Andrew Radford - Linguistics An Introduction [Second Edition]

The last morphological process we shall consider here is represented marginally by some English verbs which are derived from nouns. The difference between a mouth and to mouth or a house and to house is that the final consonant is voiced in the verb: /maʊθ ~ maʊð/, /haʊs ~ haʊz/. In the Nilotic language DhoLuo, spoken in Western Kenya, much more systematic use is made of this process in the

formation of plurals. Here are some singular and plural forms of nouns in this language:

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DhoLuo plurals

singular

plural

a.

kede

‘twig’

kete

‘twigs’

b.

got

‘hill’

gode

‘hills’

c.

luθ

‘stick’

luðe

‘sticks’

d.

puoðo

‘garden’

puoθe

‘gardens’

e.

buk

‘book’

buge

‘books’

f.

ʧogo

‘bone’

ʧoke

‘bones’

g.

apwojo

‘rabbit’

apwoʧe

‘rabbits’

h.

kwaʧ

‘leopard’

kwaje

‘leopards’

One way of forming a plural involves adding a suffix -e as in these examples. In general, when this occurs, the voicing of the final consonant of the stem changes from voiced to voiceless or vice versa (with the palatal glide /j/ being treated as the voiced correlate of the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate /ʧ/).

The above phenomenon exemplifies what is often called consonant mutation,

and this is even more obvious and varied in its effects in Celtic languages. Look at the way adjectives behave in Literary Welsh when modifying masculine nouns

and feminine nouns (adjectives come after nouns in Welsh):

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Welsh consonant mutation

masculine nouns

feminine nouns

a.

dur klir

‘clear water’

nos glir

‘clear night’

b

gwint poeθ

‘hot wind’

teisen boeθ

‘hot cake’

Morphology across languages

165

c.

hogin tal

‘tall lad’

geneθ dal

‘tall girl’

d

ti glan

‘clean house’

calon lan

‘clean heart’

e

ɬivr bax

‘little book’

ferm vax

‘little farm’

[/ɬ/ is a voiceless /l/]

Operations such as reduplication, ablaut and consonant mutation are rather

different from the concatenative types of morphological operation discussed earlier because they do not involve adding anything (such as an affix) to a stem or base in any obvious sense. This type of morphology is often referred to as non-concatenative morphology, and, as we have observed, it is very difficult to interpret in terms of the morpheme concept. For instance, in the past tense form sang, what is the past tense morpheme? Or in the plural form men, what is the plural morpheme?

We don’t want to say that it is the /a/ or the /ɛ/, because this would imply that the non-past form of SING was */sng/ and the singular form of MAN */mn/, which is clearly not the case. Earlier, we pointed out that a single morph may realise several different functions at once. Thus, the -iː ending of the Latin verb form amaːviː

‘I have loved’ in (124) realises present tense, perfect aspect and first person singular, while the inflectional suffix of a Latin noun realises simultaneously noun declension, number and case. Equally, we have found that a single function may be

realised by several different morphs. In the Latin amaːviː ‘I have loved’, both the suffix -v- and the suffix -iː help to realise the property PERFECT. Similarly, in the English perfect participle form driven (/drɪv/), PERFECT is realised by the -n suffix and by the process of ablaut applied to the verb root: /aɪ/ ⇒ /ɪ/ (cf. drive (/draɪv/). These phenomena are more intelligible if we appeal to Separationism and distinguish the abstract morphological processes of tense formation, agreement, perfect participle formation, plural formation and so on, from the concrete operations of suffixation, ablaut and so on (exercises 6 and 7).

Exercises

1.

For the regular Spanish verb forms below, which have been segmented

into their constituents, indicate the functions of the suffixes and com-

ment on any difficulties there are in finding a single meaning or

function for each suffix. (The accent over a vowel marks exceptional

stress, which would otherwise fall on the previous syllable.)

habl-a-r

‘to speak’

com-e-r

‘to eat’

habl-o

‘I speak’

com-o

‘I eat’

habl-a-s

‘you speak’

com-e-s

‘you eat’

habl-a-n

‘they speak’

com-e-n

‘they eat’

habl-é

‘I spoke’

com-í

‘I ate’

habl-a-ste

‘you spoke

com-i-ste

‘you ate’

habl-a-ron

‘they spoke’

com-ie-ron

‘they ate’

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words

habl-aba

‘I was speaking’

com-ía

‘I was eating’

habl-aba-s

‘you were speaking’ com-ía-s

‘you were eating’

habl-aba-n

‘they were speaking’ com-ía-n

‘they were eating’

habl-a-r-é

‘I shall speak’

com-e-r-é

‘I shall eat’

habl-a-r-ás

‘you shall speak’

com-e-r-ás

‘you shall eat’

habl-a-r-án

‘they will speak’

com-e-r-án

‘they shall eat’

Model answer ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The verb forms illustrate three tenses (traditionally called present, pre-

terite and imperfect) and two inflectional classes, the first and second

conjugations (there’s also a third conjugation not illustrated here). The

outermost endings indicate the person/number of the subject of the verb

(the person speaking/eating). These are the same for both conjugations.

However, they differ depending on the tense as indicated below:

present

preterite

future

1sg.

-o

-é/í

-é

2sg.

-s

-ste

-ás

3pl.

-n

-ron

-án

In addition, the first singular preterite form depends on the conjuga-

tion class. The imperfect tense is indicated by the suffix -aba (first

conjugation) or -ía (second conjugation). In the present and the pre-

terite, there is no special tense marker. However, the two tenses are

kept apart by their distinct person/number suffixes. In the future, yet

another set of person/number endings is added to a form which is

identical to the infinitive form. In the infinitive and present tense

forms, the root of the verb is followed immediately by a vowel, -a

or -e, which distinguishes the two conjugations. In the preterite, the

second conjugation has instead the vowel -i (-ie in the third plural

form). These conjugation class vowels are traditionally called ‘theme

vowels’. In the imperfect, there is no separate ending for first singular.

In the present and preterite, there is no theme vowel in the first

singular forms.

These paradigms illustrate a large number of dependencies. Firstly,

all the person/number endings also serve to help indicate the tense,

so these can be said to cumulate tense properties as well as expressing

their own basic person/number properties. The first singular preterite

endings additionally cumulate conjugation class information. The

imperfect tense suffixes also indicate conjugation class information,

so these cumulate inflectional class with tense properties. The lack of

first singular ending (zero morph) in the imperfect serves as an indirect