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    The Hierarchical Structure of Words

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    Vy Phương
    The document discusses the hierarchical structure of words. Words have a layered structure, with morphemes organized in a systematic linear order but also forming nested constituents. To fully represent a word's structure, we must indicate the root, derivational affix meanings, and part of speech. This additional information shows words have a two-dimensional hierarchical structure rather than just a linear string of morphemes. A labeled branching tree is the best representation to show the nested relationships within a word's morphology.

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    The Hierarchical Structure of Words

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    Vy Phương
    488 views2 pages
    The document discusses the hierarchical structure of words. Words have a layered structure, with morphemes organized in a systematic linear order but also forming nested constituents. To fully represent a word's structure, we must indicate the root, derivational affix meanings, and part of speech. This additional information shows words have a two-dimensional hierarchical structure rather than just a linear string of morphemes. A labeled branching tree is the best representation to show the nested relationships within a word's morphology.

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    The hierarchical structure of words

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    The document discusses the hierarchical structure of words. Words have a layered structure, with morphemes organized in a systematic linear order but also forming nested constituents. To fully represent a word's structure, we must indicate the root, derivational affix meanings, and part of speech. This additional information shows words have a two-dimensional hierarchical structure rather than just a linear string of morphemes. A labeled branching tree is the best representation to show the nested relationships within a word's morphology.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    488 views2 pages

    The Hierarchical Structure of Words

    Uploaded by

    Vy Phương
    The document discusses the hierarchical structure of words. Words have a layered structure, with morphemes organized in a systematic linear order but also forming nested constituents. To fully represent a word's structure, we must indicate the root, derivational affix meanings, and part of speech. This additional information shows words have a two-dimensional hierarchical structure rather than just a linear string of morphemes. A labeled branching tree is the best representation to show the nested relationships within a word's morphology.

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    The Hierarchical Structure of Words

    1. Morphemes within words

     morphemes in words have a strict and systematic linear order


    consider the morphological structure of fiendishness under this definition:

    fiend + -ish + -ness

     within words, morphemes are also organized in highly patterned ways


    words have an obvious linear order, but they also have a layered structure

    fiend + -ish  fiendish + -ness  fiendishness

    ( ( (fiend) + -ish) + -ness)

    2. Representing the hierarchical structure of words

     in order to provide a more complete representation of the structure of a word,


    we need to take into account the following:

     the fact that every simple word contains one root


     the meanings of the derivational affixes in the word
     the fact that each lexical item represents a particular part of speech

     we can convey this additional, necessary information by labeling the


    parentheses around each and every constituent

    (( (( fiend)Root + ( -ish )DA)Adjective + ( -ness )DA) Noun

     this additional structure is a consequence, as we saw above, of the recursive


    application of derivational rules with the result that lexical items may be
    embedded in other lexical items.

     the internal structure of words is not a one-dimensional string of morphemes but


    a two dimensional hierarchy of related constituents

     nested parentheses are one way of representing hierarchical structures of this


    sort, but they have the disadvantage of looking linear
     an alternative representation which makes the hierarchy more apparent is a
    branching tree

    fiendishness

    fiendish -ness

    fiend -ish

     the appropriate representation for the morphological structure of words is


    a labeled branching tree

    fiendishnessnoun

    fiendishadjective -ness DA

    fiendroot -ish DA

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