarity between allomorphs can be detected (e.g. seek sought, bring - brought, etc).
Consider the following: A. Past Past participle gave given sang sung Vs. B. Past Past participle Cooked Cooked Brought Brought
(7) Syncretism Definition: Syncretism refers to a situation where morpho-syntactic categories that are represented by distinct forms elsewhere are mapped on to the same form in some contexts. In many regular verbs, and some irregular ones, the morph-syntactic properties of past and past participle are mapped onto different forms (e.g. gave given) No syncretism. Without syncretism there is internal change and suffixation of -en, to signal past participle. With syncretism, the same form, i.e., -ed is suffixed, and only the context can help distinguish between past participle and past tense.
Consider the following: Probably *probly Jones's house Jones' house
(7) Haplology Avoidance of sequences of identical linguistic forms is a phenomenon found in many languages. Definition: Haplology is a type of dissimilation, when two identical or very similar syllables or sounds occur next to each other and one is be deleted. It can happen internally within a word or root morpheme of at least three syllables (e.g. probably). If a weakly stressed syllable is next to an adjacent syllable that is identical as in (probably) haplology occurs. The genitive suffix is spelled <s> and is phonologically realized as [s] - [z]. If it is too similar to the final sound of the base it is merged in many people's pronunciation and normally omitted in writing (e.g. Jones's house => Jones' house). The genitive in this situations is indicated merely by the presence of the apostrophe.
Consider the following: night-night go-go bye-bye airy-fairy hoity-toity razzle-dazzle
(8) Reduplication Reduplication is the creation of a new word by repetition of an existing word in its entirety, or in part. Repetition of the entire word is called full reduplication (e.g. bang-bang, bye-bye). In partial reduplication, only part of a word is repeated it has traditionally involved rhyming (e.g. airy-fairy, hoity-toity, razzle-dazzle, and nitty-gritty. Partial reduplication can also be ablaut (vowel change) as in tip-top, shilly-shally, zigzag, pitter-patter. The process affects a monosyllabic word. The vowel of the rhyme is changed, leaving the rest of the word intact.
Stress placement In some cases, derivation is effected by changing stress placement. Nouns can be derived from verbs and verbs from nouns by certain rules.
