Slide 1

JPN494: Japanese Language and Linguistics
JPN543: Advanced Japanese Language and
Linguistics
Morphology (1)
Morphology
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Morphology is the subfield of linguistics that
studies the internal structure of words and
the relationships among words.
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trees → tree+s
rider → ride+er
食べさせられた → tabe+sase+rare+ta
生米箱 (なまごめばこ) → [nama+[kome+hako]]
What is a word?
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He is nice.
He’s nice.
He isn’t nice.
John met Bill’s mother.
John met Bill Gates.
John went to Chase Field Ballpark.
waterbed, cash register, salad dressing, school trip,
…
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Phonological information is useful for determining the wordhood of an expression.
Between two words, there tends to be a phonological
disjuncture.
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In English, each (content) word has a stressed syllable.
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captain
Cantaloupe tends to mature early and uniformly.
black board vs. blackboard
white house vs. Whitehouse
Certain phonological rules (e.g. the SV rule) apply only within a
word:
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本の箱 (ほんのはこ) vs. 本箱 (ほんばこ)
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鈴木さんが来た
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[sɯzɯkjisaŋŋa …] (or [sɯzɯkjisaŋga …])
鈴木さんが来なかった
鈴木さんが来たらしい
鈴木さんが来たのかもしれない
鈴木さんがお菓子を食べさせられたようだ
Simple vs. complex words
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A word can be simple or complex.
Simple words like tree and 木 (き) cannot be
broken down into smaller parts.
Complex words trees and 庭木 (にわき) are
made up of more than one meaningful part.
Morpheme: the smallest meaningful part
of a linguistic expression that can be
identified by segmentation.
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phone : phoneme – morph : morpheme
E.g., the morph -ru ([ɾɯ]) and the morph -u
([ɯ]) are allomorphs of the present tense
morpheme.
In practice, the term “morpheme” is used to
refer to a specific form (i.e. morph) too.
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Additional examples of allomorphy:
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[ame] ~ [ama] ~ [same]
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雨 (あめ), にわか雨 (にわかあめ), 雨風 (あめかぜ)
雨傘 (あまがさ), 雨蛙 (あまがえる), 雨宿り (あまやどり)
小雨 (こさめ), 春雨 (はるさめ), 霧雨 (きりさめ)
[ki] ~ [gi] ~ [ko]
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木 (き), 庭木 (にわき)
木々 (きぎ), 寄木 (よせぎ)
木立 (こだち), 木枯らし (こがらし)
Internal structure of a word
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base + suffix:
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tree + s = trees
ride + er = rider
tall + est = tallest
現実 + 的 = 現実的 (げんじつてき)
食べ + させ + た = 食べさせた
子供 + っぽい = 子供っぽい (こどもっぽい)
Internal structure of a word
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prefix + base
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re + arrange = rearrange
un + known = unknown
out + number = outnumber
亜 + 熱帯 = 亜熱帯 (あねったい; sub-tropic)
お + 友達 = お友達 (おともだち)
まっ + 白 = まっ白 (まっしろ)
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subtypes of affixes:
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prefixes: pre-mature, re-confirm, …
suffixes: eat-ing, writ-er,…
infixes: kayu ‘wood’ → k-in-ayu ‘gathered wood’
(Bonto Igorot; The infix -in- indicates the product
of a completed action)
circumfixes: ge-geb-en ‘given’ (German)
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“The part of the word that an affix is attached to is
called the base” (Haspelmath 2002)
A base tends to be used as a stand-alone word.
The base has a concrete meaning, while affixes’
meanings are more abstract (to varying degrees).
The base tends to be longer than affixes.
An affixed base may serve as a base for another
affix ([re+[[simple+ify]+cation]] → resimplification)
Internal structure of a word
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base + base (compounding)
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N+N = N: landlord, snail mail, …
A+N = N: blackboard, wildfire, …
V+N = N: scarecrow, pickpocket, …
P+N = V: overdose, underdog, …
A+A = A: bittersweet, red-hot, …
N+A = A: skin-deep, sky-blue, …
P+V = V: undercook, oversee, …
Internal structure of a word
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base + base (compounding) (cont.)
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N+N = N: 山道 (やまみち), 鳥もち (とりもち), …
A+N = N: 黒あめ (くろあめ), 白蟻 (しろあり), …
V+N = N: 買い物 (かいもの), 売り場 (うりば), …
V+V = V: 叩き壊す (たたきこわす), 泣きわめく (なきわめく), …
A+A = A: 甘辛い (あまからい), 赤黒い (あかぐろい) …
N+A = A: 肌寒い (はだざむい), 心温まる (こころあたたまる), …
Reduplication
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Reduplication is a special kind of
compounding:
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山々 (やまやま), 人々 (ひとびと), …
いろいろ, ときどき, …
蝶々 (ちょうちょう), …
Clipping
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A process whereby a shortened word is
formed which does not differ semantically
from the longer version:
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ビルディング → ビル
友達 → ダチ
Acronym (e.g. NATO) and alphabetism (e.g.
CD) may be considered sub-types of clipping.
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Compound words often undergo clipping:
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The “携帯” type
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The “パソコン” type
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携帯電話 (けいたいでんわ) → 携帯
スーパーマーケット → スーパー
かけそば → かけ
学生割引 (がくせいわりびき) → 学割
電気卓上機 (でんきたくじょうき) → 電卓
パーソナルコンピューター → パソコン
プロフェッショナルレスリング → プロレス
The “ガム” type
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チューインガム → ガム
プラットホーム → ホーム
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Generally, the meaning of a compound word is less
predictable than that of an affixed word.
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horse shoe vs. alligator shoe
薬棚 (くすりだな) vs. 漆棚 (うるしだな)
たい焼き vs. たこ焼き vs. 鉄板 (てっぱん) 焼き
breakable, drinkable, movable, wearable, transformable …;
cf. readable, payable
甘さ (あまさ), 難しさ (むずかしさ), 厳しさ (きびしさ), …
A classification of morphemes
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Morphemes can be classified into free morphemes
and bound morphemes.
Free morphemes are those morphemes that can be
used as “stand-alone” words:
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e.g. tree, red, this; 本, あなた, これ
Free morphemes ≠ words; a free morpheme may
serve as a base to which an affix is attached.
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redness, 本好き (ほんずき)
A classification of morphemes
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Bound morphemes can be divided into:
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affixes (suffixes, prefixes, …)
bound bases
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kak(-u, -eba, ...) (書く)
contracted forms
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I’m, he’ll, haven’t
cf. tabe-nak-eɾeba → tabe-nak-eɾja
A classification of morphemes
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“Cranberry morphemes” are a special type of bound
morphemes that cannot be assigned a particular
meaning:
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cran-(berry)
(re-, per-, con-)ceive
twi-light
spick and span
えもんかけ (衣紋掛け; a （coat） hanger)
むりやり
にべもない (curt)
A classification of morphemes
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free morphemes (independent bases)
clitics
contracted forms in English
– particles in Japanese (?)
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bound morphemes (affixes & bound bases)
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Clitics: (i) phonologically dependent on its
host, but (ii) syntactically independent
He’s sick.
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phonologically: {he’s} {sick}
syntactically: [he][’s sick]
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背が高い男が立っている
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phonologically: {…} {男が} {立っている}
syntactically: [[[背が高い]男]が][立っている]
OR syntactically: [[背が高い][男が]][立っている]
[of [the tall man]]
[the tall [man’s]] or [[the tall man]’s]
Inflection vs. derivation
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In the tradition of linguistic studies of IndoEuropean languages, it is widely accepted
that there are two types of affixes: inflectional
affixes and derivational affixes.
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Inflectional affixes in English:
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nominal:
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verbal:
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plural: girls
posessive: Mary’s
3rd person singular present: bakes
past: waited
progressive: singing
perfect: baked, eaten
adjectival:
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comparative: faster
superlative: fastest
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English has a relatively few number of
inflectional affixes (among Indo-European
languages).
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gender (masculine, feminine, neutral …), case
(nominative, accusative, dative, …), …
future, imperfective past, subjunctive, imperative,
conditional, …
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paradigm: a set of words that consist of [base] + [inflectional
affixes]
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Sometimes, certain “slots” of a paradigm are filled by irregular
forms (irregular forms that have a different base are called
suppletive forms)
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{car, cars, car’s, cars’}
{bake, baking, bakes, baked, baked}
{go, going, goes, went, gone}
“Words” in a paradigm are said to be realizations of the same
“word”.
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“Word” in the first sense: word form
“Word” in the second sense: lexeme
What’s the difference between
derivational vs. inflectional affixes?
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Inflectional affixes indicate certain grammatical functions of
words:
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Derivational affixes may change the category of the base, while
inflectional affixes do not.
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ride: rider, wit: outwit; cf. charge: recharge
Inflectional affixes are attached “after” derivational affixes.
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number, gender, case; person, voice, mood, polarity, tense; degree
[[modern + ize] + ed]
[[[modern + ize] + er] + s]
Inflection changes the meanings in a more
systematic/predictable way than derivation
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read-able, question-able; point-er, broil-er
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Particles may be considered inflectional
affixes (if they are analyzed as affixes rather
than clitics):
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そばやが,そばやを, そばやに, そばやの
Inflectional affixes in Japanese?
The so-called auxiliary verbs (助動詞); there are opposing views.
Affixes:
 tense: tabe-ru, tabe-ta; hanas-u, hanas-ita
 causative: tabe-sase-ru; hanas-ase-ru
 passive: tabe-rare-ru; hanas-are-ru
 potential: tabe-(ra)re-ru; hanas-e-ru
 volitional: tabe-yoo; hanas-oo
 imperative: tabe-ro, tabe-runa; hanas-e, hana-suna
 negative: tabe-na-i, tabe-nakat-ta; hanas-ana-i, hanas-anakat-ta
 desiderative: tabe-ta-i, hanas-ita-i
 gerund: tabe-φ(-te), hanas-i(-te)
 conditional: tabe-reba, tabe-tara; hanas-eba, hanas-ba
Orders of affixes
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root (base) {φ, causative} {φ, passive} {φ, potential, desiderative} {φ, polite} {φ, negative} {tense, imperative, volitional, gerund, conditional}
食べろ: tabe-ro
食べられました: tabe-rare-mas-ita
食べさせられなかった: tabe-sase-rare-nakat-ta
Auxiliary verbs (type 1):
 aspect: tabe-te-i-ru
 benefactive: tabe-te-yar-u, tabe-te-kure-u
 …
食べさせていられなかった
(he couldn’t be letting him eat)
Auxiliary verbs (type 2):
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のだ: tabe-ta-noda
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ようだ: tabe-ta-yooda
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わけだ: tabe-ta-wakeda
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そうだ: tabe-ta-sooda
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らしい: tabe-ta-rasi-i
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だろう: tabe-ta-daroo
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Type 2 auxiliary verbs (except for だろう) have their own past tense forms (のだった, よ
うだった, わけだった, そうだった, らしかった), and polite forms (のです, ようです, わけです,
そうです, らしいです, でしょう), etc.
そうらしい, そうだろう
食べさせていられなかったらしいです
(It seems that he couldn’t be letting him eat)

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