2007-12-4

Summaries

Why and who word formation?

– New concepts require new words
– Sometimes new words are invented on the spot

– Scientists
– Engineers
– Product branding companies
– Poets
– Everybody else

Then Dr. Gibbon gave us a typical example of "Jabberwocky" from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, which is famous for conpound words. Then, we know word formation is part of morphology.

1. Concepts of "morphology"

Morphology is composed of two parts: Inflection and Word formation. And word formation includes derivation and compounding. Their relations and functions are shown in the following graphic:

To make a summary:

1.1 Inflection:
– Functionality (external structure):

● marks the relation of words to their contexts
● no change in the basic meaning of words

– Form (internal structure):

● affix (prefix, suffix, infix), superfix, stem vowel change

– External structure:

– marks the syntagmatic relation of words to their contexts

● syntactic contexts (agreement in person, number, case):
– subject-verb (English)
– subject verb; determiner - adjective - noun, preposition-nominals
(German)
● situational contexts:
– Verbs: temporal relations, spatial relations
– Nominals: quantity and definiteness relations

– Internal structure: stem + affix

– prefix
– suffix
– circumfix
– infix
– superfix (Notes from Dr. Gibbon)

The structure of an inflected word is: a stem + an inflection. The differences between the two is that the stem has lexical meaning, while the inflection has only grammatical meaning, such as:

● relates a word to its syntactic context
– subject-verb agreement (person, case, number)
● relates a word to its semantic context
– tense/time, quantity, speaker-addressee, ...

Addtionally, there are many forms of inflections. The common one is suffix, which changes in terms of person, tense or case. Other inflections may be prefixes (many African languages), suffixes (as in English and German), circumfixes (German), superfixes (stress languages; tone languages)

1.2 Word formation:
– Functionality (external structure):

● creation of new words / parts of speech / meanings
● in principle infinite extendability of the lexicon

– Form (internal structure):

● Root/morpheme creation (blending, abbreviation, ...)
● Derivation: 1 stem + affix (prefix, suffix, infix), superfix, vowel
change
● Compounding: 2 stems, perhaps with interfix or inflection-like affix

1.2.1 Derivation is based on one root. Its internal structure is 1 stem + affixes: prefix, suffix, circumfix, infix, superfix; While the external structures are:

– suffixes in English may create new Parts of Speech (POS)

– all affixes create new meanings

Derivations consist of ONE stem with an affix. However, the stem itself may consist of a stem with an affix. Therefore, the stem has to be defined in a recursive definition.

What is a stem?
- a root (simplest case)
- a stem plus an affix (complex cases)
- nothing else – that's all :-)
Example: beautifully
stem = root = beauty
stem = stem + affix = beauty + ful
stem = stem + affix = beauty + ful + ly

1.2.2 Compounding, as the other branch of word formation, contains at least 2 existing stems, namely, its internal structure /form.

There are four types of compounding:

● endocentric (tatpurusa):
– jam-jar, honeypot, harddisk, bus-stop, ...
● An armchair is a chair
● bicentric (dvandva):
– fighter-bomber, gentleman-farmer
● whisky-soda A whisky-soda is a whisky and a soda.
● exocentric (bahuvrihi):
– blue-stocking, redskin,
● red-head A redhead has a red head.
● synthetic compounds (both derivation and compound):
– bus-driver, steam-roller

Another method of making new words is blending, which combines parts of two or more existing stems, e.g. smog=smoke+fog, brunch=breakfirst+lunch, etc.

2. Definition of "morpheme"

The basic concept in morphology is morpheme.

● Morphemes are:
– smallest meaningful parts of words
● There are 2 main morpheme types:
– lexical morpheme (content morpheme, root):

● open set:
– girl, boy, car, box, spoon, grass, sky

– grammatical morpheme (structural morpheme):

● closed set

– free:
● grammatical words: prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs
– bound:
● affixes, suffixes (inflection and derivation)

Morphemes are realised in different contexts by allomorphs, i.e. variant pronunciations. For example:

– Nouns:
● cats, dogs, horses, sheep, oxen, men, women, children
● /k{ts/, /dQgz/, /hO:sIz/, /Si:p/, /Qks@n/, /mEn/, /wImIn/, /tSildr@n/
– Regular plural allomorphs:
● /Iz/ after sibilants /s, z, S, Z, tS, tZ/
● /z/ after voiced phonemes (vowels, voiced consonants)
● /s/ elsewhere, i.e. after voiceless consonants

All above are quoted from the notes of the lecture given by Dr. Gibbon.

Tasks

● What is Sanskrit?

Sanskrit , as defined by Panini, had evolved out of the earlier "Vedic" form, and scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or "Paninian" Sanskrit as separate dialects. However, they are extremely similar in many ways and differ mostly in a few points of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. Classical Sanskrit can therefore be considered a seamless evolution of the earlier Vedic language. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a large collection of hymns, incantations, and religio-philosophical discussions which form the earliest religious texts in India and the basis for much of the Hindu religion. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, composed by many authors over centuries of oral tradition. The end of the Vedic period is marked by the composition of the Upanishads, which form the concluding part of the Vedic corpus in the traditional compilations. The current hypothesis is that the Vedic form of Sanskrit survived until the middle of the first millennium BC. It is around this time that Sanskrit began the transition from a first language to a second language of religion and learning, marking the beginning of the Classical period.

The Sanskrit language is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and one of the 22 official languages of India. It has a position in the cultures of South and Southeast Asia similar to that of Latin and Greek in Europe, and is a central part of Hindu tradition and Philosophy. It appears in pre-Classical form as Vedic Sanskrit (appearing in the Vedas) with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved. This fact and comparative studies in historical linguistics show that it is from one of the earliest attested members of the Indo-European language family and descends from the same.
Today, Sanskrit is used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals in the forms of hymns and mantras. The vast literary tradition of Sanskrit in the form of the Hindu scriptures and the philosophical writings are also studied. The corpus of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and literature, as well as scientific, technical, philosophical and religious texts.
The scope of this article is the Classical Sanskrit language as laid out in the grammar of Panini, around 500 BC.

● Who was Panini?

Panini was an Ancient Pakistani grammarian from Gandhara (traditionally 520-460 BC, but estimates range from the 7th to 5th centuries BC). He is most famous for his Sanskrit grammar, particularly for his formulation of the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology in the grammar known as Astadhyayi (meaning "eight chapters"). It is the earliest known grammar of Sanskrit, and the earliest known work on descriptive linguistics, generative linguistics, and perhaps linguistics as a whole. Panini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the end of the period of Vedic Sanskrit, by definition introducing Classical Sanskrit.

● What are the original meanings of these terms?
– tatpurusa
In Sanskrit grammar a tatpurusa compound is a dependent determinative compound, i.e. a compound XY meaning a type of Y which is related to X in a way corresponding to one of the grammatical cases of X.
There are many tatpurusas (one for each of the noun cases, and a few others besides); in a tatpurusa, one component is related to another. For example, "doghouse" is a dative compound, a house for a dog. It would be called a caturthi-tatpurusa (caturthi refers to the fourth case - that is, the dative). The most frequent kind is the genitive tatpurusa.

– dvandva
A dvandva or copulative or coordinative compound refers to two or more objects that could be connected in sense by the conjunction 'and'. Dvandvas are common in some languages such as Sanskrit, where the term originates, as well as Chinese and Japanese, but less common in English (The term is not often found in English dictionaries.). Examples: matara-pitara (Sanskrit for 'mother and father'), shanchuan and yamakawa (Chinese and Japanese respectively for 'mountains and rivers'), and singer-songwriter in English.

– bahuvrihi
A bahuvrihi , or bahuvrihi compound, is a particular kind of nominal compound that refers to something that is not specified by any of its parts by themselves (i.e., it is headless or exocentric, its core semantic value being subsumed by an elliptical or 'external' semantic value so that the compound is not a hyponym of the head), especially a compound that refers to a possessor of an object specified: a bahuvrihi compound XY tends to mean someone or something which has a Y, and that Y has the characteristic X. For instance, a sabertooth (smil-odon) is neither a saber nor a tooth: it is an extinct feline with saber-like fangs. English bahuvrihis often describe people by referring to specific properties: flatfoot, half-wit, highbrow, lowlife, redhead, tenderfoot, longlegs, and white-collar. Many of these are colloquial, pejorative, or both.

● Collect 5 longish words, divide them into morphemes and show construction of a word from their stems as tree diagrammes.

1. straightforwardness = straight + forward + -ness
2. irresistibility = ir- + resist + -ible + -ity
3. fraternisation = frater + -n- + -ise + -tion
4. livingroom = live + -ing + room
5. acyclically = a- + cycle + -ical + -ly

• irresistibility
  irresistibile + -ity
  irresist + -ible
  ir- + resist
  

• fraternisation
  fraternise + -ation
  fratern + -ise
  frater + -n-

• livingroom
  living + room
  live + -ing
  

• acyclically
  acyclical + -ly
  a- + cyclical
  cycle + -ical

Evaluation

Only if we understand how the words are formed, can we get closer to their meanings. This part of knowledge also helps us to understand words without dictionaries.

Reference

• Gibbon, Dafydd. "Word Formation." 26.11.2007. University of Bielefeld. 27.11.2007 <http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/~gibbon/Classes/Classes2007WS/HTMD/htmd07-v01-wordformation.pdf>.