Morphology in Construction Grammar

Author(s):  
Geert E. Booij

This chapter presents a whole range of arguments for a Construction Grammar approach to morphology. It shows that the lexicon contains both (simplex and complex) words and word formation schemas of various degrees of abstraction, and provides evidence supporting the view that morphological construcitons have holistic properties. The chapter considers both word formation and inflectional morphology and discusses the relationship between morphological and syntactic constructions. The findings confirm that the lexicon is to be reinterpreted as the "constructicon," a structured and hierarchically ordered array of constructions and constructs with phrasal or word status.

Author(s):  
Boichuk M.I.

The article outlines the concept of “conversion”, which is defined as an affixless, derivational way of word formation, in which a new word formed from another part of the language does not acquire an external word-forming rearrangement. The concept of “word formation” has also been analyzed and the phonetic component of compounds of religious vocabulary characterized. The structural classification has been distinguished taking into account the structure of compoundings. It has been found that among the layer of religious vocabulary derivational connections of conversion occur between two, three or more words, and the main ways of direction of this process have been identified. Five main models of conversion of lexical units of the religious sphere have been determined, such as: Noun – Verb, which further is divided into three categories, Verb – Noun, Adjective – Noun, Noun – Adjective, Adjective – Verb. The process of substantivization of religious vocabulary as a variant of conversion has also been analyzed. Under substantivization we understand the process of changing the paradigm of the basic word and a part of speech. Analysis of religious vocabulary shows that the transition is from adjectives to nouns, the first acquires the characteristic features of the latter.The article presents an analysis of religious vocabulary based on the dictionary of O. O. Azarov “Comprehensive English-Russian dictionary of religious terminology” which allows to identify such productive models of word formation of religious vocabulary in English: Noun + Noun, Noun + Participle, Adjective + Noun, Noun + Preposition + Noun, Participle + Noun, Pronoun + Noun, Adjective + Participle. These models are most actively involved in the creation of religious vocabulary in English, as they have the largest number of words in their structure. Compounds of religious lexis are divided into root compounds and compound derivatives, the structural integrity of which allows to distinguish them from phrases. Considering the components of compound words, the main element can be both the first and second part. According to the relationship between the components, compounds are divided into endocentric and exocentric types. The first is expressed by a compound word, the meaning of which is derived from the sum of the meanings of the compound’s components, the latter includes complex words, the meaning of which is not determined by any of its constituent elements. Among the layer of religious vocabulary of the English language we distinguish the following endocentric models: Adj + N = N, V + N = N, Part I + N = N, Ger + N = N, N + N = N and exocentric models: Participle + N = Adj, N+Pro.=Adj, V+Prep.=N, Adv+Participle=Adj.Key words:compounding, endocentric and exocentric compound words, substantivization, conversion. У статті обґрунтовано поняття «конверсія», яке визначається як безафіксальний, дериваційний спосіб словотвору, за якого нове слово, що утворюється з іншої частини мови, не набуває зовнішньої словотвірної перебудови. Також у роботі проаналізовано поняття «словоскладання», охарактеризовано фонетичний складник композитів релігійної лексики та виділено структурну класифікацію з урахуванням структури композитів складених слів. З’ясовано, що серед пласту релігійної лексики конверсивні дериваційні зв’язки відбуваються між двома, трьома та більшою кількістю слів, та визначено основні способи спрямованості цього процесу. Виділяємо п’ять основних моделей конверсії лексичних одиниць релігійної сфери: Noun – Verb, яка своєю чергою поділяється на три категорії, Verb – Noun, Adjective – Noun, Noun – Adjective, Adjective – Verb. Також проаналізовано процес субстантивації релігійної лексики як варіант конверсії. Під субстантивацією розуміємо процес зміни парадигми твірного слова й частини мови. Аналіз релігійної лексики показує, що перехід відбувається від прикметників у іменники, прикметник набуває характерних ознак іменника. У статті представлено аналіз релігійної лексики на основі словника О.О. Азарова «Большой англо-русский словарь религиозной лексики», який дає змогу виокремити такі продуктивні моделі словоскладання релігійної лексики в англійській мові: Noun + Noun, Noun + Participle, Adjective + Noun, Noun + Preposition + Noun, Participle + Noun, Pronoun + Noun, Adjective + Participle.Ці моделі беруть найактивнішу участь у творенні релігійної лексики в англійській мові, оскільки налічують найбільшу кількість слів у своїй структурі. Композити релігійної лексики поділяються на власне складні та склад-нопохідні, структурна цілісність яких дозволяє відмежувати їх від словосполучень. Щодо компонентів складних слів, то головним елементом може бути як перша, так і друга частина. Відповідно до відносин між компонентами складні слова поділяються на ендоцентричний та екзоцентричний типи. Перший виражається складним словом, значення якого виводиться із суми значень компонентів композита, до останнього відносяться складні слова, значення яких не визначається жодним із його складових елементів. Серед пласту релігійної лексики англійської мови виокремлюємо такі ендоцентричні моделі: Adj + N = N, V + N = N, Part I + N = N, Ger + N = N, N + N = N та екзоцентричні моделі: Participle + N = Adj, N+Pro.=Adj, V+Prep.=N, Adv+Participle=Adj.Ключові слова:словоскладання, ендоцентричні та екзоцентричні складні слова, субстантивація, конверсія.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-237
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Green ◽  
Michelle E. Morrison

Abstract Morphemes involved in the formation of Somali verbs and nouns are, in most instances, clearly individuated into categories corresponding to their role in word formation. Verbs contain a base, derivational extensions, inflectional affixes, and clitics that attach in a fixed order. Nouns also contain a base and derivational affixes, but little inflectional morphology. Indeed, both parts of speech have similar morphological templates in Somali, but the relationship between the language’s morphological domains and prosodic domains has only recently become a subject of detailed inquiry. We add to this ongoing trend by illustrating in this paper that there are close correlations between these domains in the language’s verbal and nominal systems that can be elucidated by morphophonological processes; certain processes occur only in a particular prosodic domain, and these process/domain combinations are similar in both the nominal and verbal systems. By establishing diagnostic phenomena attributable to phrase-level domains, this paper fills a gap between recent works focused only on defining prosodic characteristics of Somali words (Downing & Nilsson 2017; Green & Morrison 2016) and the accentual behavior of Somali clauses (Le Gac 2002, 2003a, b).


2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Alexandre Victorio GONÇALVES ◽  
Luciana Albuquerque Daltio VIALLI

Resumo: Neste artigo, pretendemos utilizar os dados de Vialli (2013), que reuniu, em sua tese de doutoramento, cerca de cem formas de composição reduplicativa em português, à luz do modelo de morfologia construcional (MC) originalmente proposto por Booij (2005, 2007, 2010). Esse modelo aplica a gramática das construções (GOLDBERG, 1995) ao componente morfológico, analisando as formações lexicais por meio de esquemas e subesquemas que representam o pareamento entre o polo formal e o polo semântico de palavras morfologicamente complexas. Entendendo que a reduplicação verbal (composição ViVi) pode ser satisfatoriamente descrita com os instrumentos da MC, procuramos explicar, formal e semanticamente, construções como “bate-bate” (“bater repetidamente”, “carrinho do parque de diversões”) e “agarra-agarra” (“agarrar repetidas vezes”), mostrando as motivações morfológicas e as extensões de significado desse tipo de formação e distinguindo-o da repetição, fenômeno que ocorre em nível sintático.Palavras-chave: Morfologia. Formação de palavras. Construção. Reduplicação. Composição.Abstract: In this article, we intend to explain the Vialli (2013)”s data –  which met, in her doctoral thesis, about a hundred forms of reduplicative compounding in Brazilian Portuguese – based on constructional morphology model (MC), originally proposed by Booij (2005 2007, 2010). This model applies construction grammar (GOLDBERG, 1995) to morphology component, analyzing the lexical formations through schemes and subschemas representing the pairing between the formal pole and the semantic pole of morphologically complex words. Understanding that the verbal reduplication (composition ViVi) can be satisfactorily described with the instruments of MC, we try to explain, formal and semantically, formations such as "bat-bate" ("hit repeatedly"; "playground toy") and "agarra-agarra" (grab repeatedly), showing the morphological motivations and meaning extentions of this type of word-formation process and distinguishing it from the repetition phenomenon that occurs in the syntatic level. Key words: Morphology. Word formation. Construction. Reduplication. Compounding


1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSÉ M. GOÑI ◽  
JOSÉ C. GONZÁLEZ ◽  
ANTONIO MORENO

We present a lexical platform that has been developed for the Spanish language. It achieves portability between different computer systems and efficiency, in terms of speed and lexical coverage. A model for the full treatment of Spanish inflectional morphology for verbs, nouns and adjectives is presented. This model permits word formation based solely on morpheme concatenation, driven by a feature-based unification grammar. The run-time lexicon is a collection of allomorphs for both stems and endings. Although not tested, it should be suitable also for other Romance and highly inflected languages. A formalism is also described for encoding a lemma-based lexical source, well suited for expressing linguistic generalizations: inheritance classes, lemma encoding, morpho-graphemic allomorphy rules and limited type-checking. From this source base, we can automatically generate an allomorph indexed dictionary adequate for efficient retrieval and processing. A set of software tools has been implemented around this formalism: lexical base augmenting aids, lexical compilers to build run-time dictionaries and access libraries for them, feature manipulation libraries, unification and pseudo-unification modules, morphological processors, a parsing system, etc. Software interfaces among the different modules and tools are cleanly defined to ease software integration and tool combination in a flexible way. Directions for accessing our e-mail and web demonstration prototypes are also provided. Some figures are given, showing the lexical coverage of our platform compared to some popular spelling checkers.


Author(s):  
Howard Jones ◽  
Martin H. Jones

This chapter has four sections, ‘Sounds and spelling’ (i.e. phonology and orthography), ‘Inflectional morphology’, ‘Syntax’, and ‘Lexis’ (the last of these covers word formation, borrowing, and vocabulary with meanings peculiar to the period such as dienest, êre, minne, ritter, vrouwe). In each section there is a summary of the main points, followed by detailed advanced paragraphs. The summaries serve as a stand-alone introductory grammar designed to help readers gain a reading knowledge of MHG as quickly as possible, which they can try out on the two introductory texts in Chapter 5. The detailed paragraphs can be used for reference or to gain an overview of particular areas of the language, and include extensive cross references to and from the texts in Chapter 5. The chapter concludes with an overview of the MHG dictionaries that are available on the Internet, in print, and on CD-ROM.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hartmann

AbstractThe diachronic change of word-formation patterns is currently gaining increasing interest in cognitive-linguistic and constructionist approaches. This paper contributes to this line of research with a corpus-based investigation of nominalization with the suffix-ungin German. In doing so, it puts forward both theoretical and methodological considerations on morphology and morphological change from a usage-based perspective. Regarding methodology, the long-standing topic of how to measure (changes in) the productivity of a morphological pattern is discussed, and it is shown how statistical association measures can be applied to quantify the relationship between word-formation patterns and their bases. These findings are linked up with theoretical considerations on the interplay between constructional schemas and their respective instances.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Vilma Symanczyk Joppe

Abstract The paper deals with the insertion of spaces and hyphens in German. It summarizes the existing optimality-theoretic approach and extends it to capture the use of hyphens. Hyphenation is often excluded in the literature on the writing of complex words, as forms with hyphens are thought to be mere variants of solid forms. The paper offers an alternative view in which hyphens are treated as an intermediate form between solid and open forms and are placed as a result of conflict between constraints which demand or forbid insertion of spaces. The analysis focuses on the products of nominal compounding, which is one of the most productive processes of word formation in German. Firstly, it is shown for which types of compounds hyphenation is optional and obligatory according to the official rules of orthography. Based on this, constraints are postulated, which do not only decide in which cases hyphenation is allowed but also in which positions the hyphens must be placed in the respective compound. Finally, the hyphenation of phrasal compounds and other complex compounds is modeled.


1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
KLAUS-MICHAEL KÖPCKE

This article contributes to a debate in the linguistic and psychological literature that centres around the representation of morphologically complex words in the grammar and in the lexicon. The issue is whether inflectional morphology is rule-based (i.e. symbolically represented), or whether the assumption of pattern association is more adequate to account for the facts. On the basis of the analysis of acquisitional data the article strongly argues for the latter alternative. In a classic experiment that helped shape the development of acquisition theory Berko (1958) reported substantial support for item-and-process rules in the acquisition of plural morphology in English. A large part of her results were zero responses (repetition of the stimulus). A reinterpretation of these zero responses in light of schema theory and the cue strength hypothesis shows a striking departure from randomness. Berko's subjects tended to repeat stimuli just to the extent that these already resembled a plural schema. A reinterpretation of data reported in Innes (1974) achieved compatible results. This data set is far more extensive than Berko's and is used in the present study to put the schema model to a more stringent test. A reinterpretation of a parallel experiment with German children, using the cue strength analysis of the more complex plural morphology of German yielded parallel results. Finally, natural acquisitional data obtained from seven German speaking children aged between 2;1 and 2;9 are analysed. Again, strong support is found for the schema model. It is suggested that a schema-learning mechanism may underlie the acquisition of morphology, even when the end product of the learning process involves item-and-process rules, as in the case of English plural formation. In a schema-learning model, the child builds schematic representations for possible singular and plural lexical items as whole gestalts, and attempts to map concrete forms onto these schemata in deciding whether the forms have singular or plural value.


2009 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Fiorentino ◽  
Ella Fund-Reznicek

Recent masked priming studies suggest that complex words are rapidly segmented into potential morphological constituents during initial visual word recognition. Much of this evidence involves affixation or other formally regular operations, leaving open the question of whether these effects rely heavily on the identification of a closed-class affix or other formal regularity. In two masked priming experiments with English transparent and opaque bimorphemic compound primes consisting solely of open-class morphemes, we find significant constituent priming, but no significant priming for purely orthographic overlap. We conclude that masked morphological priming generalizes across word-formation types to include compounds with no affix or other regular form. These results provide new evidence for across-the-board morphological-level segmentation during visual word recognition and for morpheme-based compound processing.


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