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Chapter 4
Words and Sentences
Overview
• From Morphology
– The analysis of words
– and how they are structured
• To Syntax
– The analysis of phrases and sentences
– and how they are structured.
Morphology
• Words vs morphemes
• Morphemes as smallest units of meaning in
a language
– respect+ful; dis+respect+ful
– room+mate; stir+fry
– fire+fight+er
– Manhattan.
Morphological Analysis
• Describing morphemes…
• Analyzing their arrangements….
Describing Morphemes: Bases
• Form foundations of words
• Establish basic meanings
– English:
fish; talk
– Shinzwani: -lo- (fish); -lagu- (talk)
– Czech:
piv- (beer)
Kinds of Bases
– Roots
• Serve as underlying foundation
• Can’t be broken down any further
– English: fish
– Shinzwani: -lo- (fish)
– Stems
• Derived from roots
– By means of affixes (see ‘affix’ slides)
 English: fish+ing = fishing; talk+er = talker
 Shinzwani: lo+a = -loa (fishing)
• Can have additional affixes attached
– English: talker+s = talkers
– Shinzwani: ni+ku+loa = nikuloa (I am fishing).
Describing Morphemes: Affixes
• Attach to bases
• Add grammatical information
– English: -er; -ing
• = fisher, fishing, talker, talking
– Shinzwani: hu- (to) ; niku- (I am)
• = huloa (to fish), hulagua (to talk)
• = nikuloa (I am fishing), nikulagua (I am talking)
– Czech: -o; -a; -Ø
• = pivo (beer), piva ((2, 3, 4) beers), piv ((5+) beers).
Kinds of Affixes
• Prefixes
– im+possible
– un+likely
• Suffixes
– walk+ing
• Infixes
– fan+bloody+tastic
• Circumfixes
– m+loz+i (fisherman)
• Reduplication
– mpole+mpole (very slow)
• Interweaving
– k+i+t+aa+b (book)
• Portmanteau
– Blog
– Brunch
What Affixes DO
• Derivation
– Changing one kind of word into another
• verbs into nouns: read -- reader; -lo- -- mlozi
• adjectives into verbs: modern -- modernize
• Inflection
– Showing relationships among words in a group
• tenses: hunted -- hunting
• comparisons: big -- bigger -- biggest
• persons: I fish -- she fishes
• number: cat -- cats; mpaha – zimpaha (cat/cats).
How Many Morphemes?
• The dogs chased the cats into the bushes.
How Many Morphemes?
• The dog-z chas-t the cat-s in-to the bush-ez.
• What is the difference between –z and –s?
• And what about –ez?
Analyzing Arrangement:
Free and Bound Morphemes
• Free morphemes are like bases
– Can stand alone
• e.g., words: speak; respect; Manhattan
• Bound morphemes are like affixes
– Must be attached to other morphemes
• e.g., affixes: -er; -ing; dis-; -ful
– speak-er; speak-ing; dis-respect-ful
• But note: roots can also be BOUND MORPHEMES
– e.g., Shinzwani -lo- ‘fish’, Czech piv- ‘beer’
• Hierarchy among affixes
– English: derive first, then inflect…
• help+er+s (not help+s+er).
Allomorphs
• Variant forms of a single morpheme
– e.g., Shinzwani (see page 90 in textbook):
• {singular-}
– /shi-/ with -ri, -sahani, -kombe
– /mu-/ with -hono, -ndru
• {plural-}
– /zi-/ with -ri, -sahani, -kombe
– /mi-/ with –hono, -ndru
– e.g., English: cats, dogs, & horses
• {-plural}
– /-s/ following voiceless stops
– /-z/ following voiced stops and vowels
– /-Iz/ following fricatives.
How & Why Allomorphs Change
• Adjusting to neighboring sounds
– called “morphophonemic conditioning”
• English: cats, dogs, horses; improbable, illogical
• KiSwahili: W/R 4.11 (pages 74-75)
• Reflecting semantic categories
– called “semantic conditioning”
• KiSwahili: W/R 4.12 (pages 76-77)
Syntax
• How words combine into phrases & sentences
• Note fuzzy boundary between morphology and
syntax
– Shinzwani: ni+tso+hu+venza
‘I+will+you+like’
• All one word
– English: I will like you
• Four different words.
Analyzing Syntax
• Finding and testing substitution frames
– Also called ‘slots and fillers’
• The cat in the hat
• The cat in the basket
• The cat in the tree
• M+paha i+send+a mji+ni – The cat is going to town
• M+wana a+send+a mji+ni – The child is going to town
• Gari li+send+a mji+ni – The car is going to town
• M+tu m+zuri m+moja u+le -- that one good person
• Ki+kapu ki+zuri ki+moja ki+le -- that one good basket
• Gari
zuri moja li+le -- that one good car.
Labeling Substitution Frames
• Let the language be your guide
• Be prepared for different categories
– Grammatical gender
• Czech: masculine, feminine, neuter
• Shinzwani: human, animal, body part, useful, abstract,
– Case
• Czech: subject, object, possession, location,
• The effect of obligatory categories
– Grammatical categories that must be expressed.
Ordering Substitution Frames
• Restrictions
– Which words can go together?
• The hat in the cat?
• The cat exploded on the rug?
• Roasting a pot of coffee?
– Which orders are permitted?
• the black cat vs le chat noir
• (the) good person vs mtu mzuri
• Anymore I don’t eat pizza?
– SVO languages and prepositions?
• The cat in the tree vs Mpaha mwirijuu.
• Let the language be your guide.
Ambiguities
• Indicate alternative substitution frames
– Cow kills farmer with ax
• (newspaper headline)
– Put more H2O in the coffee, then the bones
• (message on chalkboard in physical anthro lab)
– Fruit flies like a banana
• (attributed to Groucho Marx).
Kinds of Grammars
• Prescriptive
– Provides a model of ‘proper’ speech
• Many schoolteachers, even today
• Descriptive
– Describes a language structure on its own terms
• Boas and anthropologists, 1900s
• Generative
– Generates all possible sentences of a language
• Noam Chomsky, 1950s.
Generating Sentences
• Begin at the level of Deep Structure
• Phrase Structure Rules
– produce abstract sentences
• Transformation Rules
– change sentence structures
• Does time fly like an arrow?
• Phonological rules assign sounds
• Result is pronounceable sentence
– At the level of Surface Structure.
Advantages of Generative
Grammar
• Trees show structure more clearly.
Disadvantages of Generative
Grammar
– Relies on introspection
• You need to know the language well enough to judge
grammaticality of sentences
– Assumes universal underlying structure
• Accessible through any language
– But new data continues to challenge universals
– Not as useful in learning new languages
• Working with surface level sentences
– Requires working with actual speakers
– And discovery of substitution frames