Download Notes on the sheet entitled “Some Additional Review” 1. Morphology

Notes on the sheet entitled “Some Additional Review”
1.
Morphology Review
a. Column B forms are easier to analyze: each is a verb that’s made up of a noun
plus the suffix “-ate”: [ [ X ]N + ate ]V = “to insert / add X”. The column A
words also end in “-ate,” which means that there’s some partial sharing of
form between (A) words and (B) words. The problem with the (A) words,
though, is that they really can be divided into two morphemes. If you chop off
the string “-ate”, you’re left with strings that don’t mean anything in particular
in English: communic-, elev-, specul-, calibr-, separ-. Hence, the (A) words
are SIMPLE words while the (B) words are COMPLEX words. Even if you
could try to analyze the (A) words as “something-plus-‘ate’”, you’d be stuck
figuring out a consistent meaning. The form “elevate” doesn’t mean “to add
‘elev’”…
b. The forms hydrate and salinate are trickier. Their meanings fit nicely with the
(B) words – to add water, to add salt – but the strings before –ate are not
themselves real English nouns. What one MIGHT notice, however, is that
hydr- and salin- can be found in other English words related to water and salt,
respectively: hydroplane, hydrophilic, hydrogen; saline (solution), salinic …
So hydr- and salin- carry consistent meaning but can’t stand alone. You might
say, for example, that they’re some sort of “defective” words in English; they
have real-word meaning but must be attached to some other affix.
As a matter of fact, linguists call these forms “bound roots.” They have clear,
generalizable meanings in English but they can’t ever stand as free words.
Pretty much all of the bound roots in English come from Latin and Greek.
2.
V
N
V
pre
V
|
|
re calibrate
V
suf
pre
V
|
|
re calibrate ion
pre
V
V
N suf
|
|
de caffeine ate
V
suf
N suf
|
|
saliva ate ing
Notes:
ƒ
ƒ
3.
For recalibration, the “re-“ must first attach to calibrate, as “re-“ does not
prefix to noun.
For decaffeinate, you must form caffeinate first and then add “de-“ for the
same reason: de- prefixes to verbs to indicated the undoing of an act. There is
no word as *decaffeine from which you can build decaffeinate.
Basic word order for Irish Gaelic: V S O.
4.
Sentences
a. Subject = “my brother”
b. Direct object = “a house with a pool”
c. PP is adjectival; it modifies “house” (What kind of house? One with a pool.)
d. Not a constituent. Can’t be moved to the front; has no corresponding pro-form;
can’t serve as the answer to a question.
<NOTE! These “constituency tests” are the proof!>
e. See below.
5.
Word Types
a. Content words: brother, buy, house, pool (N, V, Adj, Adv are the content
categories)
b. Function words: My, should, a, with
(Det, Aux, P are the functional
categories)
c. All of these words are simple words!
d. None of these words is complex!
e. Based on these data, English looks to be an insolating language – only simple
words; no affixation.
(We know, however, that English is a hybrid; it has inflected words and quasiagglutinating words, too…)
S
NP
Aux
VP
V
NP
Det
N
PP
P
NP
Det
N
Det
N
|
|
|
|
My brother should buy a house with a pool.