MA ELT

Morphology and Syntax (Eng509)

Spring 2019
Assignment No. 1
Total Marks: 20
Lectures: 1-9

Q1. Differentiate between the terms ‘morphemes’ and ‘allomorphs’ giving their exact
definitions with one example for each. Also write the characteristic features of ‘Item-and-
Process’ and ‘Item and Arrangement’ approach to morphology proposed by Hockett
(1954).
Answer:
Morpheme vs. Allomorph
Morphology is the study of words and their structure. Morpheme is the smallest meaningful
morphological unit in a language. Allomorph is a variant form of a morpheme. The main
difference between morpheme and allomorph is that morpheme is concerned with the meaning
and structure of a word whereas allomorph is concerned with the sound.
1. Morpheme: A morpheme is the smallest meaningful elements of a language. It cannot be
further divided or analyzed. In linguistics, morphemes are classified into two types.
I. Free Morpheme: A free morpheme has the ability to stand on its own
without the support of another form. Some examples of free morphemes include:
hat, believe, cheap, talk, red, new, cow, deliver, legal, etc.
II. Bound Morpheme: Bound morphemes are the units that cannot stand alone. On
their own, they have no meaning. Some examples of free morpheme include:
Hats, Disbelieve, Cheaply, Talked, Reddish
Bound morpheme can further be divided into two categories:
 i. Derivational Morpheme: Derivational morpheme is an affix that is added to
a word to create a new word or a new form of a word. Compare
with inflectional morpheme. Derivational morphemes can change
the grammatical category (or part of speech) of a word. For example, adding -
ful to beauty changes the word from a noun to an adjective (beautiful),
while adding -(e)r to merge changes the word from a verb to a noun (merger).
The form that results from the addition of a derivational morpheme is called
a derived word or a derivative.
Example 1:
Happy ⇒ Happiness
Write ⇒ Writer
Example 2:
Visible ⇒ invisible
Believe ⇒ Disbelieve
ii. Inflectional Morpheme: Inflectional morphemes do not cause a change in the
meaning or word class, they merely serve as grammatical markers. They
indicate some grammatical information about a word.
Example 1:
Waited ⇒ Past Tense
Dogs ⇒ Plural
Going ⇒ Progressive
2. Allomorphs: Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme that differ in pronunciation but are
semantically identical. For example, in English, the plural marker -(e)s of regular nouns can
be pronounced /-s/ (bats), /-z/, (bugs), or /-ɪz, -əz/, (buses), depending on the final sound of
the noun's plural form.
Morpheme Allomorphs
Morpheme is the minimal unit of meaning in Allomorphs is the unit of meaning that varies
a language. in sound without changing its meaning.
Morpheme can be a word or a part of a word. Allomorphs are often a part of verb.
Morphemes are concerned with the structure Allomorphs are concerned with the sound of
and meaning of words. words.
Features of ‘Item and Arrangement’ and ‘Item-and-Process’ Approach
 Hockett (1954) coined the terms Item-and-Arrangement (IA) and Item-and-Process (IP)
to refer to two different views of the mapping between phonological form and morph
syntactic (and semantic) information.
Item and Arrangement Item-and-Process
In item and arrangement model word forms Item and process approach states that a word

are analyzed as arrangements of morphemes. form is the result of applying rules that alter a
word-form or stem in order to produce a new
one.
IA model treats words as if they were made An inflectional rule takes a stem, changes it as

of morphemes put after each other. is required by the rule, and outputs a word
form.
In IA model roots and affixes have the same A derivational rule takes a stem, changes it as

status as morphemes. per its own requirements, and outputs a

derived stem.
According to IA model morphemes, affixes A compounding rule takes word forms, and

and roots alike are stored in the lexicon. similarly outputs a compound stem.

Q2. Compounds and phrasal words seem to be alike in their structure; however, there
exists some salient differences between the two. Listen to the topic video no. 37 and 42 of
your course and write the discussed differences between them. Also write two examples for
each.

Answer:

1. Compound Words: A compound word is a word that is made up of two or more words. The
meaning of many compound words is related to the meaning of each individual word.

Example: sand +paper = sandpaper, it means that a type of paper with a rough surface, used for
cleaning or smoothing.

Compound words may be written as one word, as hyphenated words, or as two separate words.

Imagine a feast of cheesecake, jellybeans, watermelon, cupcakes, meatballs, and strawberries.

What do all of these foods have in common, besides being delicious? The names for these foods
are all compound words.

Compound words are made up of two or more smaller words that are combined to make a new
word with its own meaning. The smaller words that form a compound word are like puzzle
pieces you fit together to create a new bigger picture. Take the words milk and shake. If we fit
these pieces together, we get the compound word milkshake.

Types of Compound Words

Not all compound words are put together the same way. There are three types of compound
words: closed, open and hyphenated.

I. Closed compound words: Words which are made up of two words without a space
in-between. Examples of closed compound words are: moonlight, classroom, and
sunflower.

II. Open compound words: Those compound words which have a space between the
smaller words that make them up. Even though the words seem separate, when you
read them together they have a new meaning. Full moon is an open compound word.
When we read the smaller separate words 'full' and 'moon' together, they have a new,
unique meaning.

III. Hyphenated compound words are formed by using a hyphen, a small dash used to
connect words together. Numbers like fifty-nine and twenty-one are hyphenated
compound words.

Phrasal Words: Phrasal words are complex items that function as words, yet whose internal
structure is that of a clause or a phrase rather than of a compound. An example of phrasal word is
the noun jack-in-the-box. Structurally this has the appearance of a noun-phrase in which the head
noun, jack, is modified by a prepositional phrase, in the box, exactly parallel to the phrases
people in the street or book, exactly parallel to the phrases people in the street or book on the
self. However, it forms its plural by suffixing –s not to the head noun (as in books in the self) but
to the whole expression: not jacks-in-the-box but jack-in-the-boxes. Though structurally a phrase
but in behaves as a word.

A phrasal verb is a verb that is made up of a main verb together with an adverb or a preposition,
or both. Typically, their meaning is not obvious from the meanings of the individual words
themselves. For example:

She has always looked down on me.

Fighting broke out among a group of 40 men.

I’ll see to the animals.

Don’t put me off, I’m trying to concentrate.

The report spelled out the need for more staff.

For instance, in the first example, the phrasal verb ‘to look down on someone’ does not mean that
you are looking down from a higher place at someone who is below you; it means that you think
that you are better than someone is.

Transitivity

Phrasal verbs can be intransitive (i.e. they have no object):

We broke up two years ago.

They set off early to miss the traffic.

He pulled up outside the cottage.

Alternatively, transitive (i.e. they can have an object):

The police were called to break up the fight.

When the door is opened, it sets off an alarm.

They pulled the house down and redeveloped the site.

Word order

The verb and adverb elements, which make up intransitive phrasal verbs, are never separated:

✓ We broke up two years ago.

✗ We broke two years ago up.

The situation is different with transitive verbs, however. If the direct object is a noun, you can
say:

✓ They pulled the house down.

[direct object]

✓ They pulled down the house.

If the object is a pronoun (such as it, him, her, them), then the object always comes between the
verb and the adverb:

✓ They pulled it down.

[direct object]

✗ They pulled down it.

 Phrasal words mainly used in spoken English and informal text.

 It consist of verb plus a particle (preposition or adverb)

 The particle can change the meaning of the verb completely

 Examples

1. look up consult a reference book (look a word up in a dictionary)

2. look for seek (look for her ring)

3. look forward anticipate with pleasure (look forward to meeting someone)