THE LEXICON AND ITS CLASSES - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

THE LEXICON AND ITS CLASSES

Hülya YILDIZ

Zehra ŞERİFOĞLU

Ceylan AYAN

Esen ŞAHİN

Slide2

In all known languages, both spoken and signed, the vocabulary of an individual language can be grouped into

open

and

closed

word classes.

Open word classes are typically

lexical

classes and are those where words can easily be added, for instance through derivation or other ways of forming new words, or through borrowing.

Closed word classes are typically functional classes and are those where words are not readily added; while there is change in these classes too, the change is much slower than with open classes.

Slide3

1. WORD FORMATION

There are two main ways for languages to form new lexemes:

derivation

and

compounding.

Compounding

basically involves amalgamations of lexemes to form a new lexeme.

For example,

‘ windmill’

wind + mill

Derivation

relies on modifying a lexeme through various morphological processes to form a new lexeme.

For example,

‘healthy’

health and the suffix –y

Slide4

Compounding

and

derivation

are

not

mutually

exclusive

.

For

instance

,

Football

is a

compound

foot

+

ball

Footballer

is a

derivation

football

+ er

Slide5

a. Derivation

Derivational morphology

is different from

inflectional morphology

in that, very generally speaking, inflection carries grammatical information such as number, case and gender, while

derivation

does not.

Derivation

only serves to create new words; these new words may then take necessary inflectional morphology

For example

,

from

‘trap’

, deriving the word

‘entrapment’ ,

using the prefix

‘-en’

and the suffix

‘-

ment

’

Slide6

There are many different ways in which languages can form new words through derivation, and any one language may employ several strategies. A common derivational device is

affixing

. Another very common derivational device is

reduplication.

Apophony

involves internal modification of the stem

. For example,

Derivation involving both a vowel and a consonant change is ‘breach’

/

bɹi:tʃ

/

from ‘break’

/

bɹeik

/

(

Aikhenvald

2007:45)

Slide7

Prosodic modification through stress or tone is another derivational device. For instance,

ʼ

per

mit

(noun) and

perʼ

mit

(verb)

The difference between this noun and verb is only one of stress.

Less common are devices which involve removing something. With

substraction

a predictable part of the word is removed. An example can be found in French, where the masculine counterpart of the feminine adjective form is predictably shorter, namely lacking the final consonant: compare

petite

/

pətit

/

‘

little.F

’ versus

petit

/

pəti

/ ‘

little.M

’ and

verte

/

vɛʁt

/ ‘

green.F

’ versus

vert

/

vɛʁ

/ ‘

green.M

’

(

Bauer

2003: 39)

Slide8

Other kinds of shortenings are

truncation

clipping

and

bac

k

formation. An example of clipping is pram from

prembulator

or phone from telephone. One way of thinking of truncations is that the suffix

–ate

is cut off (

tuncated

) before the suffix

–

ee

is added to

evacu

-

A back-formation

is when a part of a word which seems to be an affix (but might not be) is deleted an example is

baby- sit

from

baby-

sitter where

–

er

is conceived of as a suffix parallel to the suffix in

singer

and

runner.

Slide9

A blend

involves merging to words that get partly truncated, as in

smog

which consist of the

begining

of the

sm

oke

and the end of

fog

,or

motel

which consists of the

begining

of

mo

tor

and the end of hotel

Conversion

is when a word changes word class without any modification to the word itself. An example would be

bottle

, which in isolation is intuitively classed as a noun, but which by conversion can be used as a

word,for

instance in

To bottle wine

.

Slide10

b. Compounding

A

compound

is not just two separate words, but that it actually constitutes its own phonological unit. This hold true irrespective of how the compound is spelled, as it is the pronunciation that is relevant.

For example;

In English, compound words are written as one

one

word, with a hyphen

or two separate words such as,

football, pie-eyed, and fire door.

The essential thing about all these words is that they are pronounced as one

phonological units, they all have only one primary stress :

football /

fʊtbɔ:l

/ , pie-eyed /

paıaıd

/ , fire door /

faıədɔ

(ɹ)/

Slide11

There are exceptions to this general rule.

Pacoh

(Austro-Asiatic (

Katuic

):

Vietnam) compounds may consist of phonologically free words but still

function as one single lexeme, as in

‘

aat

achéq

’

wilderness (

Anial

+ Bird)(Watson 1976: 226).

Compounds are also generally inflected only once, as one word, as its head (main) lexeme. We would inflect for plural only once for the entire compound:

fooballs

(not *

feetballs

), fire doors (not *fires doors)

Slide12

There are also exceptions to this rule, even in English. Both parts of the compound are inflected.

tooth mark = teeth marks

Compound generally do not get broken up by, for example, modifiers.

a new football *a

footnewball

a metal fire door *a fire metal door

It should be kept in mind that none of these criteria are

absolute universals.

Slide13

Types of compounds

Endocentric compounds

(

tatpuruşa

compounds) refer to “sub- class” of the items denoted by one of ( the) elements.

AB

is an instance of

B

Like these compounds give extra information about head.

The word class of these compounds are determined by their head.

In English:

school boy tea pot

black bird sea sick

bed room diesel motor

In Maori :

wharenui

(

whare

‘house’ +

nui

‘big’ is a type of house (Harlow 2007: 130).

Slide14

Exocentric compounds

(

bahuvrihi

compounds ) not refer to ‘a sub- category’ of any of the compounded elements.

A+B

denotes a special kind of an unexpressed semantic head.

A+ B

is not an instance

A

or

B

In English:

pie-eyed

‘drunk’ ( neither a type of pie nor a type of eye)

redneck

‘ illiterate’ ( neither a type of red nor a type of neck)

In

Lango

:

wan

ɔt

‘window’ ( neither a type of wan ‘eye’ nor a type of

ɔt

‘house’)

In Maori :

ihipuku

‘sea elephant’ ( neither a type of

ihi

‘ nose’ nor a type of

puku

‘swollen’)

Slide15

Copulative or

coordinatve

compounds

(

dvandva

compouns

) refer to “an entity made up of the two elements mentioned in the compound together” (Bauer 2003: 43).

A+ B

denote “the sum” of what

A

and

B

denote

In English :

bitter-sweet

(both bitter and sweet)

actor-director

( both actor and director)

blue- green

( both blue and green)

In

Malto

:

pesa

- taka

( both

pesa

‘coin’ and taka ‘bank- note, rupee’) (

Steever

1998: 384).

Slide16

Syntactic compounds

( verbal compound ) the head element is a verb and modifying element is something which could have functioned as the verb’s argument in a phrase.

In English:

hair-dryer

( the head is the verb DRY and HAIR is an argument of the verb DRY)

earmark, head hunt

In Russian:

sneg

-o-pad

‘snowfall’(

sneg

‘snow+ o ‘linker’+ pad ‘falling’;

Aikhenvald

2007: 32).

-

Incorporation

is a special type of syntactic compound because it involves not only the word-formation process of combining two lexemes, but also involves a host of other

proceses

, both morphological and syntactic.

Slide17

-

Noun

incorporation

is,

the

most

common

type

of

incorporation

, a

noun

incorporated

into

a

verb

.

Yucatec

(Mayan (Mayan):

Mexico

)

(52)

a.

t-in-

p’o

?-ø-ah

nook

Comp

-1sg-

wash

-it-

perf

cloths

‘I

washed

(

the

)

clothes

.’

b.

p’o

?

-

nook

-n-ah-en

wash

-

clothes

-

antipass

-

prf

-1sg.

abs

‘I

clothes

-

washed

.’ (= I

washed

clothes

) (

Bricker

1978: 15)

In

(52a)

nook

‘

clothes

’

ia

an

object

of

the

verb

p’o

?.

It

refers

to

specific

clothes

.

In

(52b)

the

incorporation

refers

to

“

a

unitary

activity

”,

general

action

, but it

doesn’t

refers

to

specific

entity

.

Slide18

Incorporation consists of not only the full form of the noun but also the stem form of the full, free noun.

Huasteca

Nahualt

(Uto-Aztecan (Aztecan). Mexico)

(53)

a.

askéman

ti

-?-

kwa

nakalt

never 2sg-it-eat meat

‘ You never eat meat’

b.

na

?

ipanima

ni-naka-kwa

1sg always 1sg-meat eat

‘I eat meat all the time.’ ( lit. ‘I always meat-eat’)

(

Merlan

1976: 185)

Turkısh

balık

tutmak

kitap

okumak

seyahat

etmek

(fish- catch) ( book-read) (trip-take)

Slide19

2. PART OF SPEECH

Parts-of-speech (or word classes),

which in essence are major categories of words that group together grammatically.

Languages differ radically in how many classes they have and in the proportions of these classes. Some languages have an extremely limited set of closed class words (or functional categories), while others have a high number of such words.

Slide20

Some languages have only two open word classes (or lexical categories), others, like English, have as many as four separate such classes. Furthermore, a word class found in one language will not necessarily be found in another language. In other words, while it seems to be universal that languages actually do group their words into categories of some kind, the categories themselves are languages dependent.

Slide21

A. Lexical classes

The open classes

Consist of content words, i.e

.

words with more or less concrete, specific meanings.

-

Languages may have up to four major open class parts-of-speech,

nouns, verbs, adjectives

and

adverbs.

The definitions of these categories rely on a cluster of features, both semantic (denoting meaning), grammatical and syntactic (how items are combined).

Slide22

In

English,

nouns can be subcategorized into mass and count nouns, depending on whether they can take the plural (e.g.

sand/*sands

versus

chair /chairs);

or proper and common nouns, depending on whether they can take the article (e.g.

Peter

/*

the Peter

versus

chair

/

the chair

), or abstract versus concrete (e.g

. emotion

versus

chair

),

Slide23

Other languages subcategorize depending on whether or not the item is

possessable

.

In

Maasai

, for example, nouns are either

possessable

or non-

possessable

. Such things as tools, money, houses, kin, and so on can be marked for possession grammatically, but such things as meat, water, land and stars cannot.

Slide24

In

Mamaindé

,

Subcategorize their nouns depending on, among other things, physical properties such as consistency (whether the item in question is solid or liquid) and shape (

Eberhard

2009). In other words, the potential sub categorizations of each major part-of-speech category are language dependent.

Slide25

Nouns

Refers to things, persons and places, but also includes abstract notions such as feelings, ideas.

Grammatically, nouns may typically be marked for

number

(how many of the item (s) are being referred to),

case

(what role the item has in the sentence),

gender

(what sub-category the item belongs to)

definiteness

(whether it is a specific entity referred to or not),

for instance

through morphological processes, but also, especially in the case of languages with predominantly analytic strategies, through syntactic processes.

Slide26

C

ombine

with demonstrative pronouns (e.g.

this/that

as in

this/that house

) and many function as arguments (that is, participants, e.g. Subject and object) in a clause.

English has

two numbers

;

singular (one entity)

plural (more than one of the same entity); as in

chair

versus

chairs.

Lavukale

, specify for dual (two of the same entity), as in

funfun

‘firefly’ (singular)-

funfunil

‘

(two) fireflies’ (dual) –

funfunaul

‘fireflies’ (plural).

Slide27

-

While English hardly has any case marking at all, the exception being the genitive ‘s as in

chair’s,

many languages do mark for case.

In Dime; (Afro-Asiatic (South

Omotic

): Ethiopia): compare

ziti ‘ox’

(nominative case) with

zitim

‘ox’

(accusative case) (

Seyoum

2008).

Slide28

-

Gender refers to which subclass the noun belong to.

In French

;

nouns are either masculine (

le

cadeau

‘the gift’)or feminine (

la

table

‘the table’),

In German

;

nouns are either masculine (

der

Stuhl

‘the chair’), feminine (

die

Mütze

‘the hat, cap’) or

neuter (

das

Buch

‘the book’).

Definiteness indicates whether we are referring to a general example of an entity or a specific entity, as in the difference between

a

man,

the

man.

Slide29

Verbs

Verb refers to actions and processes (e.g.

Dance, grow,

etc.), but also states (e.g. Know, exist, etc.).

Verbs may typically be marked for tense (placing the event in time),

Aspect (specifying the perspective taken on the event),

Mood (indicating the speaker’s attitude toward a situation or a statement),

Slide30

Voice (e.g. Whether an event is active or passive)

Polarity (whether the statement is in the affirmative or the negative)

Verbs may also be marked for person agreement, where a grammatical marker indicates the number and person of an argument, most commonly the subject.

Verbs typically function as predicates, typically form the core of the sentence or clause and typically have ‘a relational meaning, relating one or more participants to an event’ (

Anward

2006:408).

Slide31

Types of Verbs in Turkish

VERB

TYPE

EXPLANATION

EXAMPLES

Intransitive

verbs

Require

no

object

(

complement

)

Uyumak,üşümek,yürümek..

Transitive

verbs

Require

direct

object

Yemek,içmek,ütülemek…

Ditransitive

verbs

Require

both

direct

and

indirect

objects

Dayamak,sormak,göndermek, yollamak, vermek…

Verbs

that

require

oblique

objects

Require

one

indirect

object

or

another

complement

Bakmak, hoşlanmak,

nefret etmek…

Copular

verbs

(

Linking

verbs

)

Link

the

subject

and

the

predicate

of a

sentence

-İmek, olmak,

zero

copula

,

etc

.

e.g. Ali geçen yıl öğrenci idi.

Slide32

Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Turkish

Tense

;

Okul-lar

pazartesi

açıl-

dı

.

school-PL Monday open-PF

‘ The schools

started

on Monday.’

Okul-lar

Pazartesi

açıl-

acak

-

FUT

‘ The schools will start on Monday.’

Slide33

Aspect;

Ahmet

bir

elma

ye-

di

.

an apple eat-PF

‘

Ahmet

ate

an apple.’

Ahmet

bir

elma

yi

-

yor

-

du.

-IMPF-P.COP

‘

Ahmet

was

eating

an apple.’

Ahmet

sabahları

bir

elma

ye-

r

-

di

.

-AOR-P.COP

‘In the mornings

Ahmet

used to eat

an apple.’

Slide34

Mood Markers in Turkish

-

sA

Denotes conditional meanings;

bil

se

n

,

bil

se

ydin

,

bil

se

ymiş

,

oku

sa

ydın

…

-(y)A

Optative

mood marker. Which is the expression

of speaker’s wish;

yap

a

yım

,

yap

a

lım

…

-

mAII

Modal functions of obligation/necessity, and

assumption;

Ali’ye

ol

malı

…

-(y)

Abil

modal category that marks ability and possibility.;

oku

yabil

irim

…

Slide35

English has three tenses, two of which are marked morphologically and one that is marked syntactically.

The present tense

(placing the event in the present, the ‘now’) is marked with a suffix –s for third person singular, as in

He walk

s

.

The past tense

(placing the event in the past) is also marked morphologically, with a suffixed -

ed

, as in

He walk

ed

The future tense

(placing the event in the future) is marked analytically with the use of an auxiliary verb, as in

He

will

walk.

Slide36

It is common for languages to have some kind of aspect marking.

In English, marks for progressive (denoting that the event is on-going) with the suffix

–

ing

,

as in

He is walk

ing

.

Languages may also make a grammatical difference between

perfective

and

imperfective

(again extremely simplified, if an event is seen as an ongoing process).

In French, where the difference between

ll

a

payé

‘he paid’ (perfective) and

ll

payait

‘he paid’ (imperfective) is one of aspect.

Slide37

English has two voices, active and passive.

Active;

He opened the door,

Passive;

The door was opened by him.

Languages also mark for polarity one way or another, and often that is done in connection with the verb. English contrasts affirmative and negative sentences with

not,

as

in

He walked

versus

He did not walk.

Slide38

The only form of person agreement that English has is the present tense third person singular suffix –s, as in

He walk

s

versus

I walk.

Other languages, however, grammatically indicate agreement for all three persons, and all the numbers that the language has.

Slide39

In Italian, the verb is inflected for three persons and two numbers:

Italian

(Indo-European:

(Romance):Italy)

1SG

mangi

o

‘I eat’

2SG

mangi

‘you eat’

3SG

mangi

a

‘he/she/it eats’

1PL

mangi

amo

‘we eat’

2PL

mangi

ate

‘you eat’

3PL

mangi

ano

‘they eat’

Slide40

Other languages may inflect for dual, and even trial and

paucal

, depending on their systems.

A cluster of characteristics that may serve to identify whether a given word is a noun or a verb. For example;

In

Mwotlap

(

Austronesian

(Oceanic): Vanuatu)

koyo

ma-

tayak

ke

, to

ke

ni-ente-yo

togolgol

3du

pfct

-adopt 3sgthen 3sg aor-child-3du straight

‘They have adopted him, so that he (became) their legitimate son’.

In example;

ente

‘

chid

’ is marked both for tense/aspect with the aorist prefix

ni

- and for agreement with the 3rd person dual subject with the suffix –

yo

, just as if it had been a verb.

Slide41

Adjectives

Adjectives typically modify nouns, and denote qualities and attributes.

Quantitive

or

limitating

adjectives (like

many, a little

…)

never

form an open class

Descriptive adjectives may form open class in many languages, but it does not

universal

…

Slide42

Grammatically adjectives may be specified for degree, either morphologically or syntactically.

Also grammatically adjectives

cannot combine

with nouns or verbs

In English

:

too cold is acceptable

*too book or *too follow is unacceptable

Slide43

In some languages adjectives show agreement in form with the noun they modify

.

In German

:

ein

rot

er

Stuhl

(

masculine

) ‘a

red

chair

’

ein

e

rot

e

Blume

(

feminine

) ‘a

red

flower

’

ein

rot

es

Haus

(

neuter

) ‘a

red

house

’

T

he adjective

(rot)

is marked morphologically to agree with the gender of the noun its modifies.

Slide44

There are three degree modifications; positive, comparative, superlative

Degree or comparison may be expressed either morphologically or syntactically.

English has both options

tall (positive), tall

er

(comparative) , tall

est

(superlative) : the adjective (tall) is marked

morphologically

beautiful (positive) ,

more

beautiful (comparative),

most

beautiful (superlative) : the adjective (beautiful) is marked

analytically.

Slide45

The use of adjective separate into two groups;

1) modification of a noun > a

big

apple

2) predication

(denoting a property of the subject of a clause)

> the apple is

big

Slide46

While nouns and verbs form near-universal open class categories, this is not the case with adjectives.

153 languages for adjectives are mapped.

66 (43.1 %) have an open class

30 (19.6%) have a closed class

57 (37.3%) do not have any separate class for adjectives

Slide47

Igbo has a very small closed class of adjectives which counting only 8.Four properties ‘value’, ‘dimension’, ‘age’, ‘colour’ are found in a closed class adjectivesOther properties like position (high), speed (fast), physical characteristics (hard) are expressed with nouns or verbs in languages with a closed class of adjectives

VALUE

COLOUR

DIMENSION

AGE

Oma ‘

good

’

Ojı

?ı

‘

black

,

dark

’

Ukwu

‘

large

’

Ohu

?

ru

‘

new

’

Ojo

?o ‘

bad

’

Oca ‘

white

,

light

’

Nta

‘

small

’

Ocye

‘

old

’

Slide48

In

Hause

, properties (value, dimension, age,

colour

) are expressed by nouns.

Hausa (Afro – Asiatic (West

Chanadic

): Nigeria)

Mutum

mai

alheri

b.

Mutum

mai

doki

person

having

kindness

person

having horse

‘a kind person’ ‘a person having a horse’

c. Yana

da

alheri

d. Yana

da

doki

he.is

with kindness

he.is

with horse

‘he is kind’ ‘he has a horse’

(describe properties are expressed by possession of nouns)

Slide49

In Bemba language, adjectival notions are expressed with verbs.

Adjectival notions are expressed with verbs whether

relativized

or not

Bemba (Niger- Congo (

Bantoid

) : DR Congo)

Umuuntu

uashipa

c.

Umuuntu

aashipa

person

who.is.brave

person

is.brave

‘a brave person’ ‘the person is brave’

Umuuntu

ualemba

d.

Umuuntu

aalemba

person

who.is.writing

person

is.writing

‘a person who is writing’ ‘the person is writing’

Slide50

Adverbs

Adverbs may constitute an open class, also it is the most heterogeneous of all word classes.

Adverbs typically modify categories other than nouns.

run

quickly (modify verbs)

quite

happy

(modify adjectives)

very

quickly

(modify other adverbs)

well

with

(modify prepositions)

*Dog quickly (NOT modify nouns)

That was quite [a party] (modify noun phrases)

Slide51

Five main subclasses of adverbs

- setting adverbs of space and time (here, below, never…)

- manner adverbs/predicate adverbs (well, badly…)

- degree adverbs (very, extremely…)

- linking adverbs / text adverbs (however, thus…)

- sentence adverbs (probably, frankly…)

Setting, degree and linking adverbs form closed subclasses of adverbs.

Only manner adverbs constitute open subclasses of adverbs.

Slide52

It is quite common for languages to form manner adverbs from adjectives. In English: slow (adjective), slow

ly

(adverb)

As with adjectives, languages differ in whether adverbs form an open, closed, or no class at all.

Adverbs form a closed class and most adverbial meanings are conveyed by adjectives or nouns in the accusative case.

In Modern Standard Arabic,

sarisan

‘swiftly’ is the accusative form of the adjective

saris

‘swift’

Slide53

There are also languages without any seperate class for manner adverbs Swedish (Indo- European (Germanic): SwedenTaget ar langsamt train.DEF.NEUT. is slow.NEUT. ‘the train is slow’Han laser langsamt Manner adverb expressions are he reads slow.NEUT. expressed with the adjective in neuter form ‘he reads slowly’

Slide54

Ainu (Isolate: Japan)- The stative verb pirka ‘be good’ Pirka menoko a stative verb may be modify another stative verb good woman is used as an adj. ‘pretty women’ c. Tunasno pirka quick good b. Pirka inu ‘Get well quickly’ good listen is used as an adv. ‘listen well’ Ainu has neither a special class for adjectives nor a special class for adverbs; the stative verb is used in both cases.

Slide55

There are various lexical classes, and they can overlap each other. So Hengeveld et al.(2004) propose implicational hierarchy.Verbs Nouns Adjectives (Manner) AdverbsThis hierarchy implies that- verbs exist its own lexical classes in a languageif a language has a separate open class for nouns, it also has a separate category for verbsa language with a separate open class for adjectives necessarily has a separate open class for nouns and verbs.if a language has a separate open class for adverbs, then it also has a separate open class for adjectivesThis hierarchy is not universal, it only illustrates tendencies