Prova in itinere morfologia Inglese 1, prof Vigo, libro consigliato English language, Culpeper

ELENA GENNUSO

2022/2023

INGLESE 1 - MORFOLOGIA

International affixes are grammatical in nature, establish a relationship between two or more words.

Nouns Verbs Adjectives

-s plural -s third person singular -er comparative

-‘s possessive -ed past definite -est superlative

-ing present participle/gerund

-en perfect participle

Allomorphs are variants that realize morphemes in different contexts (ex: a – an)

Exercise:

“Use google to look for it. Google it!” > nell’utilizzo c’è stato un processo di conversione, la quale

- è un fenomeno con il quale una parola acquisisce un altro ruolo grammaticale senza alcuna

variazione.

“The outcome was not predictable – unpredictable” > da un punto di vista di significato non vi è

- alcuna differenza, sono solamente morfologicamente diversi. La creazione della nuova parola

avviene tramite affissazione.

“You’ll catch a fast train” – “things went down fast” > bisogna fare riferimento alla struttura della

- frase per capire di che elemento si tratta; nella prima fase “fast” è un aggettivo perché si trova

prima del sostantivo, nella seconda esso è un avverbio.

“His story is unbelievable” – “his story is un-fuckin’-believable” > in entrambe le frasi

- “unbelievable” è stato soggetto ad affixation, nella prima frase presenta sia un prefisso (un-) che

un suffisso (-able), nella seconda frase è stato soggetto a infixation (fucking), ma è una forma molto

tipica dell’orale.

Morphological processes:

Conversion: it changes the class of the word without changing its form in any way. You can tell

- which word class the derived word belongs to by looking at the syntactic context in which it

appears.

• Noun > Verb: chair/to chair; to guess/guess; to spy/spy; blog/to blog;

• Adjective > Verb: empty; dirty; wet…

• Adjective > Noun: weekly;

• Adjective > Adverb: slow. (RICORDA CHE L’AVVERBIO MODIFICA IL VERBO)

Affixation: word building process involving the use of affixes.

- Internal change (Apophony): changing a vowel in the root (ex: sing/sang/song – bind/bound…).

- Suppletion: distinct roots for different forms of the same word, a root morpheme is replaced by

- an unrelated form in order to indicate a grammatical contrast (ex: bad/worse – good/better…).

Reduplication: the creation of a new word by repetition of an existing word in its entirety or in

- part (ex: walkie talkie – wishy-washy – flip-flop (partial)).

• Rhyming reduplication: extra emphasis (ex: easy-peasy – super-duper – airy-fairy);

• Exact reduplication (ex: bye-bye – wee-wee…).

• Ablaut reduplication: changing a vowel (ex: zig-zag – flip-flop…).

• Shm-reduplication: repeating the same word with SHM in front, taking away first

consonant; it is an uncomplimentary connotation (ex: teacher-shmeacher (bad teacher) –

chef/shmef (bad chef) …).

Compounding: complex words containing at least two bases that are themselves words (ex: speed

- date, self-made, flower shop…). Compounds always have a headword which assigns its syntactic

properties to the entire word, and thanks to the right-hand head rule there is the idea that the

head it the element at the right of it and it is called headword (ex: run + way > runway ).

v n n

ELENA GENNUSO

2022/2023

INGLESE 1 - MORFOLOGIA

This rule has been subject to much

severe criticism because it is

insufficient because it ignores

numerous cases where the head does

not appear in the righthand position

(ex: un- + horse > unhorse ; passer +

v n v n

by > passer-by ; un + happy >

prep n adj neg adj

unhappy …).

adj neg

• Endocentric compounds:

many compounds are compositional because their meaning can be interfered from the

meaning of the words they contain. The word on the left serves as a modifier of the

headword that is on the right.

• Exocentric compounds meaning is not compositional (ex: green tax ; greenhouse ; cold

N N

turkey ; golden handcuffs ; bag lady ; stonewall ; cold shoulder ; carbon footprint ).

N N N V N/V N

Coinage: it is word manufacture without recycling existing words and morphemes. It is mostly

- found in names of corporations and their commercial products (ex: “nylon” is an invented word by

combining the fabricated stem nyl- whith the pseudo-suffix -on found in other names of textile

fibres).

Eponyms are new words created by widening the meaning of a personal name to refer to a place,

- concept or product associated with that person (ex: “mesmerize” from Franz Mesmer).

Backformation arises from a reinterpretation of the structure of a word so that a chunk that is re-

- analysed as an affix is removed, leaving behind the assumed root (ex: beggar > beg; hawker >

hawk).

Blending indicates the combining of two words (ex: brunch > breakfast lunch).

- Clipping: shortening long words by dropping a part:

- • Fore clipping: deleting the first part and keeping the final part (ex: telephone > phone);

• Middle clipping: deleting both the first and last part, keeping the middle (ex: pajamas >

jams);

• Back clipping: deleting the second part and keeping the first part (ex: examination >

exam).

Hypocorism is used to refer to words formed by suffixing a vowel, usually -y or -ie to a monosyllabic

- root. It is used to create the familiar forms of names (ex: Vicky, Mandy…).

Abbreviations are groups of words representing a concept or the name of an organization reduced

- to their initial letters; the reduced form does not result in well-formed syllables and so cannot be

pronounced as a word.

Acronyms: delivers initial letters that constitute well-formed syllables and the string forms a

- perfectly normal word (ex: NATO).

Non interessa l’elenco dei processi, ma è importante essere in grado di capire la struttura

della parola, da dove essa proviene. ELENA GENNUSO

2022/2023

INGLESE 1 - MORFOLOGIA

Capitolo 5 – grammar and syntax

When we speak and use the language, we refer to the rules to create sentences and texts. Grammar is

organic: it consists of different parts that all fit together well. It is divided into:

Syntax: the way words are arranged in speech or writing to make well-formed strings (“string” is

- a general term used in linguistics when we refer to sequences of words such as phrases, clauses

and sentences). It operates on a higher level than words. We have three larger units of

construction:

• Phrases (sintagmi): combinazioni di parole anche senza verbo (ex: my car);

• Clauses (preposizioni): combinazioni di parole con verbo (ex: my car is new);

• Sentences (periodi): composizioni di preposizioni.

Inflections: morphology.

-

Words:

There are two big classes of words:

Content words: N.A.V.A. (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs), they are an open class and lexical

- morphemes;

Function words: (prepositions, pronouns, determiners), it is a closed word class and they are

- functional morphemes.

To define N.A.V.A words we can follow three criteria:

Function: position (ex: the cook does not cook eggs);

- Form: inflections and suffixes;

- Meaning.

-

Content words:

Nouns are very frequently used to name concrete things or abstract concepts. There are several

subcategories: they can act as the subject, object, complement of a verb, or can be placed in adverbial

phrases. Inanimate nouns in English have no gender.

We recognize a noun if there is the definite article “the” in front of it and by its position.

Subcategories of nouns:

Proper nouns

- Concrete nouns

- Abstract nouns

- Titles

- Countable/uncountable: there are some nouns that can be counted and so have a plural form;

- but there also are non-count nouns, which refer to substances, sports, subjects of studies etc.

which look plural but are used as singular nouns.

Collective nouns: these are generally count nouns, but even in the singular they refer to groups of

- people, animal or things (ex: family, government, team…), they can sometimes go with a plural

verb even when they themselves are singular.

Compound nouns: they are nouns that are made of more than one word (ex: sunglasses, travel-

- agency…).

Attributive nouns: sometimes nouns are used as adjectives (ex: wine glass, gold medal, silver

- watch…); in this case, nouns are called attributive nouns or nouns as modifiers.

C’è un modo per riconoscere se ci troviamo difronte a un nome composto oppure difronte a un aggettivo

+ nome: osservare l’accento, se esso ricade solo sul primo elemento allora ci troviamo difronte a un

sostantivo! La parola composta è fatta da due elementi e possiamo distinguerla solo per la posizione

dell’accento nella parte orale. ELENA GENNUSO

2022/2023

INGLESE 1 - MORFOLOGIA

Adjectives are often defined as a word which describes or gives more information about a noun or pronoun.

An adjective describes nouns in terms of such qualities as size, color, number and king. They do not change

the basic meaning or structure of the sentence, but they do give a lot more information. Adjectives are:

Invariable: they never change, they are genderless and without plural;

- They have a precise position: before the noun they refer to;

- They can be qualitative and classifying:

- • Qualitative: they give information of the noun, are gradable and they can be modified (ex:

“very…” – difficult, hot, wonderful, ugly etc.);

• Classifying: they give information on the type of the noun, they can’t be modified (ex:

wooden, new, broken, Chinese etc.).

In English it is possible to create clauses in which we have a noun and many adjectives that describes it.

Their position is not free and there are some rules: “SASH.COM” -> quality, size, age, shape, color, origin,

material.

Adverbs are a class of words, comprising items which typically refer to the circumstances or manner in

which an action is done, and frequently marked by the suffix -ly. Adverbs can also occur as modifiers of

adjectives (quite) and sentences connectors (moreover).

Adverbs are words that modify:

A verb (ex: he drove slowly – how did he drive?);

- An adjective (ex: he drove a very fast car – how fast was his car?);

- Another adverb (ex: she moved quite slowly down the aisle – how slowly did she move?).

-

Adverbs often tell when, where, why or under what conditions something happens or happened.

In other words, they describe the manner, place, or time of an action (ex: manner – Jane drives slowly;

place – the party Is going to take place here; time – I called him yesterday).

The best way to tell if a word