The Science of Language

Study guide for week 5:

The goals for this week are to: 1) become familiar with the building blocks of words (i.e., morphemes) and their different types; 2) study the different ways in which words can be constructed (e.g., processes of affixation, blends, acronyms, back formation, etc.); and 3) practice analyzing words and breaking them down into their constituent morphemes.

Readings:
Language Files: 5.1-5.7.
Pinker: chapter 5.

Exercises from the text:
Language Files: File 5.2, ex. 1-7; File 5.3, ex. 1-2; File 5.6, ex. 1.1, 1.2, 1.5, 2.1.

**WARNING** If you feel like you understand the concept associated with a particular exercise from the text, please stop. Write “got it” and move on to the next exercise. **WARNING**

Additional exercises:
1. That speakers of a language know the morphemes of that language and the rules for word formation is shown by the errors made by some speakers. Amsel Greene collected errors made by her students in vocabulary-building classes and published these in a book called Pullet Surprises (Scott, Foresman & Co., Glenview, Ill., 1969). The title is taken from a sentence written by one of her high-school students: “In 1957 Eugene O’Neill won a Pullet Surprise.” Another student once wrote: “She tried many reducing diets, but remained indefatigable.” The interesting thing about these errors is that they reveal something about the students’ knowledge of English morphology. Consider the creativity of these students demonstrated in the following examples:

For each of these incorrect definitions, provide the possible reasons why the students made the guesses they did. Exemplify by reference to other words or morphemes, giving their meanings as well.

2. Consider the following lines from the beginning of Lewis Carroll’s poem “Jabberwocky”:

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome rathes outgrabe.

(a) What distinguishes the morphemes which Carroll invented for this poem from the words which are familiar? (Hint: look back at file 6.2.)
(b) Show the inflectional morphemes that Carroll used on the morphemes he created.

3. In a movie called Funny Farm, a couple moves from the city to a farm and ends up spending the first night on the floor. The next morning the wife says to the husband, “What they really mean when then say ‘hardwood floors’ is ‘hard, wood floors.’” What concept from syntax accounts for the humor in this line? Explain, using tree diagrams and paraphrases.

4. In many languages of the world, whole sentences can be expressed with a single word. This is true in Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire that flourished in what is now Mexico between 1325 and 1522 CE. In the following problem, try to divide each Nahuatl word into its various parts, and then fill in the translations at the end.

Translate the following into English:

s. tikwi:kani

t. nikwi:kaya

u. cho:kanih

Now translate the following English sentences into Classical Nahuatl:

v. They sleep.

w. I will sleep.

x. You will cry.

Essential concepts:

a) morphology
b) bound vs. free morpheme
c) stem
d) prefix, suffix, infix
e) inflectional morpheme
f) derivational morpheme
g) allomorph
h) lexicon
i) compound
j) reduplication
k) suppletion
l) open vs. closed class