Morphological analysis
LINGUIST 201
Lecture Notes
28 October 2013
Agenda
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Test next week!
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Review
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Morphological structures
Derivation and Inflection
Doing a morphological analysis
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Breaking down words in other languages
Review
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Complex words can sometimes be ambiguous
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This ambiguity reveals hierarchical structure in
morphologically complex words
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'undoable' can mean 'able to be undone' or 'not
doable'
(un+do)+able vs. un+(do+able)
Lack of ambiguity in other words reveals the
importance of category in morphology
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(re+do)+able, *re+(do+able)
Review
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The resulting structures
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do+able → doable; un+doable → undoable
undoable(A)
un
doable(A)
do(V) able(A)
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'Not able to be done'
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The meaning of 'un' refers to 'doable'
Review
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The resulting structures
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un+do → undo; undo+able → undoable
undoable(A)
undo(V)
un
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able(A)
do(V)
'Able to have doing reversed'
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The meaning of 'able' refers to 'undo'
Review
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Complex words are built starting with a stem
and adding affixes, not going right-to-left or leftto-right
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The possibility of both meanings of 'undoable'
requires that
As do multiply-prefixed words
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Unforeseeable ≠ (un+fore)+(see+able)
= (un+((fore+see)+able))
Review
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Different types of morphemes also reveal a
other rules of morphological structure
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Idolizes vs. *idolsize
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Inflectional morphology must follow derivational
morphology (Morpheme Ordering Constraint)
undo vs. doable
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Prefixes can never change category in English
(Righthand Head Rule)
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Also seen in Compounds!
Morphological analysis
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These generalizations allow us to analyze the
structure of English morphology
But what can we do with other languages?
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We have fewer intuitions obviously – but the first
thing we can do is learn principles for breaking
down complex words into pieces
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And finding out what those pieces mean!
Morphological analysis
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Let's say you see a bunch of words in a
language you don't speak, like Turkish
adamlar 'men'
kitablar 'books'
mumlar 'candles'
toplar 'guns'
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Is there anything that these words all have in
common?
Morphological analysis
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Let's say you see a bunch of words in a
language you don't speak, like Turkish
adamlar 'men'
kitablar 'books'
mumlar 'candles'
toplar 'guns'
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They're all plural
Morphological analysis
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Let's say you see a bunch of words in a
language you don't speak, like Turkish
adamlar 'men'
kitablar 'books'
mumlar 'candles'
toplar 'guns'
–
–
They're all plural
They all end in -lar
Morphological analysis
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We can take as a starting guess that any
word ending in -lar will be a plural form
Thus, the suffix -lar is probably the plural
suffix in Turkish
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Thus, the stems of the words in this set are the
parts that aren't -lar
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adamlar → adam+lar
man+Pl
Kitablar → kitab+lar
book+Pl
Morphological analysis
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By this method, we can determine stems and
bound morphemes, and the information they
carry, even if we never see them on their own.
The Turkish data are fairly easy – let's try a
couple more!
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
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xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means 'buy'?
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
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xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought' naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means 'buy'?
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Probably xarid
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
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xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means 'I'?
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
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xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means 'I'?
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Probably -am
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
–
xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means 'we'?
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
–
xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means 'we'?
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Probably -im
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
–
xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means '(did) not'?
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
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xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means '(did) not'?
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Probably na-
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
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xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means 'he'?
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
–
xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What means 'he'?
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It looks like Nothing means 'he'
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
–
xaridam 'I bought'
xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought'
naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought'
naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What does mi- mean?
Persian
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What parts can we find in these Persian verb
forms?
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xaridam 'I bought' xaridi 'you (sg) bought'
xarid 'he bought' naxaridam 'I didn't buy'
xaridim 'we bought' naxaridim 'We didn't buy'
mixarid 'he was buying'
What does mi- mean?
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It looks like it means 'was V-ing'
Or maybe just 'V-ing' (past also looks like zero!)
Persian
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Translate and parse this word:
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mixaridi
Persian
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Translate and parse this word:
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mixaridi
'You (sg.) were buying'
Persian
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Translate and parse this word:
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mi-xarid-i
'You (sg.) were buying'
ing-buy-You(sg)
(Prog-buy.Pst-2Sg)
Persian
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Parse this word; what does -and mean?
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namixaridand
'they were not buying'
Persian
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Parse this word; what does -and mean?
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na-mi-xarid-and
'they were not buying'
neg-ing-buy-???
Persian
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Parse this word; what does -and mean?
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na-mi-xarid-and
'they were not buying'
neg-ing-buy-they
(Neg-Prog-buy.Pst-3Pl)
Morphological analysis
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Easy and fun, right?
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Now let's try looking for allomorphy in an unfamiliar
language!
Hindi
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Consider the following Hindi words
admi 'man'
admi 'men'
gʰəәr 'house'
gʰəәr 'houses'
əәdʰjapəәk 'teacher' əәdʰjapəәk 'teachers'
ləәɖka 'boy'
gʰoɖa 'horse'
dʰəәmaka 'blast'
ləәɖke 'boys'
gʰoɖe 'horses'
dʰəәmake 'blasts'
Hindi
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It looks like there's two plural forms:
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-e and Ø
What conditions them?
Hindi
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It looks like there's two plural forms:
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-e and Ø
What conditions them?
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Words ending in -a take the -e plural
Other words take zero plural
Hindi
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But wait!
bʰaʃa 'language'
bɛhɛn 'sister'
mez 'table'
bʰaʃaẽ 'languages'
bɛhɛnẽ 'sisters'
mezẽ 'tables'
ləәɖki 'girl'
gɪlhəәri 'squirrel'
tɪtli 'butterfly'
ləәɖkijã 'girls'
gɪlhəәrijã 'squirrels'
tɪtlijã 'butterflies'
Hindi
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It looks like there's two more plural forms
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-jã and -ẽ
What conditions these?
Hindi
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It looks like there's two more plural forms
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-jã and -ẽ
What conditions these?
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Words ending in -i take -jã as plural
Other words take -ẽ
Hindi
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But how to explain this:
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ləәɖka → ləәɖke
bʰaʃa → bʰaʃaẽ
ləәɖki → ləәɖkijã
admi → admi
Hindi
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Hindi appears to have two different classes of
nouns
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One class:
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Words ending in -a take the -e plural
Other words take zero plural
Another:
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Words ending in -i take -jã as plural
Other words take -ẽ
Hindi
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Do we notice anything else?
Hindi
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Hindi appears to have two different classes of
nouns
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Masculine nouns
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Words ending in -a take the -e plural
Other words take zero plural
Feminine nouns
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Words ending in -i take -jã as plural
Other words take -ẽ