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Levels of Linguistic Analysis II: Morphology

1 Introduction

Main goals of week one is to get comfy. We also want to refresh our memory about linguistics and get an overview about what is coming in the following weeks. I asked you why you picked morphology and what you expect from the class. We also discussed what questions are driving research in morphology.

1.1 Linguistic questions

Throughout the course, we are going to discuss various topics mostly from—but not restricted to—the field of morphology, e.g.:

  • What makes an antonym?
  • How do we determine useful collocations, phrases, synonyms?
  • How does thinking shape language? How does language shape thinking?
  • What is the relationship between meaning and grammar?
  • How can we be objective about language?

1.2 Questions in morphology

A lot of focus in morphology is on the relationship between form and meaning. The further we go to the grammar side of linguistics, the harder it becomes to use an intuitive concept of meaning as a starting point. It seems rather easy to determine the meaning of the word cat. A simple definition usually satisfies. We can characterize cat as a word. It is phonologically and morphologically distinct from other words. It is also a morpheme. It can serve as a root for more complex words, such as cats. The morpheme is, “the smallest meaningful unit”, remember? So, what about the meaning of -s in cats? If the root morpheme has a meaning, the plural suffix has to has one as well. A straight forward answer would be: plural, more than one. You were introduced to this as “grammatical meaning”. Lexical words have lexical meaning, function words and inflectional affixes have grammatical meaning.

Matters still seem simple enough until we enter more complicated territory in English. Consider the -ed suffix like in the verb helped. Most people would be quick to call that the “past tense” and -ed is the past tense ending. What is complicating things now is the fact that -ed is also used in present tenses, or passives.

  1. Present perfect: I have watched the show already.
  2. Past perfect: I’d never laughed so hard in my life before that.
  3. Passive: I’m being observed right at this moment.

First, we could assume that there are, in fact, multiple -ed endings. In irregular verbs, there is another form, the past participle: write, wrote, written. It would only make sense to assume that there is a -ed past form and a -ed past participle form. That means we have a kind of homonymy here. One form that has two different meanings. So what is this meaning? Is it “past”? Does the event denoted by the verb happen in the past relative to the time of utterance?

Consider these examples:

  1. Backshifting: Trump has claimed there was evidence for fraud.
  2. Unreal Conditional: If I met him tomorrow, I would slap him with a fish.
  3. Optative: I wish people believed in science.

In neither of these examples does the event occur in the past. Therefore, we have to assume a more abstract function of the past tense suffix -ed that allows for all these use cases. More importantly, the surrounding forms, auxiliary verbs (passive be, perfect have), conjunctions (conditional if), and even certain classes of verbs (reporting verbs, such as claim). In fact, a linguistic form is not restricted to a word or morpheme, but may also include larger structures or even abstract schematic structures. For example, the grammatical function “present perfect” is fulfilled by a wealth of different forms, with optional slots, different possible word orders, etc.

The popular opinion in linguistic theory, especially in Usage-Based Linguistics, has shifted more and more towards seeing meaning and function as two sides of the same coin. Function determines meaning and meaning is in the end a function.

Here are some broader questions that we will encounter during this class:

  1. Why do we have multiple functions that seem to be encoded in the same form? (homonymy)
  2. Why do we have multiple forms that seem to do the same thing? (synonymy)
  3. Is a morpheme even a part of our cognitive reality or can we find better units of description? Are there better models for certain areas of grammar?

1.3 Course Aims

1.3.1 Linguistic and academic skills

The introduction course had the aim to provide you with the necessary terminology. Like in learning a language, you need to build up your academic vocabulary before you can productively participate in any discussion. This course now is the next step. We are going to transition from reading text book chapters to actual research literature. We are going to expand the concepts and the theory behind them. And finally we are going to put it to a test by writing a linguistic study.

In the end, you will…

  • Have a deeper understanding of basic linguistic concepts
  • Have first experience with reading and carrying out empirical research
  • Understand basic concepts of cognitive science and usage-based linguistics
  • Understand and compile basic statistics

1.3.2 Skills that go beyond linguistics

Many of the skills you acquire during this class are not only useful in linguistics. Especially knowledge of empirical methodology and statistics is now more important than ever. Everyone encounters results of empirical research (good and bad) on a daily basis on the news and social media, but too few people can actually interpret the information properly. Many jobs also require at least basic knowledge in statistics.

Furthermore, there are other skills that you may benefit from indirectly, such as…

  • Understanding human perception of quantities
  • Understanding memory
  • Understanding non-linguistic research results better
  • Improve writing, reading and computer skills

1.3.3 Soft skills for Teachers

  • Understand the logic behind modern teaching material
  • Spot bad or obsolete material
  • Understand how stubborn mistakes are learned
  • Become a more aware of statistics, correlations and spurious correlations in your class room

1.4 Homework

In order for everyone to get used to all necessary channels, I am not providing the readings, but rather make it your first task. A large part of our libraries resources is available digitally via the Campus network (eduroam) or from home via VPN.

  1. Setup a VPN connection to the university network.
  2. Download the main readings online and download them.
    • Google Scholar (you can search for authors by typing author:name)
    • Primo
    • Sometimes papers or entire books are uploaded on the authors own website, so regular search engines might help as well
  3. Make a note for every reading you couldn’t find. Some require a bit of digging, but they are all out there.

Google Scholar even provides Primo links as long as you are connected to the university network (via VPN or eduroam). This makes finding literature rather effortless.

1.4.1 Tip

I’m going to share all sorts of productivity tips for the aspiring academic at the end of every homework assignment.

Today’s Tip:

Set up shortcuts to important search engines.
You will be doing a lot of research on Google scholar, Wikipedia, the OED, and so on. Most browsers have functionality to make it easier for you. Here is my setup: In my address, bar I only type sc keyword or w keyword and my browser searches for ‘keyword’ automatically on Google scholar or Wikipedia respectively (combine with ctrl+l for hyperspeed 😉). 2 This works for most websites with a search field.

Here is where you find instructions for some popular browsers.