Morpheme

A.Y. 2014/2015
Lingua e traduzione
Lingua Inglese I
The Structure of English – Exploring and
Translating Morphosyntactic Complexity and
Creativity
Elisa Ghia
ghia@unistrasi.it
Timetable

Corso docente
Every Thursday 13.30-15.30, Aula Magna,
starting October 9th
Office hours (Elisa Ghia)
Every Thursday 15.30-16.30, Room 219
Course overview
Introduction to the structure of English
 Introduction to English morphology: the structure and
creation of English words

◦ English texts and morphological complexity
◦ Translating morphological complexity and creativity
(news texts, web pages, advertisements, technical texts;
Receptive tasks [view, analyse and compare translations]
and productive tasks [do translation])
 English vocabulary: variation in vocabulary selection
(varieties of English; register; social variation)
◦ Translating lexical variation
 Basics in English syntax: phrases, clauses, sentences
◦ Phrase and sentence complexity in text
Some questions









How are English words constructed?
How are new English words created?
Why are different words used across different contexts of
use of English?
Which different English words are used across different
contexts?
How are English clauses constructed and combined?
Which text types tend to contain more complex words?
Which types of words are more common in different text
types?
Which text types tend to contain more complex clauses?
How can we translate effectively texts of great
morphological or syntactic complexity or using very creative
language?
Some examples…
Picture this. You’ve just uploaded a selfie to
your favourite social media website using your
phablet when your FIL (that’s your father-inlaw) shares a supercut of a srsly mortifying
move.
You immediately unlike his page because there
isn’t an emoji capable of expressing your
desire to vom: apols, but it’s time for a digital
detox.
Readings (students who attend classes)
Katamba, F.., 2009, Chapter 5 «Morphology: Word
Structure», in J. Culpeper, F. Katamba, P. Kerswill,
R. Wodak, T. McEnery, English Language. Description,
Variation and Context, Palgrave MacMillan,
Basingstoke: pp. 77-86; 95-97; 101-110).
 Leech, G., 2009, Chapter 6 «Grammar: Words
(and Phrases)» and Chapter 7 «Grammar:
Phrases (and Clauses), in J. Culpeper, F. Katamba, P.
Kerswill, R. Wodak, T. McEnery, English Language.
Description, Variation and Context, Palgrave
MacMillan, Basingstoke: pp. 111-117; pp. 130-33.

Readings (students who do not attend classes)




Katamba, F.., 2009, Chapter 5 «Morphology: Word Structure»,
in J. Culpeper, F. Katamba, P. Kerswill, R. Wodak,T. McEnery,
English Language. Description,Variation and Context, Palgrave
MacMillan, Basingstoke: pp. 77-86; 95-97; 101-110.
Leech, G., 2009, Chapter 6 «Grammar: Words (and Phrases)»,
pp. 111-117 and Chapter 7 «Grammar: Phrases (and
Clauses), in J. Culpeper, F. Katamba, P. Kerswill, R. Wodak, T.
McEnery, English Language. Description,Variation and Context,
Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke.
Jackson, H., Zé Amvela, E., 2007, Words, Meaning and
Vocabulary, Continuum, London: pp. 118-125.
Taylor, C., Language to Language, OUP, Oxford, 1998, pp. 2629; 36-47; texts: 202-205, 288-297.
Outline of today’s class
Introduction: Levels of language
 English morphology: The form and internal
structure of English words
 Main topics in morphology
 Units in morphology
 Types of morphemes in English
 English inflectional morphology

Learning about the English language







Why study the structure of English
Why study English morphology
Why study English syntax
Why study English vocabulary
English morphology, vocabulary and syntax:
What they can tell us about texts and
speakers/writers
Varying grammar, varying aims, varying
contexts of language use
Translating lexical and morphosyntactic
creativity into Italian: What happens crosslinguistically?
What it means to study the English language
Using English
Learning and knowing how English works
(metalinguistic knowledge)
Developing language awareness (how language
works in context) to improve language use and
translation skills
Language in context
CULTURE
CONTEXT
LANGUAGE
Levels of language

Levels and ‘chunks’ of text: when we access
and produce language; when we translate
I’ve been studying English for five years.
I’ve been studying English for five years.
I / ’ve been studying / English / for five years.
I / ’ve / been / studying / English / for / five /
years.
I / ’ve / be - en / study - ing / Engl - ish / for / five /
year - s.
Levels of language

Phonetics and phonology
◦ The sounds of English

Morphology
◦ How English words are constructed

Syntax
◦ How English words are combined into phrases, clauses,
sentences

Semantics
◦ Words, sentences and meaning

Pragmatics
◦ Words, sentences and use in context

Phonetics and phonology
◦ sheep [‘shi:p] vs. ship [‘ship]

Morphology
◦ dogs, hopeless, wireless

Syntax
◦ Meet me | in my office | at 10.

Semantics
◦ pet, dog, Alsatian

Pragmatics
◦ Could I have a drink? / Get me some booze!
The rank scale
TOPDOWN
Text
analysis /
Pragmatics
TEXT / DISCOURSE
SENTENCE
Meaning

Semantics
Syntax
CLAUSE
PHRASE
WORDS
MORPHEMES
GRAPHEMES / PHONEMES
BOTTOMUP
Morphology
Phonology/
phonetics
15
Levels of language, use of English and what
they can tell us about a text
 Word form (morphology) and what it can
tell us about specific use of English
 Vocabulary selection and what it can tell
us about specific use of English
 Syntactic patterns and complexity and
what they can tell us about specific use of
English

The rank scale
TEXT / DISCOURSE
Text
analysis /
Pragmatics
SENTENCE
Meaning

Semantics
CLAUSE
PHRASE
WORDS
MORPHEMES
GRAPHEMES / PHONEMES
Syntax
Morphology
Phonology/
phonetics
17

1.
2.
3.
4.
The form of words:
My grandmother’s very old and uggy now
so we can’t get out much.
She gave me my grandfather’s gold watch.
I’ll uggy it forever.
The poor people lived crowded together in
uggies in the old part of the city.
They can’t afford to buy meat and fish. They
live very uggily on rice and potatoes.
What is the meaning of the words in bold
in the previous sentences?
 What enabled you to infer their meaning?

◦ Position and environment of the word in a
sentence
◦ Word form

The splers contered comfully in backence.
What information can you gather from the
nonsense words in the sentence?
What types of words are the nonsense
words (word classes)?
How many splers were there?
At what point in time is the action set?
What types of nouns are spler and backence
(countable/uncountable, concrete/abstract)?

Why study English morphology

Learning about the internal structure of
English words
◦ Information about word meaning
◦ Information about word classes and grammatical
roles
◦ Accessing different types of English texts

Learning how new English words are created
◦ Understanding and applying linguistic creativity
◦ Accessing different types of English texts
Morphology

Morphology: studying the internal
structure of words

The rules used to form new words (and
segment and analyse existing words)
Morphology and its questions




wireless
What elements does this word consist of?
art
Can we subdivide it into further parts?
luxuriously vs. lyluxurious
Are there any rules that determine possible and impossible
combinations of elements within words?
How can we create new words?
Morphology
A subdiscipline of linguistics which studies the internal structure of
words, the rules regulating such internal structuring, as well as
the ways in which new words are created
Morphology
WIRELESS
WIRE
LESS
It cannot be subdivided into further parts
 Both elements are meaningful:
WIRE = ‘metal drawn out into a thin flexible thread or rod.’
LESS = ‘without’

Morphology: breaking and analysing words into
meaningful units
Lexemes and morphemes
Lexeme:
A single vocabulary item or dictionary entry

Grammatical word:
A lexeme and all of its variants
(morphosyntactically related forms)

Morpheme:
The basic unit in morphology
The smallest unit of morphological structure

Lexemes and morphemes
Lexeme:
learn

Grammatical word:
learn/learns/learning

Morpheme:
learn-s


Lexeme:

Grammatical word:
Studying the morphology of words – how
words are structured and how new
words are created.
 Morphemes: the smallest units of meaning
Morphemes are the smallest units of language
that have their own meaning or grammatical
function within a particular language. A word
must consist of at least one morpheme.

Think about English morphemes for plural or
iteration
Morphs vs. morphemes

Morpheme – abstract level

Morph – concrete level, linguistic
realization

Allomorphs – same morpheme,
different morphs (variants of the same
morpheme across different contexts)
Allomorphs

Derive words from the following items having
opposite meaning to them – and containing the
original item:
possible
relevant
different
active
impossible
irrelevant
indifferent
inactive
imirin-
Different form but
same meaning and
grammatical
function
Alternance of
context:
*inrelevant
*inpossible
Types of morphemes

Based on autonomy

Based on position in the word

Based on function (inflectional vs.
derivational)
Types of morphemes I - Autonomy
Free morphemes – Content - the
elements that convey the bulk of meaning
(e.g. charge in recharge)
 Bound morphemes – Functional - the
morphemes that add detail and nuance to
the meaning of the content morphemes
or that help the content morphemes to
fit the grammatical context (e.g. re in
recharge)

Divide the following words into bound and free
morphemes:
Treatment
What type of
Unrecognizable
information do
Interesting
the morphemes
Sandy
allow you to
Friendly
gather on the
Biggest
word?
Uselessness
Developmental
What is the
Practicality
meaning of these
Agree
bound and free
Blackish
morphemes?

Divide the following words into bound and free
morphemes:
fondness
What type of
coagulative
information do
deactivators
the morphemes
allow you to
forbearingly
gather on the
half-deafened
word?
left-handedness
noncombatant
What is the
readability
meaning of these
temporarily
bound and free
weedkiller

morphemes?
What morphology can tell us about a text
Morphology and creativity in advertising. Identify bound and free morphemes in these
advertisements:
What morphology can tell us about a text
Identify bound and free morphemes in the following
advertising text:
Cartier advertisement
“Like some fabulous, legendary jewel box,
the Cartier boutique offers treasures of
dazzling refinement. Exclusive creations
from a celebrated jeweler. Cascades of
stunningly inventive objects. From the
luxuriously prestigious to the elegantly
functional. Everything is extraordinary.
Everything tempts. Jewelry, wrist-watches,
lighters, writing instruments, leather goods,
perfumes, eyewear…the Cartier boutique
epitomizes the fine art of living, the fine art
of giving.”
Compare with Italian