Introduction to Linguistics

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS

DR Hany Ibrahim

الشركة شعار

Word And Word-formation processes

Word - Formation ProcessesOne of the distinctive properties of human language that we have already discussed in the introductory chapter is creativity, by which we mean the ability of native speakers of a language to produce and understand new forms in their language. Even though creativity is most apparent when it comes to sentence formation, where new words are added to our mental. In this part of Chapter 3 we discuss the processes that speakers of a language use regularly (and unconsciously too) to create new words in their language

(1) Derivation اإلشتقاقThe most productive process of word

formation in a language is the use of derivational morphemes to form new words from already existing forms, as we discussed in the previous handout. So, for example, from arrange we can derive rearrange, from which we can still derive rearrangement. Can you think of other examples? Derivation is the formation of a new

word or inflectable stem from another word or stem. It typically occurs by the addition of an affix . An affix is a bound morpheme that is joined before, after, or within a root or stem

* A prefix is an affix that is joined before a root or stem.(un- , pre- , mis- ) e.g ) The prefix un- attaches to the front of the stem selfish to form the word unselfish* A suffix is an affix that is attached to the end of a root or stem (-ful , -less , -ism) . e.g) The past tense suffix -ed attaches to the end of the stem walk to form the past tense verb walked.* An infix is an affix that is inserted within a root. or stem .Philippines (Tagalog) The focus marker -um- is a infix which is added after the first consonant of the root· bili: root ‘buy’ · -um-: infix ‘AGT’ · bumili: word ‘bought’

(2) Coinage ابتكارCoinage is the invention of totally new words. The typical process of coinage usually involves the extension of a product a name from a specific reference to a more general one. For example, think of Kleenex, Xerox, and Kodak. These started as names of specific products, but now they are used as the generic names for different brands of these types of products.

(3) Conversion التحويلConversion is the extension of the use of one word from its original grammatical category to another category as well. For example, the word must is a verb (e.g.

1 “You must attend classes regularly”), but it can also be used as a noun as in “Class attendance is a must”. Conversion from one category to another is very common in natural language morphology and it’s one way of enriching the lexicon of a language.

(4) Borrowing New words also enter a language through borrowing from other languages. English, for example, borrowed a lot of French words as a result of the Norman invasion in 1066, and that’s why the English lexicon has a Latinate flavor to it, even though English did not descend from Latin. Here are some examples of foreign words that found their way into English: (a) leak, yacht (from Dutch) (b) barbecue, cockroach (from Spanish) (c) piano, concerto (from Italian)

(5) Compounding New words are also created through the common process of compounding, i.e. combining two or more words together to form a new complex word. Here are some examples of compounding: (a) post + card → postcard (b) post + office → post office (c) book + case → bookcase We may also combine more than two words, e.g. mother-in-law, sergeant-at-arms.

(6) Acronyms المختصرات Acronyms are words created from the initial letters of several words. Typical examples are NATO, FBI, CIA, UN, UNICEF, FAQ, WYSIWYG, radar, laser

(7) Back-formation ) Back-formationBack-formation of words results when a word is formed from another word by taking off what looks like a typical affix in the language. For example, one of the very productive derivational morphemes in English is –er, which may be added to a verb to create a noun meaning “a person who performs the action of the verb”, e.g. teacher, writer. Sometimes, however, the reverse happens. A noun enters the language first and then a verb is “back-formed” from it. This is the case with the verbs edit and televise

for example, which entered English as back-formations from editor and television. (8) Clipping القصاصةAnother process of word-formation is clipping, which is the shortening of a longer word. Clipping in English gave rise to words such as fax from facsimile, gym from gymnasium, and lab from laboratory. (9) Blending الَمْزجBlending is another way of combining two words to form a new word. The difference between blending and compounding, however, is that in blending only parts of the words, not the whole words, are combined. Here are some examples: (a) smoke + fog → smog (b) motor + hotel → motel

Morphology

Morphemes

IntroductionMorphemes are what make up words.  Often, morphemes are thought of as words but that is not always true.  Some single morphemes are words while other words have two or more morphemes within them.  Morphemes are also thought of as syllables but this is incorrect. Many words have two or more syllables but only one morpheme.  Banana, apple, papaya, and nanny are just a few examples.  On the other hand, many words have two morphemes and only one syllable; examples include cats, runs, and barked.

Definitionsmorpheme: a combination of sounds that have a meaning.  A morpheme does not necessarily have to be a word.  Example:  the word cats has two morphemes. Cat is a morpheme, and s is a morpheme.  Every morpheme is either a base or an affix.  An affix can be either a prefix or a suffix.  Cat is the base morpheme, and s is a suffix. affix: a morpheme that comes at the beginning (prefix) or the ending (suffix) of a base morpheme.  Note: An affix usually is a morpheme that cannot stand alone.  Examples: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness. A few exceptions are able, like, and less.

base: a morpheme that gives a word its meaning.  The base morpheme cat gives the word cats its meaning: a particular type of animal. prefix: an affix that comes before a base morpheme.  The in in the word inspect is a prefix. suffix: an affix that comes after a base morpheme.  The s in cats is a suffix. free morpheme: a morpheme that can stand alone as a word without another morpheme.  It does not need anything attached to it to make a word. Cat is a free morpheme. bound morpheme: a sound or a combination of sounds that cannot stand alone as a word.  The s in cats is a bound morpheme, and it does not have any meaning without the free morpheme cat.

inflectional morpheme: this morpheme can only be a suffix.  The s in cats is an inflectional morpheme.  An  inflectional morpheme creates a change in the function of the word. Example: the d in invited indicates past tense. English has only seven inflectional morphemes:  -s (plural) and -s (possessive) are noun inflections; -s ( 3rd-person singular), -ed ( past tense), -en (past participle), and -ing ( present participle) are verb inflections;  -er (comparative) and -est (superlative) are adjective and adverb inflections. derivational morpheme: this type of morpheme changes the meaning of the word or the part of speech or both.  Derivational morphemes often create new words.  Example: the prefix and derivational morpheme un added to invited changes the meaning of the word. allomorphs: different phonetic forms or variations of a morpheme.  Example: The final morphemes in the following words are pronounced differently, but they all indicate plurality: dogs, cats, and horses. homonyms: morphemes that are spelled the same but have different meanings.  Examples:  bear (an animal) and bear (to carry),  plain (simple) and plain ( a level area of land).

homophones: morphemes that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings.  Examples: bear, bare; plain, plane; cite, sight, site. Fifteen Common Prefixes and Ten Common SuffixesThe following tables and tip are adopted from Grammar and Composition by Mary Beth Bauer, et al.

Prefix Meaningad- to, towardcircum- around, aboutcom- with, togetherde- away from, offdis- away, apartex- from, outin- notin- in, into

Prefix Meaninginter- betweenmis- wrongpost- afterre- back, againsub- beneath, undertrans- acrossun- not

Suffix Meaning

-ly in a certain way-ment the result of being-ness the state of being

-tion (-ion, -sion) the act of or the state of being

-less without

Suffix Meaning-able (-ible) capable of being-ance (-ence) the act of-ate making or applying-ful full of-ity the state of being

  TipSuffixes can also be used to tell the part of speech of a word.  The following examples show the parts of speech

indicated by the suffixes in the chart. Nouns:  -ance, -ful, -ity, -ment, -ness, -tion Verb:  -ate Adjectives:  -able, -ful, -less, -ly Adverb:  -ly

MorphologyMorphology is the study of word structure. For example in the sentences The dog runs and The dogs run, the word forms runs and dogs have an affix -s added, distinguishing them from the bare forms dog and run. Adding this suffix to a nominal stem gives plural forms, adding it to verbal stems restricts the subject to third person singular. Some morphological theories operate with two distinct suffixes -s, called allomorphs of the morphemes Plural and Third person singular, respectively. Languages differ wrt.

. to their morphological structure. Along one axis, we may distinguish analytic languages, with few or no suffixes or other morphological processes from synthetic languages with many suffixes. Along another axis, we may distinguish agglutinative languages, where suffixes express one grammatical property each, and are added neatly one after another, from fusional languages, with non-concatenative morphological processes (infixation, Umlaut, Ablaut, etc.) and/or with less clear-cut suffix boundaries

MorphemeIn morpheme-based morphology, a

morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning.In spoken language, morphemes are

composed of phonemes, the smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound.The concept morpheme differs from

the concept word, as many morphemes cannot stand as words on their own. A morpheme is free if it can stand alone, or bound if it is used exclusively along side a free morpheme.

English example: The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes "un-", (meaning not x) a bound morpheme, "-break-" a free morpheme, and "-able". "un-" is also a prefix, "-able" is a suffix. Both are affixes.Types of morphemesFree morphemes like town, dog can appear with other lexemes (as in town hall or dog house) or they can stand alone, or "free".

Free morphemes fall into two categories .First :The set of ordinary nouns , adjectives and verbs this is called ( lexical morphemes ) eg) boy , man , sad , long , follow , break …

Second :This set consists largely of the functional words in the language such as conjunctions , prepositions and pronouns this is called ( functional morphemes) eg)and , but , on , near , the , that , it ……

Bound morphemes like "un-" appear only together with other morphemes to form a lexeme. Bound morphemes in general tend to be prefixes and suffixes. Unproductive, non-affix morphemes that exist only in bound form are known as "cranberry" morphemes, from the "cran" in that very word. This also falls in two categories :First :Inflectional morphemes modify a word's tense, number, aspect, and so on. (as in the dog morpheme if written with the plural marker morpheme s becomes dogs). Noun + -'s , -sVerb + -s , -ing , -ed , -enAdjective + -est , -er

Second: Derivational morphemes can be added to a word to create (derive) another word: the addition of "-ness" to "happy," for example, to give "happiness." ( -less , -ness , pre- , un- , …..)Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme, e.g. the plural marker in English is sometimes realized as /-z/, /-s/ or /- ɪz/.

Free morphemeIn linguistics, free morphemes

are morphemes that can stand alone, unlike bound morphemes, which occur only as parts of words. In the English sentence colorless green ideas sleep furiously, for example, color, green, idea, and sleep are all free morphemes, whereas -less, -s and -ly are all bound morphemes

Bound morphemeBound morphemes are morphemes that can

occur only when attached to root morphemes. Affixes are bound morphemes. Common English bound morphemes include: -ing, -ed, -er, and pre-.

Morphemes that are not bound morphemes are free morphemes.Allomorph

An allomorph is a linguistics term for a variant form of a morpheme. The concept occurs when a unit of meaning can vary in sound (phonologically) without changing meaning. It is used in linguistics to explain the comprehension of variations in sound for a specific morpheme.

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Allomorphy in EnglishEnglish has several morphemes that vary

in sound but not in meaning. Examples include the past tense and the plural morphemes.Example In the English language the

past tense morpheme is -ed. It occurs in several allomorphs depending on its phonological environment, assimilating voicing of the previous segment or inserting a schwa when following an alveolar stop:as /əd/ in 'hunted' or 'banded', as /d/ in 'buzzed', as /t/ in 'fished'

morphological descriptionThe girl's wildness shocked the teachers The girl 's wild - ness shock (Functional) ( lexical ) (inflectional) (lexical) (derivational ) (lexical ) the teach er s ed ( inflectional ) (Functional ) (lexical) (derivational) ( inflectional)

This shows the different categories of morphemes

Morphemes:1.Free:a. Lexicalb. Functional2. Bound:a. DerivationalB. Inflectional

problems in morphological descriptionSo far we have only considered examples of English words in which the different morphemes are easily identifiable . thus what is the inflectional morpheme which makes sheep the plural of sheep , or men the plural of man ?A related question concern the inflection which makes went the past of go .And yet another question concern the derivation of an adjective like legal . If al is the derivational suffix , as it is in forms like institutional , then what is the stem ? No it is not leg A full description of English morphology will have to take account of both historical influences and the effect of borrowed elements .