Exploring Language and Linguistics

PREVIEW

In this chapter you will first learn to segment words into their smallest meaningful parts, their morphemes. Different types of morphemes will then be distinguished on a number of dimensions. The classes arising from such distinctions are useful because they allow us to formulate generalizations about the properties shared by the members of these classes and the restrictions they are subject to. A second type of generalization covered in this chapter concerns the patterns and rules which underlie the formation of complex lexemes, i.e. words that are made up of more than two lexical morphemes. This is the realm of word-formation. You will be introduced to the range of word-formation patterns that can be used to form new words with the help of existing words and morphemes, including compounding, i.e. the joining of two or more words to form a new complex lexeme (e.g. interest rate, washing-machine or watertight), prefixation, yielding words such as disagree,unjust or ex-minister, and suffixation (e.g. agreement, justify, ministerial). Further word-formation patterns, which are less regular and transparent, include conversion (hammerN → to hammerV or emptyAdj → to emptyV), back-formation (e.g.to sightsee ← sightseeing; to burgle ← burglar), blending (e.g. infotainment ← information + entertainment), clipping (e.g. ad ← advertisement, phone ← telephone), and the formation of acronyms or initialisms from fixed sequences of words (URL ← unique resource locator; NATO ← North Atlantic Treaty Organization).

INTRODUCTION

Generally speaking, the linguistic discipline of morphology – the term is derived from the Greek word morphos meaning ‘form’ – examines the internal makeup and structure of words as well as the patterns and principles underlying their composition. In doing so, morphology straddles the traditional boundary between grammar (i.e. the rule-based, productive component of a language) and the lexicon (i.e. the idiosyncratic, rote-learned component). Morphology looks at both sides of linguistic signs, i.e. at the form and the meaning, combining the two perspectives in order to analyse and describe both the component parts of words and the principles underlying the composition of words.

Unlike phonology, morphology does not analyse words in terms of syllables but in terms of morphemes, i.e. components of words that are carriers of meanings.