LIN200H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Atomic Units, Circumfix, Affix
Lin200 Lecture 2
September 28th 2017
-phonology:
-atomic units are phonemes (just sounds) e. /s/ /ae/
-language is composed of atomic units which can be rearranged to create unpredictable,
novel utterances
-this is in contrast with how an animal communicates
-this is a big difference between human and animal language
-morphology: the predictable meanings of a collection of phonemes
-atomic units are morphemes (sound plus meaning)
-like /s/ which means plural
-/kaet/ is also a morpheme, which means feline animal
-you can rearrange the phonemes to get new words, but you can’t rearrange the
morphemes
-we are interested in two types of morphemes: root and affix
-root: cat, tack, desk
-affix: -s, -phobia, -ing, -ology, -er (changes verb to noun: one who …) and -er
(comparative meaning more of something)—since they have different meanings, they
are different morphemes
-most common are prefixes and suffixes
-prefix: pre-, re-, un-, de-,
-suffix: -ed, -less, -hood,
-root would always go in the middle
-another type of affix is a circumfix: circumfixes go on both sides at the same time and
carry a single meaning
-em- -en (like embolden)—they need both parts
-however, there are other word which just use -en or en- and it has the same
meaning
-so it’s not really clear if this is truly a circumfix or just some unique combination of
prefix and suffix
-you could also put an affix inside of the root
-this is an infix
-abso-freakin-lutely, edu-ma-cation
-these aren’t real infixes in english like their are in, for example, tagalog
-gamun——> gumamun
-roots can be divided into free and bound
-cat would be free, phon- would be bound
-some language don’t have free roots, everything is bound
-the english language allows potentially arbitrarily large words by adding morphemes:
ex. reorganizationalizationalize
-there is also no limit in english itself as to how long the sentences can be
-we can process sentences like john said that mary said that alice cried but it
doesn’t process sentences where we inject things in the middle ex. the mouse the cat
ate died but the mouse the cat the dog chased ate died is incomprehensible to us
even though english allows it
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
This is in contrast with how an animal communicates. This is a big difference between human and animal language. /kaet/ is also a morpheme, which means (cid:1688)feline animal(cid:1689) Atomic units are phonemes (just sounds) e. /s/ /ae/ Language is composed of atomic units which can be rearranged to create unpredictable, novel utterances. Morphology: the predictable meanings of a collection of phonemes. You can rearrange the phonemes to get new words, but you can"t rearrange the morphemes. We are interested in two types of morphemes: root and affix. Affix: -s, -phobia, -ing, -ology, -er (changes verb to noun: one who ) and -er (comparative meaning more of something) since they have different meanings, they are different morphemes. Another type of affix is a circumfix: circumfixes go on both sides at the same time and carry a single meaning meaning prefix and suffix. You could also put an affix inside of the root. Roots can be divided into free and bound.
