Andrew Radford - Linguistics An Introduction [Second Edition]

find forms such as sing ~ sung, where the perfect participle differs from the base form by virtue of a vowel change. Should we regard sung as analysable as sing +

PERF, with something (what exactly?) being a distinct allomorph of PERF in sung?

It doesn’t make much sense to say this, but it’s a question of a type that recurs continually with inflection. An alternative is to say that there is a morphological process of perfect participle formation and this can be realised in a variety of

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ways, including affixation (-ed suffixation and -en suffixation) and a vowel change. We therefore speak of the affixes -ed/-en or the vowel change to /ʊ/ in sung as realisations of the morphological process. Morphologists sometimes

also use exponents, a term we have already met, for referring to realisations.

Adopting this perspective, it is common to represent morphological properties as features, similarly to the way we treated phonological properties in section 5,

and so we can say that a perfect participle form of a verb has the feature [+perfect participle]. Thus, selecting a verb from the lexicon with this feature is a signal to trigger whatever phonological operation realises that function, whether regular affixation of -ed, the irregular -en suffixation, vowel change, or the choice of a suppletive form like brought.

One upshot of this reasoning is that we don’t now have to say that complex

words consist of morphemes, neatly strung out in a row, each with its own

meaning. Instead, we regard the operations of affixation (if they are what the morphology requires) as separate from the morphological process which is realised by each affixal morpheme. The morphological function itself is then represented by the set of features the word bears. The idea that affixes don’t necessarily have a fixed meaning in the way that words do is known as the Separation

Hypothesis. For simple cases, of course, such as regular plurals or past tenses in English, it does no real harm to simplify the description and treat the affixes as things which have their own form and their own meaning. Thus, for many

purposes in syntax it is sufficient to think of the past tense form walked as WALK +

PAST TENSE, just as coffee table is COFFEE + TABLE. However, when we come

to look at more complex inflectional systems in the next section, we will see that the notion of Separationism is an important idea.

Exercises

1.

This is an exercise in English derivational morphology. Analyse

the following words into root and derivational affix. Identify the func-

tion of each affix, the lexical category of the root (base category), V, N

or A, and the lexical category of the derived word (output category):

absorbent, defamation, freedom, ladylike, mishear, purify, unaware, accessible, motorise, Marxist, counter-example, encircle, expressive, greenish, broaden, unlock, Roman, obscurity, arrival

Model answer for absorbent -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The word form absorbent comprises a root absorb and a suffix -ent.

The root is a verb indicated by the fact that absorb has the forms

absorbs, absorbed, absorbing that are characterstic of regular English

verbs. Of these forms, absorbs signals third person singular agree-

ment illustrated by the contrast between he absorbs punishment and

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words

*I absorbs punishment/*they absorbs punishment; absorbed has a

number of functions, serving as the past tense form of the verb (he

absorbed a lot of punishment yesterday), the perfect participle form

(he has absorbed a lot of punishment) and the passive participle

form (a great deal of information was absorbed in the session);

absorbing is the progressive participle form of the verb (he is

absorbing the lesson). The derived form absorbent is an adjective,

which can be used to modify nouns (absorbent material) and can

follow forms of the verb to be (this material is absorbent). While it

does not have -er and -est forms like some adjectives (*absorbenter,

*absorbentest), the comparative and superlative senses can be

expressed by using more and most (more absorbent, most absor-

bent). Thus, -ent is a suffix that converts verbs like absorb into

adjectives like absorbent.

2.

For each of the following words, give a full grammatical description.

Indicate those instances where you need more than one description of

a single word form (for instance, crossed: ‘past tense; perfect/passive

participle of the lexeme CROSS’).

walks

sheep

cut

left

(Hint: bear in mind what was said about conversion.)

3.

Draw tree diagrams for the following compounds. Note that they

all have more than one meaning and therefore require more than

one tree. How does the tree structure relate to the difference in

meaning?

(a) French history teacher

(b) criminal law firm

(c) senate inspection review committee

4.

Analyse the following words into morphemes and explain their struc-

ture in terms of derivation, inflection, compounding, affixation and

conversion. Give a brief explanation of the meaning or function of

each bound morpheme.

incomprehensibility

disingenuosity

unhappier

reprivatised

counterintuitively

deforestation

babysitter

party hats

5.

(a) English regular plural allomorphy

Regular nouns in English form their plural by ‘adding an -s (or some-

times -es)’: cats, dogs, cows, horses, ostriches, flamingos, etc. However,

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this -(e)s suffix undergoes phonologically conditioned allomorphy,

appearing as [s], [z] or [əz]/[ɪz]. Use the following examples to identify

the phonological conditions of this allomorphy (Hint: you will need to

pay particular attention to the phonological nature of the final segment

of the singular form.):

tops

pots

tabs

pads

packs

bags

cliffs

cloths

classes

clutches

crashes

cruises

cages

cows

quays

suckers

names

manes

rails

(b) English third person singular and possessive -’s allomorphy

Collect together examples of uses of the third person singular ending

and the possessive -’s phrasal affix, using 5a as a model. Like the

English regular plural, this morpheme undergoes allomorphy. Describe

this allomorphy and identify the conditioning factors. Compare your

results with your answer to 5a. (Hint: don’t forget the possessive forms

of regular and irregular plural nouns.)

(c) English regular past tense allomorphy

Regular verbs in English form their past tense by ‘adding a -d (or

sometimes -ed)’: walked, played, waited, etc. However, this -(e)d suffix

undergoes phonologically conditioned allomorphy, appearing as [t], [d]

or [əd]/[ɪd]. Use the following examples to identify the phonological

conditions of this allomorphy. Comment on the relationship between

this allomorphy and the allomorphy you have described in 5a and 5b.

caged

padded

rolled

crashed

classed

laughed

played

proved

tabbed

bagged

named

moaned

topped

potted

packed

clutched

6.

The past tense and perfect/passive participle of bring is brought.

However, children (and some adults) sometimes use the form brung.

On the other hand, it is very rare for a child to coin a form such as

*rought for the past tense or perfect/passive participle of ring (although