ENG 426: Morphology by Ammar Anas

Lecture 1:
ENG 426: Morphology

By Ammar Anas
_____________________________________________________________________________
(Content of the lecture 1 covers topic such as word: definition, classification, types versus tokens, and lexicon.)
Defining Morphology
Morphology is a branch of linguistics (and one of the major components of grammar) that studies word
structures, especially in terms of morphemes.
Traditionally, a basic distinction has been made between morphology (which is primarily concerned with the
internal structures of words) and syntax (which is primarily concerned with the ways in which words are put
together in sentences).
"The term 'morphology' has been taken over from biology where it is used to denote the study of the forms of
plants and animals. . . . It was first used for linguistic purposes in 1859 by the German linguist August
Schleicher (Salmon 2000), to refer to the study of the form of words. In present-day linguistics, the term
'morphology' refers to the study of the internal structure of words, and of the systematic form-meaning
correspondences between words. . . .
Morphology is an essential subfield of linguistics. Generally, it aims to describe the structures of words and
patterns of word formation in a language. Specifically, it aims to (i) pin down the principles for relating the
form and meaning of morphological expressions, (ii) explain how the morphological units are integrated and the
resulting formations interpreted, and (iii) show how morphological units are organized in the lexicon in terms of
affinity and contrast. The study of morphology uncovers the lexical resources of language, helps speakers to
acquire the skills of using them creatively, and consequently express their thoughts and emotions with
eloquence.
What is a word?
Some definition of a word:
1: A single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a
sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed:
(Source:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/word )
2: A word is an uninterrupted string of letters which is preceded by a blank space and followed either by a
blank space or a punctuation mark (Plag 2003)
3: A speech sound or a combination of sounds, or its representation inwriting, that symbolizes and
communicates a meaning and may consist of a single morpheme or a combination of morphemes.
(By Richard Nordquist, http://grammar.about.com/)
words are not to be regarded as merely sequences of syllables. The concept of the word is a grammatical
concept; in speech, words are not separated by pauses, but they are recognized as recurrent units that make up
sentences. Very generally, grammar is concerned with the relations between words in sentences. Classes of
words, or parts of speech, as they are often called, are distinguished because they occupy different places in
sentence structure, and in most languages some of them appear in different forms according to their function
(English man, men; walk, walked; I, me; and so on).
(Source: http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/329791/language/27160/Grammar#ref665936)
In linguistics, a word is the smallest element that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content
(with literal or practical meaning). This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but
will not necessarily stand on its own. A word may consist of a single morpheme (for example: oh!, rock, red,
quick, run, expect), or several (rocks, redness, quickly, running, unexpected), whereas a morpheme may not be
able to stand on its own as a word (in the words just mentioned, these are -s, -ness, -ly, -ing, un-, -ed). A
complex word will typically include a root and one or more affixes (rock-s, red-ness, quick-ly, run-ning, unexpect-ed), or more than one root in a compound (black-board, rat-race). Words can be put together to build
larger elements of language, such as phrases (a red rock), clauses (I threw a rock), and sentences (He threw a
rock too but he missed).
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word#Definitions)
Most of the above definitions of the word characterize two following characteristics:
(1) they have meanings that are unpredictable and so must be listed in dictionaries,
(2) They are the building-blocks for words and phrases.
Although this is broadly true, but the two characteristics do not always go together.
For example, the relationship between a word and its meaning is purely based on convention. Native speakers
develop ability to understand new words by looking into identifiable parts for example dioecious is
completely a new word and a native speaker can predict the meaning of dioeciously as the suffix -ly has
adjective meaning of dioecious. Dictionary will not need to include dioeciously in dictionary. Word such as
un-Clintonish and de-Yeltsinises are other examples which have predictable meaning for a native speakers and
do not need to include in the dictionary. The point is that association of meaning to be a word is not always
applicable. It does not mean the association of meaning to a word is wrong. It does not mean that the common
view of words as basic semantic building blocks of language is simply wrong because in some instances a
words original motivation is totally obscured by its pronunciation but can still be glimpsed from its spelling, as
with cupboard and handkerchief. It shows that words are intrinsically prone to drift semantically, and in
particular to acquire meanings that are more specialised than one would predict if one had never encountered
them before.
Another point is that Idioms, collocations and proverb are composed of two or more words and despite that they
have meaning, their meaning cannot be predicted from the words it is composed of. For example:
(1) The interrogation took a long time because the suspect kept introducing red herrings.
(red herring is an idiom meaning irrelevant argument,)
(2) white wine, white coffee, white noise and white man
(3) Too many cooks spoil the broth. A stitch in time saves nine.
Due to this reason, those items which have meanings that are unpredictable and need to be included in
dictionaries are called Lexical item. Those items which are building-blocks for words and phrases are
characterized as word.
What is token type relationship?

Token:
In counting words in a text or corpus, each instance of a word counts as a token of that word. This gives the raw
number of words that occur with a particular affix.
Type:
In counting words in a text or corpus, only the first instance of each word is counted. This gives the number of
types with a particular affix.
Example:
Mary goes to Edinburgh next week, and she intends going to Washington next month.
In the above sentences, there are fourteen words. But there is also a sense in which there are fewer than fourteen
words in the sentence, because two of them (the words to and next) are repeated. In this sense, the third word is
the same as the eleventh, and the fifth word is the same as the thirteenth, so there are only twelve words in the
sentence. Let us say that the third and the eleventh word of the above sentence are distinct tokens of a single
type, and likewise the fifth and thirteenth word. Words are recorded in the dictionaries on type interpretation.

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Lecture 1:

ENG 426: Morphology

What is token type relationship?

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