Combined

Lexical verbs vs.
Auxiliaryverbs
- They have complete - They need a lexical verb
semantic meaning. in order to havecomplete
- They are main verbsin meaning.
the sentence. - When they go withlexical
- They can bear inflection. verbs they are the ones
that bear the finite
inflection.
4 main auxiliaries.
16 sequences.
Lexical verbs vs. Auxiliaryverbs
Regarding movement… Regarding movement…
- They do not move. - The first auxiliaryverb
Inflection moves down raises to Inflection.
= I-lowering. - Movement, ifpossible,
- Whenever there isno must be upwards.
auxiliary.
- Why? - Why?
Lexical verbs vs. Auxiliaryverbs
Inflection moves downto Aux raises toInfl.
V
- Why? Why?
Rod always cooksthe Rod is always cookingthe
pudding pudding
Based on the specific distribution of The adverb precedes lexicalverbs

VP-adverbs such as “often” or and follows auxiliaries.
“always”. Adverbs precede V, thenV
For more info, check Prof.Castillo’s
does not move. Therefore, it is I that
handouts (X).
must lower down toV.
Draw tree with auxiliaries?
Rod has been cooking the pudding.
And/or
You could have been doing that

Draw tree with modalauxiliary?
Rod must cook the pudding.

BRANCHES OF LINGUISTICS
Pragmatics
Semantics Phonology
LINGUISTICS
Syntax Phonetics
Morphology
TAKE A LOOK AT THE WORDS BELOW:
head bracelet (n.)

McDonaldization (n.)
WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?
- The study of words and word formation (Lieber 8)
-The study of systematic covariation in the form and

meaning of words (Haspelmath 2)
-The mental system involved in word formation or the

branch of linguistics that deals with words, their internal
structure, and how they are formed. (Aronoff 2)
Grammatical vs. lexical morphology or

Inflection vs lexeme formation/ word formation
WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?
• Studies minimal units of linguistic form and

meaning
• Interconnectedness of other linguistic

categories (Phonology, Syntax, Semantics)
AND SYNTAX?
• The study of structure and ordering of components in a sentence (Yule 96)
• The level of linguistic organization that mediates between sounds and meaning, where words are organized into
phrases and sentences (Carnie 20)
MORPHOSYNTAX
• The study of how words are combined into larger unit such as phrase and
sentence.
• Cooks cook + s belong to a bigger structure:
• My flatmate cooks every morning. (Syntactic structure)
• Number is a morphosyntactic unit; plurals require both a morphological

change and syntactic agreement between noun and verb (Oxford Dictionary)
MORPHOLOGY
• A morphological analysis implies identifying its parts

CONSTITUENTS
Lions lion +s
The smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic

expression is a MORPHEME.
DIVIDE THE FOLLOWING
• Breaking
• Hopeless
• Rewrite
• cheeseboard
DIVIDE THE FOLLOWING
• Break-ing
• Hope-less
• Re-write
• Cheese-board
WORDS
Morphosyntax
• Lexeme: abstract sense
• Word token: words used in text or speech
• Word-forms or types
COUNTING WORDS
• My friend and I walk to class together, because our classes are in the same
building and we dislike walking alone.
COUNTING WORDS
• My friend and I walk to class together, because our classes are in the same
building and we dislike walking alone.
• 1) word tokens: 21
• 2) word-forms or types: 20
• 3) Lexemes: 16
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
• Lexemes can be thought of as sets of word-forms, and every word-form

belongs to one lexeme.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
• Lexemes can be thought of as sets of word-forms, and every word-form

belongs to one lexeme.
1) word tokens: 16
2) word-forms or types: 15
3) Lexemes: 13
WHAT IS A WORD?
• A stretch of letters that occurs between blank spaces.
TENTATIVE DEFINITIONS?
• What about contracted forms? Hyphenated forms?
• Spoken language?
• A minimum free form is a WORD.
A word is thus a form which may be uttered alone (with meaning) but cannot
be analyzed into parts that may (all of them) be uttered alone (with
meaning). (Bloomfield 1926: 156)
• One or more morphemes that can stand alone in a language (Lieber 3)

WORDS, WORDS
• Time flies like an arrow.
• Same words can belong to different
• Fruit flies like a banana categories (noun, adj, verb, adverb, etc.)
.
• I fear fear.
• I spray spray
• The British left waffles on the Falkland Islands
WORDS
• "The British left waffles on the Falkland Islands”

• To waffle (verb): vacillate
• Waffle (noun): cake
• *not semantically related
WORDS
• Identical-sound or identical-looking words can belong to multiple

categories.
• Right (adj.): correct right (noun): direction
• Current - up to date / flow of water
• lead (to go in front of)/lead (a metal)
• In other cases, the words may be semantically related. (Aronoff, 33-34)

WHAT PART OF SPEECH IS “ROUND”?
• Mary bought a round table..

• The car went round the corner.
• The yacht will round the buoy soon.
• We walked round to the shop.
• My round was the last, I bought them all whiskey.
WHAT PART OF SPEECH IS “ROUND”?
• Mary bought a round table. - ADJECTIVE.

• The car went round the corner. - PREPOSITION
• The yacht will round the buoy soon. - VERB
• We walked round to the shop. - ADVERB
• My round was the last, I bought them all whiskey. - NOUN
TRADITIONAL
PARTS OF SPEECH
WORD CLASSES
• VERB: dance, jump…..; can, may…
• NOUN: Rupert, tiger, honesty, beer, linguistics,…
• PRONOUN: she, mine, that, all, both, many,……
• DETERMINER*: the, a(n), that, both, many,…
• ADJECTIVE: honest, fantastic, amazing,…
• ADVERB: yesterday, quickly, always, very, most, perhaps, …
• PREPOSITION: out (of), on, in, at, off,……
• CONJUCTION: and, or, but, that, though, whether,….
• INTERJECTION: hey, ouch, oh, d’oh,…
WORD CLASSES
• Open-class vs closed-class
• Content word vs function word

GENDER-FLUID PRONOUNS?
NEW WORDS
• Phubbing: to snub with phone

• Gender-fluid (adj) and new pronouns
• Fomo (fear of missing out)
• lamestream (noun)
• vamping
OPEN-CLASS VS CLOSED-CLASS WORDS
• Content words (lexical): noun, adjectives, verb, adverbs

• Function words (grammatical or function: articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, conjunctions,
and prepositions*)
• Telegraphic speech to see the different types of words
• Content words: the building blocks of a sentence

• Function words: like thumbtacks
*check the following slides

FUNCTION VS. LEXICAL
• Lexical word or content w. classes: noun, adjectives, verb, prepositions*
• Grammatical or function words: pronouns, articles, determiner,

prepositions*, conjunctions
*check the following slide

FUNCTION VS. LEXICAL
• This distinction also applies to phrases:
• Lexical phrases: NP, AP, AdvP, VP, PP*.

• Come after 3 o’clock.
• Prepositions are not governed by another word.
• Functional phrases: IP (TP, AgrP), DP, CP, NegP, AuxP, EmpP., PP*.
• Ben is good at maths.
• Prepositions are determined or governed as they are dependent on another word in their construction. (non-
autonomous meaning/non-predicative)
*There is disagreement about to which group Prep. and PP belong to.

MORE PRACTICE
• See the man with a telescope
Structural ambiguity
SUBDIVISION OF MORPHOLOGY
DIVIDE INTO MORPHEMES
• unkind • return
• hyena • midnight
• walked • normalize
• kindly • autobiography
• childishly • blackboard
DIVIDE INTO MORPHEMES:
SIMPLE/SIMPLEX AND COMPLEX WORDS
• Un-kind • Norm-al ize
• Hyena • Auto-bio-graph-y
• Walk-ed • Black-board
• Kind-ly
• Child-ish-ly
• Re-turn (turn back)
• Mid-night (middle of the night)
COMPLEX WORDS
• Helplessness
• Reconsideration
• Cranberry
• huckleberry
COMPLEX WORDS
• Help-less-ness
• Re-consider-ation
• Cran-berry
• Huckle-berry
MORPHEMES
• Do they have meaning?

Logical logic + al
Lives live + s
Does the s for the 3rd person singular have meaning?
Simple answers: Morphemes bear meaning

TYPES OF MORPHEMES
1) Base vs. affix (prefix, infix, suffix)

2) Free vs. bound (bound morpheme/bound base)
3) Inflectional vs. derivational
4) Lexical vs grammatical
AFFIXES
• Morphemes that can be attached to a word or a main part of a word.

• Cannot occur on their own
• Abstract meaning
Prefixes
Suffixes
Infixes
INFIXES
• Inserted into the BASE word:

Often take speakers favourite taboo word or expletive in American English
fucking, goddam, or frigging, in British English bloody
• Abso-freaking-lutly
• fan-freaking-tastic
• un-f***ing-touchable
• air con-bloody-ditioner
• English has no bound infix morphemes
• * Irregular forms of the plural: Passerby passersby NOT AN INFIX!
http://www.viviancook.uk/Words/infixes.htm
INFIXES
• Think about the word de-act-ive-ate. Why isn t ive

considered an infix?
• Because it is a bound morpheme that is not inside

another morpheme.
LEXEME
• Lexemes can be thought of as families of words that differ only in their gramatical endings or
gramatical forms; singular and plural forms of a noun, present, past, and articiple forms of verbs,
different forms of a pronoun (I, me, my, mine) each represent a single lexeme.
• One way of thinking about lexemes is that they are the basis of dictionary entries.
(Lieber 4)
• It is an abstraction and is indicated in small capitals

EXAMPLES:
PLAY play, plays, playing, played
CLASS class, classes
LEXEME (ARONOFF 45)
What is a lexeme?
A lexeme is a theoretical construct that corresponds roughly to one of the • common senses of the
term word . Examples include BOOK, EAT, DARK, SECRETLY.
It is a sign or set of signs that exists independently of any particular syntactic context.
It has a particular meaning or grammatical function (e.g., a set of written or printed pages fastened
along one side and encased between two covers ; consume, as with food ).
Some linguists restrict the class of lexemes to the major lexical categories of noun, verb,
adjective/adverb.
It is generally referred to by its citation form (e.g., • BOOK, EAT), but its shape may vary
systematically according to the syntactic context in which it is used (e.g., one book , two books ; I am
eating right now, I ate a big dinner yesterday).
Aronoff 69
ANSWERS
Aronoff 69
ANSWER
Taken from Bauer, L. (1983) . English word-formation.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Root , stem and base are all terms used in the literature
to designate that part of a word that remains when all
a xes have been removed.
ROOT
• A root is a form which is not further analysable, either in terms of derivational or inflectional
morphology. It is that part of word-forms that remains when all inflectional and
derivational affixes have been removed. A root is the basic part always present in a
lexeme.
ROOT
• It is the morpheme that carries the major component of the Word s meaning and which
belongs to a lexical category.
• It is the morpheme in which the rest of the Word is built

ROOT
• What is the root of disagreements ?
• And of blackboard ?
ROOT
• In the form disagreement the root is agree , to which first the suffix -able , then the prefix
un- and finally the suffix -s have been added.
• In a compound noun Word like blackboard there are two roots, black and board
MORE PRACTICE
• Untouchables
• wheelchair
STEM
• The base to which an inflectional affix is added.

• A stem is what is left behind when the inflectional affixes are removed.
• What is the stem in .?

Repeated
Disagreements
blackboards
STEM
• For the following words, decompose them into their morphemes and indicate the root and the
stem if it is different from the root:
Desks
Payments
Bottled
Tree
Spiteful
Realices
optionality
BASE
• A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added.
• It is the semantic core of the Word to which the prefixes and suffixes attach.
• Is this term redundant? Can it be always replaced by root or stem ?

BASE
• The set of bases is not exhausted by union of the set of roots and the set of stems: a
derivationally analysable form to which derivational affixes are added can only be referred to as
a base. That is, readable can act as a base for prefixation to give unreadable but in this
process readable could not be referred to as a root because it is analysable in terms of
derivational morphology, nor as a stem since it is not the adding of the inflectional affixes
which is in question.
SO…..
• Root: morpheme in which the rest of the word is built.

• Base: any structure to which an a x may be added. This structure may already contain a
derivational morpheme.
• Stem: any base to which an in ectional a x may be added.
EXAMPLES
• What are the roots of unhelpfulness, cat and vision (Carstairs 145)?
EXAMPLES
• What are the roots of unhelpfulness, cat and vision (Carstairs 145)?
• -help
• -cat
• -vis- (which recurs in visible)
SOME PRACTICE..
• Kettle
• Hopefully
SOME PRACTICE..
• Kettle: root + base + stem

• Hopefully: hope (root+base); hopeful
(base); ly
SOME PRACTICE….
In “developmental… In “developments…
1. Whatis 1. Whatis
“development ? “development ?
2. Whatis “develop ?
SOME PRACTICE…
In “developmental … In “developments…
1. What is 1. Whatis
“development ? “development ?
ROOT, BASE, STEM
ROOT, BASE,STEM
1. What is “develop ?
ROOT, BASE, STEM

SOME MORE PRACTICE…
Unlockable
What is “lock ? What

is “unlock ? What is
“lockable ?
SOME MORE PRACTICE…
Unlockable
What is “lock ? ROOT, BASE

What is “unlock ? BASE What
is “lockable ?BASE
Is “unlockable remarkable in anyother way?

STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY
I N T E R P R E TAT I O N 1 I N T E R P R E TAT I O N 2
un-
lock -able unlock - able

I N T E R P R E TAT I O N 1 I N T E R P R E TAT I O N 2
un-
lock -able unlock - able
BASE BASE
Interpretation 1 Interpretation 2
Un- lockable Unlock- able
• Not capable of being locked. • Capable of being unlocked.
• Example: Do not put anything of value in that • Example: Thank God John
safe - it is unlockable. found the key - the old crate is unlockable at
last.
FREE VS BOUND MORPHEMES
FREE VS. BOUND MORPHEMES
Identify the morphemes in these words

• readable • magnify
• hearing • rendition
• enlarge • clarity
• performance • obfuscate
• whiteness • applicant
• darken
• seeker
• legible
• audience
(Carstairs 19)

• read-able • magn-ify
• hear-ing • rend-ition
• en-large • clar-ity
• perform-ance • obfusc-ate
• white-ness • applic-ant
• dark-en
• seek-er
• leg-ible
• audi-ence
(Carstairs 19)

• read-able • magn-ify
• hear-ing • rend-ition
• en-large • clar-ity
• perform-ance • obfusc-ate
• white-ness • applic-ant
• dark-en
• seek-er
• leg-ible
• audi-ence
(Carstairs 19)
• read-able • leg-ible
• hear-ing • audi-ence
• en-large • magn-ify
• perform-ance • rend-ition
• white-ness • clar-ity
• dark-en • obfusc-ate
• seek-er • applic-ant
FREE BASE + AFFIX BOUND BASE + AFFIX

BOTH MORPHEMES ARE BOUND
(Carstairs 19)
CRANBERRY MORPHEMES
• Is it possible for a bound morpheme to be so limited in its distribution that it

occurs in just one complex word? The answer is yes.
Examples:
• Leg-ible and il-leg-ible
• Cranberry, huckleberry
• Gormless
RECAP: BASE & AFFIXES
• Base: any form to which can be added an affix (derivational or inflectional

morpheme); It is the semantic core (principal meaning) of the word to which the
prefixes and suffixes are attached:
• wipe un-wipe
*Compare to lexeme, root, stem
• Affixes: prefixes, suffixes and infixes**

• Must be attached to a base and cannot occur by itself (not in the case of infixes)
• Usually a short morpheme with an abstract meaning
INFLECTIONAL & DERIVATIONAL
MORPHOLOGY
INFLECTIONAL VS. DERIVATIONAL
AFFIXES
• Inflectional morphemes are bound and grammatical morphemes
• Opens • Helpful
• Sanely
• Biggest
• Dishonest
• drinking
Derivational morphemes Inflectional morphemes
• Create separate words: • Do not create a separate

• act actor word
• May change word class: • Do not change word

• {ize} noun verb class
rubber rubberize • Only highlight the
grammatical properties
• {ful} noun adj.
• Plural, past, present
play, help playful, helpful
• 8 inflectional
morphemes
• Prefix or suffix • All are suffixes

• Wide or narrow • Wide range of
range application
• Many were adopted • All native to English
from Latin, Greek, (since Old English
other languages was spoken around
(though others, esp. 500-1000 AD)
suffixes are native:
{ful}, {like}, {ly}
THE 8 ENGLISH INFLECTIONAL
MORPHEMES
INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES/MORPHEMES
• The words to which these affixes are attached are called STEMS
• STEM includes base or bases and the derivational affixes
• Blackboards: Blackboard (stem) + s (inflectional morpheme)
• NB: A derivational affix must combine with the base before the inflectional affix
• Brotherhoods brothershood* (incorrect: BASE + IA + DA)
• They can pile up • they cannot pile up (1

• Ex. reestablishment exception)
• Arbitrariness: • Workers’ timetable
• Ex. –ess *presidentess • They go with all stems
• Less productive of a word class.
• Last in the word.
• More productive
• Ex. Plural -s
INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES: PRACTICE
• the biggest
• Worse
• Matt likes fish
• You hate coffee
• James listened
• James spoke
• Practicing
• www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/Courses/Psy598/Ling-Morphology.pdf
INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES: PRACTICE
• biggest = {big} + {SUP}

• Worse= {bad} + {COMP}
• Matt likes fish= {like} + {PRES} = {like} + {-s}
• You hate coffee= {hate} + {PRES} = {hate} + {Ø}
• James listened= {listen} + {PAST}= {listen} + {-ed}
• James spoke= {listen} + {PAST} = {listen} + {-ed}
• Practicing= {practice} + {PRES PART}
• Create separate words • Does not create a separate word
• May change word class • Does not change word class
• May have a wide or narrow range • Highly productive
• Either adopted from other languages or • Mostly native to English
native
• Indicate grammatical property
• May pile up
• 8 types
• They do not close up a word
• Do not pile up (1 exception: plumbers’)
• May be used before, in betw. or after the
• Always at the end of the word (suffixes)
base
• They combine with some words only, not
with others. Arbitrariness
DESCRIBE THE FOLLOWING AFFIXES: DA
OR IA?
1) Impossible
2) Terrorized
3) Terrorize
4) Desks
5) Dislike
6) Humanity
7) fastest
DESCRIBE THE FOLLOWING AFFIXES: DA
OR IA?
1) Impossible DERIVATIONAL AFFIXATION

2) Terrorized INFLECTIONAL AFFIXATION
3) Terrorize DERIVATIONAL AFFIXATION
4) Desks INFLECTIONAL AFFIXATION
5) Dislike DERIVATIONAL AFFIXATION
6) Humanity DERIVATIONAL AFFIXATION
7) Fastest INFLECTIONAL AFFIXATION
Free or Bound morphemes?

• Create separate words • Does not create a separate word
• May change word class • Does not change word class
• May have a wide or narrow range • Highly productive
• Either adopted from other languages or • Mostly native to English
native
• Indicate grammatical property
• May pile up
• 8 types
• They do not close up a word
• Do not pile up (1 exception)
• May be used before, in betw. or after the
• Always at the end of the word (suffixes)
base
• They combine with some words only, not
with others. Arbitrariness
DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES
http://www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/Courses/Psy598/Ling-Morphology.pdf
INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES
http://www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/Courses/Psy598/Ling-Morphology.pdf
A RECAP! Morphemes
Free Bound
Base/stem/root
Affix Base
Frog; ride
derm, -itis, -ology,

prefix suffix infix
psych(o)-
-ness, -ize, able, -

re-, un-, en-
ance
A RECAP! Morphemes
Free Bound
Base/stem/root
Affix Base
Frog; ride
derm, -itis, -ology,

DERIVATION prefix suffix infix
psych(o)-
-ness, -ize, able, -ance DERIVATION

re-, un-, en- INFLECTION
-s; -er
WHAT IS MORPHOSYNTAX?
• Definition
• Interconnectedness of other linguistic
categories
• What is a morpheme?
• Free vs. bound (bound
morpheme/bound base)
• Base vs. affix (prefix, infix, suffix)
• Inflectional vs. derivational
MORPHOSTYNTAX
the interface between morphology and
phonology
Ana Chapman
Interface: Definition
• A point where two systems, subjects, organizations, etc. meet
and interact.
Morphology Phonology
29/03/2020 [email protected] 2
What is phonology?
• Phonology is the study of the sound structure of languages. It
studies sound regulariTes in a language (what sounds exist, how
they combine, prosody – stress, accent, tone, etc. ).
(Lieber 157)
• How does phonology interface
with morphology?
• Does the same morpheme

have the same form?
Think about the negative
morpheme…
• Negative prefix { in- }
• Negative morpheme in its possible variants:
– { in- }: incoherent, incapable
– { im- }: Impossible, improbable
– { il- }: Illegal, illegitimate
• They all mean ”negative”
Think about the negative
morpheme…
• Negative prefix { in- }
• Variants of this morpheme:
ALLOMORPHS
• They are allomorphs of the negative prefix.

And what about the plural
morpheme?
• Cats
• Buses
• bones
And what about the plural
morpheme?
• The plural morpheme in English, usually written as '-s', has at least
three allomorphs:
– [-s]
– [-z]
– [iz]
– What happens with the irregular plural? i.e. sheep
– Zero-allomorph
Zero-allomorph
Some authors include this null morpheme, also known as
morphological blocking or total morpheme blocking.
This constituent is needed in analysis but not realized in speech. It
refers to an element that is phonologically null. Ø
What does allomorph mean?
• An allomorph is an alternate pronunciation of a phonological form of
a morpheme in a particular linguistic environment.
• Morphemes, like phonemes, are not always realized in the same way in
all contexts. We talk about allomorphs just as we talk about
allophones.
• But the factors that determine the distribution of allophones are purely
phonological; the conditioning of allomorphy is determined by a wider
range of factors.
• There are three kinds of allomorphy:
– Phonological allomorphy
– Weak suppletive allomorphy
– Strong suppletive allomorphy
So, are allomorphs predictable?
Here is a useful hint
• The allomorph is conditioned by the phonetic or sound
environment of the world….
• However, which allomorph appears with a particular base is

unpredictable.
English plural morpheme
• Is it
predictable?
English plural morpheme
• There is another dimension to add to describing allomorphy
structures or patterns of a language: CONDITIONING i.e., how
the environment or conditions that affect the allomorph used.
1) Phonological conditioning
2) Morphological conditioning
3) Lexical conditioning
Phonological conditioning
• It makes sense, that phonological allomorphs have this

condition.
• This means that the phonological context determines the choice
of allomorph For instance, the English plural allomorphs [-z], [-s]
and [-əz] are strictly phonologically conditioned:
– [-əz] appears after a sibilant (i.e. [s], [z], [ ], [ ], [t ] or [d ], e.g. face-s,
maze-s, bush-es, garage-s, church-es, badge-s)
– [-s] appears after a voiceless non-sibilant obstruent (e.g. cat-s, book-s, lip-s,
cliff-s)
– [-z] appears elsewhere (e.g. bag-s, bell-s, key-s).
Morphological conditioning
• Usually subject to phonological conditioning. However, may also
be morphological conditioned (usually grammatical) i.e. it may
be dependent on the presence of a particular grammatical
element. Which of the following are morphological conditioned?
– Walk walked - Shake shook

– Kiss kissed - Take took
– Weep wept
– Sweep swept
Morphological conditioning
Stem suppletion usually has morphological conditioning, meaning
that the morphological context (usually, grammatical function)
determines the choice of allomorph.
– Walk walked - Shake shook

– Kiss kissed - Take took
– Weep wept MORPHOLOGICAL/ GRAMMATICAL CONDITIONED!

– Sweep swept
Lexical conditioning
• the choice of a suppletive affix allomorph is dependent on other

properties of the base, for instance semantic properties. Lexical
conditioning is also involved where the choice of allomorph cannot be
derived from any general rule and must be learned individually for
each word. This is the case for the English past participle suffix -en:
speakers must simply learn which verbs take this suffix and not the
more common suffix -ed.
• Regular plural morphemes have phonological conditioning. But…..
• ox oxen (-en is dependent on the presence of the specific noun ox)

– Can you think of other examples?
Lexical conditioning
• Child Children
• Brother –> Brethren (fraternal or religious org.)
Conditioning in allomorphy (1 type
of classification)
(Haspelmath 26)
Predictable allomorphy
• Let’s look at the negative morpheme again:

• Let’s look at the negative morpheme again:
– { in- }: incoherent, incapable [ɪ -] [ɪn-]

• Think about sound rather than spelling
Regular pattern?
1) [ɪn-] inaudible, insecurity 1) Vowel-initial words & alveolar
consonants [t, d, s, z, n]
2) [ɪl-] illegal, illlogical, illiterate
2) Beginning with [l]
3) [ɪ -] incapable,
incomprehensible 3) Beginning with velar consonant [k]
4) [ɪr-] irrelevant, irregular, 4) Beginning with [r]

irresistible
5) Beginning with [m]
5) [ɪm-] improbable, impractical
Assimilation: nasal [ɪ -] [ɪm-]

to the point and manner of articulation
29/03/2020 of the consonant if it is a liquid. 24
[email protected]
Regular past tense
Regular past tense
Practice
• Rub • Bang
• Slap • Defeat
• Laugh • rate
• bond
• Unearth
• Judge
• Stock
Practice
• Rub • Bang
• Slap • Defeat
• Laugh • Rate (REMEMBER! BASED ON
PRONUNCIATION)
• bond
• Unearth
• Judge
• Stock
Why is there such a big difference in
pronunciation [əd] ?
• Dissimilation: phonological process which makes sounds less like
each other.
• Schwa separates the [t] or [d]:
– Wanted
– Landed
• Why?? Present and past would be indistinguishable from the final

consonant of the verb root.
The Past Tense Rule
• Underlying form [d] + two simple rules to derive the other
allomorphs:
1) If the verb stem ends in [t] or [d] (the alveolar stops), insert [ə]
before the past tense morpheme (e.g. defeated [dəfit + d] →
[dəfit + əd]).
2) Assimilate [d] to the voicing of an immediately preceding
consonant (e.g., licked [lɪk + d] → [lɪk + t]).
• What happens with Irregular past tenses?!
• Are they predictable?
• Are they derived by rules? Are they stored in the mental lexicon?
• Blow, blew, blown be, was, been
• Run, ran, run light, lit, lit
Irregular Past Tense
• Regular past tense is an example of allomorphy. All three
phonological variants designate the past tense.
– They are always spelled –ed. It is predictable.
• Are irregular past tenses predictable? Are irregular past tenses

stored in the mental lexicon and not derived by rules? There
seems to be abstract patterns as well. Think of swim, ring, sing,
win, sink.
– What is the nature of these patterns?
Unpredictable or partially
predictable allomorphy
29/03/2020 [email protected] (Lieber 163) 33

Examples from derivation:
unpredictable allomorphy
Verb base + Derivational affix: -ion = various allomorphs
(Lieber 164)
Unpredictable allomorphy
• -ation vs. -ion:
– Unionize (unionization), refute (refutation)
– Circumcise, prosecute
– Combust: combustion and why not combustation?

– Infest: infestation and not infestion?
– Propose vs accuse:
– Proposition & accusation
• Are morphemes the more concrete surface word-form or quite
abstract?
• 1 morpheme may have different allomorphs!
Allomorphs = morphemes with a
different form. How different is that?
Overall, the main point here is that at some level, phonological allomorphs
represent a single morpheme whose form varies slightly depending upon the
phonological context created by combining morphemes. For this reason, it
is common to think of the morpheme as the more abstract underlying
representation, rather than the more concrete surface word-form. The
underlying and surface representations may be the same, or they may differ
as a result of the application of morphophonological rules. However, it is
important to remember that the underlying representation is a tool used by
linguists. It may or may not reflect the kinds of generalizations that language
users make. There are examples where it seems unlikely that there is a single
underlying representation in the minds of speakers; we see this in another
type of allomorphy: suppletion.
Besides phonological allomorphs, morphemes may also have
allomorphs that are not at all similar in pronunciation. These are called
suppletive allomorphs. For instance, the English verb go has the suppletive
stem wen in the past tense (wen-t), and the English adjective good has the
suppletive stem bett in the comparative degree (better). The Russian noun
c elovek ‘human being’ has the suppletive stem ljud’ in the plural (ljud-i
‘people’).
29/03/2020 [email protected] (Haspelmath
37 24)
Suppletion or suppletive allomorphs
• Suppletion: words that have irregular forms in their paradigms.
• When two or more allomorphs are not phonologically related. It
is a total change of the lexeme when an inflectional morpheme
is added (that is why it is also known as stem suppletion):
– Go, went, gone
– Be, am, been, was, were
https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-
9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0125.xml
• There are distinct (i.e. not phonologically related)allomorphs of
plural that are required by certain lexical items.
• Notice that phonologically conditioned allomorphy operates on
specific bundles of phonological material, while morphological
conditioning may relate forms that are totally unrelated from a
phonological perspective (e.g. suppletion).
Weak suppletive allomorphy
• it is usually a result of the historical development of some English
words.
buy / bought catch / caught teach / taught
[bai] / [bɔ:] [kæt∫] / [kɔ:] [ti:t∫] / [tɔ:]
• The root allomorphs of these verbs are not very different and
that’s why this allomorphy is termed weak suppletive allomorphy.
Strong suppletive allomorphy
• it is usually a result of the historical development of some English
words.
• The verb go has the suppletive stem wen in the past tense (wen-
t), and the adjective good has the suppletive stem bett in the
comparative degree.
• In terms of meaning, however, go and went have exactly the
same meaning, but the former is used for present simple and
base form; and the latter is employed for past simple.
Allomorphy & suppletion
(Haspelmath 25)
Suppletion
Suppletion
Suppletion is generally applied only to roots, not to affixes. This is
because suppletion is generally seen as a relationship between
forms of the same lexeme, whereas allomorphy need not be.
For example, the allomorphs wife and wive- show up in forms of the
lexeme WIFE, but the plural allomorphs [s], [z] and [əz] do not
belong to any one lexeme – rather, they intersect with noun
lexemes in such a way that any one regular noun chooses just one
of these allomorphs, on the basis of the phonological criteria.
(Carstairs-McCarthy 34)
Apophony
• Apophony: vowel changes within a root.
– Ablaut: rise, rose, risen
– Umlaut: when referring to singular-plural noun pairs: foot - feet
Let’s practice
• Seek/sough+t
• Bridge/bridges
• Good/bett+er
• Buy/bought
• Drive/drove/driven
• Goose/geese
• Sheep/sheep
• Sing/sang/sung
Let’s practice
• Seek/sough+t weak suppletion
• Bridge/bridges –> phonological conditioning
• Good/bett+er Strong suppletion
• Buy/bough+t weak suppletion
• Drive/drove/driven –> apophony (ablaut)
• Goose/geese –> apophony (umlaut: nouns) oo ee
• Sheep/sheep zero-allomorph
• Sing/sang/sung apophony (ablaut)
More practice
• ran, sat, won, drank, shone ...
• was, went ...
• hit, cut, put ...
• helped [-t]
• shrugged [-d]
• wanted
More practice
• ran, sat, won, drank, shone ... APOPHONY/ABLAUT
• was, went ... STRONG SUPPLETION
• hit, cut, put ... ZERO ALLOMORPHY
• helped [-t], shrugged [-d], wanted [-ǝd] ... PHONOLOGICAL
ALLOMORPHY
• Theyare all phonological realizations of the feature [PAST] in

English!
And more…
• Identify the morphological process at work in each set of words,
and think of at least one more English example to add to each
set.
a. report/reported, grovel/grovelled, purr/purred, saddle/saddled
b. goose/geese, foot/feet, louse/lice, eat/ate, run/ran
c. go/went, good/better, I/me, am/was
And more…
• Identify the morphological process at work in each set of words,
and think of at least one more English example to add to each
set.
a) Phonological allomorphy: loaded
b) Ablaut: drink/drank
c) Strong suppletion; bad/worse
What’s next?
1. Features of Inflection.
2. 2 types of movement: I-lowering and Aux-raising.
3. Auxiliaries:
1. Mod, Perf, Prog, Pass
2. Do
4. Modals: morpho-syntax and semantics.
5. “Do” auxiliary, EmpP.
6. Passive constructions.
1. Theta-theory.
2. Case-theory.
Three instances regarding Auxiliaries and Inflection
No auxiliary / 1 1 or more auxiliary Modal or Do

lexical verb / (ProgrP, PerfP, They cannot be
present simple PassP): preceded by any
or past simple: The first auxiliary other auxiliary.
raises to I They always occur in
an inflected form.
I-lowering Aux-raising No movement.
Movement Movement They are based-

downwards, upwards, from Aux0 generated under I0
from I0 to V0 to I
Why are modals and do based-
generated under I?
Read Castillo 97-98.
Remember those 2 are the only auxiliaries that

must be followed by a bare infinitive.
The rest of auxiliaries are followed by non-finite

forms.
The morpho-syntax and semantics of modal verbs (Castillo 137-48)
 They are auxiliary verbs; they can’t happen on their

own.
 They occupy the first position in the chain of auxiliaries
and are generated at I0.
 We always have finite, personal, tensed forms.
“quiero poder”= *I want to can
“ha podido hacerlo” = *he has could
 Morphologically, they take no –s, no –ed.

 We can group them into true modals and semi-quasi
modals. Which ones and why? (we’ll see them when
we deal with negation).
 They exist in present and past but not in other
tenses, so we need substitutes such as “be able to”,
“have to”, etc.
The morpho-syntax and semantics of modal verbs
Modals refer to non-factual events
They reflect the necessity or possibility for

something to happen, but not the actual
happening.
You can phone him = we are not saying that the

action took place.
You phoned him = factual event.

The morpho-syntax and semantics of modal verbs
Modals refer to non-factual events
They reflect the necessity or possibility for

something to happen, but not the actual
happening.
You can phone him = we are not saying that the

action took place.
You phoned him = factual event.

Necessity vs. possibility
• Must • Can
• Shall • Could
• Should • May
• Will • Might
• Would
The instantiation of just The instantiation of more
one option than one option
Three possible meanings
Modals are not monosemantic elements,
therefore semantic ambiguity is common. The
linguistic or extralinguistic context neutralises it.
DEONTIC
EPISTEMIC
DYNAMIC
DEONTIC = speaker’s influence upon the hearer;
the speaker gets involved.
EPISTEMIC= inference
or deduction.
DYNAMIC= no involvement on the part of the

speaker. Sense of permission or possibility, but
it doesn’t come from the speaker. Ability.
Dynamic
Deontic
Epistemic
“He could walk to university”

 Deontic = I gave him permission.
 Epistemic = We deduce he could go on foot.
 Dynamic = He had the ability.
“He must be on holiday”
 Deontic = order
 Epistemic = inference or necessity.
Dynamic
Deontic
Epistemic
“The car could have broken down”

It can’t be deontic because there is no past time in
deontic modality.
 Epistemic= inference or possibility.
“I may be as stubborn as you”

 I can’t be deontic because it’s 1st p. sg. (1st
person is only possible in interrogative contexts).
 Epistemic=We are inferring the possibility.
The following sentences contain modal verbs. Which of the verbs have
epistemic meanings and which have deontic meanings? Do any examples
seem to be neither epistemic nor deontic?
1. They may use the Library provided they bring a letter from their
Head of Department.
2. They may be using the Library next week. It depends when they
finish their report.
3. She might accept their offer of a Readership.
4. The Librarian said they might use the Library if they were very
careful.
5. You can hand the essay in on Monday.
6. They can be here in ten minutes/any minute.
7. They could be here in ten minutes/any minute.
8. You mustn’t touch the ornaments.
9. You mustn’t be going on the ski trip. (If you were going, you
would have had your confirmation last week.)
10.They can’t be going to admit any more spectators.
11.You must spend your money on clothes. (Your
wardrobe is choc- a-bloc.)
12.You must spend your money on clothes. (Your
wardrobe is empty.
What are you going to wear for your interview?)
www.IELTS4U.blogfa.com
Answers:
1. may: deontic,permission
2. may: epistemic, possibility
3. might: epistemic, possibility
4. might: deontic, permission (but old-
fashioned usage)
5. can: deontic, permission
6. can: epistemic, possibility
7. could: epistemic, possibility
8. mustn’t : deontic, necessity
9. mustn’t : epistemic, conclusion
10. can’t : epistemic, conclusion
11. must: epistemic, conclusion
12. must: deontic, necessity
Do
• Dummy do
• Expletive do
• Pleonastic do
• Place-holder
• Slot-filler
Do
It receives different names:
– Dummy= false, fictitious.
– Expletive= empty of meaning. Semantically
vacuous element.
– Pleonastic= useless, redundant.
• Place-holder
• Slot-filler
How is dummy do different from
other auxiliaries?
How is dummy do different from other auxiliaries?
• It can never occur with any other auxiliary, except in imperative

sentences: Do have made your bed.
• Its role/ function: to fill up I whenever there is no other auxiliary
available. It serves a function in syntax. It is a place-holder or slot-
filler. As it is the case with modals, do occupies I position in DS,
because it must obligatory occur in inflected form. Inflection must
always show up. It carries tense and agreement whenever there is
no auxiliary available.
• This is only the case in present simple and past simple. It is only
instantiated in negative and interrogative structures with no
auxiliaries. In the case of negatives, in order to make possible for I
to merge with V, dummy do supports the affixation of Tense and
agreement, that is why it is called do-support effect or do-support
mechanism.
• We find it in in declarative affirmative sentences that are emphatic.
AUXILIARY VERBS
RECAP
Auxiliary: a verb that co-occurs with a main verb in a phrase to indicate values of verbal
features such as TENSE or MOOD.
• What is TENSE?
The inflectional category that indicates the time an event or action took place relative to the time of
utterance.
• What is MOOD?
A set of morphological categories that express a ea e degree of commitment to the expressed
believability, obligatoriness, desirability, or reality.
RECAP
• Modals have a single, invariant form (as opposed to lexical verbs)
• Modals also lack productive past tense forms. It is true that could, might, should, and would
originated in Germanic as past tense forms of can, may, shall, and will. But today, only could can
serve as the past tense of can, and that only in certain contexts.
• Can't occur in nonfinite contexts (for instance, in to infinitive clauses or after another modal)
MODALITY
• The expression of non-factual events. What we express may happen

• We include adverbs, imperatives, modal aux.
Perhaps he is cooking
Non-factual events
He might/can/will play rugby
Buy some bread, please
Possibility for something to happen (more than one option). Could/can; may/might
Necessity for something to happen (only one option): must. Shall, should, will/would
RECAP
• Auxiliary do?
Auxiliary do belongs to the same syntactic category as the modals---namely, I(nflection), because
it shares their properties with one exception (in contrast to modals, it has an -s form).
In all other respects, auxiliary do behaves like a modal rather than like an ordinary verb. For
instance, it is ungrammatical as a to infinitive, after modals, or as a gerund.
S U M M A RY
AUXILIARY VERBS
There are two major groups:

• Group A:
Modal auxiliaries: CAN, COULD, MAY, MIGHT, MUST, SHALL, SHOULD, WILL, WOULD (these are
called true modals).
Perfective HAVE: always followed by a past participle.
Progressive BE: always followed by a present participle.
Passive BE: always followed by a past participle (AKA passive participle).
• Group B:
Dummy DO or expletive DO (AKA pleonastic DO, periphrastic DO, place-holder DO):
PROPERTIES OF AUXILIARY VERBS
Property nº 1: They are optional
Property nº2: : Auxiliaries can co-occur with each other (lexical verb is always compulsory).
Fixed order!
There are also rare or infrequent combinations but still considered grammatical:
- They could be being accused of theft
Property nº3: Dummy DO or Expletive DO cannot occur with any other auxiliary in
declarative affirmative sentences.
Property nº4: Interplay between Aux,V, and I(inflection)
Auxiliary verbs in English have the ability or capacity to move into I, but lexical verbs
(that is,V) do not.
BUT WHY?
PROPERTY 4: INTERPLAY BETWEEN
AUX, V, AND I(NFLECTION)
Evidence 1: EMPHATIC STRUCTURES:
• There are different ways of emphasizing a sentence:
1. Shreena has taken our dog to the VET.
2. SHREENA has taken our dog to the vet.
3. Shreena has taken OUR dog to the vet
4. Shreena has taken our DOG to the vet
5. Cleft sentences.
EVIDENCE 1: EMPHATIC STRUCTURES
• In order to convert the declarative affirmative sentence or IP in (1) into an emphatic sentence,
it is necessary to put focal stress on the auxiliary.
• That is, emphatic declarative affirmative sentences containing one or more Aux from group (A)
are ones where Aux (or more properly, the first Aux, since there can be more than one)
receives focal stress)
(1) Shreena HAS taken our dog to the vet
• In a parallel fashion to the stressed constituents in (1), the constituent that is identified as
I(nflection) can also be stressed itself, though since I is the head of the overall IP or sentence,
the IP or sentence gets stressed as a whole.
• Now, a crucial property that distinguishes auxiliaries from lexical verbs is that focal stress on
Aux means that the full IP is emphatic, as just noted, whereas focal stress on V means that it is
solely the activity or state denoted by the verb that is stressed or highlighted
• Dummy DO is actually used in order to emphasise declarative affirmative sentences in the
SIMPLE PRESENT or in the SIMPLE PAST
John DID send their daughter to Leeds.
Geoff DOES walk to University
The child DID kick the ball
• The conclusion that must be extracted from the above is that English I(nflection) contains not
only the feature [+/ present] but also the feature [+/ emphatic].
• If V could actually go up into I, then we should be able to emphasise the IP in full by stressing V,
which is not the case.
• Rather, we must resort to the Aux do in order to get an emphatic declarative IP in
the simple present or the simple past.
PROPERTY 4:
EVIDENCE 2: FREQUENCY ADVERBS
1) George has often read poetry while at University
2) George often reads poetry
3) *George reads often poetry
• Such grammaticality facts can be readily explained if it is argued that the frequency adverb holds a
position adjoined to VP, that is, if it is analysed as a VP-adjunct, and further,V does not move up into I.
• In effect, the presence of the frequency adverb in (1) is no obstacle at all for arguing that the
auxiliary (in the case at hand, perfective have) raises up into I(nflection): the auxiliary verb thus goes
up into I, and the adverb is left behind, in Spec,VP.
• Note that the latter Spec,VP is an adjoined position, since the original or canonical Spec,VP node is
occupied at this D-structure stage by the agent subject.
1. George has often read poetry while at University
2. George often reads poetry
3. *George reads often poetry
• If V could move to I(nflection), a sentence like (3) would be grammatical.

SUMMARISING
• The emphatic feature argument which is tightly connected with dummy do and the
frequency adverb argument support the theory or idea that English auxiliaries have the
capacity to move up into I(nflection), and that lexical verbs lack such a capacity.
1) The book has always been edited by Cambridge.

• What about lexical vs auxiliaries BE and HAVE??!
• As we saw in property 2 (auxiliaries can occur with each other provided that a specific order is
maintained, i.e. modals always go first), modals must antecede any other auxiliary. Therefore, we
can say that they are base- generated in the I(nflection) node itself: this way, it is acknowledged
that they must always bear I(nflection).
• Dummy DO, in turn, cannot occur with any other auxiliary (property 3) and therefore, we can
say that it is base-generated in the I(nflection) node itself: this way, it is acknowledged that it
must always bear I(nflection).
• If we accept that these auxiliaries (i.e. modal auxiliaries and dummy DO) are base- generated
(instead of being merged under the first AuxP node below I), we mean that there will be no
movement process affecting these verbs at S-structure.
• Therefore, not only would we have [+/- present], agreement and [+/- emphatic], but also can,
could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, do, does, did
• Whenever these items are selected by the speaker, no [+/- present] feature can appear under I,
as that grammatical information is implicit in these verbs.
LEXICAL VERB BE
Typology:
• Predicative be: George is a good judge
• Locative (or stative) be: He is in London
• Existential be: There is a dog in the kitchen
• Identificational be: That is Alex!
LEXICAL VERB BE
• Syntactic behaviour:
He is hitting the wall.
LEXICAL VERB BE
The verb BE always behaves as an auxiliary, that is, it always moves up into I(nflection).
Can we prove this? YES!

• Emphatic feature argument:
• Frequency adverb argument:
LEXICAL VERB BE
Emphatic feature argument:

• As an auxiliary, the lexical verb BE can carry stress or emphasis, meaning that it has access to
the feature [+emph] in I(nflection). How can we make the following sentences emphatic?
1. Paul is a good worker.
2. They were in New York.
3. There is a pizza in the fridge.
LEXICAL VERB BE
Frequency adverb argument:

• Lexical verb BE surfaces to the left of frequency adverbs, just like the first auxiliary in a chain,
and as opposed to ordinary lexical verbs in English.
1. George is often a good judge.
2. George often reads poetry.
3. *George reads often poetry.
LEXICAL VERB HAVE
The verb HAVE: we must distinguish between dynamic HAVE and possessive or stative HAVE.
• Dynamic HAVE typically makes up a kind of lexical unit in combination with a DP constituent,
and it denotes an action or activity proper, never possession:
1. John has lunch at 2.
2. They are having a party this weekend.
3. The kids had a shower after the competition.
• Causative HAVE is a manifestation of dynamic HAVE, though causative HAVE selects not for a
DP, but for a certain type of past participle subordinate clause.
1. He had the roof painted.
LEXICAL VERB HAVE
Syntactic behaviour of Dynamic HAVE just as a lexical verb.
It needs dummy DO in declarative emphatic sentences and it appears after frequency adverbs:
1. John does have lunch at 2.
2. The kids always had a shower after the competition.
3. He often had the roof painted.
LEXICAL VERB HAVE
• Possessive or stative HAVE indicates POSSESSION.

• Does it behave as a lexical verb or as an auxiliary?
This is because possessive have exhibits a double behaviour in BrE, both as V and as AUX, though
the latter is dying out at the expense of the former. That is, possessive have seems all in all to be
developing into a full lexical verb in BrE.
LEXICAL VERB HAVE
• Consider the following sentence, how would you make them emphatic? Where would you
place any possible frequency adverb?
1. John has enough tea in the cupboard.

LEXICAL VERB HAVE
The verb have: we must distinguish between dynamic HAVE and possessive or stative HAVE.
• Since frequency adverbs may appear before of after possessive or stative HAVE, we say that it
can behave as lexical or auxiliary in BrE.
• However, the lexical use of HAVE in BrE is preferred over its use as auxiliary. The latter is
considered old-fashioned, and also appears to be more readily available in the North of UK
(North of England, Scotland) and in Ireland.
• What about have to? it means necessity and can also be considered as lexical or auxiliary in
English.
LEXICAL VERB HAVE
In AmE, possessive or stative HAVE acts just as lexical verb.

• There is one last instance of verb have HAVE GOT.
• As we know it is just a possessive:
She has got a car.
*She has got a shower every morning.
• When the meaning is possessive, however, both forms are valid:
He has enough tea in the cupboard / They had long hair.
He has got enough tea in the cupboard / They had got long hair.
LEXICAL VERB HAVE
In AmE, possessive or stative HAVE acts just as lexical verb.

• There is one last instance of verb have HAVE GOT.
• As we know it is just a possessive:
She has got a car.
*She has got a shower every morning.
• When the meaning is possessive, however, both forms are valid:
He has enough tea in the cupboard / They had long hair.
He has got enough tea in the cupboard / They had got long hair.
LEXICAL VERB HAVE
T ee e a a ce f e b a e HAVE GOT.
• C de ef e e ce :
T e a e a e ed
T ec d e a e e fa e a e f C a.
• T ee a e ae a ce f a e e fec c c ea a ha e
e a a c e f ge : a , e e a e a e e e ee e fec c c !
S ec f ca , (1) a e a ge - a e ( Ha d a e ad ), a d e e b ge (2) ea
b e e a aa e , e aa (L ̃ e a e a ad a ad e a c ba a... ).
LEXICAL VERB HAVE
M e e e f HAVE GOT:
• S ce eee e HAVE f HAVE GOT a a a , ha e g a c a be d d !
*S e d e a e e ea ec b a d
P ec e beca e HAVE HAVE GOT e e fec a a , ha e g ca be
• eceded b e fec e ha e:
*T e ad ad a e fac
• T e e f HAVE GOT e ba e f e( a , a ba e f ) e a a, c
ea a ed cc af e a da e b!
??Pe e a a e a P .D. c
• HAVE GOT d e d a a e ing f , ee a e be e fec acce ab e f
HAVE GOT a e a ce f a e fec e c c e ae a e b a ed .
Pe e d e e e a a P .D. c (= ha ing b ained)
EXERCISES
• What does the ungrammaticality of (i) below tell us about I?

(I) *They pat always their dog in the morning
• Explain the ill-formedness of the following sentence. Is it of the same sign as that of the
previous exercise?
• Explain why both these sequences are well-formed:

He always has coffee for breakfast
He has always coffee for breakfast
• Is it possible for a verb in a simple declarative affirmative to occur in the infinitive? Explain
AND MO E .
• Draw the tree-diagrams corresponding to the following sentences:

1) He might have been trying the ropes.
2) John should have left for Paris.
3) The children are being too naughty.
4) He will fry the steak for the children.
5) The letter must have been signed already.
Morfosintaxis+del Inglés
Courtesy+of+Prof.+
Desirée López
©The unauthorized copying,+sharing or distribution of+this material+is strictly prohibited

[email protected]
What%did%we%say%about%modals?
• Pure/true modals?
• 2 groups?
• 3%types%of modality?
©The unauthorized copying,%sharing or distribution of%this material%is strictly prohibited

[email protected]
Necessity vs possibility
• Must vs. • Can
• Shall • Could
• Should • May
• Will • Might
• Would
The instantiation of just The instantiation of;more;;

one option than one option
©The unauthorized copying,;sharing or distribution of;this material;is strictly prohibited

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Three%possible meanings
Modals%are%not%monosemantic%elements,%%
therefore%semantic%ambiguity%is%common.%The%%
linguistic%or%extralinguistic%context%neutralises it.
DEONTIC%%
EPISTEMIC%%
DYNAMIC
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DEONTIC(=(speaker’s(influence(upon(the(hearer;((
the(speaker(gets involved.
EPISTEMIC= inference((
or(deduction.
DYNAMIC=(no(involvement(on(the(part(of(the((
speaker.(Sense(of(permission(or(possibility,(but((
it(doesn’t(come(from(the(speaker. Ability.
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Identify)the modality
1))He)can)drive)better)than you.
Dynamic
2) You)can)stay)as)long)as)you want.
deontic
3))You)may)be)right.
epistemic
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Negation)and modals
• We’ll)need)to)take)into account:
– Does)not$affect)the)modal)or)the)main verb?
– Is)there)any)difference)between)the)contracted))
and)non>contracted)form?
• Remember)that)despite)being)auxiliaries,))
modals)convey)some)“independent)meaning”:))
permission,)order,)possibility, etc.
• Semantically,)they)are)complex structures.
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How$can$we$determine$the$scope$of$$
negation?
Paraphrase using:
7 It’s$necessary that…
Necessity modals
7 It$isn’t necessary…
7 It’s$possible that… Possibility modals
7 It$isn’t possible…
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Must:&not&affected&by&negation
1) He&must&not/mustn't&open&the&parcel
2) Laura&must&not/mustn’t&be&at&home&right&now.
If&we&want&to&negate&the&modality:
1) He&need&not/&needn’t&open&the&parcel.
2) She&need&not/needn’t&be&at&home&right&now.
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He#may#not#have#read it.
It’s%possible%that%he%didn’t%read it.
Where%is negation?
Here!
Scope%of%negation%=%main verb
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He#can’t#have#read it.
It#isn’t#possible#that#he#read it.
Where#is negation?
Here!
Scope#of#negation#=#modal verb

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There%is%even%a%third possibility.
He#can’t#not#have#read it.
It%isn’t%possible%that%he%didn’t%read it.
The$first$not$negates$the$modal;$the$second$$
negates$the$main verb.
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Equations*based*on*necessity/possibility*and*scope*of negation
NECESSITY*NOT TO NOT*POSSIBILITY TO
Must** Can’t**
Mustn’t Cannot
You$mustn’t leave You$can’t$/cannot leave
NOT*NECESSITY TO POSSIBILITY*NOT TO
Need*not /needn’t** Can*not**
Have*not*(got) to May not
Do*not*have*to*/don’t*have to You$can$not leave
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1. He can’t open the parcel
2. He cannot open the parcel
3. He CAN NOT open the parcel
4. He may not/MAY NOT open the parcel
5. He can nót open the parcel.

6. He may nót open the parcel.
Let’s practice:
1. He can’t /cannot be that age.
2. He may not be that age.
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Castillo,'page'333,'exercise 9
Specify'the'scope'of'negation'and'offer'a paraphrase
a) They'must'not'avoid'formal dinners.
b) Those'tests'can’t'be'forbidden'in'Norway.
c) She'mustn’t'cancel'the journey.
d) Mary'may'not'have'given'John'a cold.
e) Sheila'can'not'sell'all'their'auntie’s
properties.
f) Pete'might'not'enjoy'his'trip'to Vienna.
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a) They'must'not'avoid'formal dinners.
SCOPE='MAIN'VERB.'IT'IS'NECESSARY'THAT'HE'DOESN’T'AVOID''
FORMAL'DINNERS. (DEONTIC)
b) Those'tests'can’t'be'forbidden'in'Norway.
SCOPE='MODAL.'IT'ISN’T'POSSIBLE'THAT'THOSE'TESTS'ARE''
FORBIDDEN'IN'NORWAY. (EPISTEMIC).
c) She'mustn’t'cancel'the journey.
SCOPE=MAIN'VERB.'IT’S'NECESSARY'THAT'SHE'DOESN’T'CANCEL''
THE'JOURNEY. (DEONTIC)

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d)Mary'may'not'have'given'John'a'cold.'
SCOPE='MAIN'VERB.'IT’S'POSSIBLE'THAT'MARY'DIDN’T''
GIVE'JOHN'A'COLD.'(EPISTEMIC)
e) Sheila'can'not'sell'all'ther'auntie’s properties.
SCOPE='MAIN'VERB.'IT’S'POSSIBLE'THAT'SHE'DOESN’T'SELL….''
(DEONTIC)
f) Pete'might'not'enjoy'his'trip'to Viena.
SCOPE=MAIN'VERB.'IT’S'POSSIBLE'THAT'HE'DOESN’T'ENJOY'HIS''
TRIP'TO'VIENA. (EPISTEMIC)

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Mixed modals
This-group-of-verbs-behaves-as-either-lexical--
verbs-or auxiliary verbs (with-the-exception of--
one-of them).
Such distinction becomes evident in declarative
negative sentences and/or interrogatives (not in
declarative affirmative).
Which%are%these verbs?
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The semantics of English modals
From Castillo pp 328-331

Epistemic modals
Modal verbs that express the meanings of ‘inference or ‘deduction
CAN/COULD
It s very late: that cannot/can t be the milkman
Robin could not be that age
They can t have met the manager this morning
MAY/MIGHT
Peter may not come from Boston.
The Smiths might not have moved to Leicester.
MUST
Peter m stn t be John s son.
The trip must not have been postponed.
Epistemic modals
Modal verbs that express the meanings of ‘inference or ‘deduction
SHOULD
They should not feel so exhausted after such a race.
WILL
Peter met with the manager yesterday evening. He won t be in a good humour today.
They won t have accompanied their son-in-law to the airport this time.
WOULD
That gentleman wouldn t be John s uncle.
That gentleman wouldn t have been John s uncle.
Deontic modals
Modals that express the influence of the speaker upon the hearer or the
3rd person).
CAN
You/He can t/cannot/ cán nót accompany Betty to the theatre.
You/he can nót accompany Betty to the theatre.
MAY
You/They may not disturb visitors to the village.
You/They may nót accompany him to the concert.
Deontic modals
Modals that express the influence of the speaker upon the hearer or the
3rd person).
MUST
You/She musn t/must not sell out the family s properties.
You/She needn t/haven t (got) to sell out the family s properties.
SHALL
You/They shall not/shan t have a three weeks holiday this year.
SHOULD
You/She should not/shouldn t tell so many lies all the time.
WILL
You will not/won t behave like that in public.
Dynamic modals
Two possible colligations of the Neg head can be instantiated in the case
of dynamic CAN when referring either to ability or to permission
I o o can al a s nót greet him vs. I o can t cannot greet him.
Besides, it must be noted that the form COULD NOT COULDN T can
express either non-perfective meaning (cf. Spanish imperfect no podia) or
perfective meaning (cf. Spanish past no pude), whereas the corresponding
affirmative form is limited to a non-perfective interpretation.
There are 4 main auxiliaries in English: We may have up to 4 auxiliaries in one simple sentence, as long as the order in the
sentence is:
1. Modal
2. Perfective Have (have + -en) Modal P
3. Progressive Be (be + -ing) Perfective P
4. Passive Be (be + -en) Progressive P
Passive P
If this order is altered, the resulting sentence is ungrammatical, as in *he is having driven (ProgP + Perf P).
These are the possible combinations. 16 sequences, 32 in total (16 for present, 16 for past)
NO AUXILIARY (1 sequence, ± pres)

Rod cooks the pudding [+pres] // Rod cooked the pudding [-pres]
ONE AUXILIARY (4 sequences, ± pres)

Mod Rod can cook the pudding [+pres] // Rod could cook the pudding [-pres]
Perf Rod has cooked the pudding [+pres] // Rod had cooked the pudding [-pres]
Prog Rod is cooking the pudding [+pres] // Rod was cooking the pudding [-pres]
Pass The pudding is cooked [+pres] // The pudding was cooked [-pres]
TWO AUXILIARIES (6 sequences, ± pres)

Mod+Perf Rod may have cooked the pudding [+pres] // Rod might have cooked the pudding [-pres]
Mod+Prog Rod may be cooking the pudding [+pres] // Rod might be cooking pudding [-pres]
Mod+Pass The pudding may be cooked [+pres] // The pudding might be cooked [-pres]
Perf+Prog Rod has been cooking the pudding [+pres] // Rod had been cooking the pudding [-pres]
Perf+Pass The pudding has been cooked [+pres] // The pudding had been cooked [-pres]
Prog+Pass The pudding is being cooked [+pres] // The pudding was being cooked [-pres]
THREE AUXILIARIES (4 sequences, ± pres)

Mod+Perf+Prog Rod may have been cooking the pudding [+pres] // Rod might have been cooking the pudding [-pres]
Mod+Perf+Pass The pudding may have been cooked [+pres] // The pudding might have been cooked [-pres]
Mod+Prog+Pass The pudding may be being cooked [+pres] // The pudding might be being cooked [-pres]
Perf+Prog+Pass The pudding has been being cooked [+pres] // The pudding had been being cooked [-pres]
FOUR AUXILIARIES (1 sequences, ± pres)

Mod+Perf+Prog+Pass The pudding may have been being cooked [+pres]// The pudding might have been being cooked [-pres]
Rod cooks the pudding
1
Rod can cook the pudding

2
Rod has cooked the pudding

3
Rod is cooking the pudding

4
The pudding is cooked
5
Rod may have cooked the pudding

6
Rod may be cooking the pudding

7
The pudding may be cooked
8
Rod has been cooking the pudding

9
The pudding has been cooked

10
10
The pudding is being cooked

11
11
Rod may have been cooking the pudding

12
12
The pudding may have been cooked
13
13
The pudding may be being cooked

14
14
The pudding has been being cooked

15
15
The pudding may have been being cooked

16
16
A a : ac c a d c a ac a a @ a.
1) D a da a c d d:
The proofs had been being re ised for mon hs.
T -d a a c a :
T ad ca a a a c .D ca a c a d a
a , ca a a a a a
.
F b ca b d d c :ad b b d.T
c a d b c , fini e form. I
ca a da a , ca [- ]a d d
a.T a b c , a non-fini e: a a
b a d ca b. T a a P c Ha , ca
a a c b ; c da a P B , c b
db a , ca b .T ca b d , ca
a a c d a c d Pa .T b
c a c a , a a a ad , b a d b ca
c a a .T c a a a d P c Ha +
P B + Pa B , c ca b a d. T c ca b.
I d a d, c db a a ca .
G a a Pa c ca b db ac .I
a a b, c a a DP T ac d a a V
a D- c ,b S c IP a S-S c cc
ac c b c . W a a d S-S c
b a a ac ( ) a d a d () c c a ca ,a a
ad d, a , S c IP.
T a c , c a c I c .I ad
a c , a ad IP, a d a a A a
, ac a a b c .W d a
a c I a d a a , a , a c [- ]
a d" a "a d. I a c a ca , a a a a I
A a : ac c a d c a ac a a @ a.
c [- ]a da [ d a ]. T a
a a - raising.
2) U ab c a a a a ,da a d ab c
HE MUST HAVE BEEN PLOTTING SOMETHING.
Morfosintaxis del Inglés 1
COMPOUNDING
Compounding is one of the four main processes of word formation, together with
prefixation, suffixation and conversion. They are related processes, so, for
example, compounds may also contain affixes. E.g. chain-smoker.
Compounds are lexemes formed from more than one base. Compounding therefore
involves linking together two or more bases to create a new word. Compounds are formed
in all word classes:
Nouns: pop group, car park.

Adjectives: heartbreaking, guilt-ridden, homesick.
Verbs: babysit, dry-clean.
Adverbs: good-naturedly, nevertheless, nowadays.
Pronouns: anyone, everything, nobody.
Numerals: forty-seven, two-thirds.
Prepositions: onto, into.
Conjunctions: although, whenever.
Compounds which have entered the language more recently tend to be nouns, adjectives or
verbs (e.g. answerphone (n), hyperactive (adj), downsize (v)).
Normally, the first element in a compound identifies a key feature of the second word.
Compounds have a structure similar to the basic phrase clause such as noun or verb phrases;
the final element may be seen as the head, which is modified or complemented:
Daydream (modifier-type: dream during the day); Guilt-ridden (complement-type: ridden
with guilt).
Some compounds involve identical or near identical or rhyming bases. Such compounds are
called reduplicative and are often very informal in usage or are used in affectionate talk with
and by children. For example, bow-wow (dog), clever-clever, easy-peasy, goody-goody, lovey-
dovey, olde-worlde, super-duper, tick-tock (clock).
Compound nouns
Compound names involve a range of different grammatical relationships. The pre-head item is
typically a noun, a verb or a word derived from a verb, or an adjective:
Noun: screwdriver
Verb base form: answerphone
Verb -ing form: chewing gum
Adjective: happy hour
The typical unmarked stress pattern is with stress on the first item (e.g. screwdriver, happy
hour), which helps to distinguish noun compounds from noun modifier + head structures,
where stress in on the noun head (e.g. university degree, government report).
There is a wide range of possible semantic relationships between the pre-head item and the
head. These include:
Subject + verb: headache (head that aches), rainfall (rain that falls)
Verb + subject: warning sign (sign that warns)
Verb + object: know-all (a person who thinks they know all), killjoy (“kills joy” someone who
spoils the enjoyment of others).
Object + verb: carpet- shampoo (shampoos carpets), risk-taking (takes risks), hair-dryer (dries
hair).
Predicative complement + subject: junk food (the food is junk), girlfriend.
Prepositional complement: raincoat (the coat is for rain), ashtray
Complement + noun: chairleg, fingertip (the tip of the finger).
Compound adjectives
Most compound adjectives end in an adjective (e.g. air-sick), or in an -ing or -ed adjective form
(e.g. heart-breaking, short-sighted, white-washed). The main relationships between the parts
of compound adjectives are as follows:
Object + -ing/-ed: English-speaking (speaks English), confidence-boosting (boosts

confidence), heart-broken (the heart is broken by somebody)
Verb complement + -ing/-ed: far-reaching (reaches far), home-made (made at home)
Subject + predicative complement: top-heavy (the top is heavy) (A is B)
Comparative: paper-thin (as thin as paper) (as B as A)
Adjective + complement: fat-free (free of fat), user-friendly (friendly to the user)
Adjective + adjective head: royal-blue, light-green, bitter-sweet
Note also that some adjective compounds are formed by adding an -ed inflection to an existing
adjective + noun: right-angled (formed from right-angle), left-handed (formed from left hand).
Compound verbs
Compound verbs are far less frequent than compound nouns or adjectives. They may be derived
by conversion from another word class, normally an already existing noun compound (e.g. to
daydream, to blackmail, to wait-list). They may also be derived by a process of back-formation
by the removal of a suffix (e.g. shoplift from shoplifting or shoplifter; babysit from babysitting
or babysitter). Examples include: chain-smoke, dry-clean, housekeep, sight-see, spring-clean.
Hyphenation
The use of hyphens in compounds and complex words involves a number of different rules,
and practice is changing, with fewer hyphens present in contemporary usage. For example,
compound words may be written as separate words (open compounds, such as post box),
hyphenated (post-box) or written as one word (solid compounds, as in postbox).
However, in certain forms the rules governing the use of hyphens are more regular. Particular
prefixes regularly involve a hyphen (e.g. ex-minister, post-war, self-interest, quasi-public).
When a compound premodifies a noun head, a hyphen is normally inserted to indicate which
words are compounded (e.g. a well-known entertainer, twentieth-century Danish architecture).
Hyphens are normally used in compounds in which the pre-head item is a single capital letter
(e.g. U-turn, X-ray), and hyphens are sometimes needed to disambiguate different words (e.g.
re-form= form again, reform=change radically).
In numerically modified adjectives, all modifying elements are hyphenated. Note that these
forms are only used attributely (e.g. an eighteen-year-old girl, a twenty-ton truck, a twenty-
four-hour flight).
Classification
English compounds can be classified according to the grammatical category of its parts. There
is a wide range of compounds in English, such as:
- Compound nouns. The three most commonly used are:

noun + noun: book cover, laser printer, letter head, car park, website.
adjective + noun: redneck, loudmouth, blackberry, greenhouse, small talk.
verb + noun: pickpocket, cut-throat, runaway.
- Compound adjectives. Three of the manifold possible combinations are:

adjective + past participle: Narrow-minded, old-fashioned, absent-minded.
adverb + past participle: well-behaved, well-educated, densely-populated.
noun + noun: coffee-table (book), part-time, north-west, bullet-proof.
- Compound verbs. Three of the manifold possible combinations are:

noun + verb: baby-sit, ice-skate, water-ski, window-shop, bottle-feed, sky-dive, gift-
wrap.
particle + verb: overbook, overreact, overreach, uphold, undercharge, outgrow.
adjective + verb: dry-clean, ill-treat, bad-mouth,
Another possible classification is based on semantics:
Exocentric compound: the semantic head is “outside”: skinhead, redneck (not a kind of neck, but
a kind of person), pickpocket (not a kind of pocket, someone who picks pockets). The
compound is not a hyponym of the grammatical head.
Endocentric compound: the head (word on the right) has the central meaning: handbag (type of
bag), armchair (type of chair), laser printer (type of printer), book cover (type of cover). The
semantic head is inside the compound. The compound is a hyponym of the grammatical head.
Coordinative compounds: Those in which the bases are of equal status instead of being in a
relation of subordination. We can distinguish two main types:
Dvandva compounds: a minor group. These morphological constructions are proper nouns
referring to the combination or union of the referents of the component parts, such as territories
or businesses. E.g. Alsace-Lorraine, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hewlett-Packard, Metro-Goldwyn-
Mayer.
Other coordinative compounds: the components of the compound apply individually as
well as jointly. For example, She is secretary-treasurer of the society entails She is secretary
of the society and She is treasurer of the society. Other examples are comedy-thriller, singer-
songwriter or murder suicide.
Semantic transparency in compounds

A compound word is “transparent” when the different constituents within that compound are
semantically related to the meaning of that compound and those constituents can help us infer
the meaning of that word, as in doghouse, airmail, blackbird. Another definition: it is clearly
analysable into its constituent morphs. These morphs are sufficient to allow the speaker-listener
to interpret the lexeme.
A compound word is “opaque” when the meanings of the constituents are not semantically
related to the meaning of the compound word or they cannot help us infer its meaning. For
example: carriage (carry + age), blackmail, deadline. The compound is unrelated in a semantic
way to the constituents. There is no relation to any of its parts. Another definition: when it is
not clearly analysable into its constituent morphs. The morphs involved are sufficient to allow
the speaker-listener to interpret it.
Gary Libben ‘s distinction:
1. TT. Both constituents are related to the compounds: carwash.

2. OT. The first constituent is not related to the meaning of the compound: strawberry. Transparent
morphological head.
3. TO. The second constituent is not related to the meaning of the compound: jailbird. Opaque
morphological head.
4. OO. Neither constituent is related to the meaning of the compound: hogwash.
Some self-evaluation questions:
1. What word classes allow for compounding?

2. What’s typically the structure within a compound?
3. What’s typically the stress pattern in a compound?
4. How can compounds be written?
5. Classify compounds according to their meaning
6. Classify compounds according to their components. Remember there are many
possible combinations but we will just try to remember at least 3 of the most common
for nouns, adjectives and verbs.
7. Semantic transparency in compounds.
Sources: Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy (2006). Cambridge Grammar of English: A
Comprehensive Guide. CUP.
Derivation & Inflection
Morphosyntax 2019/2020
Ana Chapman 1
INFLECTION
Ana Chapman 2
What is the difference?
1) Derivation generally results in a change in lexical meaning or the lexical
category of a particular word, while inflection does not.
2) Applying or not inflectional morphology generally depends on the syntactic
context (not the case for derivation).
Ana Chapman 3
Inflection
• By means of inflection, we can inflect the word-forms of the paradigm of a
lexeme.
• Consider the following lexeme: CREATE

• What are its possible inflected forms?
Ana Chapman 4
Inflection
• By means of inflection, we can inflect the word-forms of the paradigm of a
lexeme.
• Consider the following lexeme: CREATE

• What are its possible inflected forms? Creating; created; creates
• And what about for the lexeme: BE?
Ana Chapman 5
Inflection
• Regular verb lexemes have a lexical stem:
• Bare form (lexical stem) select

• 3 inflected forms suffixes: -s, -ed, and -ing (selects, selected, and selecting).
Ana Chapman 6
• Remember! Morphemes bear some kind of meaning.
• In the case of inflectional morphemes they do not make any independent

contribution to the meaning of the sentence, they reflect grammatical
relationships (syntactic meaning).
1. *He write on his way to work.
2. *They play on Monday. (last Monday)
Ana Chapman 7
Compare the following sentences
1. He is reading it now.
2. He read it already.
3. There are readers at five different levels, from beginner to upper intermediate.
4. Alan is a Reader in History at Dublin University.
Ana Chapman 8
• Reading/read are grammatically conditioned variant forms of the verb to read.

• Readers/ Reader are not a variant form of the verb, but rather a noun derived from it.
Ana Chapman 9
Grammatical words
• Reading/read are grammatically conditioned variant forms of the verb to read.

• Readers/ Reader are not a variant form of the verb, but rather a noun derived from it.
Ana Chapman 10
Regular and irregular inflection
• Let us consider the words balloon and mouse in their plural forms:
• Balloons
• mice
Ana Chapman 11
The inflection of nouns
• Lexeme BEAR has a paradigm of two word-forms: bear & bears
• The same happens with irregular inflection:

• CHILD child / children
• OX ox / oxen
• PHENOMENON phenomenon /phenomena
Ana Chapman 12
• And for the following lexemes/countable nouns?
• SHEEP, FISH, TROUT, DEER.
• They are labelled zero-plural nouns
• There is a common semantic factor among zero-plurals: they all denote animals,
birds or fish that are either domesticated (SHEEP) or hunted (DEER), usually for
food (TROUT, COD, PHEASANT).
Ana Chapman 13
• Wha abo nco n able no n ? COFFEE, RICE
• Wha abo no n ha onl e i in heir pl ral form? PANTS, SCISSORS, TROUSERS
• In terms of number, they have only one word-form, i.e. pan , ci or , ro er
• Ho e er, here are periphra ic form for he e le eme : a pair of ci or , a piece of paper
Ana Chapman 14
Ana Chapman 15
• The third word-form of the paradigm of a lexeme is its genitive case:
Lexeme CAT
Singular Cat
Plural Cats
Geni i e Ca s
Ana Chapman 16
The inflection of pronouns and determiners
lexeme I YOU HE SHE IT WE THEY
nom. I you he she it we they
acc. me you him her it us them
gen. my/mine your/yours his/his her/hers its our/ours their/theirs
Words such as my – your – his – her – its – our – their can be considered as genitive case or as
determiners (because they perform a determiner-like role and cannot be combined with other determiners:
– *the my hat.
Ana Chapman 17
The inflection of adjectives
• -er & -est
• Note that longer adjectives than two (provided the second syllable ends in a
vowels) require periphrasis.
Ana Chapman 18
Inflectional categories
Inflection or inflectional morphology: the kind of variation that words exhibit on the basis of their
grammatical context.
English has regular and irregular inflections.
1) Number (singular or plural) in nouns
Cat(s); ox(en); mouse (mice)
2) Verbs:
Number: 3rd person singular
Progressive
Perfect
Ana Chapman 19
• Why are these examples incorrect?
• *createstion
• *createsive
Ana Chapman 20
DERIVATION
Ana Chapman 21
Derivation
The term derivation is used for all aspects of word-structure involving affixation that
is not inflectional. Let us consider the words invest, invests, invested, investment:
– What is the difference between them? While invest, invests and invested are
inflected/grammatical words, investment is not grammatically conditioned (i.e.
there is no grammatical factor that requires the presence of –ment in
investment).
– How many lexemes do we find in the following group?
Invest
Invests
Invested
investment
Ana Chapman 22
Derivation
Therefore, can we create new lexemes by means of derivation? The answer is yes!
However, what happens with pairs such as report (noun) and report (verb)?
1. Are they the same lexeme or different?
2. Are they the result of derivation? Of Inflection?
They are, in fact, zero-derived lexemes or a product of conversion.
Ana Chapman 23
Derivation
So, does derivation takes place in report (noun) and report (verb)? The answer is
yes!
We do have zero-derived lexemes or converted lexemes, that is, derivation has

taken place without any overt change in shape.
One of the main characteristics of derivation is that it can change the word class of
a base.
Ana Chapman 24
Derivation
Adverbs derived from adjectives:
There are two ways to create a derived adjective:
The attachment of the suffix –ly.
o timid timid-ly anonymous anonymous-ly funny funnily
Conversion.
o That is a fast car vs. The car was driven fast.
Ana Chapman 25
Derivation
Nouns derived from nouns:
Not all derivational processes change the word class. Let see some examples:
– ‘small X’: -let, -ette, -ie
e.g. couplet, moonlet, booklet, cigarette, doggie, sweetie
– female X’: -ess, -ine

e.g. hostess, lioness, heroine, Pauline/Josephine
– ‘inhabitant of X’: -er, -(i)an

e.g. Southerner, Londoner, New Yorker, Texan, Indian
– ‘state of being an X’: -ship, -hood

friendship, partnership, sisterrhood, priesthood
– ‘devotee of or expert on X’: -ist, -ian

e.g. flautist,, Calvinistist, obstetrician, historian, optician 26
Ana Chapman
Derivation
Nouns derived from other word classes:

Let us see some examples of nouns derived from adjectives:
– -ity, e.g. prosperity, equality, reliability, sensitivity

– -ness, e.g. sadness, grumpiness, fierceness, sensitiveness
– -ism, e.g. chauvinism, conservatism
These mean basically the ‘property of being X’ but this is not

always the case. See, for instance, the word highness (’royal
Ana Chapman
personage’) and the word height (‘property of being high’). 27
Derivation
Let us see some examples of nouns derived from verbs:

– -ance, -ence, e.g. performance, ignorance, reference, convergence
– -ment, e.g. announcement, commitment, development, engagement
– -ing, e.g. meeting, showing, building, writing
– -((a)t)ion, e.g. Transportation (US), information, organisation, confusion
– -al, e.g. refusal, arrival, rental, appraisal
– -er, e.g. builder, cleaner, plasterer, painter
Ana Chapman 28
Derivation
It is not usual to find a noun derived from a verb using different suffixes:
– highness.
– *highment.
– *highal.
But, when we find it, these words have a different meaning:
– Commission – when someone commits a crime.

– Committal – when an accused person is committed for trial.
Ana Chapman – Commitment – when someone is committed to a task. 29
Derivation
It must be noted that some derived nouns change the meaning with respect to the
verb they were derived from:
– ignore ‘to deliberately refuse to acknowledge’. - fix
– ignorance ‘unawareness’. - fixation
Moreover, there are suffixes with different meanings depending on the base to
which they are attached:
– Play-er: ‘a person performing the action of the verb’ (action nouns). It not the only suffix for the creation of
agent nouns (typist,informant).
– London-er: ‘inhabitant of’.
Ana Chapman 30
Derivation
It must also be noted that affixation is not the only way to derive a lexeme in English. In
addition to conversion, we find three different mechanisms:
1. Change in the position of the stress: nouns cónvict or tránsfer; and verbs
convíct and transfér.
2. Change in the final consonant: nouns belief, proof or offence; and verbs
believe, prove or offend.
3. Change in a vowel: nouns song or seat; and verbs sing or sit.

Ana Chapman 31
Derivation
Adjectives derived from adjectives:

– lucky – unlucky disciplined – undisciplined
Adjectives derived from verbs:

– renewable proposed drunk
Adjectives derived from nouns:
– faithful joyless stylish
Ana Chapman 32
Derivation
Verbs derived from verbs:
– Prefixation: manage – mismanage
Verbs derived from nouns:
– Empower embody bathe
Verbs derived from adjectives:
– shorten broaden deepen

Ana Chapman 33
Commentaries for 2 random sequences (no trees) including grammaticality, type of sentence,
identification of its components (seen in the course only) and syntactic movements and
positions of its constituents. Check commentary available on VC.
- COVERT / OVERT FEATURES
OVERT features : you can see it

Past -ed
3 person singular smiles : the -s
Present participle -ing in going
COVERT FEATURES
I walk every morning. Walk in this case is for first person but you don’t know if the
verb is used for 3 person plural for example
I put the flowers on the table
You don’t know if the verb refers to the past or a present tense.
Ambiguity due to the poor verbal inflection.
- LEXICAL VERBS VS AUXILIARY VERBS
Lexical verbs: has absolute semantic meaning. They are main verbs in the sentence
Adverbs precede verbs.
Auxiliary verbs :need a main verb in order to have complete meaning

Adverbs always precede lexical verbs and follows auxiliarys
AUXILIRIARIES AND INFLECTION
3 MOVEMENTS:
1. I – LOWERING no auxiliary : The inflection goes down to the VP when we have

the lexical verb or when there is no auxiliary
2. AUX- RAISING 1 or more auxiliaries: the first auxiliaries raises to inflection
3. NO MOVEMENT modal or do : they can not be preceded by any other auxiliary
Do and modal must be followed by a bare infinitive

The rest of auxiliaries are always followed by non-finite forms.
1. DEONTIC: speakers influence upon the hearer
- PRESENT OR FUTURE TENSE

- NOT POSIBLE FIRST PERSON SINGULAR ( YES IN AN INTERROGATIVE CONTEXT)
- NOT POSIBLE IN THE PAST.
2. EPISTEMIC: interference or deduction
3. DYNAMIC:
- No involvement on the part of the speaker.

- - Sense of permission or possibility but not come from the speaker
- Ability
AUXILIARY DO
- Dummy do : is an empty element of the point of view of meaning . Negative

and interrogative context . Do is a tense carrier when there is not other
auxiliary in the tense.
DECLARATIVE SENTENCES
- SHOW THE INTENTION OF THE SPEAKER WITH THE VERB: IMPERATIVE ,

DECLARATIVE OR INTERROGATIVE .
- SERVE AS STATEMENTS
- SUBJECT + VERB + ….
- CAN BE AFFIRMATIVE OR NEGATIVE
INFLECTION OF VERBS:
- Third person singular present: -s GIVES

- Past tense: GAVE
- PROGRESSIVE PARTICIPLE: GIVING
- PERFECT OR PASSIVE : GIVEN
- BASIC FORM: GIVE
INFLECTION IS THE HEAD OF THE SENTENCE

BARE INFINITE IS A VERB THAT HAS NO INFLECTION
- AFTER A MODAL VERB: YOU CAN GO NOW

- AFTER DUMMY DO : THEY DO LIKE WHITE COFFEE
SCOPE OF NEGATION
- NECESSITY MODALS ( MUST , SHALL , SHOULD , WILL, WOULD): It’s necessary

that… / It isn’t necessary that…
- POSSIBILITY MODALS ( CAN , COULD , MAY , MIGHT): It’s possible that…. / It’s
not possible that….
MUST NOT AFFECTED BY NEGATION
He must not / mustn’t open the parcel --------- He need not/ needn’t open the parcel.
Laura must not / mustn’t be at home right now ----- she need not / needn’t be at
home right now.
INFLECTION
Adapted from Dr. Desirée López’s slides

What’s next?
1. Features of Inflection.
2. 2 types of movement: I-lowering and Aux-raising.
3. Auxiliaries:
1. Mod, Perf, Prog,Pass
2. Do
4. Modals: morpho-syntax andsemantics.
5. “Do” auxiliary, EmpP.
6. Passive constructions.
1. Theta-theory.
2. Case-theory.
Declarative affirmative sentences
Declarative: an inflectional value of the feature

MOOD that indicates the proposition expressed is
an unqualified statement of fact.
Declarative clauses most commonly function as statements.

The usual word order is subject (s) + verb (v) + x.
Declaratives can be affirmative or negative. They make
statements about how things are and how they are not.
What is inflection?
A grammatical affix attached to a root
In general, we speak of inflection expressing morphosyntactic

information, syntactic information that is expressed
morphologically. This includes the abstract syntactic categories of
tense, aspect, number, and case. Specific values for these
categories, such as past, imperfective, plural, or genitive, are
generally referred to as morphosyntactic features or
morphosyntactic properties, the latter a term from Matthews
(1991)
Aronoff
Inflection: verbs
There are two main types of verbs in English:

Lexical verbs
Auxiliary verbs
The two types differ in inflectional morphology as well as

syntax
The inflection of verbs
In English, a verb lexeme (i.e. GIVE) has, at most, five distinctive forms:
1. Third person singular present tense: gives
1. Mary gives a lecture every Monday
2. Past tense: gave
1. Mary gave a lecture last week.
3. Progressive participle: giving
1. Mary is giving a lecture today.
4. Perfect or passive participle: given
1. Mary has given a lecture today. The lecture is always given by Mary.
5. Basic form: give
1. Mary may give a lecture.
2. Mary wants to give a lecture
3. Mary and John give a lecture every year.
Two examples are provided for the word-form of the ‘perfect or

passive participle’. This is because these two functions are
expressed by the SAME word-form.
It must also be noticed that GIVE is irregular and that is the

reason why it has five word-forms but, in fact, many verbs in
English (i.e. regular verbs) have only four word-forms.
Inflection* in sentences/syntax
The head of the sentence is the inflection.
The previous rule S NP + VP (where’s the head?)
The Auxiliary element does not appear to belong to the VP
*We refer to verbal inflection unless specified.

Inflection in sentences
Cf. the following examples:
Poirot abandoned the investigation

VS.
Poirot did abandon the investigation.
Abandon the investigation, Poirot did
indeed.
Inflection in sentences
Inflection and VP seem to be
independent.
Poirot abandoned the investigation.

Poirot has been abandoning the
investigation.
Inflection as a collection offeatures
Infl as a collection offeatures
Inflection expresses tense and
agreement.
The combination of tense and agreement

information generally found in auxiliary
can be made the head of the sentence.
Inflection expresses tense andagreement
What is agreement?
It is identified as person and number.
What is tense?
It can be [+pres] or [-pres]/[past].
Do not confuse “time” and “tense”!!!

Time vs. tense
Time is a semantic concept related to our perception of
reality. There are three times:
Tense is a grammatical or functional category marked by

the verbal inflection and expresses when an event/action
happens in the flow of time.
What’s the time/tense in each case?
a) I will go to Paris one day.

b) I’m visiting my grandma now.
c) I’m visiting my grandma next week.
d)You could go with him tomorrow.
What’s the time/tense in each case?
a) I will go to Paris one day.
Time = future
Tense= [+pres]
b) I’m visiting my grandmanow.
Time = present
Tense = [+pres]
c) I’m visiting my grandma nextweek.
Time = future
Tense = [+pres]
d) You could go with him tomorrow.
Time = future
Tense = [-pres]
Inflection expresses tense andagreement
What is agreement? It refers to concord

between words. A form of a word requires
a corresponding form of another.
“visited” [-pres]
1st, 2nd or 3rd person sg. or pl.
“talks” [+pres]
3rd person sg.
Finite vs. Non-finite
There are 2 types of inflection: finite or tensed and
non-finite or untensed.
The first verbal form of a main clause is obligatory a

finite verb:
- The girl received a prize -
- The girl has received a
prize
The verb of a subordinate clause can be finite or
non-finite.
Finite Inflection
It expresses agreement and tense, where agreement is

identified as person and number and tense is + or –present.
WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
Note that, in English, - present [-pres] is the same as past,
something that does not happen in Spanish.
Could you identify inflection in the following verbs?
Takes
knocked
Walk
taught
Finite Inflection
It expresses agreement and tense, where agreement is

identified as person and number and tense is + or –present.
WHAT ABOUT THE FUTURE?
Note that, in English, - present is the same as past,
something that does not happen in Spanish.
Could you identify inflection in the following verbs?
Takes: present tense: [+pres] 3rd person sg.
Walk: present tense? Bare form of the infinitive?
Knocked: past tense? Past participle? [-pres]
Taught: past tense? Past participle?
Non-finiteInflection
- Tense and agreement are not expressed
with it.
- There are three kinds of non-finite

inflection:
1) The infinitival particle to, which
appears in to-infinitive
2) The –ing suffixes (present participle)
3) The –ed/-en suffixes (past participles)
Non-finite inflection
Important to remember:
The progressive auxiliary be is always followed by an –ing
form.
The perfective auxiliary have and the passive auxiliary be
are always followed by - ed/-en.
Types of non-finiteInflection
3 types:
- To infinitive TO GO
- Present participle GOING
- Past participle GONE
What about “go”, the bare infinitive? Where can

we find it?
Bare infinitive
Absence of inflection
We can find the bare infinitive…

- After a modal verb (whether aux or lexical):
You can go now.
- She might pass the test / She might have
passed the test
- After “dummy” do: They do like white co ee.
Let’s recapitulate!
Person
Agr
Number
Infl
Present
Tense
Past
Let’s recapitulate!
+ Agree
Finite
+Tense
Infl
-Agree
Non-finite
-Tense
Examples
I walk everymorning
+ AGR (1st p.sg.)
+ TENSE [+pres]
They allow to smoke here

+ AGR (3rd p.pl) -AGR
+ TENSE [+pres] - TENSE
CHA PT ER
1 What is
morphology?
CHAPTER OUTLINE
In this chapter you will learn what morphology is, namely
KEY TERMS the study of word formation.
morpheme ◆ We will look at the distinction between words and mor-
simplex phemes, between types, tokens, and lexemes and
complex between inflection and derivation.
type ◆ We will also consider the reasons why languages have
token morphology.
lexeme
word form
inflection
derivation
2 INTRODUCING MORPHOLOGY
1.1 Introduction
The short answer to the question with which we begin this text is that
morphology is the study of word formation, including the ways new
words are coined in the languages of the world, and the way forms of
words are varied depending on how they’re used in sentences. As a native
speaker of your language you have intuitive knowledge of how to form
new words, and every day you recognize and understand new words that
you’ve never heard before.
Stop and think a minute:
• Suppose that splinch is a verb that means ‘step on broken glass’; what
is its past tense?
• Speakers of English use the suffixes -ize (crystallize) and -ify (codify) to
form verbs from nouns. If you had to form a verb that means ‘do
something the way ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair does it’, which suffix
would you use? How about a verb meaning ‘do something the way ex-
President Bill Clinton does it’?
• possible to rewash or reheat something. Is it possible to relove,
It’s
reexplode, or rewiggle something?
Chances are that you answered the first question with the past tense
splinched (pronounced [spl n t])1, the second with the verbs Blairify and
Clintonize, and that you’re pretty sure that relove, reexplode, and rewiggle are
weird, if not downright impossible. Your ability to make up these new
words, and to make judgments about words that you think could never
exist, suggests that you have intuitive knowledge of the principles of word
formation in your language, even if you can’t articulate what they are.
Native speakers of other languages have similar knowledge of their lan-
guages. This book is about that knowledge, and about how we as linguists
can find out what it is. Throughout this book, you will be looking into
how you form and understand new words, and how speakers of other
languages do the same. Many of our examples will come from English –
since you’re reading this book, I assume we have that language in common –
but we’ll also look beyond English to how words are formed in languages
with which you might be familiar, and languages which you might never
have encountered before. You’ll learn not only the nuts and bolts of word
formation – how things are put together in various languages and what to
call those nuts and bolts – but also what this knowledge says about how
the human mind is organized.
The beauty of studying morphology is that even as a beginning student
you can look around you and bring new facts to bear on our study. At this
point, you should start keeping track of interesting cases of new words
1. In this text I presuppose that you have already learned at least that part of the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA) that is commonly used for transcribing English. You’ll find an IPA chart at the beginning of
this book, if you need to refresh your memory.
What is morphology? 3
that you encounter in your life outside this class. Look at the first
Challenge box.
Challenge: your word log

Keep track of every word you hear or see (or produce yourself) that
you think you’ve never heard before. You might encounter words
while listening to the radio, watching TV, or reading, or someone
you’re talking to might slip one in. Write those new words down, take
note of where and when you heard/read/produced them, and jot down
what you think they mean. What you write down may or may not be
absolutely fresh new words – they just have to be new to you. We’ll
be coming back to these as the course progresses and putting them
under the microscope.
Of course, if the answer to our initial question were as simple as the task
in the box, you might expect this book to end right here. But there is of
course much more to say about what makes up the study of morphology.
Simple answers frequently lead to further questions, and here’s one that
we need to settle before we go on.
1.2 What’s a word?

Ask anyone what a word is and . . . they’ll look puzzled. In some sense, we
all know what words are – we can list words of various sorts at the drop of
a hat. But ask us to define explicitly what a word is, and we’re flummoxed.
Someone might say that a word is a stretch of letters that occurs between
blank spaces. But someone else is bound to point out that words don’t
have to be written for us to know that they’re words. And in spoken (or
signed) language, there are no spaces or pauses to delineate words. Yet we
know what they are. Still another person might at this point try an answer
like this: “A word is something small that means something,” to which a
devil’s advocate might respond, “But what do you mean by ‘something
small’?” This is the point at which it becomes necessary to define a few
specialized linguistic terms.
Linguists define a morpheme as the smallest unit of language that has
its own meaning. Simple words like giraffe, wiggle, or yellow are morphemes,
but so are prefixes like re- and pre- and suffixes like -ize and -er.2 There’s far
more to be said about morphemes – as you’ll see in later chapters of this
book – but for now we can use the term morpheme to help us come up
with a more precise and coherent definition of word. Let us now define a
word as one or more morphemes that can stand alone in a language.
Words that consist of only one morpheme, like the words in (1), can be
2. In chapter 2 we will give a more formal definition of prefix and suffix. For now it is enough to know that
they are morphemes that cannot stand on their own, and that prefixes come before, and suffixes after, the
root or main part of the word.
termed simple or simplex words. Words that are made up of more than
one morpheme, like the ones in (2), are called complex:
(1) Simplex words

giraffe
fraud
murmur
oops
just
pistachio
(2) Complex words

opposition
intellectual
crystallize
prewash
repressive
blackboard
We now have a first pass at a definition of what a word is, but as we’ll see,
we can be far more precise.
1.3 Words and lexemes, types and tokens

How many words occur in the following sentence?
My friend and I walk to class together, because our classes are in the
same building and we dislike walking alone.
You might have thought of at least two ways of answering this ques-
tion, and maybe more. On the one hand, you might have counted every
item individually, in which case your answer would have been 21. On
the other hand, you might have thought about whether you should
count the two instances of and in the sentence as a single word and not
as separate words. You might even have thought about whether to
count walk and walking or class and classes as different words: after all,
if you were not a native speaker of English and you needed to look up
what they meant in the dictionary, you’d just find one entry for each
pair of words. So when you count words, you may count them in a
number of ways.
Again, it’s useful to have some special terms for how we count words.
Let’s say that if we are counting every instance in which a word occurs in
a sentence, regardless of whether that word has occurred before or not, we
are counting word tokens. If we count word tokens in the sentence above,
we count 21. If, however, we are counting a word once, no matter how
many times it occurs in a sentence, we are counting word types.
Counting this way, we count 20 types in the sentence above: the two
tokens of the word and count as one type. A still different way of counting
words would be to count what are called lexemes. Lexemes can be thought
of as families of words that differ only in their grammatical endings or

grammatical forms; singular and plural forms of a noun (class, classes), pres-
ent, past, and participle forms of verbs (walk, walks, walked, walking), differ-
ent forms of a pronoun (I, me, my, mine) each represent a single lexeme. One
way of thinking about lexemes is that they are the basis of dictionary
entries; dictionaries typically have a single entry for each lexeme. So if we
are counting lexemes in the sentence above, we would count class and
classes, walk and walking, I and my, and our and we as single lexemes; the
sentence then has 16 lexemes.
1.4 But is it really a word?

In some sense we now know what words are – or at least what word
types, word tokens, and lexemes are. But there’s another way we can
ask the question “What’s a word?” Consider the sort of question you
might ask when playing Scrabble: “Is aalii a word?” Or when you
encounter an unfamiliar word: “Is bouncebackability a word?” What
you’re asking when you answer questions like these, is really the ques-
tion “Is xyz a REAL word?” Our first impulse in answering those ques-
tions is to run for our favorite dictionary; if it’s a real word it ought to
be in the dictionary.
But think about this answer for just a bit, and you’ll begin to wonder
if it makes sense. Who determines what goes in the dictionary in the
first place? What if dictionaries differ in whether they list a particular
word? For example, the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary lists aalii but
not bouncebackability. The Oxford English Dictionary On-Line doesn’t list aalii,
but it does list bouncebackability. So which one is right? Further, what
about words like cot potato or freshmore that don’t occur in any published
dictionary yet, but can be encountered in the media? The former, accord-
ing to Word Spy (www.wordspy.com) means a baby who spends too much
time watching television (Americans might use the term crib potato
instead of cot potato), and the latter is a second-year high school student
in the US who has to repeat a lot of first-year classes. And what about the
word cot potatodom, which I just made up? Once you know what a cot
potato is, you have no trouble understanding my new word. If it consists
of morphemes, has a meaning, and can stand alone, doesn’t it qualify
as a word according to our definition even if it doesn’t appear in the
dictionary?
What all these questions suggest is that we each have a mental lexi-
con, a sort of internalized dictionary that contains an enormous num-
ber of words that we can produce, or at least understand when we hear
them. But we also have a set of word formation rules which allows
us to create new words and understand new words when we encounter
them. In the chapters to follow, we will explore the nature of our men-
tal lexicon in detail, and think further about the “Is it really a word?”
question. In answering this question we’ll be led to a detailed explora-
tion of the nature of our mental lexicon and our word formation
rules.
1.5 Why do languages have morphology?

As native speakers of a language we use morphology for different reasons.
We will go into both the functions of morphology and means of forming
new words in great depth in the following chapters, but here, we’ll just
give you a taste of what’s to come.
One reason for having morphology is to form new lexemes from old
ones. We will refer to this as lexeme formation. (Many linguists use the
term word formation in this specific sense, but this usage can be confus-
ing, as all of morphology is sometimes referred to in a larger sense as
‘word formation’.) Lexeme formation can do one of three things. It can
change the part of speech (or category) of a word, for example, turning
verbs into nouns or adjectives, or nouns into adjectives, as you can see in
the examples in (3):
(3) Category-changing lexeme formation3

V N: amuse amusement
V A: impress impressive
N A: monster monstrous
Some rules of lexeme formation do not change category, but they do add
substantial new meaning:
(4) Meaning-changing lexeme formation

A A ‘negative A’ happy unhappy
N N ‘place where N lives’ orphan orphanage
V V ‘repeat action’ wash rewash
And some rules of lexeme formation both change category and add sub-
stantial new meaning:
(5) Both category and meaning-changing lexeme formation

V A ‘able to be Ved’ wash washable
N V ‘remove N from’ louse delouse
Why have rules of lexeme formation? Imagine what it would be like to

have to invent a wholly new word to express every single new concept. For
example, if you wanted to talk about the process or result of amusing
someone, you couldn’t use amusement, but would have to have a term like
zorch instead. And if you wanted to talk about the process or result of
resenting someone, you couldn’t use resentment, but would have to have
something like plitz instead. And so on. As you can see, rules of lexeme
formation allow for a measure of economy in our mental lexicons: we can
recycle parts, as it were, to come up with new words. It is probably safe to
say that all languages have some ways of forming new lexemes, although,
3. The notation V → N means ‘changes a verb to a noun.’

as we’ll see as this book progresses, those ways might be quite different
from the means we use in English.
On the other hand, we sometimes use morphology even when we don’t
need new lexemes. For example, we saw that each lexeme can have a number
of word forms. The lexeme WALK has forms like walk, walks, walked, walking
that can be used in different grammatical contexts. When we change the
form of a word so that it fits in a particular grammatical context, we are
concerned with what linguists call inflection. Inflectional word formation is
word formation that expresses grammatical distinctions like number (singu-
lar vs. plural); tense (present vs. past); person (first, second, or third); and case
(subject, object, possessive), among others. It does not result in the creation
of new lexemes, but merely changes the grammatical form of lexemes to fit
into different grammatical contexts.
Interestingly, languages have wildly differing amounts of inflection.
English has relatively little inflection. We create different forms of nouns
according to number (wombat, wombats); we mark the possessive form of a
noun with -’s or -s’ (the wombat’s eyes). We have different forms of verbs for pres-
ent and past and for present and past participles (sing, sang, singing, sung), and
we use a suffix -s to mark the third person singular of a verb (she sings).
However, if you’ve studied Latin, Russian, ancient Greek, or even Old
English, you’ll know that these languages have quite a bit more inflec-
tional morphology than English does. Even languages like French and
Spanish have more inflectional forms of verbs than English does.
But some languages have much less inflection than English does.
Mandarin Chinese, for example, has almost none. Rather than marking
plurals by suffixes as English does, or by prefixes as the Bantu language
Swahili does, Chinese does not mark plurals or past tenses with morphol-
ogy at all. This is not to say that a speaker of Mandarin cannot express
whether it is one giraffe, two giraffes, or many giraffes that are under
discussion, or whether the sighting was yesterday or today. It simply
means that to do so, a speaker of Mandarin must use a separate word like
one, two or many or a separate word for past to make the distinction.
(6) Wo jian guo yi zhi chang jing lu.

I see past one CLASSIFIER giraffe4
(7) Wo jian guo liang zhi chang jing lu

I see past two CLASSIFIER giraffe
The word chang jing lu ‘giraffe’ has the same form regardless of how many
long-necked beasts are of interest. And the verb ‘to see’ does not change its
form for the past tense; instead, the separate word guo is added to express
this concept. In other words, some concepts that are expressed via inflec-
tion in some languages are expressed by other means (word order, sepa-
rate words) in other languages.
4. We will explain in chapter 6 what we mean by classifier. For now it is enough to know that classifiers are
words that must be used together with numbers in Mandarin.
1.6 The organization of this book

In what follows, we’ll return to all the questions we’ve raised here. In
chapter 2, we’ll revisit the question of what a word is, by further probing
the differences between our mental lexicon and the dictionary, and look
further into questions of what constitutes a “real” word. We’ll look at the
ways in which word formation goes on around us all the time, and con-
sider how children (and adults) acquire words, and how our mental lexi-
cons are organized so that we can access the words we know and make up
new ones. In chapter 3, we’ll get down to the work of looking at some of
the most common ways that new lexemes are formed: by adding prefixes
and suffixes, by making up compound words, and by changing the category
of words without changing the words themselves. In this chapter we’ll
concentrate on how words are structured in terms of both their forms and
their meanings. Many of our examples will be taken from English, but
we’ll also look at how these kinds of word formation work in other lan-
guages. Chapter 4 takes up a related topic, productivity: some processes of
word formation allow us to form many new words freely, but others are
more restricted. In this chapter we’ll look at some of the determinants of
productivity, and how productivity can be measured. Chapter 5 will also
be concerned with lexeme formation, but with kinds of lexeme formation
that are less familiar to speakers of English. We’ll look at forms of affix-
ation that English does not have (infixation, circumfixation), processes
like reduplication, and templatic morphology. Our focus will be on learn-
ing to analyze data that might on the surface seem to be quite unfamiliar.
In chapter 6 we will turn to inflection, looking not only at the sorts of
inflection we find in English and other familiar languages, but also at
inflectional systems based on different grammatical distinctions than we
find in English, and systems that are far more complex and intricate.
Chapter 7 will be devoted to the subject of typology, different ways in
which the morphological systems of the languages of the world can be
classified and compared to one another. We’ll look at some traditional
systems of classification, as well as some that have been proposed more
recently, and assess their pros and cons. Chapters 8 and 9 will explore the
relationship between the field of morphology and the fields of syntax on
the one hand and phonology on the other. Our final chapter will intro-
duce you to some of the interesting theoretical debates that have arisen in
the field of morphology over the last two decades and prepare you to do
more advanced work in morphology.
Summary Morphology is the study of words and word formation. In this chap-
ter we have considered what a word is and looked at the distinction
between word tokens, word types, and lexemes. We have divided word
formation into derivation – the formation of new lexemes – and inflec-
tion, the different grammatical word forms that make up lexemes.
Exercises
1. Are the following words simple or complex?
a. members f. grammar
b. prioritize g. writer
c. handsome h. rewind
d. fizzy i. reject
e. dizzy j. alligator
If you have difficulty deciding whether particular words are simple or
complex, explain why you find them problematic.
2. Do the words in the following pairs belong to the same lexeme or to dif-
ferent lexemes?
a. revolve revolution
b. revolution revolutions
c. revolve dissolve
d. go went
e. wash rewash
3. In the following sentences, count word tokens, types, and lexemes:
a. I say now, just as I said yesterday, that the price of a wombat is high
but the price of a platypus is higher.
tokens
types
lexemes
b. I’ve just replaced my printer with a new one that prints much faster.
tokens
types
lexemes
4. In sentence (3b), what sorts of problems does the word I’ve pose for our
definition of ‘word’?
5. What words belong to the same word family or lexeme as sing?
referred to Appendixes 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 for the contents of T+pres, Lpres, b.' IP
and non-finite inflections as regards both spelling and pronunciation. /1I'
Spec
A sentence like (2lb) above shows the configuration below.
(25b) represents the D-structure, viz. the structure prior to the raising of 1\ r----_
the auxiliary, and (25b') is the X' -schema representing the position of John AuxP
the auxiliary have after the raising process. Whenever no AdvP is
instantiated (cf John has kissed Mary), it trivially follows that the
r--. I
have., +pres. Aux'
configurations are identical to (25b) and (25b') below, except for the r----_
Aux VP
absence of the adjoined maximal projection.
tv AdvP VP
(25) a. John has often kissed Mary
1\ I
often V'
b. IP
r---DP
v
Spec I'
I r---._ I 1\
kissed Mary
DP AuxP
1\
John +pres. Aux' By contrast with perfective have, progressive be, and passive be, modal
auxiliaries (see the sentence in (20b) above) have no inflection to pass
on to the following verb - whether the latter is a main verb, as in John
could kiss Mary or an auxiliary, as in John could have kissed Mary -
have AdvP VP which means that they must always be followed by a bare infinitive.
However, this is not the only property that shows modals as a unique
often V' class within the set of auxiliary verbs: modal auxiliaries must further
v"'-- DP
always occur in an inflected form. As argued in section 2.2.2 below, a
modal verb must be the first to occur in case it occurs at all (e.g. He
could have kissed Mary, They might be watching TV, Sheila must have
14
kissed Mary been watching TV, or any of the examples above). The fact that modal
auxiliaries can never be preceded by any other verbai foim, or the 'same,
the fact that they must always be inflected, seems to be a strorig
argument in favour of their being base-generated directly under/, on a
14 In Appendix II. I below, it is observed that the auxiliary predicates be to,

had better/best/rather, and have got to behave in modal-like fashion since
they cannot be preceded by other auxiliaries.
97
96
Castillo, Concha (2003). English Syntax for Spanish Speakers: A Comparative Introduction. Bern: Peter Lang.
/0---:--. . ; :..: ,, .
I! I (
.f\ I '
..
.
·
'
·. . ! .
.
par with agreement features and the tense feature [+!-present]. f is 3.1.1 of chapter 3), genitive or possessive phrases are actually
therefore the place that modals are shown to occupy in the configu- assigned the role of location or locative. Furthermore, there are
rations illustrated in this book (see the tree-diagram in (43) below). languages where the genitive inflection coincides with the inflection for
There is one other auxiliary in English that must always appear adjuncts of place.
inflected, and therefore also occupies the f node already at D-structure.
Such an auxiliary is do (see section 2.2.3). (26) a. John [is watching] Mary
True modal verbs in English are the following: can/could, b. Mary [is watched] by John
may/might, must, shall/should, and will/would. The reader is referred to c. Mrs. Ramsay [was the headmaster]
Appendix ll.l for a general characterisation of both true modals and d. They [are so clumsy at times]
of quasi-modal verbs. e. Pete's nephew [was a lawyer]
See Exercises 7, 8, 9, and 10 at the end of the chapter. f. That silk scarf [is Mary's]
g. The new graduates [are in Boston]/[from Boston]
h. The big quarrel [was nextdoor]
i. There [are difficulties]
2.2.1.1 The verbs be and have
From the point of view of semantic or thematic properties, the item be
occurs in (26c-i) is not the real predicate of the event, its meaning
Be and have are hybrid-like elements according to the criteria deciding bemg weakened by the DP, AP, etc. to its right. As a matter of fact
between main verbs and auxiliaries. according to Theta-theory, the predicates of the sentences above are
Side by side with the progressive and the passive auxiliary, headmaster, so clumsy, in, nextdoor, etc. The bleached meaning of be is
which are followed by an -ing and an -ed/-en verbal form respectively shown in pairs such as the ones below, where the (alb) sequences are
(see (26a- b) below), there is a verb be that takes a DP, AP, PP perfectly synonymous with the (a'/b') sequences, respectively. In the
otherwise an AdvP to its right. Such-compfemimts re'fer to: qucifil)!_or latter, no verb be occurs at all.
attribution (cf so-called copulative,- attri5utive or predicative struc-
tures), identity, position or location, and existence (see (26c-i) (27) a. I consider [John to be very intelligent]
Incidentally, the syntax of both locative structures and existenfial a. ' I consider [John very intelligent]
structures is dealt with· in detail in the following chapter. Let us also b. He seemed [to be exhausted]
note that the concept of quality or attribution does not only include b. ' He seemed [exhausted]
physical or attitudinal properties such as being tall/clumsy/honest, etc.
but also professional status (being a doctor I a butcher) and origin or _'fhe _ .. be is semantically vacuous is in accordance with my
provenance (being from Boston I from Malaga). As for the relation of central concern in these sections, which is the way· in which verbs and
possession (see (26f) below), this can be considered as a subtype within inflection come together at S-structure. In a similar fashion to structures
quality or attribution, or otherwise as a kind of location: in Thetq- with auxiliaries, VP-adverbs are placed after be, which means that be
theory, which is a module in the grammar in charge of analysing gets raised to I. •.-. ··.._,-- "· .,_ ··-
r ..., ....... . . .. . ........ ! ':
utteranc'es from the point of view of their semantic properties_(see
98 99
Castillo, Concha (2003). English Syntax for Spanish Speakers: A Comparative Introduction. Bern: Peter Lang.
Li8: The Structure of English
http://www.ling.cam.ac.uk/Li8/Lent2008
Lecture 1: Modal Auxiliaires

Faye Chalcraft
[email protected]
1. Identifying English Auxiliaries
Modern English auxiliaries are a small, (relatively) closed class of verbs with very
specific morpho-syntactic and semantic properties. They express grammatical
meanings, such tense, mood, aspect and voice, which in other languages are often
expressed by means of verbal inflection.
English auxiliaries come in two main types:
• The (central/core) modal auxiliaries: may and might, can and could, will and
would, shall and should, and must.
• The non-modal auxiliaries: be, have and do.
They are distinguished from main verbs by their behaviour in the so-called ‘NICE
constructions’ (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 92-104). The acronym NICE stands for:
Negation, Inversion, Code and Emphasis.
1.1 Negation
Auxiliaries can be directly negated, whereas main verbs require do-support:
(1) a. You must not leave until you’ve spoken to John.

b. *You don’t must leave until you’ve spoken to John.
(2) a. *He left not before speaking to John.

b. He didn’t leave before speaking to John.
Auxiliaries also have contracted negated inflectional forms, some of which are
irregular (cf. can’t, won’t, shan’t, ain’t vs. *taken’t) (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 75).
These appear in positions where verb + not combinations cannot occur:
(3) a. Shouldn’t we leave?

b. *Should not we leave?
Note, however, that in some registers, auxiliary + not combinations are possible here:
(4) Is not history a social science?
1
1.2 Inversion
Auxiliaries invert with their subjects in a range of environments:

Yes-no questions:
(5) a. Have you seen John?

b. *Saw you John?
c. Did you see John?
Wh-questions:
(6) a. Where have you seen John?

b. *Where saw you John?
c. Where did you see John?
After clause-initial negative constituents:
(7) a. Never in his life had he been so embarrassed.

b. *Never in her life got she to visit Paris.
c. Never in her life did she get to visit Paris.
1.3 Code
Auxiliaries can be used elliptically as a kind of ‘code’. To recover the meaning, you
need the ‘key’ provided by the preceding context:
(8) a. John can speak Arabic, can’t he?

b. John isn’t here, is he?
(9) a. *You like John, liken’t you?

b. You like John, don’t you?
1.4 Emphasis
Auxiliaries can bear stress for emphasis. Main verbs require do-support instead:
(10) a. They don’t think she’s killed him, but she has.
b. *They don’t think she saw him, but she saw.
c. They don’t think she saw him, but she did.
1.5 Further properties
The NICE criteria highlight the differences between auxiliaries and main verbs with
respect to do-support. One further difference that does not involve interaction with do
concerns their position relative to frequency adverbs, such as often, usually, always
and modal adverbs, such as certainly, probably, possibly. Auxiliaries tend to precede
these adverbs, whereas main verbs tend to follow them:
2
(11) a. I have always loved chocolate.
b. I always loved chocolate.
c. *I loved always chocolate.
2. Identifying modal auxiliaries (Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 106-115)
The modals arguably constitute a core subset of the class of auxiliaries. Leaving
aside the NICE properties, which pick out all auxiliaries, the modals can be further
identified by a separate set of syntactic, morphological and semantic criteria.
2.1 Syntactic properties
Modals take a plain infinitive as their complement. Only a handful of main verbs (e.g.
take, help) can take a bare infinitive as theirs:
(12) a. I should go tomorrow.

b. *I should to go tomorrow.
(13) a. *John hopes leave tomorrow.

b. John hopes to leave tomorrow.
2.2 Morphological properties
Modals have no non-finite forms, and therefore cannot occur in positions that require
them. Specifically, they have no:
• plain infinitive *She will can finish the article tonight.

• to-infinitive *She wants to can finish the article tonight.
• present participle *She hates musting to tidy up.
• past participle *She has musted to tidy up.
Instead, periphrastic forms are used:
She will be able to finish the article tonight.

She wants to be able to finish the article tonight.
She hates having to tidy up.
She has had to tidy up.
Modals have no distinct third-person –s inflection, so use a general finite form instead:
(14) a. I must be home by six o’clock.

b. He must (*musts) be home by six o’clock.
3
2.3. Semantic properties (see Huddleston & Pullum 172-208; Coates 1983)
2.3.1 Kinds of modality
The central modals form a semantically coherent group, and are used in the
expression of the three main kinds of modality: epistemic, deontic and dynamic.
• Epistemic modality is concerned with the speaker’s attitude towards the status
of the proposition, i.e. the degree to which s/he judges it to be possibly or
necessarily true:
(15) That must be the postman

‘From the evidence available to me, I conclude that that is the postman’
(16) John may have a new car

‘It is possible that John has a new car’
• Deontic modality is concerned with the granting of permission or the

imposition of obligation from a source external to the subject:
(17) You must be home by midnight.

You can leave if you want to.
• Dynamic modality is concerned with properties or dispositions within the

control of the subject:
(18) John can speak French
These modals are polysemous, i.e. they can express more that one type of modality.
2.3.2 Strength of modality
There are also differences in the strength of the modality different modals may
express: necessity involves a strong commitment to the proposition, possibility a
weak one:
Strong Necessity must (need)

Medium should (ought)
Weak Possibility may can
2.3.3 Present – past alternation
The past tense forms of modals can be used to refer to the past:
(19) a. Mary can speak five languages.

b. Last year she could only speak four.
4
But in practice this time relation is often opaque, and it is more usual for them to be
used to express irrealis, or hypothetical meaning:
(20) If only I could see him one more time.
3. Problematic cases
Despite these apparently clear criteria for distinguishing (modal) auxiliaries from main
verbs, there remains some doubt as to whether the categories’ boundaries are fuzzy
or clear.
3.1 Items with dual status
3.1.1 Need
When need takes a bare infinitive, it is an auxiliary verb:
(21) a. She need not/needed stay all day. [Negation]

b. Need she stay all day? [Inversion]
When it takes a to-infinitive, or a direct object it is a main verb:
(22) a. She doesn’t need to stay all day.

b. Does she need to stay all day?
3.1.2 Dare
Dare also occurs in both main verb-like and auxiliary-like patterns:
(23) a. She dare not/daren’t stay all day.

b. Dare she stay all day?
(24) a. She doesn’t dare stay all day.

b. Does she dare stay all day?
There are, however, some slight complications. For example, main verb dare can be
stranded before a structural gap (cf. code above):
(25) The best thing would be to ask for help, but the problem is he wouldn’t dare.
And it need not take a to-infinitive:
(26) He would never dare (to) ask.
5
3.1.3 Ought
For some speakers (of non-standard varieties?), ought also exhibits both main verb
and auxiliary-like behaviour:
(27) a. You oughtn’t to say things like that.

b. ?You didn’t ought to say things like that.
(28) a. Ought I to come with you?

b. ?Did I ought to come with you?
3.1.4 Use(d)
For most speakers, use(d) is now a main verb, though auxiliary uses are still possible:
(29) a. ?I usedn’t to go there very often.

b. I didn’t use(d) to go there very often.
3.1.5 Have
So-called dynamic have and causative have are main verbs in most varieties (with
the possible exception of Scottish English – cf. Hughes & Trudgill 1996: 20):
(30) a. *He hadn’t his hair cut [causative]

(cf. he didn’t have his hair cut)
b. *We hadn’t a good time [dynamic]
(cf. We didn’t have a good time)
Stative have (= possessive have ‘I have blue eyes’, and obligation have ‘you have to
finish this essay’) are variable. In northern and conservative varieties of English, they
may behave as auxiliaries, but are main verbs elsewhere:
(31) a. ?She hasn’t a clue what she’s doing.

b. She doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing.
(32) a. You haven’t to leave yet.

?You don’t have to leave yet.
3.2 Which criteria are most important?
This question arises because not even the core modals display all the properties
usually associated with category membership (cf. Denison et al 2006). For example,
• Will lacks the typical semantics of a modal, and seems to have become little
more than a marker of the future time reference.
• Must doesn’t have a past tense form, and so cannot appear in hypothetical
contexts. For many speakers, examples of the kind in (33) are ungrammatical:
6
(33) If he had stayed in the army, he must have become a colonel.
[Huddleston 1977: 46; cited in Denison et al.]
• Can and could have retained a relatively close relation with the past/present
distinction.
• Some of the contracted negative forms are now obsolescent:
?mayn’t, ?shan’t ?mightn’t
Denison (1998: 210-12) suggests that a key, and increasingly salient, property of
English auxiliaries is invariance. If this is to be the main definitional criterion, then
various other items might be regarded as part of the class.
There is a whole range of modal (-like) expressions in English which do not satisfy all
the traditional modal/auxiliary criteria, but satisfy enough of them to be considered at
least peripheral members of the class:
• Krug (2000): have (got) to, want to, be going to, gotta, wanna, gonna.
• Börjars and Burridge (2001: 182-4): infinitival to.
• Denison et al (2006): better, try and, let’s.
4. Dialectal variation
• Not all modals are available in all dialects. Trousdale (2003), for example,
reports that may and shall are obsolescent in Tyneside English.
• Replacement of may by might
• Loss of must in deontic contexts – you must try harder is being replaced by
you’ve got to try harder.
• Some varieties of English allow double modals (see e.g. Miller 1993 on Scots)
(34) She might can get away early
Many of the same varieties also have modals with to-infinitive forms:
(35) I’d like to could do that.
References and further reading
Huddleston, Rodney, and Pullum, Geoffrey K. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the
English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [See particularly
chapter 2, section 2 (92-115)].
See also:
Börjars, Kersti and Kate Burridge. 2001. Introducing English grammar. London:
Arnold.
Bouma, L. 1975. On contrasting the semantics of the modal auxiliaries of German
and English. Lingua 37: 313-39 [on cross-linguistic differences]
Coates, Jennifer. 1983. The Semantics of English Modals. London: Croom Helm.
7
Denison, David 1998. Syntax. The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 4,
1776-1997, ed. Suzanne Romaine, 92-329. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Denison, David, Alison Cort and Mariangela Spinillo 2006. The changing status of the
minor categories Determiner and Modal. Paper presented at 14ICEHL,
Bergamo. Available from:
http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/subjects/lel/staff/david-denison/papers/
Haegeman, Liliane, and Guéron, Jacqueline. 1998. English grammar. Oxford:
Blackwell, chapter 3 (287-330).
Hughes, Arthur and Peter Trudgill 1996. English Accents and Dialects. London:
Arnold.
Krug, Manfred 2000. Energing English Modals. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Palmer, Frank R. 1990 [1979]. Modality and the English modals. London: Longman.
Trousdale, Graeme 2003. Simplification and redistribution: An account of modal verb
usage in Tyneside English. English World-Wide 24: 271-284
8
Morfosintaxis de Inglés 1
The imperative sentence
Meaning
Imperative sentences are mainly used to issue a command, i.e., to order somebody to do
something. Therefore, they are inherently deontic in meaning. Deontic= the speaker addresses
the hearer in order to influence upon him/her.
Within this deontic interpretation, several subtypes can be identified:

•! Order or command: Sit down!
•! Warning: Watch out!
•! Instructions: Use sparingly.
•! Advice: Don’t buy anything from that car dealer, he’s a rogue.
•! Request: Please wait your turn.
•! Permission: Eat the last one if you want.
•! Invitation: Come to the party tomorrow night!
•! Polite offer or invitation: Do sit down, please.
•! Apology: Excuse me. Pardon me.
Declarative or interrogative sentences can also be used as directives (cf. Speech Act Theory).
E.g: Could you open the window, please?
Three types of imperative sentences can be distinguished in terms of meaning:
a.! Affirmative or neutral: it encourages an action or directs that something happen. E.g.:
Be happy.
b.! Emphatic: it encourages an action as well, marking its importance. E.g.: Do be more
careful!
c.! Negative: it indicates that something should not happen, or is not desired, using the
form “don’t” at the very beginning. E.g.: Don’t be so selfish!
Main features:
A) (non-)occurrence of DP subjects. The optional DP in initial position or after don’t in

negative imperative sentences is not considered by some authors as a proper subject, but rather
as an addressee, because of the following properties:
Ordinary subject of declaratives Subject addressee of imperatives
Obligatory overt in all sentences Overt or covert. The overt DP results in a stronger
(EPP) command (or even rude).
The addressee is there, even if it is covert. The
evidence is provided by
1) Reflexive pronouns: Look at yourself; *Look at

herself; co-referentiality. Reflexives are bound by a
previous DP. Call that number, will you?
2) Question tags: the pronominal addressee in the tag

indicates it is a copy of an original DP in the sentence
introducing the tag. E.g.: Call that number, will you?
The subject can be an addressee or The DP subject represents the addressee, the person
not. E.g.: Somebody called this that the speaker talks to. E.g.: Somebody call this
number [+specific]. number [less specific].
The subject does not have to be a The DP subject is either a second person determiner
quantifier. Wider range of subjects. or a third person quantifier: You/ everybody,
somebody, all, anybody, etc. E.g.: All those in the
front row take one step forward.
The subject originates in Spec VP The addressee raises from Spec, VP to Spec, CP. The
and raises to Spec, IP (VPISH). Spec, CP - Cº special agreement relation is maintained
through a [+imperative-] feature in Cº.
Addressee vs. vocative: the vocative can occupy initial or final position and is separated by a
comma or a break of intonation from the sentence. Vocatives can occur in all sentence-types,
not just imperatives. In the following example, both addressee and vocative co-exist,
evidencing they are different entities: You call that number, John!
B) Simplicity in its morphology and syntax.

•! Morphology: Poor inflectional system which coincides with the bare infinitive.
Remember that affixes mark tense, therefore, there is no tense opposition in
imperatives. As opposed to declarative or interrogatives, imperatives lack finitiness.
Imperative mood lacks tense opposition; such opposition exists both in indicative and
subjunctive moods. Inability to occur in embedded contexts. Example: *He said that
call that number.
•! Syntax: simple structures, sometimes only containing a VP: Go! Regarding auxiliaries,
the auxiliary do, which cannot co-occur with other auxiliaries in indicative mood, co-
occurs with all types of verbs. On the contrary, modals never co-occur with
imperative: *Can accompany her.
•! However, they need several functional projections. When it comes to representing
imperatives in phrase markers, the following should be considered:
•! The bare infinitive is a non-inflected form. No IP then? Yes, we need the IP
because dummy do may occur with the imperative and it is always inflected.
There must be an IP projection.
•! However, inflection encompasses the features of tense and agreement. Only the
latter is applicable here.
•! There is no movement for V or Aux. No auxiliary raising or inflection lowering.
English verbs do raise to I in imperatives.
•! The addressee moves from Spec, VP to Spec, CP. If it is covert, it is represented
by the notation Operator (Op).
•! Either CP or FocP can be used, as FocP is associated with stress, fitter for
imperative constructions.
Draw “Call that number”, “Be watching TV until midday”, “Do call this number”.
C) Semantic and syntactic ambiguity in some structures, as they can be interpreted as either
declarative or imperative. For example, You call this number; You give this lecture. In the case
of the imperative version, a FocP is instantiated, whereas the declarative interpretation
demands an IP-structure.
D) Imperative sentences can end with a period or an exclamation point.
Paradigm
a.! Call that number. Affirmative.

b.! You/somebody call that number. Affirmative with a subject.
c.! Do call that number. Affirmative emphatic.
d.! Do not/don’t/do nót call that number. Negative non-contracted/negative
contracted/negative emphatic non contracted.
e.! Don’t you/anybody call that number. Negative emphatic with a subject.
In terms of the verbal forms being used, the imperative uses the bare infinitive, but we can
find examples of :
•! Bare infinitive of ordinary verbs: Sit; Call that number.
o! Stative verbs are not common in the imperative: Be Canadian; Like
strawberries. Have an attic (but possessive have sounds OK with abstract
nouns, as in “Have patience”).
•! Lexical be and non-dynamic have: Be careful with the vase; Have patience with her.
•! Perfective have: Do have made your bed by midday (do not confuse with have sth
done). Do is needed here: *Have made your bed by midday.
•! Progressive be: Be watching TV at 9.
•! Passive be: Be closed before midnight.
•! Less frequent combinations of several auxiliaries: Do have been singing the anthem
several times before I come back; Be being entertained by the clowns all night long.
Dummy do and imperative sentences
The most important role played by dummy do is being present in the case of emphatic or
negative imperatives. E.g.. Do call this number; Don’t move.
The fact that do is needed by all verb-types in the imperative implies that it has a special
[+imperative]-feature.This feature attracts do into Focº. As we know, do is base-generated in
Iº and from there it raises into Focº. An argument in favour of raising do to Focº is the fact that
it precedes the addressee: Don’t you call this number. In terms of representation in a phrase-
marker, this is possible by the recursion of the Foc projection, thus allocating don’t in Focº of
the higher FocP and you in Spec, Foc of the lower FocP.
Grammatical let
This is a kind of dummy auxiliary that makes possible a type of imperative sentence where the
addressee is third person or any type of first person addressee. Grammatical let only occurs in
imperative sentences and it lacks full meaning, hence being considered a quasi-dummy
element: Let’s go to the casino. It is different from lexical let, which entails the meaning of
“allow”: The parents didn’t let her go the party.
A further example: He let open the luggage (lexical) vs. Let’s open the luggage (grammatical).
Properties of grammatical let:
1.! Some sentences may be ambiguous as to whether the meaning is that of lexical let or
rather grammatical let. E.g.: Let me win the race. It can be interpreted as “allow me to
win the race” or “I order you to allow me to win the race” (lexical) as opposed to “I
wish I could win the race” (grammatical).
2.! Grammatical let and the first person plural can be contracted. In this sense, grammatical
let is closer to an auxiliary, because it is auxiliaries that can be contracted. E.g.: Let’s
go to the casino.
3.! The NegP can appear either to the left or right of let, with no difference in meaning.
Don’t let me win the race = Let me not win the race (in both cases “I wish I didn’t win
the race”). However, this property is only possible in the case of grammatical let.
Lexical let, on the contrary, is not a Neg raising predicate.
a.! Don’t let me win the race (= do not allow me to win the race).
b.! Let me not win the race (=allow me not to win the race).
The subjunctive
Meaning of the subjunctive
Several moods can be identified in the grammar of English, such as indicative or subjunctive.
The former refers to the real world, and the latter to possible worlds. This means that the actions
and states expressed by subjunctive verbs are typically non-factual, that is, actions and states
about which there is no confirmation. For example: They demand that the plane take off right
now. It refers to future time or include future time under its scope.
Two main meanings are associated to the subjunctive:
1. Order or command. See mandative subjunctive below.
1. Wish, as in idiomatic expressions such as God help us; God save the Queen; Long live the
King. This form of subjunctive is known as archaic optative subjunctive or formulaic
subjunctive.
Morpho-syntax of the subjunctive
English subjunctive is characterised by an extremely poor paradigm. It was a complex system

with a separate conjugation in Old and Middle English, though.
The same two tenses as in the indicative mood are found in the subjunctive: present and past.
Dummy do does not happen with the subjunctive.
In present subjunctive the verb form coincides with the bare infinitive, in any person and
number, independently of the triggering verb or expression. In the subjunctive, there is no
merge between Inflection and Verb (remember that we raised auxiliaries and lowered inflection
in simple present and simple past). Therefore, subjunctive forms are actually bare stem forms.
Evidence of this is the fact that auxiliaries and lexical have and be do not precede, but follow
the Neg head. For example, The doctors have ordered that the boy not be watching TV so late
in the evening; The judge orders that you not be taken to prison; The law requires that the
prisoners not have anything in their pockets.
The following are cases of the present subjunctive:
· Mandative subjunctive. Most structures in the subjunctive are close to the meaning of order or
command, such as those including verbs as demand or adjectives as mandative (hence the name
mandati e ). For e ample, They demanded that the access to the park remain free or It is
mandatory that all pools be properly fenced.
The verb typically occurs in that cla ses, with the peculiarity that the complementiser
cannot be deleted: *The antiquarian requires all pieces be auctioned vs. The antiquarian
requires that all pieces be auctioned; *They order you not be taken to prison vs. They order
that you not be taken to prison.
These subordinate / embedded clauses / complement clauses function as direct object with
verbs such as ask, authorise, demand, insist, order, pray, recommend, require, stipulate,
suggest, urge, etc. Nouns/adjectives include advisable, essential, important, insistence,
instruction, mandatory, necessary, proposal, recommendation,etc. Please note that some
of theses verbs, nouns and adjectives can also happen in non-mandative contexts when not
followed by the subjunctive: She i i ed ha he had bee l i g; I gge he d e like
e m ch; I im a ha he gif be a i e.
· Subordinate adverbial clauses:
o You should take a map with you, wherever you be in the city (concession).
o Where er ou be (concession).
o Unless there be any complaints, we will go as planned (condition).
o He is eating more heavily so that he put on weight (purpose).
· (Fixed) expressions introduced by albeit, although/ though, if / unless / whether, lest, provided that,
so that, in order that, whatever, whoever, etc. The president must reject this proposal, lest it cause
strife and violence.
· Independent clauses, in the case of the archaic optative subjunctive.
The past subjunctive is restricted to the first and third person singular of the verb be, i.e. the
form were (it is sometimes replaced by was). The merge of I and V does apply here, as opposed
to the present subjunctive. Evidence of this is the fact that were is situated to the left of the
head not: I wish I were not so sensitive to changes. Remember that even though the tense is [-
pres], the time reference is future.
The following are cases of the past subjunctive:
· Conditional clauses: If he were honest, we would all trust him; If I were rich, I would never buy a
yacht.
· Complement clauses expressing wish: I wish I were not so sensitive to changes.
· Hypothetical comparative clauses: She works as if she were to be promoted soon; Geoff weeps as
though he were a child.
The subjunctive in American and British English
The subjunctive is more common in American English than in British English. In British
English it is formal and unusual, although mandative subjunctive is making a comeback,
probably under American influence.
According to Jan Svartvik and Geoffrey Leech (English: One Tongue, Many Voices, 2006),
American English has a preference for the subjunctive verb, as in (a) They insist that she accept
the offer. British English nowadays treats (b) They insist that she should accept the offer and
(c) They insist that she accepts the offer as more or less equal options, whereas AmE nowadays
a oids this quasi-subjuncti e use of should. Option (c) is found in BrE but it is avoided in
AmE. Once again AmE seems careful of its grammar using the traditional construction (a).
This subjunctive, which has been declining over the centuries, became virtually obsolete in
BrE in the 1950s. It is an interesting case of reimportation - like the expression I guess, which
Chaucer used and which survived in the United States - and is now being borrowed in BrE. In
both cases, the New World has preserved an older usage, which is now making a comeback in
Old World English. Contrary to belief, the subjunctive is not on its deathbed in Britain, but is
being resuscitated. This is a case where an Americanization process seems to be affecting BrE
grammar (172).
Mandative subjunctive is the most common form of the subjunctive in AmE. In BrE they tend
to use should instead or the s for the third person.
There is another difference in the past subjunctive, with was and were. AmE uses were for
the first and third person, whereas BrE prefers was: If I were you, I would leave(AmE); If I
was you, I would leave(BrE).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Examples:
It is important that he be told (AmE).
It is important that he is told (BrE).
It is important that he should be told (BrE).
Examples:
It is essential that every child get an opportunity to learn (AmE).
It is essential that every child gets an opportunity to learn (BrE).
It is essential that every child should get an opportunity to learn (BrE).
Examples:
He suggested that I see a doctor (AmE).
He suggested that I should see a doctor (BrE).
Examples:
I recommend that we not eat too late (AmE).
I recommend that e don t eat too late (BrE).
Sources: Castillo, Huddleston and Pullum, Quirk et al., S art ik and Leech, and students
presentations.

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Lexical verbs vs.

Based on the specific distribution of The adverb precedes lexicalverbs

Rod has been cooking the pudding.

You could have been doing that

Rod must cook the pudding.

head bracelet (n.)

- The study of words and word formation (Lieber 8)

-The study of systematic covariation in the form and

-The mental system involved in word formation or the

Grammatical vs. lexical morphology or

• Studies minimal units of linguistic form and

• Interconnectedness of other linguistic

• The study of structure and ordering of components in a sentence (Yule 96)

• Cooks cook + s belong to a bigger structure:

• My flatmate cooks every morning. (Syntactic structure)

• Number is a morphosyntactic unit; plurals require both a morphological

• A morphological analysis implies identifying its parts

The smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic

• Lexemes can be thought of as sets of word-forms, and every word-form

• Lexemes can be thought of as sets of word-forms, and every word-form

• A stretch of letters that occurs between blank spaces.

• One or more morphemes that can stand alone in a language (Lieber 3)

• "The British left waffles on the Falkland Islands”

• Identical-sound or identical-looking words can belong to multiple

• In other cases, the words may be semantically related. (Aronoff, 33-34)

• Mary bought a round table..

• Mary bought a round table. - ADJECTIVE.

• Content word vs function word

• Phubbing: to snub with phone

• Content words (lexical): noun, adjectives, verb, adverbs

• Telegraphic speech to see the different types of words

• Content words: the building blocks of a sentence

*check the following slides

• Lexical word or content w. classes: noun, adjectives, verb, prepositions*

• Grammatical or function words: pronouns, articles, determiner,

*check the following slide

• Lexical phrases: NP, AP, AdvP, VP, PP*.

*There is disagreement about to which group Prep. and PP belong to.

• See the man with a telescope

• Do they have meaning?

Simple answers: Morphemes bear meaning

1) Base vs. affix (prefix, infix, suffix)

• Morphemes that can be attached to a word or a main part of a word.

• Inserted into the BASE word:

• Think about the word de-act-ive-ate. Why isn t ive

• Because it is a bound morpheme that is not inside

• It is an abstraction and is indicated in small capitals

• It is the morpheme in which the rest of the Word is built

• What is the root of disagreements ?

• The base to which an inflectional affix is added.

• What is the stem in .?

• A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added.

• Is this term redundant? Can it be always replaced by root or stem ?

• Root: morpheme in which the rest of the word is built.

• Kettle: root + base + stem

ROOT, BASE, STEM

What is “lock ? What

What is “lock ? ROOT, BASE

Is “unlockable remarkable in anyother way?