Università degli Studi di Cagliari
Facoltà di Farmacia
Corso di Laurea in Tossicologia
Lingua inglese
Anno accademico 2011/2012, secondo semestre
Seconda lezione
Dott. Rino Bosso
[email protected]
Morphology
In linguistics, morphology is the identification,
analysis and description of the structure of a given
language's morphemes and other linguistic units,
such as words, affixes, parts of speech,
intonation/stress, or implied context (words in a
lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology).
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_%28lingu
istics%29
Morphemes
In morphology, a bound morpheme is a morpheme that only appears
as part of a larger word; a free or unbound morpheme is one that can
stand alone[1].
Affixes are always bound. English language affixes are either prefixes or
suffixes. E.g., -ment in "shipment" and pre- in "prefix". Affixes normally
carry only grammatical meaning.
Many roots are free morphemes, e.g., ship- in "shipment", while
others are bound. Roots normally carry lexical meaning.
Words like chairman that contain two free morphemes (chair and
man) are referred to as compound words.
The morpheme ten- in "tenant" may seem free, since there is an
English word "ten". However, its lexical meaning is derived from the
Latin word tenere, "to hold", and this or related meaning is not among
the meanings of the English word "ten", hence ten- is a bound
morpheme in the word "tenant".
Plurality morphemes
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically
meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to
morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not
identical to a word, and the principal difference between the
two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas
a word, by definition, is a freestanding unit of meaning. Every
word comprises one or more morphemes.
English speakers recognize that the words dog and dogs are
closely related — differentiated only by the plurality
morpheme "-s“, which is only found bound to nouns, and is
never separate.
Plurality
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of
quantity (i.e., grammatical number) representing a
value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns,
a plural word or marker (morpheme) is used to
distinguish a value other than the default quantity
of a noun, which is typically one. Plurality is a
linguistic universal, represented variously among
the languages as a separate word (free morpheme),
an affix (bound morpheme), or by other
morphological indications such as stress or implicit
markers/context.
Nouns – regular plural forms
The plural of most nouns is made by just adding –s to the
singular:
Singular
trial
drug
vaccine
day
Kennedy
Plural
trials
drugs
vaccines
days
Kennedys
However, there are some special cases…↓
Plural of nouns ending in consonant + y
If the singular ends in consonant + y the plural is
normally made by changing y to i and adding es:
Singular
(clinical) study
(gene) therapy
laboratory
Plural
(clinical) studies
(gene) therapies
laboratories
Plural of nouns ending in sh, ch, s, x or z
If the singular ends in –sh, -ch, -s, -x or –z the plural
is made by adding –es:
Singular
Plural
box
church
bus
boxes
churches
buses
crash*
buzz**
crashes
buzzes
*scontro, urto, impatto
**ronzio, brusio
Plural of nouns ending in o
Some nouns ending in –o have plurals in –es:
Singular
Plural
potato
potatoes
tomato
tomatoes
Some other nouns and nouns ending in vowel + o have plurals in -s:
Singular
Plural
radio
radios
zoo
zoos
placebo
placebos
A few nouns ending in o can have plurals in –es or -s:
Singular
mosquito
Plural
mosquitos/mosquitoes
Irregular plurals
Nouns ending in –f(e) have plurals in –ves:
knife
knives
life
lives
leaf
leaves
Other irregular plurals:
bacterium
child
foot
corpus
person
tooth
bacteria
children
feet
corpora
people
teeth
Grammar exercises
If you want to learn how build the plural of English
countable nouns, have a look at the following webpage:
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/englishgrammar/nouns/count-nouns
For uncountable nouns have a look
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/englishgrammar/nouns/uncount-nouns
here:
For
proper
nouns
have
a
look
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/englishgrammar/nouns/proper-nouns
here:
Esercitazione 1
Gli studenti devono inviare a [email protected] la
traduzione in italiano del testo «Placebos» riportato a
pagina 5 del libro di testo entro e non oltre lunedì 12
marzo 2012.
Nel redigere la vostra traduzione, potete avvalervi delle
risorse online suggerite a lezione. Il file che invierete
dovrà contenere un breve commento in lingua inglese di
50 -150 parole indicante le risorse che avete utilizzato e le
eventuali difficoltà incontrate.
Il formato richiesto è .doc o .docx o file di OpenOffice.