MORPHOLOGY

Autoevaluación
Tema 1

1. Morphology is the study of…

words and their parts.

sentences and their parts.
The shape of sentences.

2. History of morphological analysis dates back to…

Early studies of ancient Greek, Indian and Arab grammarians.

Century XVII.
Early studies of 20th century.

3. The role of morphology in learning a language is seen mainly in….

The capacity of learners to discard new words.

The capacity of learners to increase vocabulary.
How students connect sentences.

4. Morphology deals with linguistic phenomena, while “generative grammar”

refers to…

The way a person creates a sentence.

The way a person speaks that language
The way a person creates a Word.

5. Morphology and phonology interact in the…

formation of new lexical items

formation of consonants
production of sound

6. Morphology interacts with the syntactic level in….

The use of inflectional forms of the verb.

The use of lexemes
the use of present tense

7. It is the study of structure of a Word.

Morphology.
Syntax.
Phonology.
8. Morphology plays an important role in….:

Learning a language.
Writing messages.
Studying the sentences.

9. The interaction of morphology with _____________, may be influenced by

the sounds that realize neighboring:

syntax.
lexicography.
phonology.

10. The form of a word may be affected by ____________in which the word is
used:

the syntactic construction

The accent
vocabulary.
 MORPHOLOGY
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Tema 2

1. What is word structure?

It is the way in which words are formed

It is the study of sentence structure
It is the study of allomorphs

2. What is a Word?

It is the smallest sequence of phonemes that can be pronounced in isolation with

practical meaning.
It is the smallest sequence of units that can be pronounced in isolation with
practical meaning.
It is the smallest sequence of phonemes that can be pronounced in isolation
without practical meaning.

3. What are Lexemes?

They are the vocabulary items that are listed in the dictionary
They are the words are listed in the encyclopedia
They are not the vocabulary items that are listed in the dictionary

4. The ___________________ of see are seen ,seeing, saw.

The manifestations .
morphemes.
phonemes.

5. ________________refers to ways the form of a word in English conveys

different meanings.

word form
lexeme
morpheme
6. Nouns, adjectives, verb, tense, gender, number, etc. are regarded as

grammatical word
phonological Word
lexeme

7. _______________ is the domain within which certain phonological or

prosodic rules apply.

Grammatical word
Phonological Word
Lexeme

8. The study of __________ will help to improve our spelling and expand
vocabulary.

Word structure
Writing process.
Studying phrases.

9. The term word refers to a particular __________ of a lexeme in a sentence.

realization
lexico.
phoneme

10. Why is it important to study the grammatical word?

It is important in the discussion of the boundary between morphology and

syntax.

It is important in the discussion of the boundary between morphology and

semantics
It is important in the discussion of the construction of poems
 MORPHOLOGY
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Tema 3

1. They create new words…

Derivational morpheme.
Inflectional morph.
lexeme.

2. Morphemes are the_____________ forms in a language.

smallest.
biggest.
same.

3. ________ is a word segment that represents one morpheme ….

Morpheme.
Morph.
Allomorph.

4. ________ is the phenomenon that a single morpheme has different

realizations.

Morpheme.
Morph.
Allomorphy.

5. The word sofa contains _____ syllable(s) but ______ morpheme(s)

1 - 2
2 - 1
1- 1

6. _______________of a word is the morpheme left over when all derivational

and inflectional morphemes have been removed.

The root morpheme

Lexeme
Allomorph
7. ___________ is a morpheme that need not be attached to another
morpheme

Free morpheme .
Bound morpheme
Allomorph

8. _______________ is a segment of a word that cannot stand alone

Free morpheme
Bound morpheme
Morph

9. ____________________is that part of a word that is in existence before any

inflectional affixes.

Lexicon
The stem.
Affix

10. _____________never change the grammatical category of a word.

Inflectional morphemes
Derivational morpheme
Infixation
 MORPHOLOGY
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Tema 4

1. What is Word formation?

Word formation is the process by which new words are formed by combining
words or morphemes from other languages

Word formation is the process by which new words are deleted by combining
words or morphemes from other languages

Word formation is the process by which new words are formed by translating
words or morphemes from other languages

2. The main kinds of word formation are:

Compounding, affixation, derivation and conversion

Compounding, coinage, derivation and conversion
Compounding, borrowing, derivation and conversion

3. ___________________ is a process of word formation that involves

combining complete word forms into a single compound form.

Coinage
Compounding
Borrowing.

4. What are the two primary kinds of affixation?

prefixation y suffixation
prefixation and addition
inflection y suffixation

5. Coinage refers to the creation of a formation of ….

nonexistent words or terms in a language

previously existent words or terms in a language
nonexistent sentences or terms in a language
6. _____________ is a type of word formation in which two or more words are
merged into one

Blending .
Coinage
Clipping
7. _________________ is the process of forming a new word (a neologism) by
removing actual or supposed affixes from another word
Back-formation.
Sintax.
Clipping

8. What is an acronym?

It is a word formed from the initial letters of a name

It is a sentence formed from a name
It is a word formed from the final letters of a name

9. ___________________is the most common way of making new words

Derivation
Lexicography.
Affixation.

10. ______________________words formed when the meaning is perceived as

imitating the sound.

Cognates
Onomatopoeia
Vocabulary.
 MORPHOLOGY
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Tema 5

1. What does Lexical Morphology study?

The formation and structure of lexemes
Morphemes and their parts.
Sentences and their parts.

2. The relationship between ______________emphasizes the aspects of

formation of new words that inflection does not consider.

morphology and lexicon

syntaxis and lexicon
phonology and lexemes

3. _______________________ is a kind of lexical morphology.

Derivational morphology
Inflectional morphology
Lexicography

4. The key factors to understand how lexical morphology is processed are…..

psycholinguistics models
paralinguistic models
linguistics models

5. According to the development of lexical morphology there are two types of

representation of a word. They are….

The lexeme and morpheme.

The use of lexemes
The use of morphemes

6. ___________ is the collection of words that a speaker has.

Lexicon
Lexis
Lexeme

7. The basic lexical unit of a language is_______________.

Lexicon
Lexis
 Lexeme

8. ___________________is the study of lexicons.

Lexicography
Morphology.
Syntax.

9. _____________is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing

dictionaries.
Practical lexicography
Pre-lexicography
Theoretical lexicography

10. ________________________is the scholarly study of semantic,

orthographic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic features of lexemes of the
lexicon (vocabulary) of a language.

Practical lexicography
Pre-lexicography
Theoretical lexicography
 Autoevaluación
Tema 6

1. What are the models discussed in this section?

Morpheme-based morphology, Lexeme-based morphology

Word-based morphology
Root -base - morpheme
Derivational- inflectional

2. ___________________studies how the rules of word formation operate over

morphemes.

Morpheme based morphology

Word based morphology
Lexeme based morphology

3. According to morpheme-based morphology: a morpheme belongs to a…

Closed class.
Open class
Mix class

4. According to lexeme-based morphology: a lexeme belongs to a…

Closed class.
Open class
Mix class

5. Lexeme-based morphology greatly differs from morpheme-based

morphology because it is the result of

Applying rules that modify the word form.

Modifying lexemes
Analyzing the behavior of morphemes

6. The three basic hypotheses of lexeme-morpheme base morphology are:

The Separation Hypothesis ,Base Rule Hypothesis, The Unitary Grammatical

Function Hypothesis

Base, root, affixes

Affix ,Prefix, infix

7. The Separation Hypothesis claims that lexical and inflectional derivation
are processes distinct from ___________________.

Phonological realization
Morphological realization
Semantical realization

8. ______________________________claims that there are 44 universally

available grammatical functions

The Unitary Grammatical Function Hypothesis.

The separation Hypothesis
The base rule Hypothesis

9. __________________ claims that all regular word-formation processes are

word-based

Word based morphology

Morphological realization
Semantical realization

10. ________________________claims that the universal categories of word

and clause structure must originate in a base
The Unitary Grammatical Function Hypothesis.
The Separation Hypothesis
The Base Rule Hypothesis
 MORPHOLOGY
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Tema 7

1. ________________ is any kind of rational tabulation of linguistic forms,

such as phrases, words, or phonemes, intended to illustrate contrasts and
systematic variation.

A linguistic paradigm.
Word formation
A group of phonemes

2. When you create a paradigm, the set of forms must be selected based on
….

Common root.
Common sound
Common rule

3. The conjugation of verbs is an example of…

morphemes
paradigm.
allomorphy

4. ______________deals with the functions of the words forming a

sentence.

Syntactic analysis.
Morphological analysis
Word structure

5. ________________directs its work to the class, form or category of the

words that are part of a sentence

Morphological analysis
Syntactic analysis
Paradigm

6. _____________________all the parts in a sentence are related and we have

to see the way they behave within it.

In the morphosyntactic analysis.

In the phonological analysis.
In the systematic variation

7. Allomorphy is the phenomenon that a single morpheme has different …

realizations.
conjugations
morphs

8. In English, the plural suffix has ______________ pronunciations:

Two
Three
Four

9. In the following sentence: Peter sent a letter to his brother.

Peter is:

Proper noun, masculine singular

Proper noun, masculine plural
Common noun, masculine singular

10. In the following sentence: Mary played soccer with her brother.
Mary is:

The predicate
The verb
The subject
 Syntax
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Tema 8

1. Syntax is the study of…

words and their parts.

sentence structure.
the meaning of words.

2. Syntax plays an important role in ……

Reading comprehension
Listening skills
Speaking

3. Grammar is the way we…

arrange words to make proper sentences.
form new lexical items.
produce new vocabulary.

4. _______________deals with the way language should be used.

A prescriptive grammar
A descriptive grammar
A transformational grammar

5. _____________________ deals with how language is actually used.

A prescriptive grammar
A descriptive grammar
A transformational grammar

6. You hear this statement: “the use of "ain't" is just plain wrong”. It is an
example of…

A prescriptive grammar
A descriptive grammar
A transformational grammar

7. _____________________is the study of the structure of a sentence.

Morphology.
Syntax.
Phonology.

8. You hear this statement “I do not know nothing”. It is an example of …

A prescriptive grammar
A descriptive grammar
 A transformational grammar

9. This approach proposes that there is a singular 'correct' way to use a

language, both spoken and written. It creates a universal version of a
language, which makes it more easily accessible across cultural
boundaries, but erases different dialectical characteristics of the language
and its offshoots as a result.

A prescriptive grammar
A descriptive grammar
A transformational grammar

10. This approach specifically explores and understands a language as it is

used, as opposed to how it 'should be' used.

A prescriptive grammar
A descriptive grammar
A transformational grammar
 Syntax
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Tema 9

1. _______________________________deals with the description of a

language in terms of a sequence of rules that helps to create an infinite
number of sentences.

Transformational grammar.
Generative grammar.
Morphology.

2. Two important components of forming sentences are:

Recursion and creativity

Coordination and recursion
Creativity and coordination

3. ______________________is one of the main adaptations of mankind that

allows them to produce original thoughts to describe what is around.
Creativity.
Coordination.
Iteration.

4. The sentence “Carl saw Mary”is an example of…

Sentence coordination
Adjectival iteration
Prepositional phrase

5. Sentence is a word or a group of words that expresses a…

Meaning of vocabulary
Complete thought
Complete story

6. _____________________the patterns of language were formalized using

rules to generate basic phrase structures and transformations to relate
these to complex surface structures.

In prescriptive grammar
In descriptive grammar
In transformational grammar

7. The sentence “the ball is under the desk” is an example of ...

Sentence coordination
Adjectival iteration
Prepositional phrase attachment
8. ____________ represents meaning, and the _________________ is the
actual sentence we produce.

Surface structure/ deep structure

Deep structure/ surface structure
Deep structure / subject structure

9. Syntactic units are grammatical items that help to…

Build sentences
Form words
Write essays

10. It deals with multiple interpretations for a piece of written or spoken

language.

Syntactic analysis
Structural ambiguity
Transformational grammar
 Syntax
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Tema 10

1. It is the way to give logical meaning to the sentences.

Phonology
Syntactical analysis.
Morphological analysis.

2. How many lexical categories are there?

2
3
4

3. An example of open lexical category is…

Verb.
And
on

4. An example of closed lexical category is …

And
Run
Boy

5. _____________ is a type of generative grammar.

Model
Phrase structure
Deep structure

6. In a tree diagram the subject of a sentence is made up of…

Noun phrases
Verb phrases
Grammar phrases
7. In this sentence the phrase structure is….

VP NP
My sister plays chess

Correct.
Incorrect.
None

8. In this sentence the phrase structure is….

NP VP
My father has a car

Correct.
Incorrect.
None

9. In a tree diagram, a sentence is divided into two parts: a subject and ….

A clause
A predicate
A phrase

10. The word that is the complementizer and everything after it is the

complement phrase.
subject
predicate
 Syntax
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Tema 11

1. NP → Art N reads as follows…

The verb phrase consists or rewrites as an article and a noun.

The noun phrase consists or rewrites as an article and a noun.
The noun phrase consists or rewrites as an adjective and a noun.

2. The abbreviation “S” in syntactical analysis stands for….

Subject
Sentence
syllable

3. The abbreviation “NP” in syntactical analysis stands for….

Noun phrase
No preposition
Noun position

4. The abbreviation “PP” in syntactical analysis stands for….

Predicate position
Prepositional phrase
Preposition part

5. The abbreviation “Art” in syntactical analysis stands for….

6. The arrow →. should be interpreted as…

“consists of” or “rewrites as.”

“is contained of”
“has”

7. The brackets () indicate that the constituent is …

Mandatory
Optional
Obligatory
8. We find different elements in the curly brackets { } but …

2 have to chosen
1 must be selected
All of them have to be selected

9. The abbreviation “VP” in syntactical analysis stands for….

Verb phrase
Verb position
Verbal part

10. “The abbreviation “N” in syntactical analysis stands for….

Noun
Number
No noun
 Syntax
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Tema 12

1. Sentence patterns are made up of phrases and…

subjects.
clauses.
predicate.

2. What are the basic elements of a sentence?

Subject, predicate, direct object, indirect object, clauses and subject complement.
Subject, predicate, direct object, indirect object, object complement and subject
complement
Subject, predicate, direct object, dependent clauses, clauses and subject
complement

3. What is the predicate?

It tells what is said about the subject.
It tells who the subject is.
It tells what is said about the object complement.

4. The sentence “the boy is a good son” is an example of…

Subject complement
clause
subject

5. It depends on another part of the sentence to complete the thought.

Independent clause
Dependent clause
Dependent sentence

6. The four types of sentence structures are:

simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.

simple, comprised, complex, and compound-complex.
easy, compound, complex, and compound-complex.

7. In a simple sentence, there’s only one…

Independent clause
Dependent clause
Dependent sentence
8. A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by

An article
A conjunction
A verb

9. Which one is an example of compound complex sentence?

“I fell off my bike, and I broke my arm.” (Compound sentence)

“When I fell off my bike, I broke my arm.” (Complex sentence)

“When I fell off my bike, I went to the hospital because I broke my arm.”

10. The sentence “the dog was playing, and now he is eating” is an example
of…

simple
compound
complex
 Syntax
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Tema 13

1. ___________________ is a word or group of words that work as a single

unit in a sentence.

A constituent
A subject.
A predicate.

2. Moving one constituent simply changes_____________ of the sentence

The meaning
The position
The role

3. _________________ provides evidence how a sentence is formed.

A constituent test.
A lexeme.
A phrase.

4. It enables to determine the type of phrase by replacing the relevant word

(or string of words) with another one which belongs to the same category.

Substitution test
Movement test
Do - so test

5. Only a constituent can answer a question, while retaining the meaning of

the original sentence.

Substitution test
Question test
Do - so test

6. Only a constituent can be relocated to the beginning of the sentence.

Topicalization
Movement test
Do - so test

7. In the sentence [Carlos] [mistakenly went home]

Carlos is a constituent.
Mistakenly went home is a constituent.
Both options are correct
8. In the sentence “the beautiful cat”. Which one is the head?

beautiful
cat
the

9. Which of these statements about constituent tests is correct?

we can affirm that not every test will work in every situation
we can affirm that the tests will work in every situation
we can affirm that there is only one test for every situation.

10. In the sentence Clara’s mother prepared these delicious dishes.

Who prepared these delicious dishes? Clara’s mother did.
The answer did is evidence of …

Movement test
Do-so test
Replacement test
 Syntax
Autoevaluación
Tema 14

1. It is based on the idea that certain aspects of syntactic structure are

common for all languages.

Convergence.
Universal grammar.
Deep structure.

2. Languages resemble one another as a result of extensive interaction.

convergence
generative grammar
poverty of stimulus

3. Who believed that humans are born with an innate ability to learn
languages?

Chomsky.
Kitamba.
Barsky.

4. According to the determiner parameter theory, every phrase must have a...

head
noun
verb

5. " The parameter is not whether a language has movement at all, but
whether (the) movement is at Logical Form or in the Syntax.

Head parameter
Parameters of Wh-movement
Pro-drop parameter

6. Children can effectively maximize their experience of learning a language

because all languages share the same fundamental grammatical principles.
This is a fundament of…
A prescriptive grammar
Universal grammar
Transformational grammar
7. This theory refers to the systematic grammatical variation permitted by the
human language faculty.

A prescriptive grammar
Parametric variation
Transformational grammar

8. Which statement is correct about parametric variation?

There is no agreement even on approximately how many parameters there are.

There is agreement on how many parameters there are
There is absolute agreement on the number of parameters there are

9. According to the pro - drop parameter Spanish and English are similar.

agree
false
true

10. The occurrence of imperative constructions such as “Sit down” cannot be

said to be the manifestation of.. .

Pro drop
Wh-movement
Head determiner
 Topic
9

Syntax

Generative Grammar vs Transformational Grammar

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Table of contents Pág.

9.- Generative grammar vs Transformational grammar 2

9.1 Generative grammar 2

9.1.1 Sentence 3

9.1.2 Competence 4

9.1.3 Components 4

9.2 Transformational grammar 6

9.2.1 Deep and surface structure 8

9.2.2 Syntactic structure 8

9.2.3 Structural ambiguity 9

Additional resources 9

References 10

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9. Generative grammar vs Transformational grammar

As we recognize throughout this text, the most significant development

in linguistic theory and research in the previous century has been the rise of

generative grammar and transformational-generative grammar, or

transformational grammar. In making such a distinction, we should study these

two models in isolation.

9.1 Generative grammar

Generative Grammar is a theoretical model of grammar that sets up well-

formed sentences of the language. It deals with the description of a language in

terms of a sequence of rules that helps to create an infinite number of

sentences. The following texts illustrate this theory's premise that all sentences

must be properly formed:

Although the term “generative” originally characterized a

conception of grammars as such recursive rule systems, the term is now

used somewhat more generally. In particular, what distinguishes work in

generative grammar is the goal of describing languages systematically,

as opposed to the more anecdotal approach of traditional grammar.

(Wasow T. 2011)

Generative Grammar (GG) is the study of linguistic capacity as a

component of human cognition (Gallego A; Ott D: 2019)

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Equally important on understanding this model is to pay attention to

these concepts:

9.1.1 Sentence

Perhaps the most common concept shared is that a sentence is a word

or a group of words that expresses a complete thought. However, this idea

might not be entire. In order to upgrade this perception, we are going to inspect

two important components of forming sentences.

Creativity is one of the main adaptations of mankind that allows them to

produce original thoughts to describe what is around them.

Any native speaker of a language is able to produce new sentences not

only by imitation but also because they follow grammatical rules.

The second principle is recursion. It means that any language has a

system of rules and patterns which help to create an immense number of

sentences because their patterns are repetitive.

There are two phenomena involved in recursion:

One deals with the internal structure of linguistic expression, and the

other the computational mechanisms that generate this internal structure.

Recursion has some rules or patterns:

Coordination

It is also called sentence or noun phrase coordination. It implies that

there is no limit to form sentences following this pattern because we apply the

same rule over and over again.

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Example

Carl saw Mary. Mary saw Jane. Jane saw Bill and so on.

Adjectival iteration

It claims that you can attach any adjectives to the proposed phrases.

Example

The wonderful thick old ….. book.

Prepositional phrase attachment.

Similarly, this notion says that you can add any prepositional phrase to a

sentence.

Example.

The ball is in the box. It is under the table. It is next to the window. Etc.

9.1.2 Competence

This is another level of abstraction in the construction of sentences. It

asserts that native speakers have the ability to make judgments of their own

language which means they can say if the sentences are well formed or not.

Let us evaluate this example:

The chair saw the boy.

The sentence is grammatically correct but semantically it does not make

any sense.

9.1.3 Components

Now let’s talk about how grammar should be built. Two components

constitute the core of generative grammar:

Phrase structure component

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It deals with the structural description of all well-formed sentences

following a well-defined set of rules.

Lexicon

The other component is lexicon. It interacts with the phrase structure

components and has the information of lexemes.

In other words, the lexemes generate new sentences on the basis of the

structures. In this way, both the lexical and the structural component contribute

to the overall meaning of clauses. Let’s take a look at this example:

Bob gave Jane a cake.

Bob threw Jane a cake.

The verb gave means transferring the possession but in the second

sentence the verb threw doesn’t necessarily denote changing possession.

So, the interpretation is based on the manner of transfer which

demonstrates how the interaction of these components affect the construction

of sentences.

After you finish with this section you can go to this link to watch a video

to reinforce this content.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc2bL1z9Wh4

9.2Transformational grammar

Transformational Grammar was one of Noam Chomsky’s early

proposals for a specific type of Generative Grammar. So, from the late

1950s through maybe the 1970s, you would see the terms used

interchangeably sometimes. In Transformational Grammar, the patterns

of language were formalized using rules to generate basic phrase

structures and transformations to relate these to complex surface

structures. For example, questions were formed from underlying

structures by a transformation that moved the question word and the

auxiliary. (In most versions there were two different transformations, one

for the question word and one for the auxiliary. (Britannica, T. Editors of

Encyclopedia: 1998)

As we can see from this explanation, it is a system of language analysis

that emphasizes the relationship among the elements of a sentence using

processes or rules sometimes called transformations.

One of the most common examples is to relate active voice with passive

voice:

Carlos read the book.

The book was read by Carlos

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Apparently, the sentences are different, but they are very similar if we

analyze them under a deep structure or surface structure.

9.2.1 Deep and surface structure

The terms deep structure and surface structure were introduced

by Noam Chomsky as a part of his work on transformational grammar.

As per Chomsky deep structure refers to concepts, thoughts, ideas &

feelings whereas surface structure refers to the words/language we use

to represent the deep structure. (Nitin Shah; 2022)

Deep and surface structure are often used as terms in a simple binary

opposition, with the deep structure representing meaning, and the surface

structure being the actual sentence we see.

These two terms can be differentiated as follows:

Deep structure

 Is concerned with meaning

 Refers to concepts thoughts ideas feeling

 Is what you want to express

 Is the abstract form of the language

Surface structure

 Is concerned with grammar

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 Refers to the words we use to represent those concepts

 Is what you actually say using words and sentences

 Is the concrete form of a language

Have you ever been facing the situation where you do not have words to

explain what in your mind is?

Deep structure is what you have in your brain.

Surface structure is what you say in the end.

9.2.2 Syntactic structure

It is said that when you are learning a language you have to master

wellformedness of sentences. Syntactic units are grammatical items that help to

build sentences following this order:

Morpheme, word phrases clause and sentences form the smallest to the

longest structure in a language.

“There are four kinds of Syntactic Structure, they are : (1)

Structure of Predication, (2) structure of Modification, (3) Structure of

Complementation and (4) Structure of Coordination (Francis, W. Nelson,

1958: 292).

9.2.3 Structural ambiguity

Structural or syntactic ambiguity is the potential of multiple interpretations

for a piece of written or spoken language depending on the way words or

phrases are organized.

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Example

Call me a taxi.

There are two ways to interpret this phrase. The first is that a taxi is

probably needed, and the second is that you have the nickname "taxi." The

explanation that follows might improve your understanding of this topic:

In English grammar, syntactic ambiguity (also called structural

ambiguity or grammatical ambiguity) is the presence of two or more

possible meanings within a single sentence or sequence of words, as

opposed to lexical ambiguity, which is the presence of two or more

possible meanings within a single word. The intended meaning of a

syntactically ambiguous phrase can generally—although not always—be

determined by the context of its use. (Nordquist, R. 2020)

Additional resources

In order to sharpen your skills on this topic you can visit this page and

watch the whole video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMY30Ho5Sl0

Generative grammar vs Transformational grammar 9

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References

Nordquist, Richard. (2020, August 27). Sentence Definition and

Examples in English Grammar. Retrieved from

https://www.thoughtco.com/sentence-grammar-1692087

Nordquist, R. (2020, August 26). Syntactic Ambiguity. Retrieved from

https://www.thoughtco.com/syntactic-ambiguity-grammar-1692179

Nitin Shah; 2022. Effective Interviewing with Meta Model – Surface

Structure vs Deep Structure. Institute of Clinical Hypnosis and Related Sciences

Pvt. Ltd. https://www.instituteofclinicalhypnosis.com/nlp/difference-between-

deep-and-surface-structure-nlp/#:~:text=The%20terms%20deep%20structure

%20and,to%20represent%20the%20deep%20structure.

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia (2009, April 13). transformational

grammar. Encyclopedia Britannica.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/transformational-grammar

Generative grammar vs Transformational grammar 10

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Dictionary of Unfamiliar Words by Diagram Group;2008 by Diagram

Visual Information Limited:

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Syntactic+structure

Generative grammar vs Transformational grammar 11

 Topic 14

Syntax

Universal grammar and Parametric variation

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Table of contents Pág.

14.1 Universal grammar 3

14.1.1 Universality 4

14.1.2 Convergence 4

14.1.3 Poverty of the stimulus 4

14.2 Parametric variation 6

14.2.1 The Head and determiner Parameter 8

14.2.2. Parameters of Wh-movement 9

14.2.3. The pro-drop parameter 10

References 13

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14.1 Universal grammar

The idea of universal grammar in some manners is questionable.

There is minimal consensus in terms of the validity of its contents, and the

support for it is insufficient. The three strongest arguments for UG are

Universality, Convergence and Poverty of the stimulus

Let’s take a look at each one of them:

Universal grammar, theory proposing that humans possess

innate faculties related to the acquisition of language. The

definition of universal grammar has evolved considerably since

first it was postulated and, moreover, since the 1940s, when it

became a specific object of modern linguistic research. It is

associated with work in generative grammar, and it is based on

the idea that certain aspects of syntactic structure are universal.

Universal grammar consists of a set of atomic grammatical

categories and relations that are the building blocks of the

particular grammars of all human languages, over which syntactic

structures and constraints on those structures are defined. A

universal grammar would suggest that all languages possess the

same set of categories and relations and that in order to

communicate through language, speakers make infinite use of

finite means. Barsky, R. F. (2018)

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14.1.1 Universality

In designing this theory, the author claims that patterns or

mechanisms occurs systematically across all languages, potentially this

system of categories are true for all of them.

For example, all languages have verbs and nouns.

14.1.2 Convergence

Language convergence is a type of linguistic development in

which, as a result of intensive language interaction and interference,

languages, regardless of origin, start to structurally resemble one another.

This advancement considers the premise that despite having varying

input, all language learners end up using the same grammar.

Example: the stem from a common language family tree that is to

say Indo-European languages.

14.1.3 Poverty of the stimulus

Within the construction of this theory it is claimed that infants are

not exposed to enough rich data in their linguistic environments to fully

acquire their language. Consequently, language acquisition is entirely a

function of experience.

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The premises behind these arguments, according to many

academics, are either false or unsubstantiated because languages differ

from one another in such significant ways so, the phenomenon of variation

should be considered and described rather than considering it universal.

What Exactly is UG?

Over the years, linguists developed an interest in a new theory

concerning grammar, or the rules of language, in the 1960s. Noam

Chomsky, an American linguist, popularized the hypothesis by

emphasizing how easily young toddlers pick up new languages.

Opportunities for learning a language go further than the simple

exposure to it. Chomsky believed that humans are born with an innate

ability to learn languages. According to Chomsky’s theory, the

fundamental components of language are already encoded in the human

brain since the moment they come to earth.

The evolution of this theory suggests that every language has

some of the same laws. For example, how to make questions or to make

ideas negative in one way or another, languages have the same

structures.

In summary, children can effectively maximize their experience of

learning a language because all languages share the same fundamental

grammatical principles, and they need to adhere to the specific norms to

comprehend and speak their native tongue. In other words, he is born with

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the ability to learn any language efficiently; but, his environment dictates

which language he will use.

Although this theory is new, we can conclude that there is very little

agreement on its fundaments of it.

14.2 Parametric variation

A fresh research strategy has gained importance in the field of

theoretical linguistics over the past 10 years. This method is frequently

known as parametric variation since its objective is to account for specific

systematic patterns of variation among variables. This concept will help

you:

Parametric variation in linguistic theory refers to the

systematic grammatical variation permitted by the human

language faculty. Although still widely assumed, the parametric

theory of variation has in recent years been subject to re-

evaluation and critique. The Null Subject Parameter, which

determines among other things whether or not a language allows

the suppression of subject pronouns, is one of the best-known and

most widely discussed examples of a parameter. Nevertheless, its

status in current syntactic theory is highly controversial. This book

is a defense of the parametric approach to linguistic variation, set

within the framework of the Minimalist Program. It discusses

syntactic variation in the light of recent developments in linguistic

theory, focusing on issues such as the formal nature of minimalist

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parameters, the typology of null-subject language systems and the

way in which parametric choices can be seen to underlie the

synchronic and diachronic patterns observed in natural languages.

Biberauer ( 2010)

In other words, it considered to be a systematic grammatical change

that the human language faculty has approved. Although still widely

assumed, the parametric theory of variation has in recent years been

subject to re-evaluation and critique as you can notice in this explanation:

With respect to parameters, very few scholars have even

attempted to give a reasonably comprehensive inventory of what these

are. Two rare exceptions are Baker (2001), who discusses 10

parameters, and Fodor and Sakas (2004), who list 13. In both cases, the

authors stress that the list is far from complete; but it is interesting to note

that only three parameters occur on both lists (Tomasello, 2005; see also

Haspelmath, 2007). There is no agreement even on approximately how

many parameters there are: thus Pinker (1994, p. 112) claims that there

are “only a few”; Fodor (2003, p. 734) suggests that there are “perhaps

20”; according to Roberts and Holmberg (2005, p. 541), the correct figure

is probably “in the region of 50–100.” However, if, following Kayne

(2005), we assume that there is a parameter associated with every

functional element, the number of parameters must be considerably

larger than this. Cinque and Rizzi (2008), citing Heine and Kuteva’s

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(2002) work on grammaticalization targets, estimate that there are about

400 functional categories. According to Shlonsky (2010, p. 424), even

this may be a low estimate. Shlonsky (2010) also suggests that “[e]very

feature is endowed with its own switchboard, consisting of half a dozen

or so binary options” (p. 425), which implies that there are thousands of

parameters. (Fodor, Janet & Sakas, William. 2003)

As it has been mentioned the parameters are innumerable so throughout

this section we are going to concentrate our study on the following

concepts:

The Head and Determiner parameter, the Wh-movement parameter and

The Pro-drop parameter.

14.2.1 The Head and determiner Parameter

The criterion of head directionality also categorizes word order. It

specifies how the head of a phrase or clause sits in respect to its

complement. Every phrase or maximal projection must have a head that

establishes the nature and purpose of numerous categories inside the

phrase. This is a universal principle. There are usually lexical heads such

as noun, verb, adjective, adverb and preposition, and in more recent work,

functional heads such as Determiner (D), Agreement (Agr) and Tense (T),

Complementizer (C), Negation (Neg), etc. The syntactic or categorial

properties of the head are usually transferred to the phrase and this

accounts for the denotations of Noun Phrase (NP) or Determiner Phrase

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(DP), Verb Phrase (VP), Adjective Phrase (AdjP/AP), Adverb Phrase

(AdvP), Prepositional Phrase (PP), Agreement Phrase (AgrP) and

Negation Phrase (NegP).

14.2.2. Parameters of Wh-movement

" The parameter is not whether a language has movement at all,

but whether (the) movement is at Logical Form or in the Syntax. "

(Chomsky 1986:55)

We discuss some important properties of wh- movement in various

languages other than English.

Remember that these variations are contrasted with at least 2

languages

For this analysis we are going to use English and Japanese

As we know, wh- phrases undergo movement in English.

a. Who does Martin like ?

b. Martin likes who?

In many languages, however, wh- phrases occur in the same position

as the corresponding ordinary phrases.

1.-Restoran wa soko desu

Restaurant there is

2.- Restoran wa doko desu ka?

Restaurant where is?

The fact that sentence 2 is a question is shown by the final marker

- ka -; otherwise there is no application of WH-MOVT as in English. Thus,

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a language such as Japanese imposes stricter constraints on the

application of movement.

According to Chomsky (1981), Cook (1988), Huang (1982), Lasnik

(1986), the parameter of variation with respect to WH-movement is not

whether the wh-phrase is pre-posed into Comp., but whether the

movement is manifested in the surface structure or at the level of Logical

form. From our examples, it is obvious that in English, wh-movement

takes place in the syntax affecting S-structure) while Japanese have

movement in the LF component affectin LFrepresentations (with no overt

manifestations in the syntax). observing whether the syntactic differences

of wh-questions in Kikamba and English affect the acquisition task for a

child exposed to these two languages.

14.2.3. The pro-drop parameter

The pro-drop parameter, also known as the Null subject parameter,

defines whether a language is pro-drop or not. A pro-element that is

empty can be recognized by its governor when the parameter is set to a

positive value. Languages that encourage dropping are like this.

Language show variation with regard to whether the grammar

permits the occurrence of the empty category pro as the subject of a

tensed clause. We have illustrated that some languages permit the

occurrences of null subject sentences However, not all languages

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structure this way. The literal equivalent of the following kikamba

sentence:

pro athi va?

pro SA-tns intr.pr.

*pro has gone where? - (where has he gone?)

Is ill-formed in English because the grammar of English does not

license null subjects (or the empty category pro) in tensed clauses.

The case of imperative sentences cannot be counted in this group,

as it is noted here:

The occurrence of imperative constructions such as:7) Sit down.

Cannot be said to be the manifestation of Pro-drop because in the

D-structure of the above sentence, the subject NP is present but

undergoes a deletion rule. cf. (D-structure) - You sit down.

—• Imperative deletion rule (S-structure): - e sit down.

Imperative constructions are therefore not our focus in this Chapter.

Neither will we be concerned with the occasional performance tendencies

in English ( and other language) to omit the initial word from a sentence in

casual speech (sometimes referred to as 'performance clippings').

The pro-drop parameter is a generalization on the structure of

natural languages and more significantly, a parameter of Universal

Grammar by which language vary. The fundamental basis of this

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parameter is whether the grammar of a language allows the co-

occurrence of 'subject less' sentences with sentences containing lexically

realized

subjects in tensed clauses.

In addition, studies carried out on different pro-drop languages

have identified a number of properties which have been attributed to the

operation of the pro-drop parameter. These include:

(i)the optionality of lexical subject and the definite pronominal

reference associated with the null subject pro;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3TC9_ITJi8&ab_channel=Gram

%C3%A1ticaContrastiva

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References

Barsky, R. F. (2018, November 16). universal grammar. Encyclopedia

Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/universal-grammar

Theresa Biberauer, (2010) Parametric Variation

Null Subjects in Minimalist Theory; University of Cambridge

https://www.cambridge.org/ec/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/

grammar-and-syntax/parametric-variation-null-subjects-minimalist-theory?

format=HB

Fodor, Janet & Sakas, William. (2003). Evaluating Models of Parameter

Setting.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252069612_Evaluating_Models_of_P

arameter_Setting/citation/download

SYNTAX 13
 Topic 12

Syntax

Sentence pattern vs Sentence structure

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Table of contents Pag.

12. Sentence pattern vs Sentence structure 2

12.1 Sentence Patterns 2

12.1.1 Subject 2

12.1.2 Predicate 3

12.1.3 Direct object 3

12.1.4 Indirect object 3

12.1.5 Subject complement 4

12.1.6 Clauses 4

12.1.7 The 5 Basic Sentence Patterns in English 4

12.2 Sentence Structure 6

12.2.1 Simple Sentence 6

12.2.2 Compound Sentence 6

12.2.3 Complex Sentence 6

12.2.4 Compound-Complex Sentence 7

References 8

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12. Sentence pattern vs Sentence structure

Sometimes you might be asked what the difference between “a chair

and a seat” or “being and been” is. You will find it difficult to answer because

at first sight they are similar.However, there are some details that make it easy

to differentiate those terms.

The same happens when you see the phrases sentence pattern and

sentence structure. They are synonyms in one way or another but if we

analyze the terms in isolation we easily reach the point of confusion.

These points have to be explained by contrasting the two concepts.

12.1 Sentence pattern

There are some aspects to consider in order to build connections when

forming new sentences. Sentence patterns are made up of phrases and

clauses.

The Basic Elements of a Sentence are the following

12.1.1 Subject

The subject of a sentence is the person, place, or thing that is performing

the action of the sentence. The subject represents what or whom the sentence

is about. For example:

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The man lives next door

12.1.2 Predicate

The predicate tells what is said about the subject and expresses action

or being within the sentence.

The man lives next door

Consequently, the subject and predicate are the basis of any complete

sentence. Equally influential are the other elements which add meaning or

detail. They are the direct object, indirect object, and subject complement.

12.1.3 Direct object

The direct object answers to the question what and receives the action of

the sentence. The direct object can be a noun or pronoun.

The man plays football.

Football is the direct object.

12.1.4 Indirect object

The indirect object receives the direct object. The indirect object is

usually a noun or pronoun.

He gave me the pen.

“me” is the indirect object.

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12.1.5 Subject complement

A subject complement can rename or describe the subject. It is usually a

noun, pronoun, or adjective. Subject complements usually have a linking verb

within the sentence.

The woman is a good mother. (mother = noun which renames the subject)

12.1.6 Clauses

The nature of a clause must be understood as a group of words with both

a subject and a verb that can form a sentence. If the clause can form a

complete thought on its own, it’s considered an independent clause. If the

clause depends on another part of the sentence to complete the thought it

expresses, it’s called a dependent clause.

For example, “if you do this” is a dependent clause. This is a clause

because the idea is not complete even though there is a subject and a verb.

12.1.7 The 5 Basic Sentence Patterns in English

Many authors assert that English has five basic patterns. These patterns

go from the most basic, to the most complex. Among them are:

1.- Subject + Linking Verb + Complement ( S – LV – C)

The electricity bill is expensive

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2.- Subject + Intransitive Verb ( S – IV )

Fame ends

3.- Subject + Transitive Verb + Direct Object ( S – TV – DO )

Students should respect their teachers

4.- Subject + Transitive Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object ( S – TV –

IO – DO )

I gave my mom our books

5.- Subject + Transitive Verb + Direct Object + Object Complement ( S –

TV – DO – OC)

She called the boy handsome.

After you finish working on this section, it is advisable to watch the

following video.

Watch the whole video.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=745WT5bcFwA

12.2 Sentence structure

As you proceed through the comparison of these two concepts we can

say that:

Sentence structure is also known as a type of sentence.

Sentence structure, in the end, shows how a sentence is put together. All

the basic elements in a sentence are organized in a determined way. The rules

to create a sentence are simple but strict.

The four types of sentence structures are simple, compound, complex,

and compound-complex.

12.2.1Simple Sentence

In a simple sentence, there’s only one independent clause.

“I love chocolate” and “Carl works at the hospital” are examples of

simple sentences. As you can notice each one contains a subject and a verb.

12.2.2 Compound Sentence

A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a

conjunction. “The cat played in the backyard, and now he’s sleeping” is a

compound sentence. If you remove the conjunction the two clauses can stand

by themselves.

12.2.3 Complex Sentence

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Recognizing complex sentences involve identifying the independent

clause and at least one dependent clause.

For example:

When the biscuit is ready, remove it from the oven.

This is a complex sentence. “When the biscuit is ready” is a

dependent clause that can’t stand alone because it’s not a complete thought.

When you add a comma and the independent clause “remove it from the

oven”, it is considered a complex sentence.

12.2.4 Compound-Complex Sentence

No less important to the success of classifying sentences is the

compound-complex sentence. In this structure you will see more than one

independent clause and at least one dependent clause. For example, “Romeo

is in a band, but he’s the guitarist because he can’t sing.” This is a compound-

complex sentence. It contains two independent clauses and one dependent

clause.

Putting It All Together

You can create the four types of structures by changing or adding

additional clauses:

Analyze this example:

“I broke my arm.” (Simple sentence)

“I fell off my bike, and I broke my arm.” (Compound sentence)

“When I fell off my bike, I broke my arm.” (Complex sentence)

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“When I fell off my bike, I went to the hospital because I broke my arm.”

(Compound-complex sentence)

Exercise:

The teacher will give a simple sentence, then students will form

compound sentences, complex sentences and compound complex sentences.

After you finish working on this section, it is advisable to watch the

following video.

Watch the whole video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0bZ8wNfuYA

Now that you understand this topic better you can do the following

exercise on line.

https://es.liveworksheets.com/worksheets/en/

English_as_a_Second_Language_(ESL)/Sentence_structure/

Word_Order_au1524192bt

References

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=745WT5bcFwA&ab_channel=JenniferESL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=4uyagMRw2Sc&ab_channel=LynettePretorius

%3AAcademicLanguageandLiteracy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Y_ALOm0Ftbw&ab_channel=RILSTheLinguaExpert

sentence pattern vs sentence structure 9

 Topic 11

Syntax

Symbols used in syntactic analysis

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Table of contents Pag.

11. Symbols used in syntactic analysis 3

Additional resources 8

References 8

SYMBOLS USED IN SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS 2

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11.Symbols used in syntactic analysis

When doing syntactic analysis there are symbols you have to master

in order to succeed in your work. These symbols will organize the form you

present the constituents of sentences.

As we have seen previously syntactic analysis involves two related tasks.

They are:

Breaking down a sentence into their constituents.

Labeling each of the constituents and identifying their function and form.

Throughout this text we will encounter symbols and abbreviation that are

commonly used. For example:

“S” (= sentence)

“NP” (= noun phrase)

“N” (= noun), “Art” (= article)

“V” (= verb)

“VP” (= verb phrase)

“PP” (= prepositional phrase)

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Apart from the symbols mentioned before there are three more symbols

that are frequently used in syntactic description.

The first one is an arrow →.

It should be interpreted as “consists of” or “rewrites as.” The most

common pattern is the following type of rule:

NP → Art N

This reads as follows:

A dog

The noun phrase consists or rewrites as an article and a noun.

Here you can see this table explaining the rule:

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Graphic 10

(Yule, G. 2010)

The next symbol that is used in syntactic description is a pair of round

brackets (). Anything that appears inside these round brackets is going to be

seen as an optional constituent.

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For example, we can describe something as “the cat” or “the big cat”.

We can say that both the cat and the big cat belong to the category of a noun

phrase (NP).

The big cat

NP → Art (Adj) N

This example reads as follows:

The noun phrase rewrites as (→) an article (Art) and a noun (N), with the

option of including an adjective (Adj) in a specific position between them.

So, what we can notice here is that the adjective is optional which means

that it does not affect the construction of a noun phrase.

This chart reflects the use of the second symbol:

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Graphic 11

(Yule, G. 2010)

Finally, the third symbol is in the form of curly brackets { }.as the table

shows:

Graphic 12

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(Yule, G. 2010)

We find different elements in the brackets but only one can be selected.

So, the example should be read as indicated here:

NP → Art N

A dog

NP → Pro

It

NP → PN

Mary

Something to highlight is that when analyzing syntactically, only one of

them can be selected on any occasion.

The next chart can help you to make sense of this explanation in a better

way.

Graphic 13

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(Yule, G 2010)

Additional resources

To practice this topic, you are strongly recommended to watch this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcX7Mz_3XfA

You can start watching on minute 3. 38

References

Yule, G. (2010). The study of language. (4 th ed. ) Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press

SYMBOLS USED IN SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS 9

 Topic 10

Syntax

Syntactical analysis
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Table of contents Pag.

10. Syntactical analysis 2

10.1 Lexical categories 2

10.2 Phrase structural rules 3

10.3 Tree diagram 5

10.4 Complement phrase 8

10.5 Transformation rule 9

Additional resources 12

References 12

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10. Syntactical analysis

We are typically taught to define syntactic analysis as the way to give the

logical meaning of certain given sentences or parts of those sentences. After all,

in order to determine the logical significance and accuracy of the sentences, we

must take into account sets of grammatical rules.

Analyzing the following instance would help us comprehend this idea:

House play a girl.

This sentence shows some problems:

First of all, it does not make any sense and its grammatical structure is

not correct. So, syntactic analysis tells us whether the given sentence

demonstrates its logical meaning and whether its grammatical structure is

correct.

10.1 Lexical categories

Lexical category is typically understood as classes of words that are part

of the lexicon (e.g., noun, verb, preposition). They can be part of a determined

category according to the way it is used in discourse.

In the classification of lexical categories, we are going to examine two

kinds: open and closed. On one side, a lexical category is open when both the

new and the original word belong to the same category. Nouns, verbs,

adjectives, and adverbs are open lexical categories. On the other side, closed

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lexical categories find it difficult to acquire new members. They include

conjunctions (e.g., and, or, but), determiners (e.g., a, the), pronouns (e.g., he,

she, they), and prepositions (e.g., of, on, under).

In order to get a better sense of this difference, we have to say that

grammatical categories are distinct from formal relational categories such as

subject, object, and predicate, or functional categories such as agent, topic or

definite.

10.2 Phrase structural rules

How far we are willing to determine if a sentence is correct or incorrect.

The well-formed structures of a language are accurately and succinctly dealt

with by phrase structure rules. Effective analysis clarifies how a speaker of a

language should group and arrange words to build sentences as well as how

the laws of the language should be expressed. As this extract reflects.

Phrase structure is a type of generative grammar in which

constituent structures are represented by phrase structure

rules or rewrite rules. Some of the different versions of phrase structure

grammar (including head-driven phrase structure grammar) are

considered in the examples and observations below.

A phrase structure (or constituent) functions as the base

component in the classic form of transformational grammar introduced

by Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s. (Richard. 2020)

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There are different types of phrase-structure rules. They can be

differentiated as follows:

S→ NP + VP

This model develops a sentence following this pattern

a noun phrase followed by a verb phrase. . . . We continue in this way

until we have a rule for every structure in the language.

"Now the set of rules can be used to generate sentences.

Example

S is the sentence

NP VP

My mother plays soccer

Consider the following explanation:

"A phrase structure grammar consists of a set of ordered rules known as

rewrite rules, which are applied stepwise. A rewrite rule has a single symbol on

the left and one or more symbols on the right:

A→B+C

C→D

A IS THE SENTENCE

B+C ARE THE CONSTITUENTS

More than one symbol on the right constitutes a string. The arrow is

read as 'is rewritten as,' 'has as its constituents,' 'consists of,' or 'is expanded

as.' The plus sign is read as 'followed by,' but it is often omitted. The rule may

also be depicted in the form of a tree diagram...

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Example

A = The big dog chased the cat

B = THE BIG DOG C = CHASED THE CAT

Phrase structure rules are a type of rewrite rule used to describe a

given language's syntax and are closely associated with the early stages

of transformational grammar, being first proposed by Noam Chomsky in

1957. They are used to break down a natural language sentence into its

constituent parts, also known as syntactic categories, including both

lexical categories (parts of speech) and phrasal categories. A grammar

that uses phrase structure rules is a type of phrase structure grammar.

Phrase structure rules as they are commonly employed operate

according to the constituency relation, and a grammar that employs

phrase structure rules is, therefore, a constituency grammar; as such, it

stands in contrast to dependency grammars, which are based on the

dependency relation. (Borsley, R. 1991)

10.3 Tree diagram

The transition to take a step forward in our journey to understand

syntactic analysis ends when we use a tree diagram.

A tree diagram is a method for diagramming sentences that is most

commonly used by linguists and other academic professionals.

How does a tree diagram work?

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Graphic 4

(Sutcliffe; 2011)

In a tree diagram, a sentence is divided into two parts: a subject and a

predicate. They are made up of noun phrases or verb phrases. These are

groups of words that include a noun or verb and any words that add as

modifiers. The subject is a noun phrase while a predicate is usually a verb

phrase. The noun phrase A big dog is comprised of the indefinite article ‘a’, the

adjective ‘big’, and the noun ‘dog’. The

Now that you understand the basic premise of a Tree Diagram and how it

breaks down a sentence, let’s take a look at an example.

Graphic 5

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(Coleman; 2017)

Seen here, the sentence is broken down into a subject and predicate.

The subject is a noun phrase that consists of the indeterminate article ‘the’ , the

noun ‘king’ and the prepositional phrase “ of France” where of is the preposition

and France is a noun. The predicate is more complex, as it consists of both a

verb and a noun phrase. The verb is ‘had ’ and the noun phrase is ‘an’

(indefinite article) and ‘unhappy ( adjective) and life’ (noun). As you can see,

the tree diagram clearly illustrates how each of these words relate to and

depend upon each other.

Here is another example of a tree diagram. As you can see, this one is a

bit simpler. Let’s take a look and break it down.

Graphic 6

(Krishna, G. 2012).

Once again, the sentence is divided into a subject and predicate.

The subject is composed of a noun phrase: ‘a ’ as an indefinite article and ‘cat’

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as a noun. The predicate. the verb ‘eats’; the indefinite article a , the noun

‘mouse’.

To practice more about this topic, go to the following link:

https://elearning.cpp.edu/learning-objects/syntactic-tree-structures/?

page=options.html

Here you will find a video explaining how to use diagram trees and

exercises from the easiest to the most difficult. That is a good challenge for you.

Good luck

10.4 Complement phrase

All the work we have done before would not be complete if we do not talk

about complementizers. They are also called embedded sentences

How do we represent these case in a tree diagram?

First let’s see this concept:

In grammar, a complement is a word, phrase, or clause that is necessary

to complete the meaning of a given expression.

This is the model to represent a complementizer in a tree diagram

S→ NP+ VP

VP→ V + CP (COMPLEMENT PHRASE)

CP → C + S

This example will clarify this idea

As you can see in this illustration

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graphic 6

(Nicasio 2015)

The word that is the complementizer and everything after it is the

complement phrase.

To practice more about this topic, go to the following link:

https://adambcomer.com/lin-tree-solver/sentence

This sentence editor gives you the chance to practice complementizers.

10.5 Transformation rule

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It is a syntactic rule that derives a new structure by moving elements of a

sentence generally to change a declarative sentence into a question.

Let’s see the sentence:

Mary is eating a salad

How do you represent it in a diagram tree?

Graphic 7

(Transformation Rule: Move Aux 2020)

As we refer to the table here this is the way you represent a declarative

sentence. But what happens when you have this sentence like a question?

Is Mary eating a salad?

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What do you have to do?

You have to move the auxiliary to the beginning

Graphic 8

(Transformation Rule: Move Aux 2020)

This movement is called transformational rule but the representation in

not complete. For a correct representation you should mark the empty space

with a line and then draw an arrow to the auxiliary that has been moved.

Graphic 9

(Transformation Rule: Move Aux 2020)

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Additional resources

https://www.slideshare.net/aileennicasio/syntaxenglish-12-report

References

Nordquist, Richard. (2020, August 27). What Is Phrase Structure in

English Grammar? Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/phrase-

structure-grammar-1691509

Borsley, R. 1991. Syntactic theory: A unified approach. London: Edward

Arnold. https://books.google.com.ec/books?

id=GWhp8IJ20X4C&lpg=PR1&hl=es&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q=%22Phrase

%20structure%20rules%22&f=false

Atrey, Shree & Prasad, T. & Krishna, G.. (2012). Issues in parsing and

POS tagging of hybrid language. 20-24.

10.1109/CyberneticsCom.2012.6381609.

Emily Coleman(2017) English syntax parsing with antler;

https://antlrnlp.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/exploring-antlr/

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Tom Sutcliffe(2011);Syntax; https://www.harmony.org.uk/

SYNTAX ANALYSIS 13
 Topic
8

Syntax

Introduction to Syntax
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Table of contents Pág.

8.1 Origins of syntax 2

8.2 What is syntax? 2

8.3 The role of syntax in language acquisition 4

8.4 Grammar and its types 5

8.4.1 Prescriptive grammar 5

8.4.2 Descriptive grammar 7

Additional resources 10

References 10

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8.1 Origins of syntax

Much debate has surrounded the question about the origins of this field.

Literally, the word syntax is derived from the Greek syntaxis which means

together and sequence. There are two important masterpieces which have

guided the development of this area of linguistics.

One is the first complete Greek grammar, written by Dionysus Thrax and

the other is Grammaire of Port Royal —a Cistercian convent in the Vallée de

Chevreuse southwest of Paris that launched a number of culturally important

institutions.

Fortunately, the last century has testified the flourishing of syntactic

theory with some famous authors like Noam Chomsky whose work has

stimulated modern approaches in this field.

8.2 What is syntax?

When presenting this concept, one essential aspect to avoid is confusing

it with syntax in programming. Syntax in linguistics refers to the arrangement of

words and phrases. Among the topics covered by this subject are word order

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and grammar rules, such as subject-verb agreement or the correct placement of

direct and indirect objects.

Through the delivery of this type of analysis, it is necessary to provide

valuable information about constituency. (This topic will be seen in details in

topic 13). This term determines the hierarchy within the sentence, particularly

with sentence diagramming. In one of his works this author explained:

The syntax is defined as the study of arrangements of words into

phrases, clauses, and sentences or syntactical constructions. The

smallest units of syntax are words. When two or more words are

arranged in a certain way, the result refers to syntactical construction. .

(Mu’in F ; Al Arie Y; 2009)

But, how important is managing this theory in English? Modifying the

placement of a word often changes the meaning of the sentence. Sometimes

this variation is secondary, but sometimes the change is more significant, giving

the entire sentence a completely new meaning.

To see for yourself, look at the example below:

The chicken is ready to eat can have two interpretations.

What are we trying to say?

We are going to eat the chicken now?

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Or the chicken is going to eat.

Now consider the following two sentences:

He genuinely needs to do that.

He needs to do that genuinely.

Although we are using the same words they have different meaning. The

first one conveys that the person really needs to do something, whereas the

other one wants to express the person must do something honestly. Then, here

you can see the importance of placing the words in the correct place.

8.3 The role of syntax in language acquisition

One commonly shared myth about learning a language is that it will

emerge as children grow up. But that is distant from reality, syntax plays an

important role in acquiring a language since it helps to learn how words fit

together to form phrases, and how phrases fit together to form sentences which

allow human being to expand the complexity of their thoughts.

In addition to this belief, the idea that people are born with a determined

capacity to acquire a language also contributes to say that, as you can see

here:

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Waltzman and Cairns (2000), for example, looked at binding and control

and the reading abilities of good and poor readers in third grade and found that

good and poor readers differed with respect to their interpretation of pronominal

relations. Overall the good readers performed more adultlike (99% correct) than

the poor readers (83%) on a comprehension task. They also found a significant

correlation between their independent measure of reading and knowledge of

grammar.

So, this assertion can conclude that learners of a language improve

reading comprehension because they are able to manage and manipulate

larger volumes of information in written texts thanks to their knowledge of

syntactical constructions.

8.4 Grammar and its types

Grammar deals with the structure and system of a language which helps

to understand it. In English, there are two kinds of grammar: prescriptive

grammar & descriptive grammar.

8.4.1 Prescriptive Grammar

A prescriptive grammar is a set of rules about language based on

how people think language should be used. In a prescriptive grammar

there is right and wrong language as you can notice throughout this text:

Prescriptive grammars, assume the existence of

better authorities than the usage and judgment of native

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speakers. People who write prescriptive grammars adduce

better language users (educated speakers, high-class

speakers, great writers), better languages (usually Latin)

and better information systems (mathematics or predicate

calculus) as authorities for preferring one usage over

another. Prescriptive rules exist only to express a

preference for one structure or usage or linguistic item over

another. A prescriptive grammar will not contain rules that

tell you to put articles before nouns, rather than after,

because no native speakers of English put articles after

nouns. Prescriptive rules are reserved for places where

speakers have choices and they exist to limit those

choices. (Gordon l; 1964)

Along with this view it is inferred that linguistic prescriptivism consists of

establishing formulas for the use of a language. There are authors who argue

that these rules are considered mandatory for users while in determined

situations they could be only recommendations.

Accordingly, based on this review let us analyze this sentence:

She does not know him

She do not know him

The first one is considered right. The second is considered wrong.

Although this seems to be simple, you will find the second case used in different

situations like songs, dialogues or stories.

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8.4.2 Descriptive Grammar

A second domain of this topic is descriptive grammar which is

basically how the language is actually used. In this sense it is not

possible to classify between right or wrong language. Among some

explanation we can see this one:

Descriptive grammar is more a study in the "why and how" of

language, while prescriptive grammar deals with the strict rules of right

and wrong required for language to be considered grammatically correct.

Prescriptive grammarians—such as most editors of nonfiction and

teachers—do their darndest to enforce the rules of “correct” and

“incorrect” usage. The term descriptive grammar refers to an objective,

nonjudgmental description of the grammatical constructions in a

language. It's an examination of how a language is actually being used,

in writing and in speech. Linguists who specialize in descriptive grammar

examine the principles and patterns that underlie the use of words,

phrases, clauses, and sentences. In that respect, the adjective

"descriptive" is a bit misleading as descriptive grammar provides an

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analysis and explanation of a language's grammar, not simply a

description of it.

Examples of Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar

To illustrate the difference between descriptive and prescriptive

grammar, let's look at the sentence: "I ain't going nowhere." Now, to a

descriptive grammarian, there's nothing wrong with the sentence

because it's being spoken by someone who is using the language to

construct a phrase that has meaning for someone else who speaks the

same language.

To a prescriptive grammarian, however, that sentence is a virtual

house of horrors. First, it contains the word "ain't," which strictly speaking

(and we must be strict if we're prescriptive) is slang. So, although you'll

find "ain't" in the dictionary, as the adage says, "Ain't ain't a word." The

sentence also contains a double negative (ain't and nowhere) which just

compounds the atrocity.

Simply having the word "ain't" in the dictionary is a further

illustration of the difference between the two types of grammar.

Descriptive grammar notes the word's use in the language,

pronunciation, meaning, and even etymology—without judgment, but in

prescriptive grammar, the use of "ain't" is just plain wrong—especially in

formal speaking or writing.

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Would a descriptive grammarian ever say something was

ungrammatical? Yes. If someone utters a sentence using words or

phrases or construction that as a native speaker they would never even

think of putting together. For instance, a native English speaker wouldn't

start a sentence with two query words—as in, "Who where are you

going?"—because the result would be unintelligible as well as

ungrammatical. It's one case in which the descriptive and prescriptive

grammarians would actually agree. ( Nordquist R. 2019)

Indeed, this notion involve difficult challenges to discriminate what is correct

or incorrect. The following example will help to clarify this concept:

I did not see anybody

I did not see nobody

The rule says you can not use two negatives in the same sentence.

Nonetheless, the second sentence is very common in oral language.

Thus, descriptive grammar accomplishes their function which is describing

how language is used by their speakers.

To practice more go to the following link and do the exercises about this

topic

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https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/5dae5439e8325a001ad370bd/descriptive-vs-

prescriptive-grammar

Additional resources

You can watch the following video to enhance your vision of what syntax is:

Watch the first 4 minutes of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=I9RPueD8wGs&ab_channel=FingtamLanguages

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References

. Mu’in F ; Al Arie Y; 2009: An Introduction To Linguistics (P.47 -

54) Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa dan Seni Fakultas

Gordon L; 1964: English Grammar: Behavioral Research

Laboratories

Nordquist R. 2019 Descriptive Grammar in:

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-descriptive-grammar-
1690439#:~:text=Would%20a%20descriptive%20grammarian%20ever,even
%20think%20of%20putting%20togethe

SYNTAX 11
 Topic 13

Syntax

Constituency
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Table of contents Pag.

13.1 What is syntactic constituency? 3

13.2 Constituency tests 4

13.2.1 Replacement/Substitution test 5

13.2.2 Movement test 6

13.2.3 Question & answer test 6

13.2.4 Do- So test 7

References 9

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13.1 What is syntactic Constituency?

No less complex in the syntactic analysis is exploring the concept

of the constituency. A constituent is a word or group of words that work as

a single unit in a sentence. Every word is responsible for making it

comprehensible as this example reflects:

(1) Harriet mistakenly went home with her cousin’s jacket.

We know intuitively who did what. Furthermore, we know that

‘Harriet’ can stand alone as a simple subject. We know that

‘mistakenly’ modifies the verb ‘went’ but not the noun ‘Harriet’. Since

this is the case, then we know that ‘mistakenly went home’ is a unit

since the verb ‘went’ must be accompanied by a place. We also

know that ‘with her cousin’s jacket’ acts as a unit since leaving out

any of its components renders it ungrammatical. So now we have a

sentence parsed into its constituencies.

(2) [Harriet] [mistakenly went home] [with her cousin’s jacket.

(Lingnet 2016)

This aid helps students to understand that the hierarchical order

cannot be altered. Once the words have been organized according to

sentence hierarchy, we find that the following ideas are incorrect as they do

not make any sense, and it is demonstrated that moving one constituent

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simply changes the meaning or becomes an ungrammatical structure as it

is explained here:

* [mistakenly went home] [Harriet] [with her cousin’s jacket.]

or * [with her cousin’s jacket] [Harriet] [mistakenly went home.]

Any constituent in a sentence is built around a head.

This phrase may explain the point:

The nice dog

Here the head is the word dog as it is a noun phrase that contains a

determiner and an adjective

13.2 Constituency Tests

An emergent product of efforts to identify the structure of sentences

is constituent tests. These tests provide evidence how a sentence is

formed.

Below is an explanation of the constituency tests most often used.

Additionally, we can affirm that not every test will work in every situation.

The tests included here have been selected because of their effectiveness

and come in four basic types:

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Replacement test

Movement test

Answers to questions test

Do-so test

13.2.1 Replacement /Substitution test

A very useful constituency test is substitution. It acts as a bridge

to determine the type of phrase which is possible to use to replace a group

of words of the sentence with another one that belongs to the same

category.

Examples:

1.- [Mary and her classmates] like chocolate.

[They] like chocolate.

But Not

[They] classmates like chocolate

2.- Peter [walked to school].

Michelle [did].

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But Not

Michelle [did] to school.

13.2.2 The Movement Test

Reflecting on the validity of tests used to identify the constituents, it

is appropriate to examine the ability to move or topicalize a string of words.

It is clear that some words can be moved to another position in the

sentence without altering the meaning. The resulting product of doing so is

evidence of a constituent.

Example:

1.- Mark played the violin under the table.

We can topicalize ‘under the table’ and maintain grammaticality.

[under the table], Mark played the violin.

However, if only a subset of this constituent is moved, an

ungrammatical sentence results.

[under the] Mark played the violin table.

13.2.3 Question & answer test

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One powerful path to determine whether a string of words forms a

constituent is making questions. Only a constituent can answer a question,

preserving the meaning of the original sentence.

Examples:

That is my sister. → Q: Who’s that? A: My sister.

She is doing her homework. → Q: What’s she doing? A: Doing her

homework

The eggs are on the table. → Q: Where are the eggs? A: On the

table.

As it is seen here the answers are considered evidence of

constituents because they can stand alone and they are grammatically

correct.

13.2.4 Do- So test

Answers to questions can also help us identify a verb phrase

because they’re a good context for do-replacement. Thus, along with the

question test is this variation as it is demonstrated in this example:

Alina’s brother prepared these delicious dishes.

Who prepared these delicious dishes? Alina’s brother did.

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Notice that in the answer, “Alina’s brother did”, the word “did”

replaces the verb phrase “prepared these delicious dishes”. Consequently

“did” can be classified as a constituent.

It is obvious that if a string of words is not a constituent, then it is

unlikely to be grammatically correct

Who prepared these delicious dishes? Alina’s brother prepared.

This is not a right answer, so it is a not a constituent.

Summary

Now that you have a better understanding of the term ‘constituency’

you can apply this knowledge in order to draw syntactic trees more

effectively and saving time. In addition to that, you will improve skills on

examining issues in speech perception and speech pathology.

For more practice you can visit this web page:

http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Syntax/ExercisesOnConstituentStructure

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Here you will find different exercises in all the cases studied during

this section. You are strongly recommended to do all the exercises.

References

Lingnet. 2016; Syntactic Constituency:

https://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/syntactic-constituency/

Constituency 9
 Topic 4

Word Formation

Breaking down a word

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Table of contents Pág.

4. Word formation 33

4.1Types of word formation 34

4.2. Other types of word formation 37

4.3 Some uncommon morphological phenomena 38

Additional resources 39

References 39

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4. Definition

Given that any human being has the capacity to produce new words thanks

to their creativity we can consider word formation as the process in which new

words are formed by combining words or morphemes from any languages.

However:

Nowadays, the term ‘word formation’ does not have a clear cut,

universally accepted usage. It is sometimes referred to all processes

connected with changing the form of the word by, for example, affixation,

which is a matter of morphology. In its wider sense word formation

denotes the processes of creation of new lexical units. Although it seems

that the difference between morphological change of a word and creation

of a new term is quite easy to perceive, there is sometimes a dispute as

to whether blending is still a morphological change or making a new

word. There are, of course, numerous word formation processes that do

not arouse any controversies and are very similar in the majority of

languages. ( Sadeghi Ghadi; 2009)

Ultimately, people who have conducted research about this topic conclude

that word-formation processes are very similar in the majority of languages.

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4.1 Types of word formation

The main kinds of word formation are:

4.1.1 Compounding

It produces new words by combining complete word forms with a

single compound form.

the meaning of the compound may differ to a greater or lesser

degree from that of the corresponding phrase. A blackbird is a

species of bird, regardless of its color; a black bird is a bird which

is black, regardless of its species. A trotting-horse is a kind of

horse, regardless of its current activity; a trotting horse must be a

horse that is currently trotting. So, because the meanings of

compounds are not always predictable from the meanings of their

constituents, dictionaries often provide individual entries for them.

They do not do this for phrases, unless the meaning of the

phrase is idiomatic and therefore not derivable from the meanings

of its parts and how they are put together, e.g., raining cats and

dogs. Generally, the meaning of a phrase is predictable from the

meanings of its constituents, and so phrases need not be listed

individually. (Indeed, because the number of possible phrases in a

language is infinite, it is in principle impossible to list them all.) in

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many compounds, the order of the constituent words is different

from that in the corresponding phrase:

compound phrase

sawmill = mill for sawing

sawing horse = horse for sawing

sawdust = dust from sawing

(Gerald P. Delahunty, James J. Garvey 2009, page 132)

4.1.2 Derivation.

As this explanation demonstrates:

It is the process of creating separate but morphologically

related words. Typically, but not always, it involves one or more

changes in form. It can involve prefixing, as in resaw, and

suffixing, as in sawing, sawer, sawable. Another type of

derivation, while not visible, is at least audible. It involves a

change in the position of the primary stress in a word. Compare:

permit (noun) per’mit (verb)

contact (noun) con’tact (verb)

perfect (adj.) per’fect (verb)

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convert (noun) con’vert (verb)

(Gerald P. Delahunty, James J. Garvey 2009, page 129)

So, what derivation shows is that the addition of an affix creates a

new lexeme.

Examples:

Black + bird = blackbird

Dis + connect= disconnect

4.1.3. Affixation

Affixation is the most common way of making new words in English.

Affixation involves the addition of a morpheme to a word to create a new

one.

The addition of an affix requires a change in the stress pattern,

with consequential changes in the pronunciations of the vowels. In

most cases an unstressed vowel is pronounced as schwa:

Telegraph - te’legraphy

Regal - re’galia

Tutor - tu’torial

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(Gerald P. Delahunty, James J. Garvey 2009, page 129)

The most relevant forms of affixation are prefixation, the addition of a

prefix, and suffixation, the addition of a suffix.

Example:

Conforming

Con is the prefix.

Ing is the suffix.

4.1.4 Conversion

“Change of part of speech without any corresponding formal change is

called conversion (also functional shift or zero derivation)”. (Gerald P.

Delahunty, James J. Garvey 2009, page 130).

In other words, conversion generates a different word class from an

existing word.

Example:

The noun access can be used as a verb to access.

4.2. Other types of word formation

4.2.1 Coinage

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Simply we can say that coinage is the creation of a new word. A word

that did not exist before:

For example, Teflon, spandex.

4.2.2 Borrowing

Words are adopted in other languages for different reasons. In

linguistics, borrowing is the process by which a word from one language

is adapted for use in another. Another common name for this

phenomenon is a loanword.

Examples:

The word Garage comes from French.

4.2.3 Blending

Currently the word brunch serves as an example of blending. It is the

result of joining the beginning of breakfast with the ending of lunch. So,

blending can be defined as the link of two or more words.

Examples:

motel (motor + hotel)

4.2.4 Clipping

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Shortening words is another process of word formation. It consists of

dropping out some parts of a word to create a synonym.

Clipped Word Original word

phone telephone

bike motorbike

4.2.5 Backformation

It is also called back derivation as you create a new word after

removing a real or an imaginary affix.

Examples:

acculturate from acculturation

babysit from babysitter

4.2.6 Acronyms

Nowadays, an acronym is a popular way to form new words. They are

created with the initial letters of another.

Example:

AIDS - Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome.

ASAP - As Soon As Possible.

4.3 Some uncommon morphological phenomena

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There is a group of phenomena that is hard to find. However, it does not

mean they do not exist. That is why we analyze this group in the following

text.

4.3.1 Onomatopoeia:

They are words formed when the meaning is perceived as imitating the

sound: buzz, hiss, crack.

4.3.2 Cognates

They are words that have developed from a common ancestor:

beam (English) is cognate with Baum (German);

corresponding word into another language: grattacielo from skyscraper.

4.3.3 Eponym

It’s a word that comes from the proper name of a person or place. Eponyms

words can be based on both real and fictional people and places.

An example of this is the word Obamacare

4.3.4Toponym

It is a word derived from a place.

Example: Rocky Mountains.

Once you understand this section you can visit the following web page:

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https://www.english-grammar.at/online_exercises/word-formation/word-

formation-index.htm

Here you will find different exercises on line to sharpen your abilities in

recognizing word formation processes.

Additional resources

Watch the whole video about word formation processes.

Evan Ashworth; Word Formation Processes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=Ya7rLeGhY1M

References

Delahunty, P; Garvey,j (2010). The English Language From Sound to

Sense - Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Alireza Sadeghi Ghadi, Word formation process;

https://www.translationdirectory.com/article37.htm Fars Science and

Research University

WORD FORMATION PAGE 41

 Topic 5

Lexical Morphology

Dealing with the lexicon

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Table of contents Pág.

5.1 Definition 42

5.2 Morphology and its relation to lexicon 42

5.3 Structure, process and development 44

of Lexical Morphology 47

5.4 Lexicon, lexeme and lexicography

References 49

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5. Definition

Of crucial importance in our class is the study of lexical morphology which

has played an important role in recent development of morphological analysis.

There is a consensus among scholars that derivational morphology is

considered a lexical process. As it is explained here:

“the possibility that lexical prosody and syllabic characteristics are relevant

to lexical representation and affix separability, and we propose that

derivational morphemes can emerge to different degrees in a system that is

sensitive to both sound and meaning” (Jarmulowicz L; Taran V. 2013)

Based on this, lexical morphology is concerned with the formation and

structure of lexemes and it uses derivational morphology to complement their

study.

Teachers often struggle with the definition of lexical morphology, that is

why discovering the structure of words through lexemes requires to stablish

certain relationship among some critical concepts within this area.

5.1 Morphology and lexicon

The relationship between morphology and lexicon emphasizes the aspects

of formation of new words that inflection does not consider. Conclusions

similar to this read as follows:

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As with any two entities that share a task, morphology and the lexicon do

not always do so happily; they are rivals. This rivalry is not empty, but plays a

central role in the larger system of the language. In order to understand its

nature, we must consider a single speaker/hearer. When we speak of the

lexicon from this perspective, we speak of the individual’s mental lexicon, the

list of irregular items that the speaker/hearer carries around in his or her head.

We may then define the difference between existing words and potential

words in terms of this mental lexicon. We will say that any word that is stored

in a single speaker/hearer’s mental lexicon or list of irregular items is an

existing word, and that nothing else is. In particular, a word that meets all the

criteria for being a word of the language but that is not in an individual’s mental

lexicon does not exist for that person, though it may exist for another speaker/

hearer. The unlisted word is a potential word, and we will say that

morphologically well-formed complex potential words are provided by the

morphology, not by the lexicon. Thus, the conventional idea that the existing

words of a language – English, for example – comprise all the words in the

Oxford English Dictionary or some other comprehensive dictionary does not

apply in this model of the lexicon and the morphology. The difference between

which words exist and which are potential is defined solely in terms of the

individual’s lexicon and morphology. (Aronoff M; Anshen F. 2017)

The interdependence between morphology and lexicon has been debated

for a long time. Many authors claim that morphology is in the lexicon (Jensen

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and Stong-Jensen 1984). In choosing an appropriate point of view let’s say

that both morphology and lexicon are suppliers of words. Therefore,

morphological competence constitutes a specific aspect of lexical

competence, in the ordinary sense of this term, as an understanding of the

meaning of words in their context.

At this point, it is essential to address some basic terms in order to have a

better idea of this topic

5.2 Structure, Process and Development of lexical

morphology

Effective researchers have found that morpheme theories are not

sufficient to cover all the phenomena regarding word formation processes.

Lexical morphology appears as a solution to this problem.

As we reiterate in this section morphology interact with syntax, semantic

and phonology therefore lexical morphology should be examined as a key

factor to expand our vocabulary in a wider manner different from the classic

grammar we have been exposed traditionally.

5.2.1 Structure in lexical morphology

Lexical morphology studies the structure of words and the guidelines that

allow them to be built or derived from others. How is Lexical morphology

constructed? Linguists, based on extensive research, have focused their

work on identifying rules to word analysis, however it is impossible to obtain a

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general rule. On the contrary, many theories have appeared, each one making

a number which is difficult to handle.

These theories have helped to discover that derivational morphology is a

kind of lexical morphology since it is a type of word formation. We cannot

conclude the same with inflectional morphology since it is related to

grammatical aspects.

In simple words lexical morphology is based on derivational processes

that could be expressed in lexical representations models from a

psycholinguistics perspective. As such, it concerns itself primarily with word

formation: derivation and compounding.

At a more interactive level is lexical phonology which at first sight does not

have anything to do with morphology. Despite this belief, lexical phonology

has very similarities with derivational morphology. Thus, derived words do not

constitute variants of the original words but, they are new words in

themselves.

5.2.2 Process in lexical morphology

In addition to the study of the structure of words, Lexical morphology deals

with the study of the procedures for creating new words. These procedures

determine that new words are formed by the union of two or more words.

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One of the key factors to understand how lexical morphology is processed

are the psycholinguistics models. There are three terms which have to be

accurately interpreted:

How words are stored in long-term memory.

How derived words are processed.

What factors affect processing.

Successful lexical representation must transfer some types of information

stored in long-term memory: conceptual, semantic, syntactic, phonological,

and eventually orthographic information. This can be explained with this

example:

Let us take the word cake

Semantically you can associate this word with chocolate, ice cream, cookie

but phonologically it is linked with make, take.

5.2.3 Development in lexical morphology

The way your vocabulary develops vary through stages in life. Adult

research focuses their investigation in mature models. However, the

development in children is different. Thus, at one point there is an overlap

where some factors may influence the way adults and children represent their

lexicon.

These factors are frequency and transparency.

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Frequency effects in language development are present in work that

emphasizes input driven systems. For example, Marchman and Bates (1994)

contended that the emergence of morphosyntax is the result of children

acquiring a critical mass of verb knowledge from which they extract the

inflectional patterns

Transparency

A significant amount of developmental work has focused on transparency

issues; however, it remains challenging to isolate the semantic, phonological,

and orthographic factors. Semantic, phonological, and orthographic

transparency appears to affect acquisition of derivational morphology at

different times in development (Carlisle, 1988; Carlisle & Stone, 2005). In oral

language, early-acquired suffixes are generally semantically and

phonologically consistent ones. Semantic transparency affects how easily a

base word can be recognized within a derived form (Clark, 1993; Derwing,

Smith, & Wiebe, 1995). In addition, children spell words with semantically

transparent relationships more accurately than those with less apparent

semantic relationships, even when controlled for phonological transparency

(Deacon & Bryant, 2005)

As a conclusion we can say that lexical morphology analysis is based on

compounding and derivational processes.

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5.3 Lexicon, Lexeme and lexicography

The objective of studying lexical morphology can be seen in the way

scientists create dictionaries. In order to achieve this, lexicography establishes

relationships between words both semantically and structurally. So, it is

concerned with the processes of compilation. The integration of these

processes is linked to understand the following terms:

5.3.1 Lexicon

Lexicon is the collection of words that a speaker has or the inventory of

words a language has.

5.3.2 Lexeme

Typically, the definition of a lexeme is grounded as the basic lexical unit of

a language

5.3.1 Lexicography

Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two

separated but equally important academic disciplines:

Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and

editing dictionaries.

Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly study of semantic,

orthographic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic features of lexemes of the

lexicon (vocabulary) of a language, developing theories of dictionary

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components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the needs for

information by users in specific types of situations, and how users may

best access the data incorporated in printed and electronic dictionaries.

Dzharasova, T. T. (2020)

Summary and examples

At this point it is important to point out that to do a morphological analysis

based on the lexicon we have to identify the lexemes and then to create new

words using all kind of affixes or compounding processes.

Look at the sentence below:

I love playing soccer and I am the best player on my team.

As you can see play is the lexeme.

You form two more words adding affixes

Playing and player

Words are normally formed by adding AFFIXES to the lexemes.

The other process to create words that lexical morphology considers is

compounding which is combining two lexemes two form a new word.

Foot + ball = football

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Additional resources
For further instruction on this topic click on this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzwVQ_WjdqU

Watch the whole video.

References

Lexical
Morphology
: Structure,
Process,
and
Lexical Morphology 50
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Developme
nt
Linda Jarmulowicz and
Valentina L. Taran

Lexical
Morphology
: Structure,

Lexical Morphology 51
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Process,
and
Developme
nt
Linda Jarmulowicz and
Valentina L. Taran

Lexical Morphology 52
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Lexical
Morphology
: Structure,
Process,
and
Developme
nt
Lexical Morphology 53
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Linda Jarmulowicz and

Valentina L. Taran

Lexical
Morphology
: Structure,
Process,
and

Lexical Morphology 54
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Developme
nt
Linda Jarmulowicz and
Valentina L. Taran
Jarmulowicz L; Taran V;Lexical Morphology: Structure,Process, and

Development, 2013:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270218377_Lexical_Morphology_Str

ucture_Process_and_Development

Aronoff M; Anshen F; The Handbook of Morphology; 2017:

DOI:10.1002/9781405166348.ch11

Deacon & Bryant, 2005 What young children do and do not know about

the spelling of inflections and derivations:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-

7687.2005.00449.x

Carlisle & Stone, 2005 Exploring the Role of Morphemes in Word

Reading; DOI:10.1598/RRQ.40.4.3

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Derwing, Smith, & Wiebe, 1995 The foundations of accent and intelligibility

in pronunciation research: DOI:10.1017/S0261444811000103

Dzharasova, T. T. (2020). English lexicology and lexicography : theory and

practice (2 ed.). Almaty: Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.

Lexical Morphology 56
 Topic 6

Models of morphological analysis

Assembling words
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Table of contents Pag.

6. Models of morphological analysis 53

6.1 Morpheme-based morphology 53

6.2 Lexeme-based morphology 55

6.3 Word-based morphology 58

Bibliography 59

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6. Models of morphological analysis

Models of morphological analysis, as components of the discipline of

linguistics, is another approach used by linguists to break down words into

meaningful parts. However, some words do not show characteristics of

divisibility, many words are composed of more than one meaningful unit.

There are three models that are going to be seen in detail in this section:

6.1 Morpheme-based morphology

For the purpose of illustrating what Morpheme-based morphology is, this

section highlights the principal characteristic of this strategy to word formation

analysis.

Morpheme based morphology studies how the rules of word formation

operates over morphemes. Morphemes are the smallest unit of language that

have meaning. Consequently, morpheme-based morphology studies the way in

which morphemes behave. As this explanation claims:

A morpheme is like and atom in chemistry: it’s the smallest

meaningful word. In English “a” would be a morpheme since it’s the

smallest unit of language (1 letter) meaning something (it means: one of

something which is not specified). studies the ways in which morphemes

behave. Also in comparative linguistics, i.e. linguistics that study the

relationship between two languages, whereby similar morphemes or the

use of morphemes denoting the same meaning are compared. “A” in

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English is “un/une” in French but is “ “ in languages as Welsh and

Estonian where there is no word to express “a” (Nebeker T. in Quora

2020)

Furthermore, some properties of morphemes must be considered when

you analyze the structure of a word using this model.

A morpheme belongs to a closed class.

It refers only to grammatical categories

It may be phonemically expressed.

Knowing this will help to understand that morphemes and lexemes are

two different phenomena in linguistics.

Example

The behavior of morphemes can be seen in the word:

independently

Here the identification of morphemes will show the following:

the morphemes are in-, de-, pend, -ent, and -ly;

pend is considered the root.

The other morphemes are, in this case, derivational affixes.

Remember: Derivational affixes change the meaning of the words.

In words such as cats, cat is the root and the -s is an inflectional

morpheme.

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Remember: Inflectional morphemes do not change the meaning of the

words, they only signal grammatical information.

6.2 Lexeme-based morphology

Perhaps the lexeme-based morphology greatly differs from morpheme-

based morphology because it is the result of applying rules that modify the word

form. From that point, a new word is generated. Lexemes are derived from the

same basic word. As this example illustrates:

runs- ran- running belong to the lexeme run

This example demonstrates that the lexeme is a basic abstract unit of

meaning, and the other are forms of the lexeme run.

Similarly, in the analysis of words using this model, you need to take into

consideration these aspects of lexemes.

Lexemes belong to an open class.

They have real world references.

They must be phonemically expressed.

Although these models can be used separately, there is a trend

suggesting to use the model call: Lexeme-morpheme base morphology

which is a theory of morphology that claims that lexical morphemes, called

lexemes, and grammatical morphemes, Morphemes, are radically different

linguistic phenomena.

The definitions of the two categories are simple: Lexemes are

noun, verb, and adjective stems. These items in all languages are

manifested without exception as sound-meaning pairings that refer to

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something in the real world. Any other meaningful linguistic phenomenon

is a Morpheme and hence must refer to a grammatical category; it cannot

be used in reference to anything in the extra-linguistic world. Morphemes

refer exclusively to universally available closed-classgrammatical

categories like Tense, Aspect, and Number and may consist of

independent phonemic strings (usually unaccented), affixes, infixes,

changes in accent or tone, or even predictable omissions (zero

morphemes) (Beard R; 1995)

In this sense, it is acceptable that the morphological analysis has to

differentiate these components in a word.

The three basic hypotheses of lexeme-morpheme base morphology are:

The Separation Hypothesis claims that lexical and inflectional

derivation are processes distinct from phonological realization (affixation, etc.).

In other words, grammatical morpheme is the result of phonological

operations

Example:

The word worked

work is the lexeme. The segment with meaning

ed /t/ is the morpheme (it does not add any meaning)

So, lexemes are the object kept in the lexicon.

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The Unitary Grammatical Function Hypothesis claims that

there are 44 universally available grammatical functions used for both

inflectional and lexical derivations; Since morphemes are often the result

of reducing a lexeme, lexemes in transition, serving both as lexemes and

morphemes, are not uncommon. In US English, for example, have is a

lexeme since it does not behave like a morphemic auxiliary. In Britain,

however, this verb behaves more like an auxiliary, which LMBM treats as

a morpheme: it may be contracted (I've a new book) and it may be raised

in questions (Have you a new book). (BEARD, R. page 190)

According to this theory the lexemes and the grammatical morphemes

can be classified in 44 grammatical categories

Let’s take the example of baker

Bake is the lexeme. It is the verb

Baker is the lexical derivation (someone who bakes) so, it is another lexeme.

Morphemes can not go under any other derivation.

Base Rule Hypothesis claims that the universal categories of word and

clause structure must originate in a base component. Consequently, a word is

the result of accepted rules.

6.3 Word-based morphology

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Having focused our study in these three models, it is time to see what

Word-based morphology is. This hypothesis proposed in Aronoff (1976)

respond to regular word-formation processes that are word-based. A new word

is formed by applying a regular rule to a single already existing word. Both the

new word and the existing one are members of major lexical categories.

This also can be reflected in the following text:

Word based morphology studies the behavior and structure of

single words in conjunction with other words. This too can be done in

comparative linguistics and is, together with sentence morphology the

largest and up to now the most complicated field of morphology. e.g. We

say: “He speaks fast” (and not “fastly”) but at the same time we say: “He

speaks fluently” (and not “fluent”). This study can lead to etymology and

prescriptive or explanatory grammar. (Spencer, A. 1991)

Under this theory, words are the meaningful units. All new words come

from rules previously determined.

For example, fluent

Fluent is an adjective but we add (ly) = fluently

After adding the suffix, we have formed an adverb consequently we have

a new word.

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Additional resources

For further instruction it is recommended to see this presentation:

https://all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/

morphology/how-is-morphology-studied/

Read the whole article.

References

Spencer, A. (1991) Syntactic Argumentation and the Structure of

English, University of California Press: Berkely, Los Angeles, Londo

Spencer, A; (1991). Morphological theory: an introduction to word

structure in generative grammar. Oxford & Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.

Beard. R (1995) Lexeme-Morpheme Base Morphology: A General Theory

of Inflection and Word Formation; SUNY Press

Travis Nebeker (2020) In Quorahttps://www.quora.com/What-does-

smallest-meaningful-unit-mean-in-terms-of-morphemes

MODELS OF MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS 59

 Topic
1

Morphology
__________________________________________
Introduction to morphology
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Table of contents page

1.1. Origins of morphology 3

1.2. What is morphology? 4

1.3. The role of morphology in language acquisition 5

1.4. The place of morphology in early generative grammar 7

1.5. The morphology and phonology interaction 8

1.6. The morphology and syntax interaction 9

Additional resources 10

Bibliography 10

MORPHOLOGY P2
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1.1. Origins of morphology

Origins of Morphology date back to the early studies of ancient Greek,

Indian and Arab grammarians. Over the years, many linguists have claimed that
morphology has played an important role in the reconstruction of Indo- European
languages.

As cited in Katamba, Franz Bopp published the result of a study

supporting the claim, originally made by Sir. William Jones in 1786, “that
Sanskrit, Latin, Persian and the Germanic languages were descended from a
common ancestor. Bopp’s evidence was based on a comparison of the
grammatical endings of words in these languages” (1993, page 3)

Another important linguist called Jacob Grimm published his work pointing
out that the Germanic languages are branch of Indo-European due to their
structure and phonology. Many of their common features are presumed
innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, the source of all the Germanic
languages.

In the traditional view of language, words are put together to form

sentences. The words differ from each other in both sound and meaning:
clock and gong, for example, denote different sorts of object and are
distinguished by different consonants at the beginning and end. Hence the
sentences too will differ in sound and meaning, The clock has been sold
being distinguished from The gong has been sold as a function of the
words clock and gong. However, not only the words but also the
construction and the 'forms of words' will vary from one individual
sentence to another. (Matthews, P, 2012. Page 1)

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Indeed, all these conceptions have been abandoned during this century
where morphology is regarded as a discipline concentrated on the study of word
structure.

The most important understanding that we can gain is that any history has
to start somewhere that is why it would be difficult to reach an agreement where
all began.

1.2. What is morphology?

Several researches have shared a number of concepts trying to give the

best definition to Morphology.

Here you can see two more examples:

“Morphology, therefore is simply a term from that Branch of linguistics

which is concerned with the forms of words in different uses and constructions”
(Matthews, P. H. 2012, page 3)

“In this century morphology has been regarded as an essentially

synchronic discipline, that is to say, a discipline focusing on the study of word-
structure at one stage in the life of a language rather than on the evolution of
words”. (Katamba, F., & Stonham, J. 1993, page 3)

Inevitably, the notion of morphology has been particularly discussed where

many linguists conclude that it is the branch of linguistics that deals with the
structure and forms of a language.

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*For further instruction it is recommended to watch this video

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=mv7t6Q0uebY&ab_channel=EvanAshworth

It is advisable to see the whole video to have a big picture of the study of
morphology

1.3. The role of morphology in language acquisition.

The history and evolution of the study of morphology is connected to

different steps in learning a language as it is noted here:

The lexical component is a very important part of the grammar of a

language. The morphological rules, which are a part of it, provide the
speaker with the means to form new lexical units, and to accept or discard
the newly formed words he comes across as well or wrongly formed.

As for the productivity of the word formation rules, we have seen

these have recursive devices like the syntactic ones, which allow the
speaker to generate an infinite number of derived and compound words.
But like syntactic rules, morphological rules need be specified by
conditions and constraints in order to avoid overgeneration.

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In morphology the bases, but also the affixes and units resulting
from the operation of the rules, must be specified with the corresponding
category and the syntactic semantic sectional features. Meaning is a basic
point to consider in word formation, but we need more principle systematic
descriptions in order to use it explanatorily.

Learning morphology is similar to the learning of the other

grammatical components. First, we have to internalize lexical entries, later
the contact with language makes the learner understand that some words
have transparent internal structure generated by the rules of the language,
which allow the speakers to coin their own derived and compound words.

As for the learning of the added language, the rules of the native
and added languages which are similar cause the learner to apply the
rules of his native language to produce and interpret morphological
structures in the added language. (Domínguez, J. 1991.The Role of
Morphology in the Process of Language Acquisition and Learning Revista
Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses (4) 37-47)

Thus, in all sense morphology plays an important role in language

learning. It enables students to comprehend the word structure. It is important to
develop the morphological awareness of the learners to increase the learners’
vocabulary and to recognize the meaning easily when affixes are attached in
words. Also, when students master good vocabulary, they increase their reading
and writing abilities.

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For further instruction about how children acquire language, it is

recommended to read this article

https://iread-project.eu/2021/07/27/researching-morphological-awareness-how-
children-attend-to-shapes-of-words/

1.4 The place of morphology in early generative grammar

Without doubt, among the most purposed studies of morphology has been
the place of morphology in generative grammar. As this extract refers:

Until quite recently morphology did not receive its proper place in
the generative description of language. There was no question of a
separate morphological level and no attempt was made at the
incorporation of morphological analysis into the frame-work of generative
transformational grammar… the comparative neglect of morphology in
generative grammar may lie in the fact that English, on which the first
works primarily concentrated, is not a language with a particularly rich
morphology. Generative grammarians working with English were not
faced with too many morphological problems. (Kiefer,f The Formal
Analysis of Natural Languages: Morphology In Generative Grammar:
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110885248-017 page 1)

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So, we understand Generative grammar as a class of theories of

grammar. In other words what a person has in his /her head consists of an
instinct of some kind that helps to create a sentence in that speaker’s language.

Similarly, “Morphology” studies how the words in a sentence are formed.

For example, the plural form in English differs from other languages. Other
languages use a different process to pluralize. Morphology analyzes these kinds
of processes.

1.5 The morphology and phonology interaction

Morphology and phonology interaction is clearly seen in some cases.

Let’s take the three different realizations of the plural morpheme -s in English.
The three variants, /s/, /z/, and /ɪz/ are determined by their environment.
Likewise, Katamba has written:

As regards the interaction of morphology with phonology, the

selection of the form that manifests a given morpheme may be influenced
by the sounds that realize neighboring morphemes. Take the indefinite
article in English. It has two manifestations. It is a before a word that
begins with a consonant (e.g., a pear) and an before a word that begins
with a vowel (e.g., an orange). The same alternation occurs with the prefix
a/an that occurs in forms such as a-sexual and an-aerobic. We cannot
describe the phonological shape of the indefinite article without referring to
the sound at the beginning of the word that follows it. (Katamba, F., &
Stonham, J. 1993, page 12-13)

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Although this might be difficult to process, we can say that Morphological

level and phonological level are together in the formation of new lexical items in
spoken production.

1.6 The morphology and syntax interaction

Going deeper in the study of interaction of morphology with different

levels of linguistics, some authors claim that it expands its interaction to the
syntactic level as it is cited here:

As regards the interaction with syntax, the form of a word may be

affected by the syntactic construction in which the word is used. For
instance, the verb walk has a number of forms including walk, walks and
walked. The selection of a particular form of this verb on a given occasion
is dependent on the syntactic construction in which it appears. Thus, in the
present tense. the choice between the forms walks and walk depends on
whether the subject of the verb is third-person singular (in which case
walks is selected as in he/she it walks) or not (in which case walk is
selected as in I/you/we/they walk). In the past tense, walk is realized as
walked in all cases Katamba, F., & Stonham, J. 1993, page 13)

In this way, it would not be difficult to see that the interaction is found in
the use of inflectional forms of the verb. For example, the use of play and plays
depends on the subject or better said on the syntactic context.

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Additional resources

Famala Eka Sanhadi Rahayu, 2018;Introduction to English morphology

https://repository.unmul.ac.id/bitstream/handle/123456789/19755/An
%20Introduction%20to%20English%20Morphology-Famala.pdf?sequence=1

Read pages 1-5 in this document.

References

Kiefer,f: the formal analysis of natural languages: morphology in

generative grammar: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110885248-017

Domínguez, J. (1991.The Role of Morphology in the Process of

Language Acquisition and Learning Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 4

Katamba F; Stonham J, 1993. Morphology St.Martin's Press

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Matthews P, 2012, Morphology - Cambridge University Press

MORPHOLOGY P11
 Topic
2

Word
Building up a word
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Table of contents Pág.

2.1 What is a word? 13

2.2 Lexemes, Word forms and Grammatical words 14
2.3 Prosodic Word vs morphological word 16

Additional resources 18
Bibliography 18

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2. Introduction to word structure

Word structure is the way in which words are formed. We can receive a
lot of help by understanding how a word is built up. Definitely, the study of word
structure will help to improve our spelling and expand vocabulary. In addition to
that understanding word elements can help learners to process more words
quickly to acquire a language more effectively.

2.1 What is a word?

There are differences of opinion regarding the concepts of a word.
However, taking a closer look to the nature of a word, we can deduce that it is
the smallest sequence of phonemes that can be pronounced in isolation with
practical meaning.

Additional research indicates that “words are units composed of one or

more morphemes: they are also the units of which phrases are composed”.
(Delahunty, G and Garvey, J. 2010 page 126)

Also “we tend to regard as a word any expression that has no spaces
within it and is separated by spaces from other expressions”. (Delahunty, G and
Garvey, J. 2010 page 126)

However, if we analyze these concepts with more details we can find

different opinions about what a word is. English speakers for example might find
it easy to recognize a word by simply hearing or seeing it.

Here comes the dilemma where educators have to give an answer and
define what a word is. In order to explore the possible solution, it is necessary to
understand and differentiate the components of a word. To do so, it will be
helpful to consider some fundamental concepts.

Let’s start by studying the definitions of lexeme, word form, and

grammatical word.

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2.2 Lexemes, Word form and Grammatical word

2.2.1 The lexeme

Given that the meaning of a word seems to be a hard nut to crack,

it is difficult to understand what it is meant by “word”. As this example
illustrates “The forms pockling, pockle, pockles and pockled are different
realizations of the lexeme POCKLE (lexemes will be written in capital
letters). They all share a core meaning although they are spelled and
pronounced differently. (Katamba, F., & Stonham, J. 1993, page 18)

Why is that? Simply because you consider that these words might be
related somehow. Thus, we should consider the term lexeme as the root of a
word.

As we can see the forms see- sees- seeing- saw- seen are
manifestations of the lexeme see because they have the same core meaning
even though they are pronounced in a different way.

Having said this, we can coincide with this definition “Lexemes are the
vocabulary items that are listed in the dictionary” (cf. Di Sciullo and Williams,
1987).

Here you can see more example

Examples

MAN

RAIN

CAT

DOG

Exercise

What are the set of forms taken by the lexemes:

FIND

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RUN
DRINK
WOMAN
BOY

For further instruction it is recommended to watch this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fww1u6eNwxc

2.2.2 Word forms

As previously discussed we can differentiate word forms from lexemes in

a simple form. The term word refers to a particular realization of a lexeme in a
sentence. Observe this explanation

we can refer to see, sees, seeing, saw and seen as five different
words. In this sense, three different occurrences of any one of these
word-forms would count as three words. We can also say that the word-
form see has three letters and the word-form seeing has six. And, if we
were counting the number of words in a passage, we would gladly count
see, sees, seeing, saw, and seen as five different word forms (belonging
to the same lexeme) . (Katamba, F., & Stonham, J. 1993, page 18)

These following bullets will also explain what a word form is:

 A concrete vocabulary.
 A physical form of the concept or meaning in speech or writing.
 A concrete unit or morphological analysis in linguistics.

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Among all the definitions found we can clearly say that word form refers
to ways the form of a word in English conveys different meanings.

By observing this example, we can understand that in a better way.

The physical word forms: sits, sitting, sat are realizations of sit.

 He sits on the bench

 He is sitting on the bench
 He sat on the bench yesterday

2.2.3 The grammatical word

In many ways the picture would not be complete if we do not understand

what a grammatical word is. Let’s take a look at this:

“The nature of the grammatical word is important in the discussion of the

relationship between words and sentences and the boundary between
morphology and syntax”. (Katamba, F., & Stonham, J. 1993, page 19)

Furthermore, nouns, adjectives, verb, tense, gender, number, etc. are

regarded as grammatical word since they present some morpho syntactic
properties. We shall use the term grammatical word to refer to the 'word' in this
sense.

The vital point here is to make it clear that grammatical word deals with
the formation of sentences.

As these examples demonstrate the word cut represent two distinct

grammatical words.

 Usually I cut the chicken in half.

 Yesterday I cut the chicken in the sink.

In the first sentence the tense is simple present whereas in the second
the tense is past. But on top of that we have another case

 I have a cut on my finger

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Here the word cut is working as a noun which guides us to say that the
lexeme cut (noun) is different from the lexeme cut (verb) because they are
different word class.

2.3 Prosodic Word vs Morphological word

Among all possible variables of fundamental concepts we have to
understand are the difference between phonological word and morphological
word.

"The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology," defines a

phonological word as "the domain within which certain phonological or prosodic
rules apply, for example, rules of syllabification or stress placement.
Phonological words may be smaller or larger than grammatical or orthographic
words.” (Bauer, Laurie, Rochelle Lieber, and Ingo Plag. 2013)

"The phonological word represents the interaction between phonology

and morphology in that a phonological word either corresponds to a
morphological word or is constructed on the basis of information on the internal
structure of morphological words. By 'morphological word' is meant a (possible
compound) stem plus all affixes associated with it," says Marit Julien in
"Syntactic Heads and Word Formation (2002)."

There are some important aspects to clarify about these concepts. First
of all, in spoken production, the combination of morphemes serves as the input
to phonological processes which leads to see that the constituent sounds must
also be combined in such a way that the resulting phonological representation is
suitable for driving spoken production. For example, when you pluralize cat you
have to use the suffix /s/

The second reason that morphological and phonological processing are

linked is because the phonological environment created by combining
morphemes must be modified by the phonology in order to satisfy a language's
phonological constraints. For example, (find + ing = [faɪn.ɪŋ]). Here the
morphological word is finding but the phonological word is [faɪn.ɪŋ]). The
difference is when you pronounce the word it is different from the way it is
written.

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Additional resources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEDhPBpMaw4
You can watch this video to understand word forms, lexemes and
grammatical words. Watch the whole video.

References
Bauer, Laurie, Rochelle Lieber, and Ingo Plag. (2013) The Oxford Reference
Guide to English Morphology. Oxford University Press.

Julien, Marit. (2002.) Syntactic Heads and Word Formation. Oxford

University Press,

Katamba, F; Stonham, J (1993). Morphology-St. Martin's Press

Delahunty, P; Garvey,j (2010). The English Language From Sound to

Sense - Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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 Topic 3

Morphemes

The smallest unit of meaning

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Table of contents Pág.

3.1 Definition 21

3.2 Morphemes Morph Allomorph 21

3.3 Nature of morphemes 24

3.4 Types of morphemes 24

3.4.1 Roots Affixes Stems Base 24

3.4.2 Inflectional and Derivational morphemes

Additional resources 30

Bibliography 30

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3.1 Definition

As we have seen previously, Morphology is the study of word structure.

Inevitably, discussions about the structure of a word may appear since many

people claim a word is indivisible. We take for granted that words have a

simple structure. For example, cat, dog, eat, see, cannot be taken apart. As it

is reflected here:

Morphemes are the smallest forms (i.e., spoken and/or written units) in a

language that have meanings or grammatical functions. (Note: they are not the

smallest units of meaning.) Cat is a word consisting of one morpheme, cat.

Cats consists of two morphemes, cat and -s. Inactive contains three

(Delahunty, A. James, J, 2009 page 76)

Although these variations, each one tends to share a common ground.

However, we have to consider these three terms before we reach an

agreement on a correct definition of a morpheme.

3.2 Morphemes, morphs and allomorphs

The principle of contrast can be implemented to identify morphemes.

Scientists have been working hard to develop a set of procedures to give a

correct morphological analysis. Although, there are no effective mechanical

procedures to discover the structure of a word, many techniques have been

evolved by linguists to give reasonable answer to the way words are formed.

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We contrast the differences of words by taking into consideration the

phonological shape, the meaning and the grammatical function for example: In

the words: boy and girl, the difference is given by the sounds and at the same

time by the meaning. Furthermore, these two sentences will show the

difference in more details:

 The girl stays and the boy stayed

Boy and girl not only differ in the meaning but also in the grammatical

function of stays (present simple) and stayed (past tense). So, based on this,

there is a difference in meaning when you say the boy stays and the boy

stayed. Once we perform this analysis the definition of morpheme would be

clear as the text shows:

Morphemes are the smallest forms (i.e., spoken and/or written

units) in a language that have meanings or grammatical functions. (Note:

they are not the smallest units of meaning.) Cat is a word consisting of

one morpheme, cat. Cats consists of two morphemes, cat and -s.

Inactive contains three (Delahunty, A. James, J, 2009 page 76)

Likewise, going deeper in the analysis we find this interesting conclusion:

“When we wish to refer to a minimal grammatical form merely as a form,

we will use the term morph”. (Delahunty, A. James, J, 2009 page 125)

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The morph is a word segment that represents one morpheme (the

smallest unit of language that has meaning) in an oral or written form. Let us

see another example:

Boy is a morph because it has the two characteristics. On one side, it is

the physical form of a morpheme (boy) and on the other it is the phonetic

shape of a morpheme /bɔɪ/

Allomorph

“If different morphs represent the Same morpheme they are called

allomorph. Allomorph is a variant phonological representation of a morpheme”

(Delahunty, A. James, J, 2009 page 141)

Allomorphy is the phenomenon that a single morpheme has different

realizations, i.e. alternative forms depending on the phonological or

morphological context in which it appears. In another type of allomorphy, the

realization of a morpheme is conditioned by the presence of another

morpheme. (Spencer, A. 1991)

An allomorph is a different phonological version of a morpheme.

Examples

Plural: cat /s/ bag /z/

Past tense: /id/ /d/ /t/

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The relationship between a morpheme and its morphs and allomorphs is

parallel to the relationship between a phoneme and its phones and

allophones. A morpheme is manifested as one or more morphs (surface

forms) in different environments. These morphs are called allomorphs.

Graphic 1

(Delahunty, A. James, J, 2009 page 76)

3.3 Nature of morphemes

One commonly shared misconception about a morpheme is confusing

them with syllables. While syllables are used to articulate sound into words,

morphemes are units of meaning or grammatical function. Necessarily, this

believe must consider when you divide words. Note this explanation:

Words can be divided into segments of sound. Thus, the word

book can be divided into the segments /b, u, k/. Indeed, the division of

words into phonemes forms the basis of alphabetic writing systems like

that of English. But it is also possible, and natural to divide words into

syllables. For instance, Japanese uses fifty distinct symbols to represent

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the fifty syllable types found in the language. (Francis Katamba, John

Stonham, 2018 page 34)

Of particular importance in the study of word structure is to be aware of

this explanation. Therefore, when you break down a word, understanding this,

might actually help to be effective in morphological analysis.

This word provides a good example of the nature of morphemes:

Sofa contains two syllables but it only has one morpheme

3.4 Types of morphemes

At the heart of the study of the structure of a word is the composition of

them. Some authors assert that they also have their subdivisions. Throughout

this section we are going to see them in details:

3.4.1 Roots Affixes Stems Base

Roots

In order to give a general idea of what a morpheme is, we have to

emphasize some previous knowledge. Consider this:

The root morpheme of a word is the morpheme left over when all

derivational and inflectional morphemes have been removed. Thus,

seem is what remains when we remove the derivational morphemes {-

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ing} and {-ly} from seemingly, and must therefore be its root. (Delahunty,

A. James, J, 2009 page 141)

In other words, it is not possible to reduce a root into more meaningful

parts.

Example: run – running we dropped out ing.

What is left? The root run

Free morpheme

Essential to the successful comprehension of morphemes is the idea

that it can stand alone as a single word. In other words: Free morpheme is a

morpheme that need not be attached to another morpheme, but can constitute

a word on its own. (Delahunty, A. James, J, 2009 page 141)

Examples of free morphemes are:

1. creating 2. unhealthy

create (F) un (B)

ing (B) health (F)

y (B)

Categories of Free Morphemes

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There are two categories. These are Lexical morphemes and Functional

morphemes.

Lexical Morphemes

It is easy to identify a lexical morpheme as it carries the meaning or

content of a word. Nouns, adjectives verbs and adverbs are examples of them.

Boy, man: nouns

Happy, tall: adjs.

Go, drive: verbs.

Functional Morphemes

Much debate has surrounded the definition of a functional morpheme.

They only perform a function in grammar. Examples are conjunctions (and),

prepositions(of), pronouns(he) and articles (the). They are also considered

functional words because they do not have dictionary meaning.

Bound Morphemes

Equally influential on appropriate breaking down of morphemes in a

word is to understand what a bound morpheme is. Simply said, they are the

opposites of free morphemes. They need to be linked to another morpheme.

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Examples include: -ish, -ness, -ation, -tion, -ism, -al, -er, -s, -en, -ed, etc.

When you look at the following words, they are combinations of both free and

bound morphemes: foolishness, bookish, naturalization, farmer, does, bags,

taken, expected, etc. Bound Morphemes are called Affixes in English.

After reflecting on the difference of free morphemes and bound

morphemes we reach to the conclusion that bound morphemes are called

Affixes in English. Affixes are also Bound Morphemes. Take a moment to

review these definitions

Types of Affixes in English

Many devoted linguists have tried to classify the affixes in English to

make instruction more comprehensible. They say that there are two types of

affixes. Prefixes and suffixes however some scholars claim that there is a third

one in discordance which is an infix.

Suffix is a group of letters added to the end of a word.

Prefix is a group of letters added to the beginning of a word to change its

meaning.

These definitions will help to understand these concepts better:

Prefix

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They are attached at the onset always. In other words, we can say that a

prefix is an affix that is attached before a root or base or stem, such as re-,

un-, in- etc. (Aligarh Muslim university; types of morpheme)

Suffix

A suffix is an affix that is attached after a root or base or stem, such as –

ly, -er, -ist, -s, -ed, etc (Aligarh Muslim university; types of morpheme)

Infix

An infix is an affix inserted into the root itself or we can say that infixes

are placed within the root. (Aligarh Muslim university; types of morpheme)

Stems and base

As it is observed here:

The stem is that part of a word that is in existence before any

inflectional affixes (i.e., those affixes whose presence is required by the

syntax such as markers of singular and plural number in nouns, tense in

verbs, etc.) have been added.

In the word-form cats, the plural inflectional suffix -s is attached to

the simple stem cat, which is a bare root, that is, the irreducible core of

the word. In workers, the same inflectional -s suffix comes after a slightly

more complex stem consisting of the root work plus the suffix -er, which

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is used to form agentive nouns from verbs (with the meaning 'someone

who does the action designated by the verb. e.g.. singer, fighter, dancer).

Here work is the root, but worker is the stem to which -s is attached.

Finally, a base is any unit whatsoever to which affixes of any kind

can be added. The affixes attached to a base may be inflectional affixes

selected for syntactic reasons or derivational affixes which alter the

meaning or grammatical category of the base. An unadorned root like

boy can be a base since it can have attached to it inflectional affixes likes

to form the plural boys or derivational affixes like -ish to turn the noun

boy into the adjective hoyish. In other words, all roots are bases Bases

are called stems only in the context of inflectional morphology (Francis

Katamba, John Stonham, 2018 page 46-47)

For academic linguistic content a stem is the basic meaning of a word

and it deals with inflectional morphology. In the word disappearance the stem

is appear because after you remove the inflectional suffixes, you have the

stem.

Pref stem suffix

Dis appear ance

Do it yourself:

Reconstruction

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Unrecognizable

3.4.2 Inflectional and derivational morphemes

The study of inflectional and derivational morphology deals with the

ways words are modified to fit into different grammatical contexts. As you can

see in these concepts:

Derivational morphemes are added to forms to create separate words:

{-er} is a derivational suffix whose addition turns a verb into a noun, usually

meaning the person or thing that performs the action denoted by the verb. For

example, {paint}+{-er} creates painter, one of whose meanings is “someone

who paints.”

Inflectional morphemes do not create separate words. They merely

modify the word in which they occur in order to indicate grammatical properties

such as plurality, as the {-s} of magazines does, or past tense, as the {ed} of

babecued does. (Delahunty, A. James, J, 2009 page 181)

Thus, the principal difference is that inflectional morphemes never change

the grammatical category of a word, derivational morphemes often change the

part of speech of a word.

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This graph will summarize this topic:

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Graphic 2

(English fn (2021) morphology and it’s types diagram)

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In order to sharpen your skills on these topic s you can do the activities

on these web pages:

https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/5a80a740b1fb72002268462c/

derivational-and-inflectional-morphemes

https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/nlp/InteractiveNLP/NLP_morph2.html

References

Katamba, F; Stonham, J (1993). Morphology-St. Martin's Press

Delahunty, P; Garvey,j (2010). The English Language From Sound to

Sense - Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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Spencer, A; (1991). Morphological theory: an introduction to word

structure in generative grammar. Oxford & Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.

English fn (2021). morphology and it’s types diagram in:

https://www.englishfn.com/morphology-definition-types-function-of-morpheme/

MORPHEMES PAGE 35
 Topic 7

Paradigms and morphosyntax

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Table of contents Page

7.1 Paradigms and morphosyntax 62

7.2. Allomorphy 66

References 68

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7.1 Paradigms and morphosyntax

Paradigms

Linguists who enhance their readiness for managing strategies to apply

correctly morphological analysis increase their effectiveness by organizing the

study of a language using paradigms. The word paradigm has been separated

to a simple distinctly use to improve the comprehension of word-formation.

The first use of paradigm was given within the scientific study of

languages. The incorporation of this kind of organization highlighted the

existence of a class of elements in a language. Thus, a linguistic paradigm is

any kind of rational tabulation of linguistic forms, such as phrases, words, or

phonemes, intended to illustrate contrasts and systematic variation (Bird, 1999)

The word paradigm has become important because it is another strategy

adopted when you do morphological analysis. It refers to the complete set of

related word forms associated with a determined lexeme. The most common

example of paradigms is the conjugation of verbs.

A traditional definition of paradigm is that it is a set of related forms. As

it is seen in the following chart:

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graphic 3

In All you need to know about Morphology (linguistics) Marco S., Vitor F., Francisco S., Marcos( 2017)

Successful implementation of paradigms wouldn’t be complete unless we

understand how to make a morphological paradigm. In essence, when creating

a paradigm, the set of forms must be selected based on the common root or

stem that is working according to the grammatical environment in which they

are used.

For example, in the Spanish language we have this group organized because of

the phonological environment.

The adjectives ending in -ido acido, avido, candido

They form their noun with the ending -ez acidez avidez candidez

Now we have our paradigm. Sustantivos españoles ending in -ez

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Morpho-syntax

Of the critical aspects of studying Linguistics, perhaps morphosyntax is

the most fundamental as noted here:

The study of grammar can be separated into two categories:

morphology and syntax. The study of words and the laws that govern their

development is known as morphology. Syntax, on the other hand, is the study

of sentences and the rules that govern their creation. In essence, morphology

and syntax are both studies of the same thing - the rules that govern the

formation of a language – but at different "levels." Kiran S, Farooq A. (2021)

Morphosyntactic analysis

In implementing an appropriate analysis of words or sentences we must

align with a defined method. Morphosyntactic analysis offers the opportunity to

face a profound encounter with the proposed phrase. Consequently, the

strategy used fall under the umbrella of two perspectives: the syntactic or

morphological point of view.

Syntactic analysis: When we talk about a syntactic analysis it has to be

clear that we point out the syntactic functions of the words forming a sentence.

Morphological analysis: In particular, the morphological analysis directs

its work to the class, form or category of the words that are part of a sentence.

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Ultimately, morphosyntactic analysis is concerned with the combination

of the two previous forms and the result obviously is more complete. Using this

analysis will allow us to get deeper into the quality of the analyzed phrase.

How to do a morphosyntactic analysis?

This model, as previously noted, requires the integration of both levels of

analysis morphological and syntactical so, it is necessary to work at these two

levels.

Morphological level analysis

In the first place we will have to carry out a morphological analysis, to

understand and point out the types and classes of words that appear in the

sentence. Let’s take the following example:

Carlos sent a letter to his brother.

The first thing we must do is to classify each of the words under the type

they belong to:

Carlos: Proper noun, masculine singular

He sent: Verb explain, past tense.

to: Preposition

his: Possessive determinant.

brother: Common name, singular masculine.

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Syntactic level analysis is determining the logical meaning of

sentences and functions that each of the words within a sentence have.

Subject: is the person, animal or thing that performs the action of the

verb.

Predicate: it shows us what the subject is doing. It is formed by a verb

phrase in which the nucleus will always be the verb.

Within the predicate there are also other words that also have a function

within the sentence: “letter” which is the Direct Complement and “his brother”

which is the Indirect Complement.

Morphosyntactic analysis

Effective analysis suggests that when we are asked to perform a

morphosyntactic analysis we must mark the functions that appear in both and

combine them. In the morphosyntactic analysis all the parts in a sentence are

related and we have to see the way they behave within it.

7.2 Allomorphy

Among other analysis arising in morphology is allomorphy. Allomorphy

has a central role in the study of Linguistics because the conditions that

produce allomorphy are originated in many different natures, consequently, it

has valid assumptions for our language.

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What is allomorphy?

It has been common in the study of morphology to stress the importance

of allomorphy. We tend to call allomorphy to just a way to give a lexical

representation to a word. However, the analysis goes further.

The first and most basic characteristic is the condition that must hold for

a phenomenon to be called allomorphy. Many researchers adopt the view that

allomorphy must involve more than one lexical representation, as it is explained

here:

Allomorphy is the phenomenon that a single morpheme has

different realizations, i.e. alternative forms depending on the phonological

or morphological context in which it appears. In another type of

allomorphy, the realization of a morpheme is conditioned by the

presence of another morpheme. (Spencer, A. 1991)

Examples

In English, the plural suffix has three pronunciations:

(a) /s/ after nouns ending in a voiceless consonant (cats /kats/),

(b) /z/ after nouns ending in a voiced consonant (dogs /dogz/), and

(c) /ɪz/ after nouns ending in a coronal sibilant (horses /horsɪz/).

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For further instruction visit this web page to see allomorphy in more details

Watch the video from minute 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyDsU_wqk5g

References

Spencer, A. (1991) Syntactic Argumentation and the Structure of

English, University of California Press: Berkely, Los Angeles, London

Bird E. (2016); Coastal Cliffs: Morphology and Management: Springer.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The Social

Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London Edward Arnold.

Kiran S, Farooq A. (2021) Morphosyntactic Analysis: A Study of English

and Urdu Determinatives

Marco S., Vitor F., Francisco S., Marcos H. (2017) Morphology

(linguistics); All you need to know about Morphology (linguistics) in

http://morphology123.blogspot.com/2017/01/paradigms-and-morphosyntax.html

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