Practical assignments (part 1)

Consider the following words:

(a) Tigers, speakers

(b) Untimely, uniquely

(c) Decorating, decentralizing

(d) Wholesome, gruesome

(e) Consumed, consumption

(f) Leucocyte, erythrocyte

1. Divide them into morphemes, noting any instances where you are unsure. What differences are there between the words in each pair.

2. Are there any morphemes here which have two or more allomorphs?

3. Which of these morphemes are free and which are bound? Are the bound morphemes all affixes, or are some of them roots or combining forms?

4. Do any problems arise here for the view that morphemes are ‘the smallest units of language that can be associated with meaning’ or ‘the minimal minimum units’?

5. What phonological factors determine the distribution of the allomorphs /t/, /d/, and /id/ or /əd/ of the past tense suffix –ed?

Practical assignments (Part 2)

1. (a) List the ‘bound’ morphemes to be found in these words: misleads, previewer, shortened, unhappier, fearlessly. (b) In which of the following examples should the ‘a’ be treated as a bound morpheme: a boy, apple, atypical, AWOL?

2. What are the functional morphemes in the following sentences: The old man sat in the chair and told the tales of woe?

3. What are the inflectional morphemes in the following phrases: (a) the teacher’s book, (b) it’s snowing, (c) the newest model, (d) the cow jumped over the moon.

4. What would we list as allomorphs of the morpheme ‘plural’ from this set of English words: dogs, oxen, deer, judges, curricula?

5. There are often regular meanings associated with particular English derivational affixes (eg, -en added to dark or sharp gives the meaning of ‘make dark’ or ‘make sharp’). Is there regularity of meaning in the derivational affixes used in the following sets of words?

Shorten, blacken, golden, deepen, soften, wooden.

Laughable, readable, breakable, reasonable, perishable, enjoyable.

Rewrite, rebuild, refine, remiss, relax, refuse.

Practical assignment (Part 3).

Make a comparative chart under the title ‘Morphology. The morpheme. The chart should include the columns: 1) the definition of morphology; 2) the definition of the morpheme; 3) the specific features of the morpheme; 4) the types of morphemes distinguished. The chart should illustrate three different points of view (of three authors).

The name of the author	the definition of morphology	the definition of the morpheme	the specific features of the morpheme	the types of morphemes distinguishes

Individual short reports (additional 7 points)

The notion of productivity in morphology and lexicology.

Morphophonology as a field of study.

Seminar 3 (Max 4 points)

1. The word. The lexical and the grammatical meaning of the word. The notion of word form.

2. Parts of speech vs. word classes.

3. Different approaches: pros and cons. Aristotle Roman’s contribution to the parts of speech classification; Henry Sweet’s classification; Ch. Fries; field approach; modern traditional views.

4. Cognitive approach to the parts of speech problem.

5. The problems encountered while putting the words into classes.

Practical assignments

Make two diagrams/charts/scheme, etc. illustrating two different approaches to grouping words into classes.

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