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Morphology, Part 3:
Word-Formation Processes
January 31, 2012
Problem Set Review
• The unemployment controversy.
• Esperanto + William Shatner
Gender-Free Quick Write
• Is it feasible for speakers of English to create genderfree pronouns?
Gender-Free Quick Write
• Is it feasible for speakers of English to create genderfree pronouns?
Gender-Free Quick Write
• Is it feasible for speakers of English to create genderfree pronouns?
Gender-Free Quick Write
• Is it feasible for speakers of English to create genderfree pronouns?
Find out more at:
http://www.bignewsday.com/story.asp?code=BZ345203T&news=yo_being_used_as_gender-neutral_pronoun
More Word Formation Processes
•
•
So far, we’ve only looked at one type of word-formation
process: affixation
•
= concatenating morphemes in a row
•
Prefixation, suffixation, infixation, circumfixation…
There are many different ways to make new words
without concatenating morphemes together.
•
compounding
•
internal change
•
reduplication
•
blending, etc.
Compounding
• In compounding, two or more free morphemes combine to
make a new word
• Ex: baseball, blackboard, lightbulb, podcast
• Compounding is very common in the world’s languages.
• German is particularly fond of compounding:
Donaudampfschiffahrtgesellschaft
Donau
“danube”
Dampf
“steam”
Schiff
“ship”
Fahrt
“excursion”
Gesellschaft “company”
Compounding Tests
• Stress Shifts
blackbird vs.
black bird
lightbulb vs.
light bulb
• Adverbs can’t modify compound nouns:
*extremely gentleman vs.
extremely gentle man
*the very White House vs.
the very white house
• Note: it’s also possible to form verb and adjective
compounds:
• Verbs: dropkick, spoonfeed, whitewash…
• Adjectives: nationwide, redhot…
Back Formations
• Back formations: removal of an (incorrectly perceived)
affix to form a new word
• Ex: “edit”
• “editor” perceived as /edit/ + /-er/
• Other examples:
peddle (from peddler) swindle (from swindler)
burgle (from burglar)
pea (from pease)
laze (from lazy)
liaise (from liaison)
• A “reverse” backformation:
Chinese (from Chinee + /-s/)
A Sipid Story of Requited Love
“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.”
--from “How I Met My Wife”, by Jack Winter
• Check out more at:
http://www.matefl.org/_mgxroot/page_10679.html
• Or consider:
Reduplication
• Reduplication: repetition of all or part of the stem
• Indonesian: (total reduplication)
rumah
‘house’
rumahrumah
‘houses’
ibu
‘mother’
ibuibu
‘mothers’
lalat
‘fly’
lalatlalat
‘flies’
• Tagalog: (partial reduplication)
bili
‘buy’
bibili
‘will buy’
kain
‘eat’
kakain
‘will eat’
pasok
‘enter’
papasok
‘will enter’
Reduplication in English?
• There are a few examples of reduplication in English.
• Can you think of any?
• Individual words/phrases: “bling bling”, “very very”, “teeny
weeny”…
• There is also one reduplicative process in English…
• schm- reduplication:
fancy schmancy
tired schmired
football schmootball
Nobel Prize schmobel prize
...etc.
Internal Change
• A (slightly) more common word-formation process in
English is internal change.
• = changing sounds inside a root creates a new word.
• Also known as alternations
sing
~
sang
present/past
drive
~
drove
present/past
foot
~
feet
singular/plural
mouse
~
mice
singular/plural
import
~
import
noun/verb
present
~
present
noun/verb
By the way...
• Some internal change processes have (limited)
productivity in English
• What’s the past tense of “sing”?
sang
sung
• ring?
rang
rung
• bring?
brang?
brung?
brought?
brought?
Roots and Patterns
• An extreme form of “internal change” is found in Semitic
languages, like Arabic and Hebrew
• “Root and pattern morphology”
• Arabic: /k-t-b/ root “write”
kitaab
alkitaab
maktab
kataba
kaataba
ifkataba
kuttaab
‘a book’
‘the book’
‘office’
‘to write’
‘to correspond’
’to make a copy’
‘Koranic school’
kutub
kaatib
maktaba
kattaba
?uktaba
kutubii
miktaab
‘books’
‘author’
‘library’
‘to make write’
‘to dictate’
‘bookseller’
‘typewriter’
Conversion
• Conversion = usage of an exising word in a new lexical
category.
• English makes use of this process a lot.
• Examples:
• to butter
to nail
(N  V)
• a report
a call
(V  N)
• to right (a wrong)
to total (a car)
(A  V)
• Closer to home?
• cookie: noun to verb (cookie-ize?)
Awkwardizations?
• Football Announcer-ese:
• “Sanders defensed the pass.”
(noun to verb)
• “Urlacher lost weakside contain.”
(verb to noun)
• Corporate speak?
• During Hurricane Katrina:
• "We heard that there was a gentleman who was
stuck in his boat just downstream from us so we are
efforting to help rescue agencies to find him".
Conversion
Suppletion
• Suppletion occurs when inflected forms of a word have
different roots.
• In English, this is rare:
• go ~ went
• be ~ were
• compare with: walk ~ walked; cook ~ cooked
• Portuguese:
• ir
“to go”
comer
“to eat”
• vou
“I go”
como
“I eat”
• fui
“I went”
comi
“I ate”
• ia
“I was going”
comia
“I was eating”
Child Verb Morphology
• Patterns like the following are frequently found in child
language acquisition:
Present Past
Stage 1:
go
went
Stage 2:
go
goed
Stage 3:
go
went
• What’s going on here?
• What is the child doing, as a language learner?
Clipping
• Clipping = shortening of an existing word.
• demo
from “demonstration”
• condo
from “condominium”
• fax
from “facsimile”
• deli
from “delicatessen”
• lab
from “laboratory”
• taxicab
from “taximeter cabriolet”
• (cabriolet = horse-drawn carriage)
Blends
• Blending = melding together parts of two different
words.
• brunch
from breakfast and lunch
• smog
from smoke and fog
• spam
from spiced and ham
• telethon
from television and marathon
• chortle
from chuckle and snort
• motel
from motor and hotel
• chillax
from chill and relax
• bankster
from banker and gangster
• bricked
from brilliant and wicked
The Remainders
• Coinage
• = completely making a new word up.
• Example: snarky, dog
• Eponyms
• = naming words after people
• ex: boycott, crapper, sideburns
• Acronyms
• Creating a word out of an abbreviation.
• ex: scuba, radar, laser