Boustrephedon
Week 2
Morphology: The Story of Words
Hesiod, Works & Days
Hesiod, cont’d
 MUSESOFPIERIAWHOGIVEGLORYTHR
OUGHSONGCOMEHITHERTELLOFZEU
SOURFATHERANDCHANTHISPRAISET
HROUGHHIMMORTALMENAREFAMED
ORUN-FAMEDSUNGORUNSUNGALIKE
ASGREATZEUSWILLSFOREASILYHEMA
KESSTRONGANDEASILYHEBRINGSTH
ESTRONGMANLOWEASILYHEHUMBLE
STHE PROUDANDRAISESTHEOBSCUR
 muse s of pieria who give glory through
song come hi ther tell of zeus you r father
and chant hi s praise through him mortal
men are fam ed or un fame d sung or un
sung a like as great zeus will s for easi ly
he make s strong and easi ly he bring s
the strong man low easi ly he humble s
the proud and raise s the obscure and
easi ly he straighten s the crook ed and
Hesiod, cont’d
A Child’s Morphology
 Muses of Pieria who give glory through
song, come hither, tell of Zeus your father
and chant his praise. Through him mortal
men are famed or un-famed, sung or
unsung alike, as great Zeus wills. For
easily he makes strong, and easily he
brings the strong man low; easily he
humbles the proud and raises the
obscure, and easily he straightens the
crooked and
 Mother: Tell Elizabeth not to argue.
 Amy: Mommy says not to arg me.
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Morphology
 What is it?
• ConciseOxfordDictionary: the study of the
forms of words
• morphê ‘form’ + logy ‘study of’
 What is the morpheme?
• p.39: ‘Morphemes: Minimal Units of Meaning’
• p.40: ‘the most elemental unit of grammatical
form’ (a better definition)
What is a word
 pairing of string of sounds with a meaning
(p.33)
 homophones
• different words
• same sounds
• different meanings
Words cont’d




She can't bear (tolerate) children.
She can't bear (give birth to) children.
Exit, pursued by a bear.
He stood there -- bare and beautiful
Homophones cont’d
 bear n. any large, heavy mammal of
family Ursidae, having thick fur and
walking on its soles.
 bare adj. unclothed, uncovered
 bare v. uncover, unsheathe (bared his
teeth)
How many homophones?
 bear v.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
carry, bring or take (bear gifts)
be marked by (bear marks of violence)
produce (bear fruit)
give birth to (bear a child)
sustain (bear a heavy responsibility)
tolerate (bear a child)
carry in memory (bear a grudge)
veer in a given direction (bear left)
Words & senses
 words often have multiple, related senses
 these are not homophones
 text errs suggesting that the senses of
bear in bear a child are homophones, so
there are really only 3 homophones, not 4
 dictionaries use etymology as a guide:
• ear n. the organ of hearing
• ear n. seed-bearing head of a cereal plant
 but this is wrong, too
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Mental lexicon
Printed lexica
 for each word (or morpheme):
 for each word (or morpheme):
•
•
•
•
its senses
its part of speech
its pronunciation
its forms
•
•
•
•
− bear
− bears (3rd sg.)
− bore (past)
− borne, born (past participle)
its senses
its part of speech
its spelling & pronunciation
its forms
− bear
− bore (past)
− borne, born (past participle)
• its etymology (O.E. beran, cf. Grk pherein)
Lexical classes
 a.k.a. ‘parts of speech’
 content words
• nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
• open classes
• often have referential meanings
Content words
nouns

•
•
 function words
• conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns
• closed classes
• express grammatical meanings and relations
Content words cont’d
verbs

•
•
•
inflected for present tense singular, past tense,
past participle, present participle. (sings, sang,
sung, singing; dances, danced, dancing)
derived with verb-forming affixes such as -ify,
(beautify), -ize added to nouns (idolize, regularize), en added to adjectives (redden, soften).
follow the auxiliary function words such as can,
may, will.
−
•
inflected for plural number and/or
possessive case (e.g. woman, women;
woman's, women's)
derived with noun-forming affixes, such as er, added to verbs (worker), or - ness added
to adjectives (ugliness, recklessness,
hopelessness).
follow noun determiner function words
such as a(n), the, this, that, his, her.
Problems with traditional defs
 noun: ‘name of a person, place or thing’
 verb: ‘an action word’
 knowledge, loving are not persons or
places or things
 knowing, loving are not actions
NB: (small error in text) these are actually a verb subclass
(auxiliary verbs)
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Content words cont’d
adjectives

•
•
•
•
inflected for comparative and superlative degree
(prettier, angriest).
derived with adjective-forming affixes such as -ful
added to nouns (beautiful) and -able added to
verbs (readable)
occur with intensifier or degree function words such
as very, more, most (as in very strange).
occur in attributive position before nouns they
modify or in predicative position following a verb
such as be.
Content words cont’d
adverbs

•
•
•
Function words




conjunctions: and, or,
prepositions: in, of
articles: the, an/a
pronouns: my, she, he, it
Morpheme types
 bound morphemes
• affixes
− prefixes (re-, un-)
− suffixes (-ity)
− infixes (Bontoc: fukas ‘strong’, fu +mi +kas ‘be
strong’
− circumfixes (German: lieb ‘love’, ge + lieb + t
‘loved’
• (bound) roots
some are inflected for comparative and
superlative degree (faster: He ran faster.).
many are derived from adjectives with the
adverb-forming suffix -ly (beautifully).
can modify verbs, adjective, other adverbs
but not nouns (*very house) .
Morphemes
 ‘Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning’
• NB: not a good definition
 a single word may be composed of one or more
morphemes:
•
•
•
•
•
1: boy, desire
2: boy + ish, desire + able
3: boy + ish + ness, desire + able + ity
4: gentle + man + li + ness, un + desire + able + ity
> 4: un + gentle + man + li + ness
A ‘kempt’ text
It had been a rough day, so when I
walked into the party I was very
chalant, despite my efforts to appear
gruntled and consolate. I was furling
my wieldy umbrella…when I saw her…
She was a descript person…Her hair
was kempt, her clothing shevelled,
and she moved in a gainly way.
− unkempt (prefix –un, root –kempt)
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Defining the morpheme
Where are the meanings?
 ‘cran’ morphs – what is a cran?
• or a huckle?
 morphemes with no meaning
Error in text (p.46)
 text suggests words like permit ‘in the mental
lexicons of many speakers…would be
monomorphemic (consisting of 1 morpheme)
 but compare
• permit, permissive, permission
• vomit, *vomissive, *vomission
Compounding
Noun
-mit
-ceive
re-
reduce
remit
receive
con-
conduce
commit
conceive
per-
*perduce
permit
perceive
de-
deduce
demit
deceive
Types of word formation
 Derivational affixation
• Verb > Noun (‘deverbal nominalization’)
− acquit + al
− sing + er
• Noun > Verb (‘denominal verbalization’)
 this shows that –mit is a morpheme
 conclusion: morphemes may be units of form
but not meaning
Adjective
-duce
− moral + ize
− brand + ish
• Verb > Adjective
− readable
More on word coinage
Verb
 compounds
 acronyms
• flátfoot, bláckbird, Frénch teacher
Adjective-
bittersweet bluenose
highborn
Noun-
headstrong rainbow
spoonfed
Verb-
carryall
sleepwalk
slapshot
• UNICEF, scuba, radar (radio detecting and
ranging)
• initialism: UWO, CFL
 blends
• motel, bit (binary digit), brunch
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Word coinage cont’d
 back-formation
• hawk < hawker, edit < editorr
 abbreviations (a.k.a. clipping)
• bus < autobus, auto, bil < automobile
 ‘named-afters’
• xerox (< Grk. xerox ‘dry’), vaseline (< Ger.
wasser ‘water’ + Grk. elaion ‘oil’
 eponyms (Grk. epi ‘upon’, onomos ‘name’
• Sandwich, Hamburger
Inflection cont’d
Inflection
 variant forms of words signal grammatical
information
 English nouns
• plural –s, plural with internal change (teeth)
• possessive –’s
 English verbs
• 3rd sg. present: read +s
• progressive aspect: is reading
English is inflectionally challenged
 English verbs cont’d
• past tense: work + ed, sang
• past participle: chose + en, has studi + ed
 English adjectives
• comparative: small + er
• superlative: small + est
Inflection: morpheme meaning
Subject Present Imperfect Future
conditional
I
aime
aimais
aimerai
aimerais
thou
aimes
aimais
aimeras
aimerais
s/he
aime
aimait
aimera
aimerait
we
aimons
aimions
aimerons aimerions
‘youse’
aimez
aimiez
aimerez
they
aiment
aimaient aimeront
aimeriez
aimeraient
Singlular
Plural
Nominative
insula
insulae
Accusative
insulam
insula:s
Genitive
insulae
insula:rum
Dative
insulae
insuli:s
Ablative
insula:
insuli:s
Language types
 analytic (isolating)
• wo
m@n
tan
I
plural
play
‘we are playing the piano’
• wo
m@n
tan
I
plural
play
‘we played the piano’
• ta
da
wo
m@n
he
hit
I
plural
‘He hits us’
chin
piano
chin l@
piano past
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Lg types cont’d
 agglutinative (agglutinating, synthetic)
• ha:z-unk-ban (Hungarian)
house-our-in
‘in our house’
• muru-pa:-pa:-ku-pu-nčik (Quechua)
sow-Repetitive-Collective-ReflexiveBenefactive-we
‘we help him sow many times’
Lg types cont’d







inflecting (inflectional, fusional, synthetic)
hafđir ‘you (sg.) had’ (Icelandic)
‘have’: haf
Indicative: a
Singular: i, r
Past: a, đ, i
2nd Person: r
Lg types cont’d







e-le-ly-k-e-te ‘you (pl.) had loosened’
Past: e (augment), e
Perfect: le (partial reduplication), ly, k
Root: ly
Active Voice: k, e, te
Indicative Mood: e (non-augment)
2nd Person + Plural: te
Lg types cont’d
 incorporating (polysynthetic)
• angut tuktu-siuq-puq
• man caribou-hunt-3sg
• ‘the man has caribou-hunted’
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Important acronyms
 IA (Item & Arrangement)
• thank + -ed
 IP (Item & Process)
• sing + Past  sang
 WP (Word & Paradigm)
•
•
•
•
•
iglu, iglu-uk, iglu-it (sg, dual, plural)
hipp-os
hipp-oi
hipp-u:
hipp-o:n
hipp-o:
hipp-ois
hipp-on
hipp-u:s
Long words cont’d
 German
• Donaudampfschif(f)fahrtsgesellschaftkapitän
‘Danube Steamship Tour Company Captain’
• Kapitänswitwenslebenversicherungsgesellschaft
‘Widow’s Life Insurance Company’
• ‘Danube Steamship Tour Company Captain’s
widow’s Life Insurance Company’
 English
• pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Some long words
 Hungarian
• engesztelhetetlen ‘irreconcilable’
• legeslegmesengesztelhetetlenebbeknek
‘to those who are most irreconcilable (by
others)
Morphological Humour
 On National Public Radio’s “Cartalk,” Click and
Clack are playing with Morphology in their list of
credits:
 Copyeditor: Adeline Moore
 Accounts Payable: Ineeda Czech
 Pollution Control: Maury Missions
 Purchasing: Lois Bidder
 Statistician: Marge Innovera
 Russian Chauffeur: Picov Andropov
 Legal Firm: Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe.
Web site for lecture notes
 Course Web Site
• http://anthropology.uwo/faculty/creider/027/
 Teaching Assistant: Sheena McKay
• [email protected]
• Office Hours: Thursdays 3:30-5:30
• SH (Somerville House), Room 2332
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