Chapter 1 - Introduction
Understanding morphology - Haspelmath & Sims
1.1 What is morphology
➢ Words have internal phonological structure → they are made up of a sequence of sounds
➢ Variation in shape of words can indicate semantic changes:
➢ Words have morphological structure → when there are a group of words that show identical
partial resemblances in both form and meaning
Complex words = a word that is one of a group of words that show systematic covariation in their
form and meaning
Ex. → nuts, [s] is a phonological segment and also a semantic segment indicating plural
‘Morphology is the study of systematic covariation in the form and meaning of words.’
Constituent = a subgrouping within the structure of a word or sentence
Ex. → nuts has two constituents: nut-s
Morphemes = the smallest meaningful constituents of words
‘Morphology is the study of the combination of morphemes to yield words.’
Morphology is part of the language system and a subdiscipline of linguistics.
1.2 Morphology in different languages
Analytic language = a language that uses little morphology
Isolating language = a language that has almost no morphology
Synthetic language = a language that uses a fair amount of morphology
Polysynthetic language = a language that has an extraordinary amount of morphology and
perhaps many compound words
The distinction between these types of languages is a scale from most isolating to the most
polysynthetic languages.
Degree of synthesis = ratio of morphemes per word
1.3 The goals of morphological research
Making descriptions of morphological patterns:
1. Elegant description → morphological patterns should be described in a elegant manner and
these descriptions need to be generalisations
Generality = a common way of measuring the elegance of a description, according to which
fewer descriptions capturing a larger portion of data each is deemed more general than more
descriptions capturing a smaller portion of the data each.
, 2. Cognitively realistic description → descriptions also need to express the same
generalisations about grammar systems that speakers unconsciously make.
Explaining morphological patterns (this concerns universal aspects of morphology)
3. System-external explanation → explaining why these patterns exist and refers to facts
outside of the language system
They can be historical accidents. If you want to explain these patterns you have to find out
which morphological patterns are universal, these are less likely to be an accident.
4. A restrictive architecture for description (system-internal) → formulating some general
design principles of grammatical systems that all languages and their language particular
descriptions seem to adhere to
→ grammar theory = an architecture for the description of grammatical structure
Universal grammar = the innate part of speaker’s grammar knowledge
Primary orientation in theoretical morphological research:
➢ Functionalist orientation = an approach to research that emphasises system-external
explanation
➢ Generative/formalist orientation = an approach to research that emphasises system-internal
explanation
Chapter 2 - Basic Concepts
To segment = to break-up complex words into individually meaningful parts → morpheme
Monomorphemic = containing one morpheme
2.1 Lexemes and word-forms
Word (contiguous sequence of letters):
1. word-token = an instance of use of a word-form in some text or in speech
2. lexeme = a word in abstract sense, they have no phonological form (live is a lexeme, [lɪv] is
not a lexeme)
3. word-form = a word in a concrete sense; a sequence of sounds that express the combination
of a lexeme and a set of grammatical meanings
Word-forms belonging to the same lexeme have the same core concept, but have different
grammatical functions.
Paradigm = set of word-forms that belong to the same lexeme
Word family = set of lexemes that are related to each other
Difference between lexemes and word-forms:
1. Complex lexemes (READER) indicate new concepts that are different from the concepts of
the corresponding simple lexeme (READ). Word-forms still share the same concept, but are
needed in certain syntactic contexts.
2. Lexemes in a word family can be from different word-classes, but word-forms stay in the
same word-class.
3. The form and meaning of complex lexemes are less predictable than word-forms.
,
, Kinds of morphological relationship:
➢ inflection (word-form formation) = the relationship between word-forms of a lexeme.
○ example: reads is an inflected form of the lexeme READ, READ is inflected for tense
and person
➢ word formation (lexeme formation)
○ derivation = the relationship between lexemes of a word family
■ example: READER is derived from READ, READER is a derivative, a
derived lexeme
○ compounding = when morphologically complex words belong to multiple word
families at the same time
■ Compounds/compound lexemes = complex lexemes that belong to multiple
word families at the same time
When it’s not clear whether two words inflectionally or derivationally related, the term ‘word’ will be
used.
2.2 Affixes, bases and roots
Morphemes can have abstract and concrete meanings. Morphemes with abstract meaning have
grammatical functions, but the purpose of these grammatical construction is to express meaning →
morphemes have meaning
Word-forms in a paradigm are distinguished from each other by affixes.
Affix = a morpheme that attaches to a word or main part of a word and cannot occur by itself, this is
usually a short morpheme with an abstract meaning
Base = part of the word that the affix is attached to
Stem = base of an inflected word-form
suffix follows the base
prefix predeces the base
infix occurs inside the base
circumfix occurs on both sides of the base
Bases can be complex:
Activity → the suffix ity is combined with the base active, which consists of the suffix ive and the
base act. The base act is the root.
Root = a base that consists of a single morpheme, it cannot be further analysed.
Just like roots, affixes can also not be further analysed into component morphemes.
The base is a relative notion that is defined with respect to the notion affix.
Understanding morphology - Haspelmath & Sims
1.1 What is morphology
➢ Words have internal phonological structure → they are made up of a sequence of sounds
➢ Variation in shape of words can indicate semantic changes:
➢ Words have morphological structure → when there are a group of words that show identical
partial resemblances in both form and meaning
Complex words = a word that is one of a group of words that show systematic covariation in their
form and meaning
Ex. → nuts, [s] is a phonological segment and also a semantic segment indicating plural
‘Morphology is the study of systematic covariation in the form and meaning of words.’
Constituent = a subgrouping within the structure of a word or sentence
Ex. → nuts has two constituents: nut-s
Morphemes = the smallest meaningful constituents of words
‘Morphology is the study of the combination of morphemes to yield words.’
Morphology is part of the language system and a subdiscipline of linguistics.
1.2 Morphology in different languages
Analytic language = a language that uses little morphology
Isolating language = a language that has almost no morphology
Synthetic language = a language that uses a fair amount of morphology
Polysynthetic language = a language that has an extraordinary amount of morphology and
perhaps many compound words
The distinction between these types of languages is a scale from most isolating to the most
polysynthetic languages.
Degree of synthesis = ratio of morphemes per word
1.3 The goals of morphological research
Making descriptions of morphological patterns:
1. Elegant description → morphological patterns should be described in a elegant manner and
these descriptions need to be generalisations
Generality = a common way of measuring the elegance of a description, according to which
fewer descriptions capturing a larger portion of data each is deemed more general than more
descriptions capturing a smaller portion of the data each.
, 2. Cognitively realistic description → descriptions also need to express the same
generalisations about grammar systems that speakers unconsciously make.
Explaining morphological patterns (this concerns universal aspects of morphology)
3. System-external explanation → explaining why these patterns exist and refers to facts
outside of the language system
They can be historical accidents. If you want to explain these patterns you have to find out
which morphological patterns are universal, these are less likely to be an accident.
4. A restrictive architecture for description (system-internal) → formulating some general
design principles of grammatical systems that all languages and their language particular
descriptions seem to adhere to
→ grammar theory = an architecture for the description of grammatical structure
Universal grammar = the innate part of speaker’s grammar knowledge
Primary orientation in theoretical morphological research:
➢ Functionalist orientation = an approach to research that emphasises system-external
explanation
➢ Generative/formalist orientation = an approach to research that emphasises system-internal
explanation
Chapter 2 - Basic Concepts
To segment = to break-up complex words into individually meaningful parts → morpheme
Monomorphemic = containing one morpheme
2.1 Lexemes and word-forms
Word (contiguous sequence of letters):
1. word-token = an instance of use of a word-form in some text or in speech
2. lexeme = a word in abstract sense, they have no phonological form (live is a lexeme, [lɪv] is
not a lexeme)
3. word-form = a word in a concrete sense; a sequence of sounds that express the combination
of a lexeme and a set of grammatical meanings
Word-forms belonging to the same lexeme have the same core concept, but have different
grammatical functions.
Paradigm = set of word-forms that belong to the same lexeme
Word family = set of lexemes that are related to each other
Difference between lexemes and word-forms:
1. Complex lexemes (READER) indicate new concepts that are different from the concepts of
the corresponding simple lexeme (READ). Word-forms still share the same concept, but are
needed in certain syntactic contexts.
2. Lexemes in a word family can be from different word-classes, but word-forms stay in the
same word-class.
3. The form and meaning of complex lexemes are less predictable than word-forms.
,
, Kinds of morphological relationship:
➢ inflection (word-form formation) = the relationship between word-forms of a lexeme.
○ example: reads is an inflected form of the lexeme READ, READ is inflected for tense
and person
➢ word formation (lexeme formation)
○ derivation = the relationship between lexemes of a word family
■ example: READER is derived from READ, READER is a derivative, a
derived lexeme
○ compounding = when morphologically complex words belong to multiple word
families at the same time
■ Compounds/compound lexemes = complex lexemes that belong to multiple
word families at the same time
When it’s not clear whether two words inflectionally or derivationally related, the term ‘word’ will be
used.
2.2 Affixes, bases and roots
Morphemes can have abstract and concrete meanings. Morphemes with abstract meaning have
grammatical functions, but the purpose of these grammatical construction is to express meaning →
morphemes have meaning
Word-forms in a paradigm are distinguished from each other by affixes.
Affix = a morpheme that attaches to a word or main part of a word and cannot occur by itself, this is
usually a short morpheme with an abstract meaning
Base = part of the word that the affix is attached to
Stem = base of an inflected word-form
suffix follows the base
prefix predeces the base
infix occurs inside the base
circumfix occurs on both sides of the base
Bases can be complex:
Activity → the suffix ity is combined with the base active, which consists of the suffix ive and the
base act. The base act is the root.
Root = a base that consists of a single morpheme, it cannot be further analysed.
Just like roots, affixes can also not be further analysed into component morphemes.
The base is a relative notion that is defined with respect to the notion affix.
