6.3 Inflectional Morphology - Essentials of Linguistics

Inflectional morphemes are morphemes that add grammatical information to a word. When a word is inflected, it still retains its core meaning, and its category ... Skiptocontent Chapter6: WordForms Boundmorphemescandooneoftwodifferentjobs.Inflectionalmorphologyconveysgrammaticalinformation,suchasnumber,tense,agreementorcase.Englishhasrelativelyfewinflectionalmorphemes,butmanyotherlanguageshavemuchrichersystemsofinflectionalmorphology. CheckYourself 1.Whattypeofgrammaticalinformationdoestheinflectionalaffixinthewordspeechescommunicate? Number. Tense. Subjectagreement. Case. 2.Whattypeofgrammaticalinformationdoestheinflectionalaffixinthewordclimbedcommunicate? Number. Tense. Subjectagreement. Case. 3.Whattypeofgrammaticalinformationdoestheinflectionaldifferencebetweenheandhimindicate? Number. Tense. Subjectagreement. Case. Answers VideoScript Wesawinourlastunitsthatwordscanbemadeupofmorphemes,whicharethesmallestlinguisticunitthatlinksformwithmeaning.Morphemescandoacoupleofquitedifferentjobsinaword. Inflectional morphemesaremorphemesthataddgrammaticalinformationtoaword.Whenawordisinflected,itstillretainsitscoremeaning,anditscategorystaysthesame.We’veactuallyalreadytalkedaboutseveraldifferentinflectionalmorphemes: Thenumber onanounisinflectionalmorphology. FormostEnglishnounstheinflectionalmorphemeforthepluralisan–sor–es (e.g.,books,cars,dishes)thatgetsaddedtothesingularformofthenoun,buttherearealsoafewwordswithirregularpluralmorphemes.Somelanguagesalsohaveaspecialmorphemeforthedualnumber,toindicateexactlytwoofsomething.Here’sanexamplefromManam,oneofthemanylanguagesspokeninPapuaNewGuinea.Youcanseethatthere’samorphemeonthenounwomanthatindicatesdual,forexactlytwowomen,andadifferentmorphemeforplural,thatis,morethantwowomen. Manam(PapuaNewGuinea)  /áine ŋara/ thatwoman singular   /áine ŋaradiaru/ thosetwowomen dual   /áine ŋaradi/ thosewomen plural Thetense onaverbisalsoinflectionalmorphology.FormanyEnglishverbs,thepasttenseisspelledwithan–ed,(walked,cooked,climbed)buttherearealsomanyEnglishverbswherethetenseinflectionisindicatedwithachangeinthevoweloftheverb(sang,wrote,ate). Englishdoesnothaveaboundmorphemethatindicatesfuturetense,butmanylanguagesdo. Anotherkindofinflectionalmorphologyisagreement onverbs. Ifyou’velearnedFrenchorSpanishorItalian,youknowthatthesuffixattheendofaverbchangesdependingonwhothesubjectoftheverbis. That’sagreementinflection. HerearesomeexamplesfromFrench.Youcanseethatthere’sadifferentmorphemeontheendofeachverbdependingonwho’sdoingthesinging. French 1st jechante Ising 2d tu chantes yousing 3d elle chante shesings 1st nous chantons wesing 2d vous chantez you(pl.)sing 3d elles chantent theysing   Andinsomelanguages,themorphologyonanounchangesdependingonthenoun’sroleinasentence;thisiscalledcase inflection. TakealookatthesetwosentencesinGerman:Thefirstone,DerJungesiehtSofia,meansthat,“TheboyseesSofia”. Lookattheformofthephrase,theboy,“derJunge”.Now,lookatthisothersentence,SofiasiehtdenJungen,whichmeansthat“Sofiaseestheboy”.Inthefirstsentence,theboyisdoingtheseeing,butinthesecond,theboyisgettingseen,andthewordforboy,Jungehasadifferentmorphemeonittoindicateitsdifferentroleinthesentence. That’sanexampleofcasemorphology,whichisanotherkindofinflection. German DerJungesiehtSofia. TheboyseesSofia. SofiasiehtdenJungen Sofiaseestheboy.   Previous/nextnavigation Previous:6.2Allomorphs Next:6.4DerivationalMorphology Backtotop License EssentialsofLinguisticsbyCatherineAndersonislicensedunderaCreativeCommonsAttribution-ShareAlike4.0InternationalLicense,exceptwhereotherwisenoted.