5. Allomorph
Some morphemes have a single form in all contexts, such as “dog, bark, cat”,etc. In other instances, there may be some variation, that is, a morpheme may have alternate shapes or phonetic forms. They are said to be the allomorphs of the morpheme, the plural morpheme may be represented by:
map----maps [s] dog----dogs [z] watch----watches [iz] mouse----mice [ai] ox----oxen [n] tooth----teeth sheep----sheep Each of the underlined part is called an allomorph of plural morpheme.
6. Derivational morpheme & inflectional morpheme
1)Derivational morphemes---- the morphemes which change the category, or grammatical class of words, e.g. modern---modernize, length---lengthen, fool---foolish, etc.
2)Inflectional morphemes---- the morphemes which are for the most part purely grammatical markers, signifying such concepts as tense, number, case and so on; they never change their syntactic category, never add any lexical meaning, e.g. a) number: tables apples cars
b) person, finiteness and aspect: talk/talks/talking/talked
c) case: John/John’s
7. Some other terms
1) Root
A root is that part of the word left when all the affixes (inflectional & derivational) are removed, e.g. “desire” in “desirable”, “care” in “carefully”, “nation” in “internationalism”, “believe” in “unbeliev(e)able”…
2)Stem
A stem is part of a word-form which remains when all inflectional affixes have been removed, e.g. “undesiralbe” in undesirables
3) Base
A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. This means any stem and root can be termed as a base.
The difference between root, stem & base
1) A base can be added by both inflectional & derivational affixes while a stem can be added only by
inflectional affixes;
2) A base is derivationally analyzable (e.g. undesire in undesirable) while a root cannot be further
analyzed, e.g. desire in undesirable;
3) Root, stem and base can be the same form, e.g. desire in desired; 4) Undesirable in undesirables is either a stem or a base; 5) Desirable in undesirable is only a base.
8. Morphological rules
1) The rules that govern the formation of words, e.g. the “un- + ----” rule.
unfair unthinkable unacceptable…
2) Compounding is another way to form new words, e.g.
landlady rainbow undertake…
9. Compounds
1) Noun compounds
daybreak (N+V) playboy (V+N) haircut (N+V) callgirl (V+N) windmill (N+N) 2) Verb compounds
2) Bound morpheme----is one that may appear with at least one other morpheme. They can not
stand by themselves, such as “-s” in “dogs”, “al” in “national”, “dis-” in “disclose”, “ed” in “recorded”, etc.
brainwash (N+V) lipread (N+V) babysit(N+V) 3) Adjective compounds
maneating (N+Ving) heartfelt (N+Ved) dutyfree (N+adj.) 4) Preposition compounds
into (P+P) throughout (P+P)
Some points about compounds
1) When the two words are in the same grammatical category, the compound will be in this category,
e.g. postbox, landlady, icy-cold, blue-black…
2) When the two words fall into different categories, the class of the second or final word will be the
grammatical category of the compound, e.g. head-strong, pickpocket…
3) Compounds have different stress patterns from the non-compounded word sequence, e.g. red coat,
green house…
4) The meaning of a compound is not always the sum of the meanings of its parts.
Chapter 4 Syntax
1. What is syntax?
----a branch of linguistics that studies how words are combined to form sentences and the rules that govern the formation of sentences.
2. Transformational Generative Grammar (TG)
Norm. Chomsky, the most influential linguist in 20th century, some important works: (1957) Syntactic Structure;
(1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax;
(1981) Lectures on Government and Binding; (1986) Barriers
(1993) A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory; (1995) The Minimalist Program; (1998) The Minimalist Inquiry……
3. Criteria on good grammar Observational adequacy Descriptive adequacy Explanatory adequacy
The ultimate goal for any theory is to explain.
TG differs from traditional grammar in that it not only aims at language description, but also its explanation.
Chomsky is much more interested in the similarities (language universals) between languages rather than their differences.
Linguists should attempt to find a grammatical framework which will be suitable for all languages; Linguists should concentrate on the elements and constructions that are available to all languages rather than on elements that actually occur in all languages.
There are likely to be universal constraints on the ways linguistic elements are combined
Chomsky proposed that the grammars of all human languages share a common framework (Universal Grammar).
4. Categories
Category refers to a group of linguistic items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language such as a sentence, a noun phrase or a verb. The most central categories to the syntactic study are the word-level categories (traditionally, parts of speech) 4.1 Word-level categories
Major lexical categories: N, V, Adj, Prep.
Minor Lexical categories: Det, Deg, Qual, Auxi, Conj. 4.2The criteria on which categories are determined Meaning Inflection Distribution
?Note: The most reliable criterion of determining a word’s category is its distribution.
4.3 Phrase categories and their structures
a. Phrase categories----the syntactic units that are built around a certain word category are called phrase categories, such as NP(N), VP(V), AP(A), PP(P). b. The structure: specifier + head + complement Head---- the word around which a phrase is formed Specifier---- the words on the left side of the heads
Complement---- the words on the right side of the heads 4.4 Phrase structure rules
The grammatical mechanism that regulates the arrangement of elements that make up a phrase is called a phrase structure rule, such as:
NP ? (Det) + N +(PP)……e.g. those people, the fish on the plate, pretty girls. VP ? (Qual) + V + (NP)……e.g. always play games, finish assignments.
AP ? (Deg) + A + (PP)……very handsome, very pessimistic, familiar with, very close to PP ? (Deg) + P + (NP)……on the shelf, in the boat, quite near the station.
5. The XP rule
X’ Theory
XP ? (Specifier)X’ X’ ? X(complement)
6. Coordination rule
Coordination structures-----the structures that are formed by joining two or more elements of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and, or, etc.
Coordination has four important properties: a. no limit on the number of coordinated categories before the conjunction; b. a category at any level can be coordinated; c. the categories must be of the same type; d. the category type of the coordinate phrase is identical to the category type of the elements being conjoined.
7. Phrase elements ---specifier; head; complement
7.1 Specifiers---- Semantically, specifiers make more precise the meaning of the head; syntactically, they typically mark a phrase boundary. Specifiers can be determiners as in NP, qulifiers as in VP and degree words as in AP.
7.2 Complements---- Complements themselves can be a phrase, they provide information abut entities and locations whose existence is implied by the meaning of the head, e.g. a story about a sentimental girl; There can be no complement, one complement, or more than one complement in a phrase, e.g. appear, break, put…; a sentence-like construction may also function as a complement such as in “I believed that she was innocent. I doubt if she will come. They are keen for you to show up.” That/if /for are complementizers, the clauses introduced by complementizers are complement clause.
7.3 Modifiers
---- Modifiers specify optionally expressible properties of heads.
8. Sentences (the S rule) 1) S ? NP VP
2) S ? NP infl VP
Many linguists believe that sentences, like other phrases, also have their own heads. Infl is an abstract category inflection (dubbed ?Infl?) as their heads, which indicates the sentence?s tense and agreement.
3) Infl realized by a tense label
4) Infl realized by an auxiliary
9. Transformations
1) Auxiliary movement (inversion)
Inversion? Move Infl to the left of the subject NP. Inversion (revised)? Move Infl to C.
2) Do insertion
3) Deep structure & surface structure
a.Consider the following pair of sentences: John is easy to please. John is eager to please.
Structurally similar sentences might be very different in their meanings, for they have quite different deep structures.
b. Consider one more sentence: Flying planes can be dangerous.
It can mean either that if you fly planes you are engaged in a dangerous activity or Planes that are flying are dangerous.
c. Deep structure----formed by the XP rule in accordance with the head’s sub-categorization properties; it contains all the units and relationships that are necessary for interpreting the meaning of the sentence.
d. Surface structure----corresponding to the final syntactic form of the sentence which results from appropriate transformations; it is that of the sentence as it is pronounced or written.
10. The organization of the syntactic component
Wh-movement
Consider the derivation of the following sentences: What languages can you speak? What can you talk about?
These sentences may originate as: You can speak what languages. You can talk about what.
Wh-movement---- Move a wh phrase to the beginning of the sentence. What language can you speak ?
What can you talk about ?
Wh-movement---- Move a wh phrase to the specifier position under CP. (Revised)
Move α and constraints on transformations
Inversion can move an auxiliary from the Infl to the nearest C position, but not to a more distant C position.
No element may be removed from a coordinate structure.
Chapter 5 Semantics
Semantics----the study of language meaning.
Meaning is central to the study of communication.
What is meaning?---- Scholars under different scientific backgrounds have different understandings of language meaning.
1. Some views concerning the study of meaning 1.1 Naming theory (Plato)
Words are names or labels for things. Limitations:
1) Applicable to nouns only.
2) There are nouns which denote things that do not exist in the real world, e.g. ghost, dragon, unicorn, phenix…
3) There are nouns that do not refer to physical objects but abstract notions, e.g. joy, impulse, hatred…
1.2 The conceptualist view
The conceptualist view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to (i.e. between language and the real world); rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. Ogden and Richards: semantic triangle
The symbol or form refers to the linguistic elements (words and phrases); The referent refers to the object in the world of experience; Thought or reference refers to concept.
The symbol or a word signifies things by virtue of the concept associated with the form of the word in the minds of the speaker; and the concept looked at from this point of view is the meaning of the word.
1.3 The contextualism
Meaning should be studied in terms of situation, use, context—elements closely linked with language behavior. Two types of contexts are recognized: a. Situational context: spatiotemporal situation
b. Linguistic context: the probability of a word’s co-occurrence or collocation.
For example, “black” in black hair & black coffee, or black sheep differs in meaning; “The president of the United States” can mean either the president or presidency in different situation.
1.4 Behaviorism
Behaviorists attempted to define meaning as “the situation in which the speaker utters it and the response it calls forth in the hearer”. The story of Jack and Jill:
Jill Jack S_________r--------s_________R
2. Lexical meaning
Sense and reference are both concerned with the study of word meaning. They are two related but different aspects of meaning.
Sense---- is concerned with the inherent meaning of the linguistic form. It is the collection of all the features of the linguistic form; it is abstract and de-contextualized. It is the aspect of meaning dictionary compilers are interested in.
Reference----what a linguistic form refers to in the real, physical world; it deals with the relationship between the linguistic element and the non-linguistic world of experience.
Note: Linguistic forms having the same sense may have different references in different situations; on the other hand, there are also occasions, when linguistic forms with the same reference might differ in sense, e.g. the morning star and the evening star, rising sun in the morning and the sunset at dusk.