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Ling 420, Morphology
Be prepared to give brief answers to the following questions.
- What are the significant
characteristics of an agglutinating language?
- How does a fusional language
differ?
- How are Welsh nouns inflected
for possession? What processes are involved? Are they phonological or
morphological?
- The instructions in several
of our problems that deal with paradigms recommend the use of an operation
known as "matrix permutation" as part of arriving at an optimal
solution. What is the purpose of this operation, and how does it help the
analysis?
- A number of the 3rd
Declension Latin nouns we have examined show syncretism between the dative
and ablative plural forms in their paradigm, with identical forms both in -ibus.
According to markedness theory, what does this tell us about the semantic
distinction between dative and ablative? Neuter nouns show syncretism
between the nominative and accusative. What does this tell us about the
semantic distinction between nominative and accusative?
- Syncretism parallel to that
between the dative and ablative often does not take place in the singular.
What does the fact that this syncretism occurs in the plural but not in
the singular tell us about the plural?
- Historically, English dive
was a weak verb that formed its past by regular -ed suffixation.
For many speakers today, dive has become a strong verb, with the past
tense dove. How might this have come about? (Hint: consider verbs
such as connive, drive, derive, strive, thrive, ride, abide, decide,
oblige.)
- In comparing Latin momordi:
'I bit, I have bitten' with mordeo: 'I bite', and ce:pi: 'I
seized, I have seized' with capio: 'I seize', etc., what are some
of the problems in identifying a 'perfect' morpheme of the Bloomfield or
Neo-Bloomfieldian variety?
- Given a copy of the diagram
used as a basis for Latin 7, be able to locate within stem, increment,
suffix, or some combination of the three, where the exponents of a given
feature--such as +future, +past, +perfect, +subjunctive, +passive,
+speaker, +addresses, +plural (person)--are located.
- When presented with pairs of
present and perfect stems for a given Latin verb, be prepared to identify
each of the processes involved in forming the perfect stem from the
present stem that should be indicated somewhere in a sort handle, if one
were sorting a number of such pairs into types.
- Distinguish between
phonological processes and morphological processes. Give examples.
- Give four answers to the
question, "What are words?"
- Be able to match the
following terms with their definitions, or with language examples.
Furthermore, when an example of the phenomenon from a given language is
presented for matching, be able to indicate whether the example involves
Inflection (I), Compounding (C), Derivation [or
another type of word-formation other than compounding] (D), or
whether these distinctions are Not Applicable (NA).
- analogical change
- analogy
- automatic alternation
- back-formation
- blocking
- cohesiveness;
counterexample of same
- consonant ablaut
- conversion
- dissimilation
- enclitic
- endocentric compound
- epenthesis
- equipollent terms
- etymological
information
- exocentric compound
- facultative expression
- fixed ordering; counterexample
of same
- fusion
- grammatical
representation
- haplology
- inalienable possession
- inchoative
- infixation
- jussive
- leading form
- marked term
- metathesis
- minimal free form;
counterexample of same
- modification
- neutralization
- nonrecursion; counterexample
of same
- parasynthesis
- phon(a)estheme
- phonological
conditioning
- phonotactics
- popular etymology
- privative terms
- proclitic
- progressive
assimilation
- reduplication
- root
- sandhi
- stress modification
- subjunctive vowel
switch
- subtraction
- suppletion
- syncretism; its
relation to markedness
- tmesis
- umlaut
- unmarked term
- vowel ablaut
- vowel reversal
- zero expression
Specifics with respect to the Final Examination,
Spring 2000
Be prepared to match terms with language data in
which the concept is identified. As an example, the Turkish word for 'my
child', which contains a "soft g," is used by Matthews (1991:151) to
exemplify the concept of fusion. Chapter 11 in Matthews (1991)
gives four main characteristics of words. Be especially prepared to recognize
and identify examples that (if they existed) would constitute counterexamples
to these characteristics.
After you have identified the concepts exemplified
in various sets of language data, be prepared to indicate whether each example
involves Inflection (I), Compounding (C), Derivation (D),
or whether these distinctions are Not Applicable (NA) to the example at
hand. Thus, for example, one would indicate that the Turkish example above
involves Inflection.
A distinctive feature analysis of Latin verb
inflection identifies the following privative morphosyntactic features as being
marked by the inflections: perfect, subjunctive, future, past
["imperfect"], passive, first person, second person, plural. Be
prepared to indicate whether the exponents of a particular feature or
distinction are located in the stem, the increment, the suffix (as we used
these terms in Latin 7), or in some combination of the three. For example, if
asked where the distinction "perfect
vs. nonperfect in the (present) active indicative" is made, one would
reply "in both the stem and the suffix," because making this
distinction involves substituting the perfect stem for the present stem, and
the -i: set of suffixes for the -o: set of
suffixes. (It does not involve a change in increment, however, because the
increment is zero in both the perfect and the nonperfect.)
Be
prepared to identify the ways in which the perfect stem for a given Latin verb
differs from its present stem counterpart. (This is the same kind of operation
we did in determining proper "sort handles" in Latin 7.)
Be
prepared to answer several "short answer" questions from those listed
above.
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