Example of an analyzed word

In the school curriculum, several sections are studiedthe science of language. Each of them assumes the analysis of the language unit from a certain point of view. One of these sections is phonetics. Phonetic analysis of the word implies knowledge of what speech sounds are, what they are like, how they correspond with letters.

The meaning of the analysis

In order to understand what the phoneticanalysis of the word, you need to understand the principles of Russian graphics well. All of us are accustomed to think about the word as consisting of certain letters. In fact, recording with the help of the alphabet is just one of the ways that does not always reflect the sound composition of the word. We do not record sounds, but morphemes. If we reflected what we hear, the result would be illiterate in terms of Russian spelling. Say, we say «dope», and we write «oak». The final consonant is so interpreted by us, since the root of the «oak» according to the rules of Russian spelling should be preserved in a graphical form unchanged, regardless of the sound appearance of the word.

In phonetic analysis, the wordjust as we actually hear it and pronounce it (ie, «dope», not «oak»), and then comment on every sound and word as a whole, using the information obtained in the study of the school curriculum.

General sequence of actions

Phonetic analysis of the word is made on a clearplan and with the developed sequence of actions. In this case it is very important: violation of these developed rules can lead to serious distortions and errors. The general sequence is as follows:

1. Orthographic record of a word.
2. Statement of stress. Often, this is an additional task-the student’s knowledge of how the lexeme should be correctly pronounced is checked. For example, in the word «contract» he must put stress on the latter, and not on the first syllable.

Correct execution of this stage is especially important if the program involves analysis of reduced vowels.

1. Splitting a word into syllables, recording the number of syllables.
2. Before you do a phonetic analysis of the word,it is necessary to write down its transcription in a row in square brackets, that is, to present a variant of the lexeme that we hear and pronounce (freed from the rules of spelling). For some reason, it is at this stage that the maximum number of violations occurs. Often a schoolboy wants to first analyze the word, and then write down the transcription. Often this makes the task impossible.
3. Record each sound in a bar.
4. Commenting on the phonetic characteristics of vowels and consonants.
5. Counting letters and sounds.
6. Comments on the difference in quantity(if any). This sums up the analysis. For example, you need to explain why there are six letters in the word, but seven sounds. Often formally, this number may coincide, this does not mean that comments are not needed. For example, in the word «anchor» there are five letters and five sounds: «I» means two sounds, and «i» means zero.

Transcription

Phonetic analysis of the word in fact more oftenis sound-alphabetic, since transcription is not recorded from scratch, as in a university, when the sound image of a word is interpreted in its entirety. The schoolboy relies on spelling and analyzes what each letter means. For example, the course of his reasoning may be approximately the same.

The word «anchor». The letter «I» is initial, hence, it means in this word two sounds: «d» and «a». «K» transmits «to». «O» is not under stress, it is heard not as «o», but as «a». The combination «ry» transmits one soft sound (the softness of consonants in the transcription is transmitted by an apostrophe). As a result, we get a phonetic record: [yakar ‘]. Many teachers require that yot be transmitted professionally in a transcription, with a «j» sign.

What is reduced vowels

Some programs also suggestUse of special signs for the so-called reduced vowels. This often frightens children and parents, but there is absolutely nothing complicated. The meaning of this is as follows.

In every word, only one sounda vowel sound is one that is under stress. The rest sound inferior, briefly, blurry, terminologically speaking — reduced. That’s why we have problems with spelling of a lexical unit. For example, in the word «anchor» in the second syllable, we do not hear «o» or «a», but we hear something mean. These reduced sounds in transcription should be transmitted by special signs. Impudent sound is not equated to any other sound, but is fixed as «something mean».

To many schoolchildren this seems very reasonable, soas they write down the transcription [yakar], they experience an internal resistance: they realize that they do not hear in the second syllable «a», as they are «dictated» by the school program.

Rules for the recording of reduced vowels

In the event that the phonetic analysis of the wordimplies the recording of the reduced, it is necessary to act according to clear rules. You do not need to listen desperately to yourself, neither «poke your finger at the sky» nor reconcile with unclear conventions.

These rules are as follows.

1. They do not touch the «y» sound. This sound without emphasis sounds briefly, but does not change its basic qualities. (Terminologically speaking, only quantitative, not qualitative reduction occurs).
2. Unstressed syllables can be before and after stress, so they need to be thought of as pre-shock and, accordingly, zaudarnye. For example, in the word «dog» the first refers to «co», and to the second — «ka».
3. Among all unstressed syllables, a special placetakes the first pre-shock (that is, the one that is just before the stress). The vowel at this place sounds brighter and «better» than in other positions. For example, in the word «sausage» it is the syllable «ba».
4. In the event that any vowel is in socalled the absolute beginning of the word, it also sounds brighter and more qualitative (its reduction is less pronounced). For example, in the word «Antonina» this is the first sound transmitted on the letter with the letter «a».
5. Bezudarnye sounds, following the solidconsonants, in all cases, except for the syllable preceding the percussion, are transmitted into the transcription by the sign «b». For example, in the word «sausage» this is the last «ka» — [ky], and in the verb «to approach» — the first «under»: [pt]
6. Impudent, following the hard consonant sounds in the syllable preceding the percussion, and the sounds «o» and «a» in the absolute beginning of the word are transmitted by the sign of Ʌ. «The dog» is [the dog]. «Antoshka» — [Ʌнтошкъ].
7. The blissful sounds following the softconsonants, in all cases, except the first pre-syllable syllable, are transmitted into the transcription by the sign «ь». For example, in the word «little finger» this is the last «nets» — [n], and in the verb «go» — the first «ne» and the second «re»: [n’bp].
8. The unarmed vowels following the soft consonants in the first pre-syllable syllable and the sounds «and», «e», «s» of the absolute beginning of the word are transmitted by the sign and^e (and with a sound e): «fly» — [l ‘and^etat «].

It must be remembered that if the word begins with the letters n, w, e, e, the vowel sounds are not an absolute beginning, since the consonant «d» is before them.

Analysis of sounds

Actually, the phonetic analysis of the word afterRecording transcription is usually very simple and is based on the ranks of primary school (and quite a bit more complicated if the characteristics of sounds are studied in-depth).

The volume of information about sounds varies with the program, the standard is to inform each sound about the following.

1. About a vowel — it is shock or unstressed (or reduced). Sometimes the teacher also requires you to tell which series the sound belongs to.
2. The consonant should be characterized by hardness / softness and deafness / voicedness and note whether it has a pair by the appropriate sign.

Example 1

Phonetic analysis of the word «lilac». This is an example of an elementary analysis.

Lilac. 2 syllables, the second of them percussion.

Transcription: [c’ir’en ‘] or [c’i^er’an ‘]

We write the letters with a column:

from

and

R

e

Mr.

ь

We transfer sounds from transcription — we write them in a row near:

c ‘

and (and^e)

R’

e

n ‘

We note that the two letters «n» and «b» denote one sound:

Mr.

n «

/

ь

Comment on each sound (not a letter):

c ‘- according to; soft, paired; deaf, doubled.

and (and^e) — vowel, unstressed (reduced).

p ‘- according to; soft, pairs; ring., unpar.

e — gl., percussion.

n ‘- as; soft., pair., ring., unpar.

The word is written in six letters, but consists of 5 sounds (a soft sign denotes the softness of the consonant [n]].

Example 2

Phonetic analysis of the word «eclair». This is also an example of a simple analysis.

Ekler: 2 syllables, the second of them percussion.

Transcription: [ecl «er] or [and^eClare]

We write the letters with a column:

e

to

l

e

R

We transfer sounds from transcription — we write them in a row near:

and^e

to

l «

e

R

Comment on the characteristics of each sound:

e [and^e] — Ch., Impactless (reduced).

k — according to; solid, steam; deaf, paired.

l «- with, soft., pairs., ringing., unpar.

e., h. ..

p — according to; soft, pairs; ringing, unpaired.

In the word 5 letters, 5 sounds.

Example 3

Phonetic analysis of the word «language».

Language. 2 syllables, the second of them percussion.

Transcription: [yazyk] or [jazyk]

We write the letters with a column:

I

z

s

to

We transfer to the next column the recording of sounds from transcription:

j

e (Ʌ)

z

s

to

We note that the letter «I» in this word means not one but two sounds:

th

/

I

e (Ʌ)

Record the characteristics of each sound:

j — according to; soft, unpaired; ring., unpar.

e (Ʌ) — open, unstressed. (reduced).

c — according to; solid, steam; ringing, paired ..

s — vowel, shock.

K — agree; solid, steam; deaf, paired.

The word is written in four letters, but consists of five sounds (the letter «I» means two sounds, since it is at the beginning of the word).

Sometimes the program requires the student to learn additional terminology when characterizing sounds (sonorous consonant, quantitative and qualitative reduction, a number of vowels, etc.).

In general, the phonetic analysis is based onmechanically applied elementary knowledge and the ability to use a clear plan and tables. In the event that the student follows, this kind of assignment will not be difficult for him.

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1. Morphology
1.1. How to do morphological analysis (or any other kind of linguistic
analysis)
Morphology is the study of word formation – how words are built up from smaller
pieces. When we do morphological analysis, then, we’re asking questions like, what
pieces does this word have? What does each of them mean? How are they
combined?
In general, when you’re asked to do any sort of linguistic analysis, you’ll be given a
set of data – words or sentences from some language that generally isn’t, but
occasionally is, English – and asked to find patterns in it.
Cree (Algonquian)
t∫i:ma:n
canoe
nit∫i:ma:n my canoe
so:niya
money
niso:niya my money
wiya: ∫
meat
niwiya: ∫
my meat
How to do morphological analysis?
When you don’t know anything about the language:
• Find a pair of words whose English translations differ only in a single way that’s
relevant to the task at hand.
• Find the corresponding difference in the non-English words – often some letters
will be added, or the word will be changed in some systematic other way. Making
this change in the non-English word therefore produces the relevant change in the
English meaning.
• Check your theory: find another pair of foreign words whose English translations
also differ only in this relevant way, and make sure this pair of foreign words
change in the same way as the last.
We’ll encounter kinds of morphology that are more complex than this, but this
basic method of looking for forms with minimal differences and figuring out how to
describe that difference is always a good approach.
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1.2. Types of morphemes
Morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning we have –
that is, the smallest piece of a word that contributes meaning to a word.
Example
The word trainings has 3 morphemes in it: train-ing-s.
To break a word into morphemes, try starting at the beginning of the word and
seeing how far into the word you need to go to find a sub-part of the word that has
some meaning. For example, in the word unbreakable, the first two letters un- are
independently meaningful in a way that just the first letter, u-, is not – un- means
something like ‘not (whatever)’, and changes the meaning of the word it attaches to
in a predictable way; sub-parts of un-, like u- or –n-, don’t have this property. This
means that un- is a morpheme.
Once you’ve found the first morpheme, ask yourself whether there’s another
meaningful sub-part of the word after that first morpheme. Again, -break- is
independently meaningful; so is the last part of the word, -able. So unbreakable has
three morphemes: un-break-able. Some words just have one morpheme, of course –
you can’t break down the word love into any meaningful sub-parts, for example.
We define different kinds of morphemes based on various properties like where they
show up in words. All morphemes are either free or bound.
Free A free morpheme is one that can stand on its own – that is, it’s an
entire word.
Examples the, cat, run, pretty, trapezoid
Free morphemes may appear with other bound morphemes attached
to them; crucially, though, they don’t need to have other morphemes on them.
Bound
A bound morpheme cannot stand on its own, but rather must
be attached to a free morpheme whenever you say it.
Examples re-, un-, -est, -er, -fer (see below)
Some morphemes are roots; others are affixes.
Root The primary piece of meaning in a word, to which affixes can be
added. In English, a root is often a word itself.
Examples cat, pretty, -fer
Affix A morpheme which attaches to roots (or stems), changing their
meaning in regular ways.
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Examples re-, un-, -est, -er, ing, -s
Affixes are generally either prefixes or suffixes.
Prefix
An affix that goes before a root.
Examples re-, un- (re-read, un-loved)
Suffix
An affix that goes after a root.
Examples -est, -er, -s (quick-est, quick-er, read-s, book-s)
! Null morpheme:
In morpheme-based morphology, a null morpheme is a morpheme that is realized
by a phonologically null affix (an empty string of phonological segments). In simpler
terms, a null morpheme is an "invisible" affix. It's also called zero morpheme.
The null morpheme is represented as either the figure zero (0), the empty set
symbol Ø.
Example:
The existence of a null morpheme in a word can also be theorized by contrast with
other forms of the same word showing alternate morphemes. For example, the
singular number of English nouns is shown by a null morpheme that contrasts with
the plural morpheme -s.
cat = cat + -Ø = ROOT ("cat") + SINGULAR
cats = cat + -s = ROOT ("cat") + PLURAL
1.3 Finding morphemes in other languages
Linguists study languages they don’t speak. We are going to study how to do
morphology in other languages, i.e. how to decompose a word into morpheme.
You got already an idea from the example in Cree we saw above. Let’s do more.
Ex 1: French. How is the noun formed from the Adjective?
[kõform] conforme (adj.) ‘conform’
[kõformite] conformité (noun) ‘conformity’
[legal] légal (adj.) ‘legal’
[leʒitim] légitime (adj.) ‘legitimate’
[legalite] légalité (noun) ‘legality’
[leʒitimite] légitimité (noun) ‘legitimacy’
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Ex 2: Michoacan Aztec: find every single morpheme in the data below.
1. nokali
2. nokalimes
3. mokali
4. ikali
5. kali
6. kalimes
7. nopelo
8. mopelo
‘my house’
‘my houses’
‘your house’
‘his house’
‘house’
‘houses’
‘my dog’
‘your dog’
9. mopelomes
‘your dogs’
10. ipelo
‘his dog’
11. pelo
‘dog’
12. nokwahmili ‘my cornfield’
13. mokwahmili ‘your cornfield’
14. ikwahmili
‘his cornfield’
15. ikwahmilimes ‘his cornfields’
16. kwahmili
‘cornfield’
How to proceed:
• Find a pair of words whose English translations differ only in a single way
that’s relevant to the task at hand.
• Find the corresponding difference in the non-English words – often
some letters will be added, or the word will be changed in some systematic other
way. Making this change in the non-English word therefore produces the relevant
change in the English meaning.
• Check your theory: find another pair of foreign words whose English
translations also differ only in this relevant way, and make sure this pair of foreign
words change in the same way as the last.
Ex 3: Isleta
Consider the following data from Isleta (a Native American language spoken in
New Mexico), and then answer the questions that follow:
a. temiban I went.
d. mimiay He was going.
b. amiban You went.
e. tewanban I came.
c. temiwe I am going.
f. tewanhi I will come.
I. List the Isleta morphemes corresponding to the following English translations:
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(a) I _____ (d) come ______ (h) future _____
(b) he _____ (e) go _____
(i) past ______
(c) you _____ (f) present progressive (is ... -ing) ______
g) past progressive (was ... -ing) ______
II. What is the order of morphemes in Isleta?
III. Write a rule that produces in Isleta the second person singular subject ( “You
___ “).
IV. Translate each of the following sentences in to Isleta:
(a) He went.
(b) I will go.
(c) You were coming.
1.4 Word formation process in English
The affixes we just talk about are distinctive in one more way.
They are acting in a particular way when attached to the base.
Either they are giving grammatical information or they are creating a new word.
INFLECTION = the process by which affixes combine with roots to indicate basic
grammatical categories such as tense or plurality (e.g. in 'cat-s', 'talk-ed', '-s' an d'-ed'
are inflectional suffixes). Inflection is viewed as the process of adding very general
meanings to existing words, not as the creation of new words.
DERIVATION = the process by which affixes combine with roots to create new
words (e.g. in 'modern-ize', 'read-er', '-ize' and '-er' are derivational suffixes).
Derivation is viewed as using existing words to make new words.
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Table 1: Inflectional categories and affixes of English
Word class to which
inflection applies
Nouns
Inflectional category
.
Possessive
Verbs
3rd person singular present
.
.
past tense
perfect aspect
progressive or
continuous aspect
Adjectives
comparative
(comparing two items)
.
superlative (comparing
+2 items)
Number
Regular affix used to
express category
-s, -es: book/books,
bush/bushes
-'s, -': the cat's tail, Charles'
toe
-s, -es: it rains, Karen writes,
the water sloshes
-ed: paint/painted
-ed: paint/painted ('has
painted) (past participle)
-ing: fall/falling, write/writing
(present participle)
er: tall/taller
est: tall/tallest
Ex 4: Morpheme zero in French versus English
Je mange [ʒәmɑ̃ʒ] 1ere pers sg
Nous mangeons [numɑ̃ʒõ] 1ere pers pl
Tu manges [tymɑ̃ʒ] 2e pers sg
Vous mangez [vumɑ̃ʒe] 2e pers pl
Il mange [ilmɑ̃ʒ] 3e pers sg
Ils mangent [ilmɑ̃ʒ]
3e pers pl
What about English? Can you draw a comparison?
There is another way to create new words:
COMPOUND WORD: a word that is formed from two or more simple or
complex words (e.g. landlord, red-hot, window cleaner).
It is probably the most common one in today's English because it is so productively
used in technical languages. Compounding is a process whereby two or more
individual words are combined as one word. Here are a few examples: beginning
intersect point, exit light fixture symbol, column centerline grid, default Project Architect support
directory, and delete project menu. The last example even has a verb (delete) in it.
1.5 Morphological rules
When you’re doing morphological analysis, you’ll be asked to report your results in
various ways. Sometimes you’ll be asked to tell whether various morphemes are free
or bound, roots or affixes, prefixes or suffixes, etc. Other times, you’ll be asked to
write rules that explain how words are built out of morphemes.
The point of writing a rule is to describe exactly what’s going on morphologically in
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such a way that someone could use your rule to build new words. A good test for
whether your rule is right is to try to use it and make sure it gives you the right
result. This will become clearer soon.
Morphology rules are sentences that tell you these three (or four) things:
(1) What kind of morphological category you’re expressing (noun, verb…)
(2) What change takes place in the root to express this category.
(3) Where in the stem this change takes place.
(4) Special conditions, if any, on this change (e.g. it might only occur in certain
circumstances, on certain kinds of words, etc.).
We can look at a simple example rule that makes the English plural form of a noun
(i.e. that takes the root cat and adds an –s to the end to make cats).
The rule looks like this:
To make the plural form of a noun, add –s to the end of the noun.
We can break down this rule to show super-explicitly which parts of it are doing
which of the four necessary things, like this:
(1) To make the plural form of a noun,
(2)
(3)
add –s
to the end of the noun.
Note that in this case (well, for the purposes of our discussion, anyway), the plural is
always formed by adding –s, so we don’t need any special conditions – that is, no
part (4).
When I talked about testing your rule, here’s what I meant: you’ll write rules based
on data – here, the data is the pair of words cat and cats. You can then take the rule
and the data and make sure the rule produces the data – so here, you can take the
singular form cat and ‘do’ the rule to it – that is, ‘add –s to the end of the noun.’
This produces cats, as it should. This is such a simple, familiar example that testing
it seems dumb, but in more complex examples, testing is a great way to make sure
you’ve done everything right.
Sometimes it will be harder to write a very simple description of the morpheme
being added to the root, because the morpheme might be making a pretty
complicated change; even when the thing that happens to the root is complicated, just
make sure to explain exactly what happens and your rule will work.
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1.6 Parts of Speech
You’ve probably heard definitions for parts of speech like this: “A noun is a person,
place, thing, or idea” or “A verb is an action word.” That’s lovely, but they’re
slippery definitions – we generally agree that a word like appetite is a noun, but it’s
not really a person, place, thing, or idea; similarly, seem is a verb, but it’s not really
an action word. So instead of these meaning- based definitions of parts of speech, in
this class we’ll use structural definitions – that is, definitions based on the structure
of a word, and/or its position in a sentence structure.
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There are a few other English parts of speech that we’ll talk about:
Determiner
Syntactic position
Before a noun (and adjective, if one precedes the noun); only one determiner can
precede a single noun (*the a car).
The cat sat on my favorite chair.
Examples the, a, my, your, his, her, its, our, their, this, that, those, some, all, every, one, two,
three…
Auxiliary
Syntactic position
Before a verb; no more than three auxiliaries may appear before a single verb.
I could have been lying on the beach right now.
Examples be (is/am/are/were/being…), have (has/had/having…), can, could, may, might,
will, would, shall, should, must
Pronoun
Syntactic position
In a position normally occupied by an entire noun phrase
I want you to go to him and get it tomorrow.
Examples I, me, mine, we, us, ours, you, yours he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its, they, them,
theirs, one…
Preposition
Syntactic position
Before a noun phrase; usually only one preposition can precede a single noun
phrase (*on above the desk).
Before the ice age, dinosaurs wandered across the earth.
Examples about, above, across, after, against, among, around, ago, as, at, before, behind, below,
beside, between, but, by, despite, down, during, for, from, in, inside, into, off, on, out, over, past,
since, than, through, to, toward, under, until, up, with, without…
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1.7 A few other word formations
a. Reduplication
Schm- reduplication is a form of reduplication in which the original word or its first
syllable (the base) is repeated with the copy (the reduplicant) beginning with schm-,
IPA [ʃm]. The construction is generally used to indicate irony, derision or
scepticism with respect to comments about the discussed object:
He's just a baby!
Baby-schmaby. He's already 5 years old!
Exercise 1:
Indonesian
rumah
ibu
lalat
1.
rumahrumah
ibuibu
lalatlalat
‘houses’
‘mothers’
‘flies’
What is the Indonesian rule for forming plurals?
bili
kain
pasok
2.
‘house’
‘mother’
‘fly’
‘buy’
‘eat’
‘enter’
bibili
kakain
papasok
‘will buy’
‘will eat’
‘will enter’
What is the Indonesian rule for forming the future tense?
Exercise 2: English
1.
Which of the following words does it sound natural to apply schmreduplication to? (If you don’t use or hear these expressions yourself, ask someone
who does.)
revenge
poster
dance
apple
2.
pirouette
Alabama
banana
map
ballerina
bartender
police
table
indiscretion
butterfly
complaint
survey
What do the words that take schm- easily have in common?
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3.
What is the rule for creating schm- forms? Give your answer in the form of
instructions that would enable someone who didn’t know this construction to
correctly produce it.
b. Scattered morpheme or infix
An infix is an affix inserted inside a stem (an existing word).
Examples in yurok : sepolah
segepolah
‘field'
‘fields'
 se-…-polah
scattered morpheme ‘field'
-geplural infix
Exercice 1:
Bontoc, Philippines
1. fikas ‘strong’
2. kilad ‘red’
3. bato ‘rock’
4. fusul ‘enemy’
5. fumikas
6. kumilad
7. bumato
8. fumusul
‘he is becoming strong'
‘he is becoming red'
‘he is becoming rock'
‘he is becoming an enemy'
a) What are the different morphemes?
b) What does pumusi mean if pusi means poor ?
c) How to say 'white', when 'he is becoming white' is pumukaw?
d) How to say ' 'he is becoming dark" when 'dark' is nitad?
Exercise 2: English
For this exercise, you will need an informant who is a native speaker of
English. (“Informant” or “consultant” are terms used by linguists for native
speakers of a language.) The informant should not be yourself. The informant’s
job, under your instruction, is to construct novel words by the process of expletive
infixation. Some examples of expletive infixation are these:
fan-fuckin-tastic
un-fuckin-believable
Ala-fuckin-bama
Cali-fuckin-fornia
kanga-fuckin-roo
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Other expletives may be substituted if you and/or the informant are offended by
this one (flippin' and friggin' are popular substitutes).
Once you’ve established that your informant is familiar with this process, you
should elicit some data. Random selection of words is unlikely to yield much
insight. Instead, you need to proceed systematically. For example, go through the
following list of words with the informant, and ask whether the result is good or not
when the expletive is placed in each of the spots indicated by a hyphen:
fan-ta-stic
a-bra-ca-da-bra
A-la-ba-ma
ca-ta-ma-ran
se-ren-di-pi-ty
a-po-stro-phe
can-teen
Ask the informant to grade his/her judgments on a 1-2-3 scale, where 1=”fine”,
3=”horrible”, and 2 is somewhere in between. Report your results as follows:
a-bracadabra
3 (i.e., the informant thinks “a-fuckin-bracadabra” is
horrible)
abra-cadabra
1 (i.e., the informant thinks “abra-fuckin-cadabra” is fine)
Be sure the informant says the word aloud before passing judgment. Also, make
sure that the informant is familiar with the uninfixed word and how it is
pronounced.
Now comes the hard and interesting part. What’s the generalization? Look over the
cases that all have a 1. Do they have anything in common? What about the cases
that all have a 3? Do they have anything in common? When searching for
commonalities, be sure to consider the syllables that immediately precede and
immediately follow the expletive.
12

Ic method

The
method is based on the fact that a word characterised by
morphological divisibility (analysable into morphemes) is involved in
certain
structural correlations.

Breaking
a word into its immediate constituents we observe in each cut the
structural order of the constituents (which may differ from their
actual sequence). Furthermore we shall obtain only two constituents
at each cut, the ultimate constituents, however, can be arranged
according to their sequence in the word: un-+gent-+-le+-man+’ly.

AIMS
AND PRINCIPLES OF MORPHEMIC AND WORD-FORMATION ANALYSIS

If
the analysis is limited to stating the number and type of morphemes
that make up the word, it is referred to as morphemic.
For
instance, the word girlishness
may
be analysed into three morphemes: the root -girl-
and
two suffixes -ish
and
-ness.
The
morphemic classification of words is as follows: one root morpheme —
a
root word (girl),
one
root morpheme plus one or more affixes —
a
derived word (girlish,
girlishness), two
or more stems —
a
compound word (girl-friend),
two
or more stems and a common affix —
a
compound derivative (old-maidish).
The
morphemic analysis establishes only the ultimate constituents
that make up the word.

A
structural
word-formation analysis
proceeds further: it studies the structural
correlation
with other words, the structural patterns or rules on which words are
built.

This
is done with the help of the principle of oppositions,
i.e.
by studying the partly similar elements, the difference between which
is functionally relevant; in our case this difference is sufficient
to create a new word. Girl
and
girlish
are
members of a morphemic opposition. They are similar as the root
morpheme -girl-
is
the same. Their distinctive feature is the suffix -ish.
Due
to this suffix the second member of the opposition is a different
word belonging to a different part of speech. This binary opposition
comprises two elements.

А
соrrelatiоn
is a set of binary oppositions. It is composed of two subsets formed
by the first and the second elements of each couple, i.e. opposition.
Each element of the first set is coupled with exactly one element of
the second set and vice versa. Each second element may be derived
from the corresponding first element by a general rule valid for all
members of the relation.
Observing
the proportional opposition:

girl
child woman monkey spinster book

girlish childish womanish monkeyish spinsterish bookish

it
is possible to conclude that there is in English a type of derived
adjectives consisting of a noun stem and the suffix -ish.
Observation
also shows that the stems are mostly those of animate nouns, and
permits us to define the relationship between the structural pattern
of the word and its meaning. Any one word built according to this
pattern contains a semantic component common to the whole group,
namely: ‘typical of, or having the bad qualities of. There are also
some other uses of the adjective forming ‘ish,
but
they do not concern us here.

In
the above example the results of morphemic analysis and the
structural
word-formation
analysis
practically
coincide.
There are other cases, however, where they are of necessity
separated. The morphemic analysis is, for instance, insufficient in
showing the difference between the structure of inconvenience
v
and impatience
n;
it classifies both as derivatives. From the point of view of
word-formation pattern, however, they are fundamentally different. It
is only the second that is formed by derivation. Compare:

impatience
n
₌
patience
n
₌
corpulence
n
impatient
a
patient
a
corpulent
a

The
correlation that can be established for the verb inconvenience
is
different, namely:

inconvenience
v
₌
pain
v
₌
disgust
v
₌
anger
v
₌
daydream
v

inconvenience
n
pain
n
disgust
n
anger
n
daydream
n

Here
nouns denoting some feeling or state are correlated with verbs
causing this feeling or state, there being no difference in stems
between the members of each separate opposition. Whether different
pairs in the correlation are structured similarly or differently is
irrelevant. Some of them are simple root words, others are
derivatives or compounds. In terms of word-formation we state that
the verb inconvenience
when
compared with the noun inconvenience
shows
relationships characteristic of the process of conversion. Cf.
to
position where
the suffix -tion
does
not classify this word as an abstract noun but shows it is derived
from one.

This
approach also affords a possibility to distinguish between compound
words formed by composition and those formed by other processes.
The words honeymoon
n
and honeymoon
v
are both compounds, containing
two free stems, yet the first is formed by composition: honey
n
+
moon
n
>
honeymoon
n,
and the second by conversion: honeymoon
n>
honeymoon
v
(see Ch. 8).
The
treatment remains synchronic because it is not the origin of the word
that is established but its present correlations in the vocabulary
and the patterns productive in present-day English, although
sometimes it is difficult to say which is the derived form.

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Definition

The meaning of each word in a language is formed of a set of abstract characteristics known as semantic features (also known as Semantic Properties, Sense Components, Semantic Markers, Semantic Components), which acts as the determinant for distinguishing one word from another. The method by which the meaning of a word is analyzed into a set of semantic features is called the Semantic Feature Analysis (also called the Contrast Analysis, the Componential Analysis).

Theoretical Assumptions

The theoretical assumptions underlying this approach are as follows:

• The total meaning of a word can be analyzed in terms of a number of distinct elements or semantic features.
• One kind of word can be distinguished from another by extracting the main features.

Discussion

In the Semantic Feature Analysis, a word is analyzed in terms of a number of components of meaning. That is, during such analysis, the word is broken down into meaningful components which form the total sum of the meaning in a word. These components are not part of the vocabulary itself; the theoreticians postulated them in order to facilitate the description of the semantic relationship between the words of a given language. They could be considered as semantic universals as they may possess the same characteristics in all languages.

The Semantic Feature Analysis is capable of determining the presence or absence of semantic features. For example, by finding out the right semantic property of a word the learner is able to choose the appropriate noun for using it as the subject of a verb:

The above sentence is syntactically sound unless we judge it in terms of meaning. From the semantic point of view, the sentence is quite nonsensical, because, here the noun “television” has been inappropriately used as the subject of the verb “killed”. That means the noun “television” does have the right property to enable it to kill a person. Therefore, although the sentence is structurally correct, it is odd due to its meaninglessness.

Objective/Purpose

The main objective of the Semantic Feature Analysis is to guide the students to analyze the meanings of selected vocabulary items from a topic which they are familiar with. It also aims to show the learners how words are both similar and different, thereby emphasizing the uniqueness of each word in the language.

Procedure/Strategy

The Semantic Feature Analysis employs a chart to identify the basic features shared by key vocabulary words in a sentence or topic of discussion. By analyzing such a chart the learner is able to detect connections, make predictions and master important concepts. He will be also able to realize things that he doesn’t know yet, so he will know what additional research he need to do. The Semantic Analysis is prepared by observing the following steps:

1. The teacher first chooses a topic to be studied.
2. He then draws a chart.
3. In the left column of the chart, the teacher puts some key vocabulary items related to the topic. During the selection of key vocabulary words the teacher tries not to list any words which the students already might know.
4. Then across the top row of the chart, the teacher lists a set of meaningful features that some of the vocabulary items might have.
5. After that, the teacher asks the students to put a “+” (plus) sign in cells in which a given vocabulary word possesses an appropriate feature, and a “-” (minus) sign where it doesn’t. The following is an example of the chart for the Semantic Feature Analysis:

The television killed the man
	Features/Property/Components of Words ↓
Key Vocabulary ↓	animate	human	male	adult
television	—	—	—	—
man	+	+	+	+
woman	+	+	—	+
boy	+	+	+	—
girl	+	+	—	—

From the above chart, we can guess that the word “television” in English involves the features (-animate, -human, -male, -adult). Therefore, it is obvious that the word “television” cannot be related to a living entity.

Advantages

1. The Semantic Feature Analysis helps to develop the learner’s ability of comprehension and vocabulary skills.
2. Such an analysis creates ample scope for the learners to examine the related features to distinguish one word from another.
3. The Semantic Feature Analysis helps the learner to understand the conceptual meaning (also known as denotative meaning) of words, which is the meaning given in the dictionary and forms the core of word-meaning.
4. The Semantic Feature Analysis increases the learner’s ability to choose the right word in the right place.
5. The Semantic Feature Analysis provides opportunity for the teacher to know the learners’ knowledge about the topic of discussion; therefore, it allows the teacher to mould his instruction accordingly.

Disadvantages

1. The Semantic Feature Analysis is incapable of explaining the connotative or figurative meaning of words.
2. Although The Semantic Feature Analysis is capable of describing of words that share certain fairly obvious semantic properties, it fails to analyze all vocabulary items of the language.
3. The Semantic Feature Analysis is Limited in focus and mechanical in style.

References

“Componential analysis.”

Wikipedia

. 2013. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 10 November 2013

< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Componential_analysis>.

“Semantic Feature Analysis.”

AdLit.org

. 2013. WETA Washington, D.C. 10 November 2013

< http://www.adlit.org/strategies/22731/>.

“Semantic Feature Analysis.”

Reading Rockets

. 2013. WETA Washington, D.C.  10 November 2013

< http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/semantic_feature_analysis/>.

“Semantic Feature Analysis.”

Edweb

. 2013. San Diego State University. 10 November 2013

< http://edweb.sdsu.edu/triton/guides/SFA.html>.

“The Theory of Componential Analysis in Semantics.”

Neo English System

. 2013.

Neo English System. 10 November 2013

< http://neoenglishsystem.blogspot.com/2010/12/theory-of-componential-analysis-in.html>.

Yule, George. 

The Study of Language

. 2^nd ed. Cambridge: CUP, 1996. 115-116.