Exercises class 8
1. Spanish
In Spanish, there are two homophonous adjectives inmovilizable: inmovilizable1
‘unmobilizable’ and inmovilizable2 ‘immobilizable’. The morphological structure of
these words corresponds closely to the structure of the corresponding English words
(prefix in- ‘un-’, suffix -able ‘-able’, suffix -iz ‘-ize’, móvil ‘mobile’). Draw the constituent
structure trees of these two words.
Source: Haspelmath & Sims (2010)
2. English
a
Draw a tree structure for the word conventionalization. For each layer of derivation,
determine what is the morphological head and explain why. Do the same for the word
repurify.
b
The word unwindable is potentially ambiguous. What are its two possible meanings?
Draw two tree structures and show which meaning goes with each structure.
Based on: Lieber (2009)
3. Ecuadorian Quechua
Consider the following examples (third person object is unmarked):
llank’a-schi-rpari-n
work-help-effect-3SG
‘‘He really helped him work’’
qunqa-rpari-schi-wa-n
forget-effect-help-1OBJ-3SG
‘‘He helped me forget completely’’
Explain the different orders in the examples.
Based on Booij (2007), data from Muysken (1988)
4. Yurakaré
a.
Consider the following forms of the verb -kaya- ‘to give’ (hint: some person-number
combinations are not overtly expressed)
mimankayay
tinkayam
kamankayay
mankayam
timankayaw
timankayaw
kankayatu
mamankayatu
minkaya
kankaya
I gave them to you
You gave it to me
I gave them to him
You gave it to them
They gave them to you
They gave them to me
We gave it to him
We gave them to them
He gave it to you
He gave it to him
On the basis of these examples, isolate the morphemes you think you need, and form a
template for those morphemes.
b.
For a number of verbs the following oppositions furthermore exist
timanche
timalache
He ate them for me (doing me a favor)
He ate them on me (i.e. to my detriment, e.g. the dog ate my French fries
from my plate when I wasn’t paying attention
Based on your previous analysis, locate the template position for this opposition and try
to describe the general function of these markers.
The order of prefixes may seem a bit unexpected from the perspective of the relevance
principle that requires things that are relevant to each other semantically are close
together structurally.
Why?
Is there a possible explanation that is more compatible with the relevance principle?
References
Booij, Geert (2007) The grammar of words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haspelmath, Martin & Andrea Simms (2010) Understanding morphology. London:
Hodder
Lieber, Rochelle (2009) Introducing morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press
Muysken,P.C.(1988). Affix order and interpretation: Quechua’ In Everaert, M., Evers, A.,
Huybregts, R., and Trommelen, M. (eds.): Morphology and Modularity: In Honour of
Henk Schultink. Dordrecht: Foris.: 259–79.