Lexical morphology
and phonology
Introduction
(preliminaries)
From
the previous chapters, we have been suggesting that all morphological
operations take place before all phonological rules in the beginning of work in
generative grammar, for example the regular English plural morpheme /-z/ is
attached to a noun, then phonological rules of vowel insertion and devoicing
are applied;
|
Noun
|
cow
|
cat
|
horse
|
|
Underived lexical items
|
/kaw/
|
/kᴂt/
|
/hᴐrs/
|
|
Morphology:
add plural /-z/
|
/kaw+z/
|
/kᴂt+z/
|
/hᴐrs+z/
|
|
Phonology :
Vowel insertion
Devoicing
|
-
-
|
/kᴂt+s/
|
/hᴐrs+ɩz/
|
|
Final form
|
/kawz/
|
/kᴂts/
|
/hᴐrsɩz/
|
But,
there is some evidence that at least some phonological rules apply before some
morphological rules where some affixes are sensitive the phonological structure
of the words they attach to while the phonological structure itself is produced
by rules. The example is suffix –al which is attached to certain verbs
to give nouns. The condition is that the verb must have stress on its final
syllable and may have no more than two consonant at the end, where the last
must be anterior (labial or alveolar) and the next-to-last must be a sonorant.
|
Vowel Final
|
Labials
|
Alveolar
|
 Deny
Denial |
 Retrieve Retrieval |
 procure Procedural |
 try Trial |
arrive Arrival |
 appraise Appraisal |
In this
case, the model of lexicon is incorporated at least in the level;
The
Level-Ordering Hypothesis
Siegel
(1974) shows that morphological processes are also assigned to distinct levels
where one indication of this is the ordering of affixes, for example; suffix-ism
which attaches to nouns or adjectives to form nouns and suffix-ian which
attaches to nouns to form adjectives. He distinguished primary affixes by a
+boundary (boundary:morpheme, e.g. +ian) and secondary affixes by a #
boundary (boundary:word, e.g. #ism). We can indicate that English
requires three levels of morphology and phonology. This is the level-ordering
hypothesis for phonology and morphology;
The
level of morphology feeding back into the corresponding level of phonology,
this is because primary suffixes like +ian can have additional
phonological consequences. For example; Mendel – Mendélian, Mongol-Mongólian,
Parkinson-Parkinsónian, where the root words have [ә] in the last syllable and
are stressed on the first syllable, then, when the +ian is attached, the
vowel is lengthened and the stress shifts to the syllable before the suffix.
This shows that the stress rules must apply both before and after the
attachment of primary suffixes in English. As shown in the model above, the
rules that appear at one (or more) lexical level (either phonological or
morphological) as lexical rules, while phonological rules that apply outside
the lexicon are called postlexical rules. The examples of level 1 phonology In English are the negative
prefixes in- that undergoes the rule of assimilating n to l
(irreversible, impossible) and the suffix –ity which forms noun from
adjectives, as in the combining two morpheme: sane+ity, sanity, we called it as
Trisyllabic Laxing, which laxes the vowel in the third syllable from the end of
a word (on condition that the penultimate vowel is unstressed). This applies
only in a derived environment.
Zero Derivation
English
allows the process of zero derivation from noun to verb, for example; spyN ‘one
who spies’ to spyV ‘to act as a spy’. But when the verb is turned to a noun it
may shift its stress to the noun pattern, the result of derivation is the noun
having stress one syllable earlier than the corresponding verb. As illustrated
in below;
|
Underived lexical item :
|
[protest]V
|
|
Level 1 phonology : stress
|
[protést]V
|
|
Level 1 morphology : zero derivation
of noun
|
[[protést]V Ø]N
|
|
Level 1 phonology : stress
|
[[prótѐst]V Ø]N
|
The second syllable does not completely lose stress in this word, but is reduced to secondary stress, showing that it is originally stressed as verb. The stress shift in nouns zero-derived from verbs shows that this morphological operation must be assigned to level 1 morphology, since the stress rules are on level 1 phonology.
Productivity
and Blocking
The difference between the levels of
zero derivation of nouns and verbs correlates with a difference in
productivity. Verbs are derived freely from nouns by zero derivation at
level 2 unless there exists a level 1 form the same meaning. Thus, patternN can turn to a patternv ,
but in *to system because the
existence of systematize. This process is known as blocking.
Aronoff (1976, 43-5) shows that
adjective in +ous do not form derivative nouns in +ity if a noun
presumed meaning exits independently. For example, curious gives
curiousity but glorious doen’s give *gloriousity because the
existence of glory. However, the existence of of an +ity form does not
block the formation of noun in #ness such as curiousness.
In a similar vein, consider the zero
derived noun spyN which we derived at level 1 from the verb spyV
. The existence of spyN blocks the
otherwise very produvtivity level 2 rule that forms agentive nouns by suffixing
#er. We don’t have *spier because it would mean he same as spyN.
Similarity the existence of
nouns boreN, (dull person of activity) guideN, inhabit+ant,
block the level 2 derivation of *bor#er, *guide#er, *inhabit#er.
However blocking is inapplicable if
words of different meaning are derived. For example from Kiparsky (1983).
a. drill (device) driller
(person)
b. cook (person) cooker
(device)
c. informant (in linguistics) informer ( to
the police)
d. bore
(cylindrical hole) borer
(tool of boring holes, kind of insect)
Further Result of Level-Ordered
Morphology
The rule of level 3 attaches the
regular plural suffix /-z/ in English. We assume that irregular plurals are
formed at level 1. This implies that irregular plurals are available for
compounding, a level 2 morphological process, but the regular plurals are not.
For instance:
teeth marks *claws marks
lice-infested *rats-infested
The
regular plural inside compounds is when they are pluria tantum-words
that exist only in the plural.
almsgiving *almsgiving
oddsmaker *odd maker
painstaking *paintaking
Humanities Department *Humanity Department
clothesbrush *clothbrush
In
irregular pluria tantum, such as cattle, which, because it is inherit
[+plural], is not provided with a plural affix at level 3: *cattles.
There are two further result of
having verb-t-noun zero derivation on level 1 and noun- to-verb zero derivation
on level 2. First, notice that most verbs ending in Xing or Xink
are irregular in that they form their inflected forms by ABLAUT. Some
example are below:
a. sing sang sung
b. bring brought brought
c. sink sank sunk
d. think thought thought
Since the derivation occurs in level
2, we predict that only regular inflectios are possible with these word. For
example:
a. ring ringed ringed
(to surround a circle)
b.link linked linked (to connect with
links)
The second result concerned noun-verb pairs
referring to an instrument and the activity carried out with an instrument.
Some example of the nouns; hammer, brush, paddle, string. These nouns
are the most typical instrument for the activity, but the activity can be
carried out using other instrument. The example of the sentences are given
below:
a. he hammered the nail with a rock
b. he brushed the clothes with his
hand
c. I paddled the canoe with a copy of
The Fnancial Times
d. She strung the picture up with a
wire
In other seemingly similar pairs, the
noun is the only possible instrument for the activity named by the verb. The
example are; tape, rivet, chain, button. The impossibility of using
another instrument are demonstrated in some examples below:
a. *she taped the picture to the wall
with pushpins
b. *he riveted the parts together with
nails
c. *they chained the entrance off with
a rope
d. *she buttoned up her dress with
snaps
The verbs of those examples above are
derived from the corresponding nouns by zero derivation at level 2; thus the
meaning of the nouns is an essential component of the meaning of the verb and
no other instrument can be mentioned.
A key idea in lexical morphology is
that the internal brackets re erased at the end of each level. Kiparsky states
this condition as Bracket Erasure. Bracket erasure are erased at the end
of the level.
The derivation of the noun protestN
is at level 1. This noun can
in turn derive a verb at level 2, to protest. The derivation is given
below:
underived lexical item [protest]v
level 1 phonology : stress [protést]v
level 1 morphology: zero derivation [[protést]v Ø]N
Level 1 phonology : stress [[prótѐst]v Ø]N
Bracket eraser [prótѐst]N
Level 2 phonology ________
Level 2 morphology [[prótѐst]N Ø]v
Level 2 phonology ________
Level 3 morphology and phon ________
