Morphological Structure of Words

If we describe a word as an autonomous unit of language in which a particular meaning is associated with a particular sound complex and which is capable of a particular grammatical employment and able to form a sentence by itself , we have the possibility to distinguish it from the other fundamental language unit, namely, the morpheme. A morpheme is also an association of a given meaning with a given sound pattern. But unlike a word it is not autonomous. Morphemes occur in speech only as constituent parts of words, not independently, although a word may consist of a single morpheme. Nor are they divisible into smaller meaningful units. That is why the morpheme may be defined as the minimum meaningful language unit. According to the role they play in constructing words, morphemes are subdivided into roots and affixes. The latter are further subdivided, according to their position, into prefixes, suffixes and infixes, and according to their function and meaning, into derivational and functional affixes, the latter also called endings or outer formatives. When a derivational or functional affix is stripped from the word, what remains is a stem. The stem expresses the lexical and the part of speech meaning. For the word hearty and for the paradigm heart (sing.) - hearts (pl.) the stem may be represented as heart-. This stem is a single morpheme, it contains nothing but the root, so it is a simple stem. It is also a free stem because it is homonymous to the word heart. A stem may also be defined as the part of the word that remains unchanged throughout its paradigm. The stem of the paradigm hearty - heartier - (the) heartiest is hearty-. It is a free stem, but as it consists of a root morpheme and an affix, it is not simple but derived. Thus, a stem containing one or more affixes is a derived stem. If after deducing the affix the remaining stem is not homonymous to a separate word of the same root, we call it a bound stem. Thus, in the word cordial proceeding as if from the heart, the adjective-forming suffix can be separated on the analogy with such words as bronchial, radial, social. The remaining stem, however, cannot form a separate word by itself, it is bound. In cordially and cordiality, on the other hand, the derived stems are free. Bound stems are especially characteristic of loan words. The point may be illustrated by the following French borrowings: arrogance, charity, courage, coward, distort, involve, notion, legible and tolerable, to give but a few. After the affixes of these words are taken

away the remaining elements are: arrog-, char-, cour-, cow-, -tort, -volve, not-, leg-, toler-, which do not coincide with any semantically related independent words. Roots are main morphemic vehicles of a given idea in a given language at a given stage of its development. A root may be also regarded as the ultimate constituent element which remains after the removal of all functional and derivational affixes and does not admit any further analysis. It is the common element of words within a word -family. Thus, -heartis the common root of the following series of words: heart, hearten, dishearten, heartily, heartless, hearty, heartiness, sweetheart, heart-broken, kind-hearted, whole-heartedly, etc. In some of these, as, for example, in hearten, there is only one root; in others the root -heart is combined with some other root, thus forming a compound like sweetheart. We shall now present the different types of morphemes starting with the root. It will at once be noticed that the root in English is very often homonymous with the word. A suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new derivative in a different part of speech or a different word class, c f. -en, -y, -less in hearten, hearty, heartless. When both the underlying and the resultant forms belong to the same part of speech, the suffix serves to differentiate between lexico-grammatical classes by rendering some very general lexico-grammatical meaning. For instance, both -ify and -er are verb suffixes, but the first characterizes causative verbs, such as horrify, purify, rarefy, simplify, whereas the second is mostly typical of frequentative verbs: flicker, shimmer, twitter and the like. A prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning, cf. hearten - dishearten. It is only with verbs and statives that a prefix may serve to distinguish one part of speech from another, like in earth in - unearth, sleep in - asleep (stative). It is interesting that as a prefix en- may carry the same meaning of being or bringing into a certain state as the suffix -en, c f. enable, encamp, endanger, endear, enslave and fasten, darken, deepen, lengthen, strengthen.

Semantic Features of Words

In the approaches labelled "Structural semantics" by cognitive linguists, word meanings, or lexical meanings can be broken down into atomic semantic features, which are in a way the distinctive properties of the meaning of a word. In accordance with the objectivist bias of structural semantics, semantic features are believed to refer to actual properties, objects or relations in the exterior world.
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Some simplified examples of semantic features are (Croft and Cruse 2004: 8, 76): Concept *MAN *BOY *BACHELOR *WOMAN *GIRL *SPINSTER *STALLION *MARE *FILLY Semantic features [MALE], [ADULT], [HUMAN] [MALE], [YOUNG], [HUMAN] [MALE], [UNMARRIED], [HUMAN] [FEMALE], [ADULT], [HUMAN] [FEMALE], [YOUNG], [HUMAN] [FEMALE], [UNMARRIED], [HUMAN] [MALE], [ADULT], [EQUINE] [FEMALE], [ADULT], [EQUINE] [YOUNG], [EQUINE]

Each of the concepts would be defined by, or indeed consist, of those semantic features. Structural relations based on semantic features Word concepts are related to each other by structural lexical relations like synonymy and antonymy. These relations are often attributed to the relations between the semantic features. 1. Synonymy In the framework of structural semantics, synonymy is when two or more words share all semantic features: Form Features Walk MOTION BY FOOT SELF-PROPELLED MED. VELOCITY Form Features Girl FEMALE YOUNG HUMAN 2. Antonymy In the framework of structural semantics, antonomy is when two or more semantic features of two words are opposite each other: Form Features Walk MOTION =
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Perambulate = = = = Lass = = = FEMALE YOUNG HUMAN MOTION BY FOOT SELF-PROPELLED MED. VELOCITY

Run MOTION

BY FOOT SELF-PROPELLED MED. VELOCITY

= =

BY FOOT SELF-PROPELLED HIGH VELOCITY

Form Features

Girl FEMALE YOUNG HUMAN = =

Boy MALE YOUNG HUMAN

Rules of Word Formation

Word formation is the creation of a new word. Word formation is sometime contrasted with semantic change, which is a change in a single words meaning. The example of word formation is unsystematically. As shown in the example above, the root is sistem a noun, to which we added atic an adjective suffix, and then added the prefix un-, which is added to adjectives to form the new adjective stem (or word) unsistematic. If we had added the prefix un- first, we would have derived a non word. (Adv) erb stem

A (djective) stem

adv (suf) fix

A stem

A suffix

A prefix

A stem

A Suf

Un

system

atic

al

ly

As the example show, a derived word may add additional meaning to the original word (such as the negative meaning of word prefix by un-) and may be in adifferent grammatical class than underived word. When a verb is suffixed with able, the result is an adjective, an in desire + able or adore + able. Or, when the suffix en is added to an adjective, a verb is devided, as in Dark + en. One may form an adjective, other example are :
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Noun To Adjective Boy + ish Virtu + ous

Verb To Noun Acquitt + al Clear + ance

Adjectve to Adverb Exact + ly Quiet + ly

Noun to Verb Moral + ize Vaccin + ate Brand + ish Haste + n

Adjective to Noun Tall + ness Specific + ity Glori + ous

Verb to adjeective Read + able Creat + ive Migrat +ory

Elizabeth+an Accus+ ation Pictur+ sque Affection + Ate. Health+ful Alcohol+ic Life + like Confer+ence Sing + er Conform +ist Predict+iion Free + dom

Not all derivation morphemes cause a change in grammatical class. Noun To Noun Friend + ship Human + ity Un + do Re + cover Verb to Verb Adjective to Adjective Pink + ish In + flammable

Many prefixes fall into this category : A + moral Auto + biography Ex + wife Super + human Mono + theism Re + print Semi + annual Sub + minimal

There are also suffixes of this type Vicar + age Old + ish Paul + ine America + n New Jersey + ite Fadd + ist Music + ian Pun + ster

All human languages, including signed languages, exhibit rules of word formation (morphology). A morpheme is an irreducible unit of meaning in a given language. It can be either a word itself (mean) or a meaningful part of a word (-ing, -ful, the vowel in the past tense of read, the alternating stress pattern in the noun and verb forms of record, etc.). Morphemes that have syntactic consequences are referred to as inflectional; these include morphemes of tense (past tense ed), aspect (continuous ing), person (3rd singular s), number (plural s), gender (lion + ess), case (he vs. him vs. his), etc. Morphemes are
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called derivational if they change the grammatical category (part of speech) of a word e.g. derive (v.) + ation (n.) + al (adj.) or alter the basic meaning of a word e.g. un + do, re + do.

Sign Language Morphology

A. Definition of Sign Language A sign language (also signed language) is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns (manual communication, body language) to convey meaningsimultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's thoughts. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages develop. Their complex spatial grammars are markedly different from the grammars of spoken languages. Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the cores of local deaf cultures. Some sign languages have obtained some form of legal recognition, while others have no status at all. B. History of Sign Language One of the earliest written records of a sign language occurred in the fifth century BC, in Plato's Cratylus, where Socrates says: "If we hadn't a voice or a tongue, and we wanted to express things to one another, wouldn't we try to make signs by moving our hands, head, and the rest of our body, just as dumb people do at present?. It seems that groups of deaf people have used sign languages throughout history. In 2nd-century Judea, the recording in the Mishnah tractate Gittin stipulated that for the purpose of commercial transactions "A deaf-mute can hold a conversation by means of gestures. Ben Bathyra says that he may also do so by means of lip-motions". This teaching was well known in Jewish society where study of Mishnah was compulsory from childhood. In 1620, Juan Pablo Bonet published Reduccin de las letras y arte para ensear a hablar a los mudos (Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak) in Madrid. It is considered the first modern treatise of Phonetics and Logopedia, setting out a method of oral education for the deaf people by means of the use of manual signs, in form of a manual alphabet to improve the communication of the mute or deaf people.
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In popular thought, each spoken language has a sign language counterpart. There is a sense in which this is true, in as much as a linguistic population generally contains deaf members who often generate a sign language. In much the same way that geographical or cultural forces isolate populations and lead to the generation of different and distinct spoken languages, the same forces operate on sign languages and so they tend to maintain their identities through time in roughly the same areas of influence as the local spoken languages. This occurs even though sign languages generally do not have any linguistic relation to the spoken languages of the lands in which they arise. In fact, the correlation between signed and spoken languages is much more complex than commonly thought, and due to the geographic influences just mentioned, varies depending on the country more than the spoken language. For example, the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand all have English as their dominant language, but American Sign Language (ASL), used in the US and most parts of Canada, is very different from the sign languages used in the other three countries (which are related to each other but distinct). Similarly, the sign languages of Spain and Mexico are very different, despite Spanish being the national language in each country, and the sign language used in Bolivia is based on ASL rather than any sign language that is used in a Spanishspeaking country. Variations also arise within a 'national' sign language which don't necessarily correspond to dialect differences in the national spoken language; rather, they can usually be correlated to the geographic location of residential schools for the deaf.

C. Sign Language Morphology Morphology is the study of morphemes, which is the smallest meaningful unit of language. There are two different types of morphemes; free, which can be meaningful while standing alone, and bound, which must be attached to another morpheme in order to have any meaning. For example, a free morpheme would be the word 'boat' and a bound morpheme would be the /s/ in the word 'boats'. In sign language, morphemes are visual-manual, and include what is called parameters (parameters are equivalent to phonemes, they are just not spoken).

Picture 1. Boat

There are also multiple kinds of bound morphemes. Whenever something is being referred to as a number (such as two boats) the numeral sign for two is attached before the sign for boats. This process is also known as numerical incorporation.

As you can see this can change the word category of the thing to which it is attached. inflectional morphemes are similar to the functional word and do not change the meaning of words or word categories. They mark a particular grammatical environment or relationship. Because sign language has little in the way of sequential morphology, an even more abstract formal representation than transcriptions or written word is necessary. Each parameter of the sign must be represented with a shorthand system that is fairly transparent and comprehensible. We do not commit to a particular underlying phonological form of the sign, but acknowledge that basic parameters must be represented in order to be able to recover sign forms from a text format.We therefore the parameters of sign type; handshape, location, palm orientation and movement. The following schema represents the basic parameters that combine to form signs: Types : 1-Handed (1H), 2-Handed Symmetrical (2HS), 2-Handed Dominant (2HD) Handshapes : A, B, C, 5, E, F, G, H, 3, O, R, V, W, X, Y, 8 Locations : face, neutral, torso, neck, shoulders, chest, trunk, upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist
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 Palm Orientations : up, down, out, in, base Movements : touch, twist, reduplication, arc, slow (all +/- values) Signs can be one-handed, two-handed symmetrical (in which both hands form the same shape and make the same movement), or two-handed dominant (one hand is dominant, the non-dominant hand has a limited number of possible handshapes and exhibits no independent motion). Our analysis specifies every sign as having a dominant hand (DH) shape and a non-dominant hand (NDH) shape. The location represent all of the possible contrastive location for signs in sign language. Handshapes are represented by the corresponding sign language number or letter. Palm orientation refers to the way the palm of the signers hand faces: up, down, base (i.e., the way the palms face while hanging at rest), outwards of the signer, or inwards toward the signer. Finally, movement has been simplified to five essential distinctive features: touch (whether or not there is contact between the two hands during articulation of the sign), twist (whether or not the articulating hand reverses orientation during the performance of the sign), reduplication (whether or not the sign is iterated more than once), arc (whether or not the sign follows a path through space), and slow (whether or not the articulation of the sign is produced at a rate slower than normal). Touch, reduplication, and arc are all well-attested in the literature; twist and slow are novel features which we have found useful in characterizing certain phonological phenomena. It should be noted that this characterization of movement is simplified, specifying only the bare bones of movement necessary for producing forms.

REFERENCES

Morphology Book.
http://carta.anthropogeny.org/moca/topics/rules-word-formation-morphology

Yule G. 1996. The study of language. Cambridge: CUP. http://courses.evanbradley.net/wiki/doku.php?id=morphology_of_sign_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language

http://www.handspeak.com/byte/m/index.php?byte=morphology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics_Features

http://studentguide.ru/shpargalki-po-anglijskomu-yazyku/bilet-10-morphologicalstructure-of-the-english-word.html

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