Immediate Constituents: The Hierarchical Structure of Words

Immediate Constituents
The Hierarchical Structure of Words

Morphemes are added in a fixed order. This order reflects the hierarchical
structure of the word. A word is not a simple sequence of morphemes. It has an
internal structure. For example, the word unsystematic is composed of three
morphemes: un-, system, and -atic. The root is system, a noun, to which we add
the suffix -atic, resulting in an adjective, systematic. To this adjective, we add the
prefix un-, forming a new adjective, unsystematic.
In order to represent the hierarchical organization of words (and sentences),
linguists use tree diagrams. The tree diagram for unsystematic is as follows:
Adjective
un Adjective
Noun atic
system
This tree represents the application of two morphological rules:
1. Noun + atic → Adjective
2. un + Adjective → Adjective
Rule 1 attaches the derivational suffix -atic to the root noun, forming an
adjective. Rule 2 takes the adjective formed by rule 1 and attaches the
derivational prefix un-. The diagram shows that the entire word—unsystematic—
is an adjective that is composed of an adjective—systematic—plus un. The
adjective is itself composed of a noun—system—plus the suffix -atic.
Hierarchical structure is an essential property of human language. Words (and
sentences) have component parts, which relate to each other in specific, rule-
governed ways. Although at first glance it may seem that, aside from order, the
morphemes un- and -atic each relate to the root system in the same way, this is
not the case. The root system is “closer” to -atic than it is to un-, and un- is
actually connected to the adjective systematic, and not directly to system. Indeed,
*unsystem is not a word. Further morphological rules can be applied to the given
structure. For example, English has a derivational suffix -al, as in egotistical,
fantastical, and astronomical. In these cases, -al is added to an adjective—
egotistic, fantastic, astronomic—to form a new adjective. The rule for -al is as
follows:
3. Adjective + al → Adjective
Another affix is -ly, which is added to adjectives—happy, lazy, hopeful—to
form adverbs happily, lazily, hopefully. Following is the rule for -ly:
4. Adjective + ly → Adverb
Applying these two rules to the derived form unsystematic, we get the following
tree for unsystematically:
Adverb
Adjective ly
Adjective al
un Adjective
Noun atic
System
This is a rather complex word. Despite its complexity, it is well-formed because

it follows the morphological rules of the language. On the other hand, a very
simple word can be ungrammatical. Suppose in the above example we first added
un- to the root system. That would have resulted in the nonword *unsystem.
Noun
un Noun
system
*Unsystem is not a possible word because the rule of English that allows un- to
be added to nouns is restricted to very few cases, and those always nouns that
already have a suffix such as un + employment, un + acceptance or un +
feasability. The large soft-drink company whose ad campaign promoted the
Uncola successfully flouted this linguistic rule to capture people’s attention. Part
of our linguistic competence includes the ability to recognize possible versus
impossible words, like *unsystem and *Uncola. Possible words are those that
conform to the rules; impossible words are those that do not. Tree diagrams make
explicit the way speakers represent the internal structure of the morphologically
complex words in their language. In speaking and writing, we appear to string
morphemes together sequentially as in un + system + atic. However, our mental
representation of words is hierarchical as well as linear, and this is shown by tree
diagrams. Inflectional morphemes are equally well represented. The following
tree shows that the inflectional agreement morpheme -s follows the derivational
morphemes -ize and re- in refinalizes:
Verb
Verb s
re Verb
Adjective ize
final
The tree also shows that re- applies to finalize, which is correct as *refinal is not
a word, and that the inflectional morpheme follows the derivational morpheme.
The hierarchical organization of words is even more clearly shown by
structurally ambiguous words, words that have more than one meaning by virtue
of having more than one structure. Consider the word 'unlockable'. Imagine you
are inside a room and you want some privacy. You would be unhappy to find the
door is unlockable—‘not able to be locked.’ Now imagine you are inside a
locked room trying to get out. You would be very relieved to find that the door is
unlockable—‘able to be unlocked.’ These two meanings correspond to two
different structures, as follows:
Adjective Adjective
un Adjective Verb able
Verb able un Verb
lock lock
In the first structure the verb lock combines with the suffix -able to form an
adjective lockable (‘able to be locked’). Then the prefix un-, meaning ‘not,’
combines with the derived adjective to form a new adjective unlockable (‘not
able to be locked’). In the second case, the prefix un- combines with the verb
lock to form a derived verb unlock. Then the derived verb combines with the
suffix -able to form unlockable, ‘able to be unlocked.’ An entire class of words in
English follows this pattern: unbuttonable, unzippable, and unlatchable, among
others. The ambiguity arises because the prefix un- can combine with an
adjective, as illustrated in rule 2, or it can combine with a verb, as in undo,
unstaple, unearth, and unloosen. If words were only strings of morphemes
without any internal organization, we could not explain the ambiguity of words
like unlockable. These words also illustrate another key point, which is that
structure is important to determining meaning. The same three morphemes occur
in both versions of unlockable, yet there are two distinct meanings. The different
meanings arise because of the different structures.
Recommendations on IC division:
Here are three recommendations on IC division:
1. If a word ends in an inflectional suffix, the first cut is between the
suffix and the rest of the word.
2. One of the ICs should be, if possible, a free form.
3. The meaning of the ICs should be related to meaning of the word.
-Stageberg, N., & Oakes, D. (2000). An Introductory English Grammar (5th ed.).
Orlando, FL.: Harcourt College Publishers.
-M. Haspelmath and A. Sims (2010): Understanding Morphology. Hodder
Education, an Hachette UK Company.

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Immediate Constituents

The Hierarchical Structure of Words

This is a rather complex word. Despite its complexity, it is well-formed because

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