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Morpho-Syntax Basic Analysis Updated

The document provides a basic analysis of Swahili morphemes and their syntactic structures, including verb roots and phrases. It contrasts the morphological and syntactic differences between Hindi and English, highlighting the SOV structure of Hindi versus the SVO structure of English. Additionally, it includes tree diagrams for sentence structures and interpretations of an ambiguous English sentence.

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Younes Benomar
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68 views3 pages

Morpho-Syntax Basic Analysis Updated

The document provides a basic analysis of Swahili morphemes and their syntactic structures, including verb roots and phrases. It contrasts the morphological and syntactic differences between Hindi and English, highlighting the SOV structure of Hindi versus the SVO structure of English. Additionally, it includes tree diagrams for sentence structures and interpretations of an ambiguous English sentence.

Uploaded by

Younes Benomar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Morpho-Syntax Basic Analysis

Section 1: Swahili Morpheme Exercise


1st person singular: ni

Simple past tense marker: li

Verb root for 'like': penda

Verb root for 'beat': piga

Verb root for 'annoy': sumbua

Verb root for 'pay': lipa

Phrase for 'You have beaten us': umetupiga

Phrase for 'I am paying him': ninamlipa

2nd person object (you): ku

2nd person subject (you): u

3rd person singular subject (he/she): a

1st person plural (we): tu

3rd person singular object (him/her): m

3rd person plural (they): wa

Future tense marker: ta

Progressive aspect marker: na

Perfective aspect marker: me

Morpheme order in Swahili: Subject - Tense - Object - Verb root

English meaning of 'atanilipa': He/she will pay me

English meaning of 'walikupenda': They liked you

Section 2: Further Analysis


Below are tree diagrams representing the syntactic structure of Hindi and English
sentences, as well as an ambiguous English sentence with two possible interpretations.

Hindi Syntactic Structure (SOV)


Sentence: Ram ne seb kha:ja (Ram ate an apple)
Structure: Subject - Object - Verb (SOV)

Tree Diagram:
S
/|\
NP NP VP
/ \ | |
Ram ne seb kha:ja

English Syntactic Structure (SVO)


Sentence: Ram ate an apple.
Structure: Subject - Verb - Object (SVO)

Tree Diagram:
S
/ \
NP VP
| / \
Ram V NP
| / \
ate Det N
an apple

Ambiguous Sentence Interpretation 1


Sentence: The boy called the girl from England.
Interpretation: The action happened from England.

Tree Diagram:
S
/ \
NP VP
/ \ / \
Det N V NP PP
The boy called Det N
the girl
/ \
P NP
from England

Ambiguous Sentence Interpretation 2


Sentence: The boy called the girl from England.
Interpretation: The girl is from England.

Tree Diagram:
S
/ \
NP VP
/ \ / \
Det N V NP
The boy called / | \
Det N PP
the girl / \
P NP
from England

Morphological and Syntactic Differences


**b) One morphological difference between Hindi and English:**
Hindi uses **ergative case marking** (e.g., *ne* in *Ram ne seb kha:ja*), which is common in
languages with split ergativity. In contrast, English does not mark subjects in the past tense
with an ergative case.

**c) One syntactic difference between Hindi and English:**


Hindi follows a **Subject-Object-Verb (SOV)** word order, while English follows **Subject-
Verb-Object (SVO)**.
- Example: *Ram ne seb kha:ja* (Ram apple ate) → *Ram ate an apple* (SVO).

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