语言学导论
Chapter 3 From Morpheme to Phrase
1. Free morpheme and bound morpheme Free morphemes: Those which may occur alone, that is, those which may constitute words by themselves, a re free morphemes. Bound morphemes: Those which must appear with at lea st another morpheme are called bound morphemes.
2. Root, affix and stem A root is the base form of a word that cannot f urther be analyzed. An affix is the collective term for the type of formative t hat can be used only when added to another morpheme. A stem is any mor pheme or combination of morphemes to which an inflectional affix can be a dded. A root is the base form of a word that cannot further be analyzed wi thout total loss of identity. That is to say, it is that part of the word left w hen all the affixes are removed. In the word internationalism, after the remo val of inter-, -al and -ism, what is left is the root nation. All words contain a root morpheme. A root may be free or bound. E.g. black in blackbird, blac kboard and blacksmith; -ceive in receive, conceive and perceive. A few Englis h roots may have both free and bound variants. E.g. the word sleep is a fre e root morpheme, whereas slep- in the past tence form slept cannot exist b y itself, and therefore bound. A stem is any morpheme or combination of m orphemes to which an inflectional affix can be added. E.g. friend- in friends and friendship- in friendships are both stems. The former shows that a stem can be equivalent to a root, whereas the latter shows that a stem may con tain a root and a derivational affix.
3. Inflectional affix and derivational affix Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships through the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness, aspect and case, which do not change the gram matical class of the stems to which they are attached.
The distinction between inflectional affixes and derivational affixes is som etimes known as a distinction between inflectional morphemes and derivation al morphemes. We can tell the difference between them with the following ways: (1) Inflectional affixes very often add a minute or delicate grammatical meaning to the stem. E.g. toys, walks, John’s, etc. Therefore, they serve to produce different forms of a single word. In contrast, derivational affixes ofte n change the lexical meaning. E.g. cite, citation, etc. (2) Inflectional affixes do n’t change the word class of the word they attach to, such as flower, flower s, whereas derivational affixes might or might not, such as the relation betw een small and smallness for the former, and that between brother and broth erhood for the latter. (3) Inflectional affixes are often conditioned by nonsem antic linguistic factors outside the word they attach to but within the phrase or sentence. E.g. the choice of likes in ―The boy likes to navigate on the i nternet.‖ is determined by the subject the boy in the sentence, whereas deri vational affixes are more often based on simple meaning distinctions. E.g. Th e choice of clever and cleverness depends on whether we want to talk abou t the prop erty ―clever‖ or we want to talk about ―the state of being cleve r.‖ (4) In English, inflectional affixes are mostly suffixes, which are always wo rd final. E.g. drums, walks, etc. But derivational affixes can be prefixes or suf fixes. E.g. depart, teacher, etc.
3.1.3 Inflection and word formation
1. Inflection Inflection is the manifestation of grammatical relationships th rough the addition of inflectional affixes, such as number, person, finiteness, aspect and case, which do not change the grammatical class of the stems to which they are attached.
2. Word formation Word formation refers to the process of word variatio ns signaling lexical relationships. It can be further subclassified into the comp ositional type (compound) and derivational type (derivation). (1) Compound C ompounds refer to those words that consist of more than one lexical morph eme, or the way to join two separate words to produce a single form, such as ice-cream, sunrise, paper bag, railway, rest-room, simple-minded, wedding-ri ng, etc. The head of a nominal or an adjectival endocentric compound is dev erbal, that is, it is derived from a verb. Consequently, it is also called a verb al compound or a synthetic compound. Usually, the first member is a partici pant of the process verb. E.g. Nouns: self-control, pain-killer, etc. Adjectives: virus-sensitive, machine washable, etc. The exocentric compounds are formed by V + N, V + A, and V + P, whereas the exocentric come from V + N and V + A. E.g. Nouns: playboy, cutthroat, etc. Adjectives: breakneck, walk-in, et c. (2) Derivation Derivation shows the relation between roots and suffixes. In contrast with inflections, derivations can make the word class of the original word either changed or unchanged.
3.1.4 The counterpoint of phonology and morphology
1. Allomorph: Any of the different forms of a morpheme.
2. Morphophonology / morphophonemics: Morphophonology is a branch o
f linguistics referrin
g to the analysis and classification of the phonological fact ors that affect the appearance of morphemes, and correspondingly, the gram
matical factors that affect the appearance of phonemes. It is also called mor phonology or morphonemics.
3. Assimilation: Assimilation refers to the change of a sound as a result of the influence of an adjacent sound, which is more speci fically called ―con tact‖ or ―contiguous‖ assimilation.
4. Dissimilation: Dissimilation refers to the influence exercised by one sound segment upon the articulation of another, so that the sounds become less alike, or different.
3.2 What is word?
1. What is a lexeme? A lexeme is the smallest unit in the meaning syste m of a language that can be distinguished from other similar units. It is an abstract unit. It can occur in many different forms in actual spoken or writte n sentences, and is regarded as the same lexeme even when inflected. E.g. t he word ―write‖ is the lexeme of ―write, writes, wrote, writing and writte n.‖
2. What is a morpheme? A morpheme is the smallest unit of language i n terms of relationship between expression and content, a unit that cannot b e divided into further smaller units without destroying or drastically altering t he meaning, whether it is lexical or grammatical. E.g. the word ―boxes‖ has two morphemes: ―box‖ and ―es,‖ neither of which permits further division or analysis shapes if we don’t want to sacrifice its meaning.
3. What is an allomorph? An allomorph is the alternate shapes of the sa me morpheme. E.g. the variants of the plurality ―-s‖ makes the allomorphs t hereof in the following examples: map –maps, mouse –mice, ox –oxen, to oth –teeth, etc.
4. What is a word? A word is the smallest of the linguistic units that can constitute, by itself, a complete utterance in speech or writin
g.
3.2.1 Three senses of “word” 1. A physically definable unit 2. The comm on factor underlying a set of forms 3. A grammatical unit
3.2.2 Identification of words 1. Stability Words are the most stable of all linguistic units, in respect of their internal structure, i.e. the constituent part s of a complex word have little potential for rearrangement, compared with t he relative positional mobility of the constituents of sentences in the hierarch y. Take the word chairman for example. If the morphemes are rearranged as * manchair, it is an unacceptable word in English. 2. Relative uninterruptibili ty By uninterruptibility, we men new elements are not to be inserted into a word even when there are several parts in a word. Nothing is to be inserted in between the three parts of the word disappointment: dis + appoint + me nt. Nor is one allowed to use pauses between the parts of a word: * dis ap point ment. 3. A minimum free form This was first suggested by Leonard Blo omfield. He advocated treating sentence as ―the maximum free form‖ and w ord ―the minimum free form,‖ the latter being the smallest unit that can co nstitute, by itself, a complete utterance.
3.2.3 Classification of words
1. Variable and invariable words In variable words, one can find ordered and regular series of grammatically different word form; on the other hand, part of the word remains relatively constant. E.g. follow –follows –following –followed. Invariable words refer to those words such as since, when, seld om, through, hello, etc. They have no inflective endings.
2. Grammatical words and lexical words Grammatical words, a.k.a. functio n words, express grammatical meanings, such as, conjunctions, prepositions, a
rticles, and pronouns, are grammatical words. Lexical words, a.k.a. content wo rds, have lexical meanings, i.e. those which refer to
substance, action and quality, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adver bs, are lexical words.
3. Closed-class words and open-class words Closed-class word: A word th at belongs to the closed-class is one whose membership is fixed or limited. New members are not regularly added. Therefore, pronouns, prepositions, con junctions, articles, etc. are all closed items. Open-class word:
A word that belongs to the open-class is one whose membership is in pr inciple infinite or unlimited. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and many adverbs are al l open-class items.
4. Word class This is close to the notion of parts of speech in traditional grammar. Today, word class displays a wider range of more precisely define d categories. Here are some of the categories newly introduced into linguistic analysis. (1) Particles: Particles inclu de at least the infinitive marker ―to,‖ th e negative marker ―not,‖ and the subordinate units in phrasal verbs, such as “ get by,” “do up,” “look back,” etc. (2) Auxiliaries: Auxiliaries used to be r egarded as verbs. Because of their unique properties, which one could hardly expect of a verb, linguists today tend to define them as a separate word cl ass. (3) Pro-forms: Pro-forms are the forms which can serve as replacements for different elements in a sentence. For example, in the following Linguistics –conversation, so replaces that I can come. A: I hope you ca n come.
B: I hope so. (4) Determiners: Determiners refer to words which are use d before the noun acting as head of a noun phrase, and determine the kind
of reference the noun phrase has. Determiners can be divided into three su b-classes: predeterminers, central determiners and post determiners.
3.3 Lexical change
3.3.1 Lexical change proper
1. Invention Since economic activities are the most important and dynami
c in human life, many
new lexical items come directly from the consumer items, their producers or their brand names.
2. Blending Blending is a relatively complex form of compounding, in whi ch two words are blended by joining the initial part of the first word and th e final part of the second word, or by joining the initial parts of the two w ords.
3. Abbreviation / clipping A new word is created by cutting the final par t, cutting the initial part or cutting both the initial parts of the original word s.
4. Acronym Acronym is made up from the first letters of the name of a n organization,which has a heavily modified headword.
5. Back-formation Back-formation refers to an abnormal type of word-for mation where a shorter word is derived by deleting an imaged affix from a l onger form already in the language.
6. Analogical creation The principle of analogical creation can account for the co-existence of two forms, regular and irregular, in the conjugation of s ome English verbs.
7. Borrowing English in its development has managed to widen her vocab ulary by borrowing words from other languages. Greek, Latin, French, Spanish,
Arabic and other languages have all played an active role in this process.
3.3.2 Phonological change
1. Loss The loss of sound can first refer to the disappearance of the ver y sound as a phoneme in the phonological system. The loss of sounds may also occur in utterances at the expense of some unstressed words.
2. Addition Sounds may be lost but they may also be added to the origi nal sound sequence.
3. Metathesis Metathesis is a process involving an alternation in the sequ ence of sounds. Metathesis had been originally a performance error, which w as overlooked and accepted by the speech community.
4. Assimilation Assimilation refers to the change of a sound as a result o
f the influence of an a djacent sound, which is more specifically called ―cont act‖ or ―contiguous‖ assimilation.
3.3.3 Morpho-syntactical change
1. Morphological change The form of inflectional affixes may also change.
2. Syntactical change There are more instances of changes in the syntactical features of words
3.3.4 Semantic change
1. Broadening Broadening is a process to extend or elevate the meaning from its specific sense to a relatively general one.
2. Narrowing Contrary to broadening, the original meaning of a word can be narrowed or restricted to a specific sense.
3. Meaning shift All semantic changes involve meaning shif t. Here meaning shift is understood in its narrow sense, i.e. the change of m eaning has nothing to do with generalization or restriction as mentioned abo ve.
4. Class shift By shifting the word class one can change the meaning of
a word from a concrete entity or notion to a process or attribution. This pro cess of word formation is also known as zero-derivation, or
conversion. 5. Folk etymology Folk etymology refers to a change in form of a word or phrase, resulting from an incorrect popular notion of the origin or meaning of the term or from the influence of more familiar terms mista kenly taken to be analogous.
3.3.5 Orthographic change Changes can also be found at the graphitic lev el. Since writing is a recording of the sound system in English, phonological c hanges will no doubt set off graphitic changes.