Lecture 4: Morphology II

[Note: these are lightly edited versions of overheads and notes used in class. They are provided in order to help you study, but they are not a substitute for coming to class and being prepared. The notes are incomplete, and will often be hard to make sense of if you were not in class.]

Outline

  1. Productivity
  2. Predictability
  3. Allomorphy
  4. Organization of mental dictionary

 

1. Productivity

If mental dictionary contains just morphemes and rules for combining, then all rules should be entirely productive.

Entirely productive: English progressive

V + ing
 
running
walking
thinking
abrogating
mulching
dissing
being
having
going
etc.

Productive, but with some irregular forms: English past tense

V + ed, except for irregulars
wanted kept
helped went
damaged sang
measured rang
governed hit
manufactured sat

 

2. Predictability

Not productive, but predictable meaning, and widely available

A + ize 'make (something) A'
 
commercialize
modernize
standardize
relativize
prioritize
criminalize

But...

*pleasantize
*sickize
*worthyize
*terribilize

Partially productive, and only partially predictable

V + N "N that Vs"
 
tug-boat boat that tugs
cry-baby baby that cries
strong-box box that is strong
watch-dog dog that watches
light-house house that lights
hit-man man that hits
kill-joy *joy that kills
break-water *water that breaks
task-force *force that tasks
spend-thrift *thrift that spends
*teach-book book that teaches
*suck-course course that sucks

Competition between different morphemes

Creating nouns from adjectives

-ity -th -ness
sincere sincerity sincerth ?sincereness
chaste chastity *chasteth ?chasteness
scarce scarcity *scarceth scarceness
curious curiosity *curiousth curiousness
warm *warmity warmth warmness
deep *deepity depth deepness
wide *widity width wideness
 red *reddity *redth redness
 sick *sickity *sickth sickness
pleasant *pleasantity *pleasanth pleasantness
happy *happity happith happiness

Generalization:

(1) -ity and -th are in competition with one another - complementary distribution
(2) -ness is generally available, and does not compete with -ity or -th

Systematic gaps

 
sicker, faster, taller, happier, worthier, bigger, shorter, hotter, thinner,greener, redder, bluer
 
*thoughtfuler, *impracticaler, *reasonabler, *turquoiser, *emeralder
 
*funner

Contents of Mental Lexicon

Fifth try...

 

3. Allomorphy

English plural

N + s
 
cat+s
grip+s
block+s
surf+s
graph+s
month+s
 
dog+s
leg+s
card+s
car+s
grove+s
lathe+s
plaza+s
menu+s
 
maze+s
rose+s
marsh+es
rush+es
mass+es
page+s

basic/underlying morpheme

-s

allomorphs

/-s/ as in ships
/-z/ as in cribs
/-iz/ as in dishes

Environments

/-s/ after /p/, /t/, /k/, /th/, /f/
/-z/ after /b/, /d/, /g/, /v/, /a/, /u/, /r/, /l/ ...
/-iz/ after /s/, /z/, /sh/, /j/

 

4. How is mental dictionary organized?

Comparison with printed dictionaries. Where would we expect to find a word like 'sign' in different kinds of dictionaries.

Standard dictionaries: alphabetical order, following spelling (not sounds)

sieve, sift, sigh, sign
 
"sign" wouldn't be anywhere near other words that have the same sounds at the beginning, e.g. "psychology", "cycle"

Rhyming dictionaries: organized according to sounds at end of words

sign, line, decline, resign, confine

Thesaurus: organized according to meaning

sign: symbol, emblem, badge, mark, flag

Tip-of-the-tongue states

"a navigational instrument used in measuring angular distances, especially the altitude of sun, moon and stars at sea" (Brown & McNeill 1966)
 
subjects were asked to ...
 
guess the initial letter?
what other words come to mind?
what words rhyme with it?
 
if they were unable to retrieve the word directly, some things they might nevertheless know are:
 
starts with /s/
sounds like "secant", "sextet"
meaning related to "compass"
doesn't sound like "sexy"
 
[By the way, the word they were looking for is sextant]

Anomia

"inability to retrieve words from mental dictionary"

Category-specific anomias

a. animate vs. inanimate

inanimate: ok (wheelbarrow, submarine, umbrella, briefcase, compass)
animate: impaired (wasp, duck, holly, ostrich, snail)

b. fruits and vegetables, or furniture terms selectively impaired!

Priming

Task: Is this a word in English? Press button for "yes" or "no" as quickly as possible.

NURSE
DRAGE
CAT
TEF
 
DOCTOR ... NURSE
DOG .... CAT

Looking up a word in the mental dictionary primes semantically related words. i.e. People are faster to judge that NURSE is a word of English if they have just read DOCTOR. This is understood to mean that looking up DOCTOR in the mental dictionary makes it easier to look up NURSE. Similar finding for DOG and CAT and thousands of other related words.

Conclusion from this: mental dictionary is semantically organized

 

Conclusion

Mental dictionary contains:

Organization: