Types Of Morphemes Research Articles

Different selection principles of freestanding and bound morphemes in language production.

Freestanding and bound morphemes differ in many (psycho)linguistic aspects. Some theorists have claimed that the representation and retrieval of freestanding and bound morphemes in the course of language production are governed by similar processing mechanisms. Alternatively, it has been proposed that both types of morphemes may be selected for production in different ways. In this article, the authors first review the available experimental evidence related to this topic and then present new experimental data pointing to the notion that freestanding and bound morphemes are retrieved following distinct processing principles: freestanding morphemes are subject to competition, bound morphemes not.

The processing of free and bound gender-marked morphemes in speech production: Evidence from Dutch.

In many languages, the production of noun phrases requires the selection of gender-marked elements like determiners or inflectional suffixes. There is a recent debate as to whether the selection of freestanding gender-marked elements, such as determiners, follows the same processing mechanisms as the selection of bound gender-marked morphemes, such as adjective suffixes. Most of the evidence on which this debate is based relates to the gender-congruency effect in picture-word interference experiments. In the present article, the authors address this issue with a pure picture-naming task, extending previous work in German (H. Schriefers, J. D. Jescheniak, & A. Hantsch, 2005). The results of the present study on noun phrase production in Dutch show that both types of gender-marked morphemes are selected via the same basic processing mechanisms.

The relationship between reading achievement and morphological word analysis in deaf and hearing students matched for reading level.

This study extends the findings of Gaustad, Kelly, Payne, and Lylak (2002), which showed that deaf college students and hearing middle school students appeared to have approximately the same morphological knowledge and word segmentation skills. Because the average grade level reading abilities for the two groups of students were also similar, those research findings suggested that deaf students' morphological development was progressing as might be expected relative to reading level. This study further examined the specific relationship between morphologically based word identification skills and reading achievement levels, as well as differences in the error patterns of deaf and hearing readers. Comparison of performance between pairs of deaf college students and hearing middle school students matched for reading achievement level shows significant superiority of younger hearing participants for skills relating especially to the meaning of derivational morphemes and roots, and the segmentation of words containing multiple types of morphemes. Group subtest comparisons and item analysis comparisons of specific morpheme knowledge and word segmentation show clear differences in the morphographic skills of hearing middle school readers over deaf college students, even though they were matched and appear to read at the same grade levels, as measured by standardized tests.

An implicational Hierarchy of Morpheme Acquisition Order in second Language Learning

Unlike most early second language morpheme acquisition studies which remained at a surface descriptive level, this paper provides the reasons for the natural morpheme acquisition order by characterizing morphemes based on how they are projected from the mental lexicon. Three types of morphemes are identified based on how they are activated: Morphemes directly elected at the lemma level are content morphemes, morphemes indirectly elected together with content morpheme heads are early system morphemes, and morphemes structurally assigned at the functional level are late system morphemes. It argues that the levels of morpheme activation, whether at the lemma level or at the fimctional level, determines the acquisition order. Based on the characterization of morphemes and the natural second language data, an irnplicational hierarchy of morpheme acquisition order in second language learning is proposed: content morphemes are acquired before system morphemes, and early system morphemes are acquired before late system morphemes. Unlike early second language morpheme acquisition order studies, this study not only identifies or describes the morpheme order itself but also provides some reasons for this order.

The Bilingual Mental Lexicon and Speech Production Process

The Chinese/English intrasentential code-switching data provide evidence that the bilingual mental lexicon involves language contact between language-specific semantic/pragmatic feature bundles. Lemmas in the mental lexicon are tagged for specific languages and contain semantic, syntactic, and morphological information about lexemes. In a bilingual mode, the speaker makes choices at the preverbal level of lexical-conceptual structure, and these choices activate the lemmas in the mental lexicon for the speaker's preverbal message to be morphosyntactically realized at the functional level of predicate-argument structure. The result will be language-specific surface forms at the positional level of morphological realization patterns. The languages involved in the bilingual's mixed speech are never equally activated, with one language projecting the sentential frame and the other supplying a particular type of morphemes for the speaker's communicative intentions.

Consonant mutation and reduplication in Seereer-Siin

Among the many types of non-concatentative morphemes are auto- segments or floating features which, in order to be realised phonologically, must attach to a root node in the stem. Akinlabi (1996) terms this process FEATURAL AFFIXATION . Featural affixes are of particular interest for models of reduplication, which make varying predictions as to whether or not they will be copied. In segmental models such as that of Marantz (1982), where nothing other than the underlying segmental base of the melody is copied, we would not expect the featural affix to be ‘transferred’ (Clements 1985a, Myers & Carleton 1996) between base and reduplicant.In models where the entire base is copied, such as that of Steriade (1988), featural transfer depends on the particular conception of the grammar. Within serial models of the grammar featural transfer depends crucially on the ordering of word-formation rules and phonological rules, while in a non-serial model like Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky 1993) featural transfer depends on the rank ordering of relevant constraints. The goal of this paper is to contribute to an understanding of featural affixation and featural transfer by presenting a constraint-based account of consonant mutation in Seereer-Siin, an Atlantic (Niger-Congo) language related to Fula, and by focusing specifically on the interaction of consonant mutation and reduplication. In the analysis presented here I consider mutation to be the result of featural affixation to the root node of a stem-initial consonant.

Types of morphemes and their implications for second language morpheme acquisition

This paper explains observed morpheme accuracy orders on the basis ofa model of morpheme classification,the 4-M model proposed by Myers-Scotton and Jake(2000). It argues that the adult second language morpheme acquisition order is determined by how morphemes are projected from the mental lexicon. Four types of morphemes are identified: content morphemes,early system morphemes, and two types of late system morphemes. Early system morphemes are indirectly elected at the same time that content morphemes are directly elected by the speaker's intentions. Late system morphemes are activated later in the production process as required by the grammatical frame of the target language. This paper claims that there is variation within individual lexical categories and that the distinction between particular types of morphemes is not a lexical category-defining feature. That is, the classification of morphemes is based on how morphemes are activated. Interlanguage data from early adult Chinese and Japanese learners of English as a second language indicate an implicational hierarchy of morpheme acquisition: content morphemes are acquired before any system morphemes,and early system morphemes are acquired before late system morphemes. Reported in this paper are the learners' production of English determiners and pronouns relevant to testing the categorization of morphemes as specified in the 4-M model. The accuracy/frequency count of the learners' acquisition of the types of morphemes provides statistical evidence for the 4-M model and the hypotheses of the study.

Unequal election of morphemes in adult second language acquisition

Morpheme accuracy and acquisition order is a frequent subject in the Second Language Acquisition research literature (Bailey et al. 1974; Krashen 1981; VanPatten 1984, 1995). However, the treatment is largely descriptive. That is, researchers offer few explanations for the data discussed. The most frequently invoked explanation puts the burden on first language acquisition theory because the observed orders are similar to those observed in first language acquisition (Krashen 1981; Flynn 1984, 1987; White 1985, 1989). In contrast, this paper explains observed accuracy orders on the basis of a model of morpheme classification originally proposed to account for other bilingual phenomena, the 4-M Model (Myers-Scotton and Jake 1999a). The paper bases its analysis on a cross-sectional analysis of acquisition of English by Japanese and Chinese first language speakers. The results indicate that not all functional elements have the same accuracy order. The paper argues that this order reflects the fact that functional elements differ in how they are activated. The model of morpheme classification assumes that there are three types of system morphemes (functional elements) as well as content morphemes. One type of system morpheme is indirectly elected at the same time that content morphemes are directly elected by the speaker's intentions. The other two types of system morphemes are activated later in the production process. Their abstract lexical-conceptual structure is not relevant to conveying the speaker's intentions, but rather is required by the grammatical frame of the target language. For this reason, the 4-M Model predicts that they are harder to acquire and the data reported in this paper support that hypothesis. That is, the data indicate an implicational hierarchy of morpheme acquisition: content morphemes are acquired before any system morphemes and early (indirectly elected) system morphemes are acquired before later system morphemes.

Overt and covert codeswitching in immigrant children from Russia

This paper discusses the principles and mechanisms of language attrition in a group of Russian immigrant children in the United States. The discussions and analyses in the study are carried out within the theoretical framework provided by the Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model and its two submodels: the 4-M model and the Abstract Level model. The data are analyzed for the presence of bilingual production, such as codeswitching (CS), convergence, and bare forms. Because different types of morphemes become salient at different levels of the abstract lexical structure, some are less accessible and therefore more vulnerable as language attrition progresses. A structural definition of convergence based on the interaction of the abstract lexical structures of the languages participating in the bilingual speech is developed. The analysis shows that bare forms are produced as a result of both CS and convergence in the abstract structure. Bare forms represent an intermediate stage of language loss, preceded by integrated CS forms and followed by convergence. Overt CS is defined as the presence of morphemes from two varieties; these may be nontarget forms, including bare forms. Overt CS alone is found not to be indicative of language attrition since it does not, by it self, lead to the projection of parts of the abstract structure of the Embedded Language onto the grammatical frame of the Matrix Language (ML). Covert CS (convergence) may occur alone or along with overt CS (nontarget forms, including bare forms). Covert CS is, indeed, an indicator of language attrition in progress since it is a result of a composite Matrix Language.

Morpheme types in a matrix language turnover: The introduction of system morphemes from English into Pennsylvania German

This contribution examines the roles that morphemes of different types, as defined within Myers-Scotton and Jake's 4-M model (2000), play in contactinduced language change. The data examined here are taken from interviews with seven speakers of Pennsylvania German (PG). This paper argues that a turnover of the Matrix Language is in process in PG. Such a turnover involves the gradual replacement of system morphemes of German origin with system morphemes from English. The 4-M model outlines three different types of system morphemes: early system morphemes and two different kinds of late system morphemes, “bridges” and “outsiders.” It is predicted that early system morphemes from English will appear in PG first, and this prediction is supported by the occurrence of plurals and past participles from English in these data. There is no evidence of bridge system morphemes from English, and only isolated instances of English outsider morphemes, indicating that the introduction of late system morphemes from English has not yet taken place.

When two become one: Creating a composite grammar in creole formation

This paper examines the structural consequences of the contact between Dutch overseers and Eastern Ij slaves during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on the formation of Berbice Dutch, an unusual creole because of its remarkably homogeneous substrate. Based on the assumption that the structure-building operations in language contact situations are governed by the relative accessibility of morphemes in production, various surface configurations in Berbice Dutch are explained in terms of the 4-M model. Although the 4-M model classifies morphemes as falling into four types, content morphemes and three types of system morphemes, its focus is on how morphemes are differentially elected in production. A second model, the Abstract Level model, views the structure of the abstract lemmas that support morphemes as internally complex. Considering how morphemes are elected and how abstract lexical structure is complex opens the door to an explanation for the surface configurations found in Berbice Dutch. Data from Berbice Dutch demonstrate that abstract lexical structure can be “split” and “recombined” in such a way that surface structure is projected by an underlying grammatical frame that is a composite of the abstract lexical structure of the linguistic varieties in contact. Perceptual saliency of morphological structure and the degree of homogeneity in the substrate play a crucial role in predicting what is and what is not possible in creole formation.

Four types of morpheme: evidence from aphasia, code switching, and second-language acquisition

This paper presents empirical evidence supporting a new model of morpheme classification called the 4-M model. This model emphasizes the notion that lemmas underlying different types of morphemes become salient at different levels of production. This explains their different distributions. While the 4-M model classifies morphemes, it is primarily a model of how morphemes are accessed. The argument is that particular instantiations of morphemes are classified as a consequence of the mechanisms that activate them. The evidence considered comes from studies of code switching, Broca's aphasia, and second-language acquisition. One finding that the 4-M model captures is that not all functional elements pattern alike. Some are conceptually activated at the level of the mental lexicon along with their content-morpheme heads. Two other types of functional element are structurally assigned and do not become salient until later in the production process. These differences explain their different distributions in the data considered

O problema do infixo em português

This article is a survey of the various views about the existence of infixes in Portuguese, followed by critical comments. It aims to show that, most probably, this type of morpheme is non-existent in the language under study.

Constructing interlanguage: building a composite matrix language

Treating interlanguage as language contact results in an explanatory account of second-language acquisition (SLA). The proposed model is informed by three sets of assumptions. First, lexical structure is composed of levels or substructures; the relevant levels are lexical-conceptual structure, predicate-argument structure, and morphological-realization patterns (Talmy 1985; Jackendoff 1990; Myers-Scotton and Jake 1995). Second, the distinction between content and system (i.e. functional) morphemes, developed in the matrix language frame model of intrasentential code switching (Myers-Scotton 1993), determines how lexical items can contribute to building the interlanguage grammatical system. Two types of system morphemes are recognized: conceptually activated system morphemes and structurally assigned system morphemes (Bock and Levelt 1994 ; Jake and Myers-Scotton 1996). Finally, the matrix-language and embedded-language distinction structures interlanguage. In SLA an INTENDED matrix language, the target language, and a DE FACTO matrix language, the developing linguistic competence, are recognized. The L1 acts as an embedded language. Interlanguage structures are projected by lexical substructures of the three linguistic systems in contact. Principles structuring language contact and the nature of the grammatical elements projecting lexical structure determine what types of grammatical structures each system can contribute and how they are combined into a developing composite matrix language

Notes on morphology with special reference to Tswana

The aim of this article is to determine and to classify the various types of morphemes found in the word structure of Tswana; and to determine how they are hierarchically structured in word. These issues are investigated by comparing and evaluating the views of a number of linguists who have focused on morphology. Special attention is given to the component called the stem (or base), i.e. that meaningful part of a word which is neither a grammatical morpheme nor a root, and which therefore occupies some sort of in-between status. Reasons are given for acknowledging the notion of stem (word correlate) as an intermediary morphological component. It is concluded that a hierarchical morphological analysis which mirrors word-formation processes cannot be conducted without acknowledging the existence of the stem. The acknowledgement of the stem as a morphological component does not affect the status of the word in any way.

Toward mastery of Italian morphology: a cross-sectional study.

The use of Italian morphology was examined in 34 children ranging in age from 2;6 to 5;0. By the age of 3;6-4;0, high percentages of use in obligatory contexts were seen for a number of grammatical morphemes. Children age 2;6-3;0 showed percentages of use that were somewhat lower than those seen for the older children. In this age range, singular forms were used with higher percentages in obligatory contexts than plural forms, for several different types of grammatical morphemes. Greater control over singular forms in these younger children was corroborated by data from a comprehension task. Even at the younger ages studied, use of grammatical morphemes did not seem influenced by whether phonological cues to agreement were present, or whether the grammatical morphemes were homonymous. Percentages for grammatical morphemes in the form of free-standing morphemes were somewhat lower than percentages for morphemes taking the form of inflections, suggesting that the obligatory nature of inflections in Italian may be a more influential factor than the amount of morphological information contained in a grammatical morpheme.

The Production of Grammatical Morphology in Broca's and Wernicke's Aphasics: Speed and Accuracy Factors

A group of Broca's aphasics (BA), Wernicke's aphasics (WA) and normal controls participated in a CLOZE experiment which required the oral production of various types of free and bound morphemes. Results provided support for the hypothesis that BA and WA share the same underlying impairment in the production of grammatical morphology. The relative difficulty of the various free and bound morpheme types was the same for BA and WA. This appeared to be the case not only in an analysis of the number of errors but also in an analysis of response times. The same analyses furthermore revealed no significant differences in the absolute levels of performance of BA and WA. Finally, it was found that BA and WA show the same relative contribution of within- and across-category substitutions of free morphemes. For bound morphemes, there was a slight difference between BA and WA, in that BA exclusively produced within-category substitutions while WA also produced some across-category substitutions.

Word stress assignment in a text-to-speech synthesis system for British English

A technique for the assignment of word stress to isolated British English words is described. The input form of the word contains both morphological and phonological information. The input phonological form is more abstract than the normal phonemic transcription. All vowels are shown in unreduced form, allowing the stress rules to condition the subsequent reduction. The morphological analysis is based on a simple set of morpheme types. The input string is parsed into stress foot units. The stress foot units form the basis for the assignment of primary and secondary word stress. Unstressed vowels are reduced and certain other vowel modifications are performed. The results of testing the technique are compared with the performance of an affix-based method. The technique accounts for slightly more data than this taxonomic approach; this is because the latter uses a morphological shorthand to encode what are essentially phonological facts. The performance of the technique is also compared with that of two further methods and is found to be more satisfactory on both the theoretical and the practical levels.

The -Ex Ending in Product Names

T HE ENDING -ex, which is common in English and international product names, is not a suffix in the usual sense (for reasons which will become clear), but its productivity seems to be established beyond doubt by the large number of names of products which can be found in any chemist's shop, drug store, supermarket, and many other types of shop: for example, Kleenex, Sinex, Earex, Coldrex, Amplex, Kynex, Vallex, Volex, Butrex, Aminex, Andrex, Spontex, Biotex, Yeastex, Amplex, Playtex, Copydex, Perspex. The frequency of the -ex ending in modern product and trade names makes it, in my view, a legitimate object of study for morphologists and lexicologists. However, it is rather different from the other formal objects which are normally studied in this field, in the following ways at least: 1. It is unlike the usual type of derivational morpheme, because it neither carries an isolable referential meaning nor brings about a category change. In fact it may be suffixed to items which are not lexical items at all (see (2)). 2. It must be treated as a bound form, but it is often bound to items which are not words of English, nor even clipped forms of English words. Thus, Dexcafex < dextrose + caffeine + -ex involves a blend of two English words, meaningless in itself, plus -ex. 3. For the same reason, it does not correspond to a final combining form (Bauer 1983, 213) like -naut or -crat, since these are limited to combining with an Initial Combining Form which must end in o (or occasionally another vowel). Since the existence of the -ex ending has apparently almost escaped the attention of linguists so far, a good deal of work remains to be done: this is only a preliminary report. In this paper I will discuss the history, productivity, and semantics of -ex and make some remarks on its phonology.

The discourse basis for lexical categories in universal grammar

THE DISCOURSE BASIS FOR LEXICAL CATEGORIES IN UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR Paul J. HopperSandra A. Thompson State University ofNew York,University of California, Los BinghamtonAngeles Most linguists who have investigated linguistic categories from a universal viewpoint have accepted the existence of two basic parts of speech, noun and verb. Other categories are found to be only inconsistently represented; thus adjective is manifested in many languages as a class of Stative verb. Furthermore, individual languages often have intermediate categories such as gerund, which cannot be unambiguously assigned to a single category. We suggest here that the basic categories N and V are to be viewed as universal lexicalizations of the prototypical discourse functions of 'discourse-manipulable participant' and 'reported event', respectively. We find that the grammars of languages tend to label the categories N and V with morpho-syntactic markers which are iconically characteristic of these categories to the degree that a given instance of N or V approaches its prototypical function. In other words, the closer a form is to signaling this prime function, the more the language tends to recognize its function through morphemes typical of the category—e.g. deictic markers for N, tense markers for V. We conclude by suggesting that categoriality itself is another fundamental property ofgrammars which may be directly derived from discourse function.* Introduction 1. The classification of the lexicon into categories or 'parts of speech' has been a concern of linguists since ancient times. This paper offers a new approach to the many problems raised when linguistic categories are considered from the aspect of universal grammar. 1.1. Categories. Over the centuries during which the Western grammatical tradition has evolved, the criteria for determining categories have shifted according to trends in linguistic thought as a whole. These criteria have included the following: (a)Morphological. This criterion takes the possibility of a form's combining with different types of inflectional morphemes as the basis for identifying categories.1 A noun is thus defined as a form which is 'declined' according to case, number, and gender (case being primary, indeed to some extent synonymous with 'noun'); a verb is a form which is 'conjugated' according to person, tense, and mood. This criterion clearly derives from a grammatical tradition within a classical Indo-European speech community; but in fact it extends remarkably well, as we shall see, to a wide range of non-IE languages. (b)Semantic. That the major categories are associated with fairly consistent semantic classes was recognized by the earliest grammarians. Thus Dionysius * We are grateful to several people whose comments have helped shape this study: Raimo Anttila, Joan Bybee, Wallace Chafe, Bernard Comrie, Jack Du Bois, John Haiman, Carol Lord, Francesca Merlan, Edith Moravcsik, Johanna Nichols, Michael Noonan, and Kenneth Whistler; and to Christian Matthiessen for help in preparing the manuscript. Authorship of this paper, as with all our joint work, is shared equally. 1 However, Lyons (1966:217) rejects the characterization 'morphological' for this approach. 703 704LANGUAGE, VOLUME 60, NUMBER 4 (1984) Thrax defined the noun (onoma) as 'a part of speech inflected for case, signifying a person or thing' (Robins 1979:33). The difficulty of applying semantic or 'notional' criteria consistently has been a perennial problem; yet the broad correlation is so obvious that linguists have repeatedly returned to it in one form or another. (c) Syntactic. Syntactic arguments for determining boundaries among word classes go back to earliest times; the distinction between 'subject' and 'predicate ' was well known to the Hindu grammarians, and was equated by them with the noun/verb distinction (Lyons 1968:19-20). Furthermore, the Greek term rhêma 'verb' appears originally to have referred to the predicate of the sentence (Robins 1979:26-7), rather to than the (conjugated) verb. Purely syntactic arguments are also used by modern structural linguistics; thus, in the transformational/generative paradigm, the criteria for assigning forms to the major categories are linked to the usefulness of the classification to the formulation of rules: 'The way in which we have arrived at the particular decisions [about word classes] ... is, in principle, irrelevant ... What matters is whether one classification rather than another enables the grammarian to formulate a set of rules which will include...