Introduction to Morphology and Lexicology
THEME 4: THE LEXICON
4.1 The Word
The word is a unit of language that is recognized as being separated by spaces in writing. For example, the sentence “Luis eats bread” contains three words.
All words have three characteristics that distinguish them:
- Words have meaning. For example, cat refers to a female feline mammal.
- Words can be divided into morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units of language. For example, gat-a (female).
- Words are combined to form larger units. Within these units, words play specific roles.
4.2 Morphology of the Word
Morphology is a branch of linguistics that studies words and their internal structure. Words are constructed from smaller meaning units called morphemes.
Types of Morphemes:
- Lexical Morphemes or Lexemes: These are the root of the word, the part that carries the central meaning. For example, in niñ-o-s, the basic meaning is “a person who has few years.”
- Inflectional Morphemes: These always occupy the final position of the word and serve to express grammatical features (gender, number, person, mood, tense, etc.).
- Derivational Morphemes or Affixes: These are attached to a lexeme to modify its meaning. They alter the basic meaning of the stem. Their position is classified according to the lexeme:
- Prefixes: If they precede the lexeme. For example, pre-judge.
- Suffixes: If they are placed after the stem. For example, flower-er.
- Interfixes: If they are between prefixes and suffixes to avoid cacophony. For example, pan-ec-illo.
Types of Words
Depending on the type of morphemes that compose them, words are classified as simple, derivative, compound, or parasyntethic.
- Simple: Composed of a single stem and possible inflections. For example, child, coffee, car.
- Compound: These are words formed by two or more lexemes. For example, dark green, umbrella.
- Derivatives: These words, in addition to the stem and inflections, can carry one or more derivational morphemes (prefix, suffix, or interfix). For example, room-ist, pre-judge-r.
- Parasyntethic: These are words whose formation has used two procedures simultaneously. There are two possibilities:
- Two derivations at once: lexeme + prefix + suffix. For example, widow-en-ar.
- Composition plus derivation: lexeme + lexeme + suffix. For example, pica-paula-ero.
ITEM 5: MORPHOLOGY I
The Noun
The noun or substantive is a type of word that names entities with independent existence: humans, animals, objects, qualities, or actions.
Semantically, nouns are classified as:
- Common: Country, Female / Proper: France, Mary
- Concrete: books, music / Abstract: truth, beauty
- Countable: Solution, trees / Uncountable: rain, health
- Individual: boat, bee / Collective: Fleet, swarm
Morphologically:
The noun admits inflection for gender and number.
- Gender: All nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine.
- Number: Nouns can be singular or plural. The plural is marked with the inflections -s and -es.
Syntactically:
Nouns combine with determiners and adjectives and function as the core of the noun phrase.
Determiners
Determiners are words that accompany variable nouns to introduce them or clarify their meaning and must agree with them in gender and number.
Types of Determiners:
- Articles: the, a, an
- Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
- Possessives: my, your, his, her, its, our, their
- Indefinites: some, any, many, few, several
- Interrogatives and Exclamatives: what, which, whose
- Numerals: one, two, three…
Pronouns
Pronouns are variable words that replace a noun and can perform the same functions as it. Pronouns, like determiners, are closed systems with a limited number of them in the language, and new ones cannot be created.
Morphologically:
These are variable words: They inflect for gender and number, and some also for person (first, second, and third).
Classes:
- Personal: I, me, you, he, she, it, we, us, they, them
- Relative: who, whom, whose, which, that
- Demonstrative: this, that, these, those
- Indefinite: someone, something, anyone, anything, nobody, nothing
- Interrogative and Exclamative: who, what, which, whose
- Possessive: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs
ITEM 6: MORPHOLOGY II
The Adjective: Gender, Number, and Degree
The adjective is a type of word that expresses an attribute of the noun it refers to.
Morphologically:
It inflects for grammatical morphemes of gender and number and a special morpheme called degree.
- Gender: Some adjectives mark gender through inflections, generally -o for masculine and -a for feminine. Other adjectives do not support this change, and their gender is known by the noun they agree with.
- Number: Most adjectives receive the plural inflectional morpheme -s or -es. But there is a type of adjective that has the same form for singular and plural: a unisex garment, two unisex garments.
- Degree: When expressing a quality of the noun, the adjective can do so with more or less intensity. This intensity is what is called the degree of the adjective. There are three degrees:
- The positive degree expresses the quality without specifying its intensity. For example, educated.
- The comparative degree compares an attribute with another or with another being. There are three types of comparison:
- Superiority: better…than
- Equality: as…as, so…as
- Inferiority: worse…than
Syntactically:
The adjective is usually accompanied by a noun, which it qualifies or with which it must agree in gender and number. It also combines with adverbs of quantity. Its main function is, therefore, to modify or complement the noun.
Classification of Adjectives:
Adjectives are classified according to the meaning they contribute to the noun they accompany:
- Restrictive: It defines the significant extension of the noun and is usually placed after it. For example, a blue tie, a few good men.
- Explanatory: Also called an epithet. It is an adjective that adds a merely explanatory note without any significant delimitation. It designates a quality inherent in the noun, so it is unnecessary. It usually precedes the noun. For example, the white snow, the dark night.
ITEM 7: MORPHOLOGY III
The Verb
The verb is the type of word that expresses an action, a process, or a state.
Morphologically:
Verbs are distinguished because they can be decomposed into a root and a series of endings called morphemes.
- The root provides the basic meaning of the verb.
- The ending provides the grammatical meanings of tense (present, past, future), mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative).
Syntactically:
It serves as the core of the verb phrase (predicate).
Classification:
We can classify verbs according to very different formal, syntactic, or semantic criteria.
In this section, we will consider only the classification from the formal point of view:
- Regular Verbs: These are verbs whose lexeme remains unchanged in all tenses of the verb conjugation. For example, to love (I love, you love, we love, they loved…).
- Irregular Verbs: The lexeme or root changes in some of the forms of verbal inflection. For example, to want (I want, we want, you wanted…).
- Defective Verbs: These are only used in certain forms. This occurs with certain verbs that indicate atmospheric phenomena (rain, snow, hail…), with others such as concern, happen, etc., which are similarly conjugated in the third person singular, with soler only conjugated in the present or imperfect, and others.