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MORPHOLOGY
rd
3 lecture
ENGLISH INFLECTION
Inflection and inflection in
English
What is inflection
word classes, paradigms, categories, word-forms
declination/conjugation, traditional grammar
basic allomorph, underlying representation
productivity
 synchronic and diachronic analysis
 nouns, pronouns (personal – subject and object
case, possessive and demonstrative) , adjectives
(comparison and possessive adjectives), verbs
 adverbs, prepositions, articles
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Inflectional morphology
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is the branch that deals with paradigms. It
is concerned with two things: with the
semantic oppositions among morphosyntactic categories, on the one hand, and
on the other, with the formal means,
including inflections, that distinguish
them.
What are morpho-syntactic
categories?
This boy is loud.
These boys are loud.
 noun in an active sentence is required to “start”
the sentence
 this noun to be either in singular or in plural
 This is the –syntactic part
 The morpho- part can be explained by the –s
which marks the category of number
Different categories for different
word-classes
NOUNS – number, possession
VERBS – tense, person, participles
ADJECTIVES – comparison
PRONOUNS – number, (remnants of) case,
gender, possession
 ADVERBS – comparison
 ARTICLES, PREPOSITIONS, etc are not subject
to such morpho-syntactic changes
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NOUNS
NUMBER
sg.
pl.
table
tables
sea
seas
church
churches
cat
cats
x+s
sg.
pl.
goose
geese
man child
men children
?????
foot ox
feet oxen
–s is the underlying representation
 basic allomorph
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Goose + s= geese, man + s = men
Productivity is a term that is very
important in morphology
 plural marker –s has great productivity
 /z/ is the basic allomorph of the category
of number in English
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Some changes in spelling
orthographic convention
 dictionary-dictionaries, why not dictionarys
 the phonological change: wolf – wolves
(/z/ voiced the voiceless /f/)
cat – cats (the voiceless /t/ devoiced
/z/ into /s/)
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Nouns – POSSESSION
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Pete’s book fell to the floor
A great topic for discussion !!!!
1. Nominal or adjectival inflection?
2. Is it inflection at all?
Orthographic adaptation: That is James’ book.
The pronunciation is either /dзeimziz/ or /dзeimz/
VERBS
3rd person marker in the present tense
 past tense forms (preterit)
 past participle forms
 suppletion – suppletive alterations
 present participle forms
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Present tense
1st
person
2nd
person
3rd
person
singular
work
plural
work
work
work
works
work
SUPPLETION
is when we take different roots to constitute
word-forms in the paradigm of a lexeme,
and the different forms are called
suppletive alterations
singular
plural
1st person
am
are
2nd person
are
are
3rd person
is
are
past tense forms
walked
played
weeded
 the past tense marker is –ed suffix
 V + ed = V ed
 phonologically conditioned allomorphs
/d/, /t/ and /id/, where the /d/ is the most
frequent allomorph
“Irregular” forms
See, saw, seen,
drink, drank, drunk,
sit, sit, sit,
think, thought, thought
grow, grew, grown
stand, stood, stood
be, was, were, been
All the “irregular” forms are still morphologically
the suffixation with –ed: different allomorphs.
Most linguists will anyway accept that:
 break + ed = broke
 break + ed = broken
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Present participles
Present participles are formed by the
suffixation of verbs with the –ing suffix.
 This suffix does not cause any major
changes to the verb.
 It does not change the stress or
pronunciation in any way. To achieve this,
some alterations in spelling have to
happen
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ADJECTIVES and adverbs
two types of adjectival and adverbial
comparison: inflectional and
periphrastic
big – bigger – (the) biggest
beautiful – more beautiful – (the) most
beautiful
Some adjectival and adverbial comparisons
are “irregular” - suppletion
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PRONOUNS
subject
object
possessive
adjective
possessive
pronouns
1st person sg
I
me
my
mine
2nd person sg
you
you
your
yours
3rd person – male
sg
he
him
his
his
3rd person –
female sg
she
her
her
hers
3rd person –
neutral sg
it
it
its
its
1st person pl
we
us
our
ours
3rd person pl
they
them
their
theirs