Types of lexical information: MORPHOLOGY
Introduction to Inflection and Word Formation
New word formation
New concepts, objects and inventions require new words/ new vocabulary.
New words can be invented or derived from already existing linguistic material.
New words can potentially be invented by everybody.
But they are more likely to be spread out within a speech community, if they are invented/ used by people who own political power or enjoy a certain popularity/ celebrity such as scientists, engineers, product branding companies or poets.
The poem "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice Through the Looking Glass, is a famous poem in which the author mainly uses terms he invented himself. It is a poem full of vocabulary that does not exist in English, but have been derived from English language material. Because of this, the reader is able to understand the broad contend of the poem.
The poem has been translated into German by Christian Enzensberger who calls it "Der Zipferlake".
It is famous for its interesting word- building phenomenon. The author invents new roots and morphemes which leads to the creation of new POS and meanings. Lewis Carroll forms new words by putting different parts of two or more existing stems together f.ex.: chortle, galumph. He also creates compound words from at least two existing stems, f.ex.: snicker-snack
Original version by Lewis Carroll:
Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
German translation of the "Jabberwocky" by Christian Enzensberger
Der Zipferlake
von Christian Enzensberger
Verdaustig war's und glasse Wieben
rotterten gorkicht im Gemank;
Gar elump war der Pluckerwank,
Und die gabben Schweisel frieben.
»Hab acht vorm Zipferlak, mein Kind!
Sein Maul ist beiß, sein Griff ist bohr!
Vorm Fliegelflagel sieh dich vor,
Dem mampfen Schnatterrind!«
Er zückt' sein scharfbefifftes Schwert,
Den Feind zu futzen ohne Saum;
Und lehnt' sich an den Dudelbaum,
Und stand da lang in sich gekehrt.
In sich gekeimt, so stand er hier,
Da kam verschnoff der Zipferlak
Mit Flammenlefze angewackt
Und gurgt in seiner Gier!
Mit eins! Mit zwei! und bis aufs Bein!
Die biffe Klinge ritscheropf!
Trennt er vom Hals den toten Kopf,
Und wichernd springt er heim.
»Vom Zipferlak hast uns befreit?
Komm an mein Herz, aromer Sohn!
O blumer Tag! O schlusse Fron!«
So kröpfte er vor Freud.
Verdaustig war's und glasse Wieben
rotterten gorkicht im Gemank;
Gar elump war der Pluckerwank,
Und die gabben Schweisel frieben.
Morphological Structure
Branches of Morphology
Morphology deals with:
..............MORPHOLOGY
................↓............... ↓
INFLECTION .......WORD FORMATION
............................↓ ................↓
...................DERIVATION ....COMPOUNDING
The process of inflection and derivation have in common that one stem is used and that certain affixes, mainly in form of suffixes, but also in form of prefixes, infixes or circonfixes are added. But the main difference between inflection and derivation is defined by its linguistic valence. While inflection is used in order to expand paradigmatic creativity in the sense of providing the creation of syntagmatic adaptation to the text, the external function of word formation in terms of derivation consists of paradigmatic creativity in terms of inventing new language material and expand vocabulary.
The process of compouning, in contrast, consists of putting two existing stems together and create one new word meaning.
Reminder: What are linguistic SIGNS?
DIALOGUE → Intonation → Social relations
↑
TEXT → Intonation → Description
↑
SENTENCE → Accent/ Intonation → State/ Event
↑
WORD → Phonemes/ Stress → Entity/ Prop
Morphology sketch
The function of Inflection
Inflection has got an internal structure and an external function. Its external function is to mark the relation of words to their contend. In this sense it does not provide any change in the basic meaning of words.
The internal structure of morphology is due to the form words can take. Affixes (prefix, suffix, infix) and superfixes can be added to stems. Stems can also underlie a vowel change.
In word formation, morphology has slightly different functions. It aims at creating new words, shifting words within their part of speech or creating new meanings. In principle there is an infinite extendability of the lexicon.
On the basis of its internal structure, word forms can be created by inventing new roots or morphemes (blending, abbreviation,...). But, inventing new roots or morphology is very difficult and rather unlikely to occur in everyday’s live (unless scientists or companies for instance are searching deliberately). A more common technique is derivation, meaning that a common stem underlies a vowel change or receives a new affix in form of a prefix, suffix or infix.
Compounding is also a very popular mechanism of creating new vocabulary. Two stems are put together, eventually with an interfix or an inflection-like affix.
The internal structure of words
MORPHEMES are the smallest meaningful parts of words!
There are two main morpheme types:
Lexical morphemes (content morphemes, roots) which have got an open set of possible words (f. ex.: girl, boy, car, box, spoon, grass, sky)
Grammatical morphemes (structural morphemes) which can be defined as a closed set of words. There are free grammatical which are independent words (prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs) and bound morphemes which emerge in word formation and inflection (affixes; most often in form of suffixes).
Morphemes and allomorphs
Morphemes can be realised differently in different contexts (environment of the phoneme in question). Variant pronunciations are called ALLOMORPHS.
The function of morphemes
How are words built?
Inflection marks the syntagmatic relation of words to their contexts. Syntactic agreements can therefore be in person, number and case. In English there is only subject- verb agreement, whereas there is subject-verb, determiner- adjective- noun and preposition- nominals agreement in German.
Inflection can also depend on situational contexts. Verbs correlate to time and space. Nominals to quantity and definiteness relations.
The internal structure of words
English words consist of a stem and an inflection. Stems carry a lexical meaning and inflections have got grammatical meanings. Inflections relate words to their syntactic (person, case, number agreement) and semantic (tense/time, quantity, speaker-addressee) context.
For example: cats
....................↓. ↓
..............stem .inflection
STEMS of English words can be SIMPLE (i.e. ROOTS, lexical morphemes) such as red, table, run, car etc. or COMPLEX.
Complex stems can be derivations (a stem and a derivational affix; f.ex.: beauty + ful = beautiful), compounds (the combination of at least two different stems written together or separated by a hyphen; f.ex.: armchair, red-head).
There is also the possibility of using both, a derivation and a stem whose combination is called synthetic compounding (f.ex.: bus-driver, steam-roller).
A hierarchy of words and their parts
WORDS consist of 1 STEM and an INFLECTION
↓ ..................................................↓
STEM/ BASE ............................INFLECTION: affix
↓ .................................................................prefix
COMPOUND STEM: 2 stems........................... suffix
↓................................................................. infix
DERIVED STEM: 1 stem + affix .................x...circumfix .
?..................................................................superfix
ROOT (lexical morpheme) .............................ablaut
Remember: Words as signs
....................................... Phrase semantics
Inflected Words
....................................→ Stress
↑
....................................→ Lexical semantics
Compound Word
...................................→ Stress
↑
...................................→ Lexical semantics
Derived Word
...................................→ Stress
↑
..................................→ Lexical semantics
Morpheme
..................................→ Phonemes, Stress
WHAT IS...?
A WORD is: .......................a stem + an inflection
An INFLECTION is: ...........a suffix or an ablaut
A STEM is: ........................either a ROOT (lexical morpheme)
.........................................or a DERIVED STEM (i.e. stem + affix)
.........................................or a COMPOUND STEM (stem + stem)
A DERIVED STEM is: .......either a ROOT (zero derivation)
.........................................or a DERIVED STEM with an affix
A COMPOUND STEM is: ...a derived stem/ word + a derived stem/ word
.........................................or a compound stem + a compound stem
Simple and complex words
Simple words are short words consisting of one syllable:
f. ex.: car, star, cat
Complex words can be:
-blends and abbreviations (based on simplex roots consisting of more than one stem):
such as: brunch; NATO
-derivations (based on one root):
f.ex.: unable, impossible, happiness, antidisestablishmentarianism
-compounds (based on more than one root/ stem):
f.ex.: tatpurusa (endocentric): jam-jar, honeypot, harddisk, bus-stop
........dvandva (bicentric): whisky-soda, gentleman- farmer
........bahavrihi (exocentric): red-head, redskin, blue-stocking
Questions???
What is SANSKRIT?
Sanskrit is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India.
Dating back to at least 1500 B.C., its position in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia is akin to that of Latin and Greek in Europe. It appears in pre-Classical form as Vedic Sanskrit (appearing in the Vedas), with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved. This fact and comparative studies in historical linguistics show that it is one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family.
Today, Sanskrit is spoken by a very small group of people, but continues to be widely used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. The vast literary tradition of Sanskrit in the form of the Hindu scriptures and the philosophical writings are also studied. Scholarly discussions on various topics in Indian philosophy continue to be held in the Sanskrit language in a few traditional institutions in India. The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and literature, as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and religious texts.
The scope of this article is the Classical Sanskrit language as laid out in the grammar of Panini, around 500 BC.
(Source: http://www.wikipedia.com/)
Who was PANINI?
Panini was an ancient Indian grammarian from Gandhara (traditionally 520- 460 BC, but estimates range from the 7 th to 5 th centuries BC). He is most famous for his Sanskrit grammar, particularly for his formulation of the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology in the grammar known as Aadhyayi (meaning "eight chapters"). It is the earliest known grammar of Sanskrit (though scholars agree it likely built on earlier works), and the earliest known work on descriptive linguistics, generative linguistics, and perhaps linguistics as a whole. Panini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the end of the period of Vedic Sanskrit, by definition introducing Classical Sanskrit.
(Source: http://www.wikipedia.com/)
The internal structure of words
Examples:
1.) Bus-driver
Bus-driver
↓ ........↓
bus driver
.........↓ ..↓
....drive .-er
2.) Bata- base
Data- base
↓........ ↓
data ..base
3.) Newspaperman
Newspaperman
↓ .........↓ .......↓
news paper man
4.) Newsreader
Newsreader
↓ ..........↓
news reader
........↓..... ↓
......read ..-er
5.) Nevertheless
Nevertheless
↓....... ↓..... ↓
never the less
posted by Melanie Zahn @ 10:33 AM
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