University of Hamburg
SoSe 2000

An Overview Paper about:
Morphology (word-formation processes)

Based on the seminar II “Morphological processes”

Written by:

Hanno Frey

Contents

1 MORPHOLOGY  3
1.1 INTRODUCTION  3
1.2 LANGUAGE STRUCTURE  3
1.2.1 Signs (Saussure)  4
1.3 PEIRCE  6
1.3.1 The mental dictionary  7
1.3.2 Function and content words  8
1.3.3 Morphemes  8
1.4 LEXICAL MORPHOLOGY  9
1.4.1 Derivation  10
1.4.2 Word-Coinage  10
1.4.3 Compounds and Phrases  12
1.4.4 Conversion (zero-derivation)  13
1.4.5 Blends (portmanteau words)  13
1.4.6 Acronyms  13
1.4.7 Back-formation  14
1.4.8 Clippings (abbreviations)  14
1.5 INFLECTIONAL (GRAMMATICAL) MORPHOLOGY  14
1.5.1 Inflection  14
1.5.2 Inflectional morphemes  15
1.5.3 meaning-based approaches (Bybee, Beard, Szymanek)  17
1.6 MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX  19
1.7 PRODUCTIVITY IN MORPHOLOGY  21
1.7.1 What is productivity?  21
1.7.2 How does it work?  21
1.7.3 Acceptance and Indicators of productivity  22

2 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY  23
2.1 INTERNETQUELLEN  24

3 APPENDIX  25
3.1 SAUSSURE  25

1 Morphology

1.1 Introduction

This paper deals with a fundamental branch of linguistic research. The term fundamental is justified insofar as the ability to analyse a continuous string of sounds into discrete units constitutes a central part of language comprehension. The analysis of morphological structures is situated right at the basic level of a language because it reveals deeper insight into how the smallest meaningful parts of a language are organized. A morphological description includes information about the internal structure of words, the rules that govern these structures and the relationship among words. Furthermore, the linguists′ interest in morphology is not just concerned with a mere description of that what already exists – it is also aimed to show in how far a language may be viewed as potentially creative with regard to the invention of new words on the basis of a given set of rules. This process is traditionally referred to as productivity and equated with “linguistic creativity” or “creativity in language”. The corresponding field of linguistic reserach deals with the study of words which goes beyond the limitations of dictionary entries. In this context words, phrases and texts must be seen as larger, complex or non-primitive units that are built up from morphemes in successive stages.

1.2 Language Structure

Traditionally, there is a distinction between three basic ways the morphological system of a language may be structured. First, there are isolating languages that have their meaningful units separated from each other in a string of isolated words (Chinese, Vietnamese). Second, inflecting languages have the word at the centre of a complex unit that carries the basic grammatical categories and information (German, Spanish, Latin, Italian). A third type are agglutinative languages that also have complex words but more loosely connected morphemic elements - these are not so closely associated with the individual words (Turkish, Finnish).

Morphology is a term for that branch of linguistics which deals with the internal structure of the words of a language, the rules that govern these internal structures and the relationship among words.

[Graphik in Downloaddatei enthalten]

1.2.1 Signs (Saussure)

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure points out that language is the most important of several systems to express ideas, and that a science that studies the life of signs within society is well conceivable: “On peut donc concevoir une science qui die la vie des signes au sein de la vie sociale′” (Saussure, 1916, p. 33). This new science would be a part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology:

``I shall call it semiology (from the Greek seme? ′sign′). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Since the science does not yet exist, no one can say what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance. Linguistics is only a part of the general science of semiology; the laws discovered by semiology will be applicable to linguistics, and the latter will circumscribe a well-defined area within the mass of anthropological facts.′′

Ferdinand de Saussure sharply distinguished the diachronic from the synchronic study of language. In order to make his synchronic studies persuasive, Saussure was forced to draw another sharp distinction. He argued for dividing language into three levels,

• (langage,) by which he meant the human capacity to evolve structured communication systems,
• (langue,) what we think of as a language, such as English or French, and
• (parole,) any individual speaker′s particular use of the language.

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