Week 4: Inflection I

English Morphology

Fernanda Barrientos

2024-11-12

And now, inflection

  • So far we have divided morphology into two domains: inflectional and derivational word formation.
  • Inflection refers to word formation that does not change category and does not create new lexemes, but rather changes the form of lexemes so that they fit into different grammatical contexts.

Warning - Cuidado - Achtung

Affixation, internal stem change, reduplication, etc. may be found not only in derivational morphology, but also in inflectional morphology, except for subtractive processes and compounding. In other words, form and function are different things.

Inflection in English

  • English has relatively little inflection, compared to other languages
  • While L1 English speakers are often surprised (and eventually frustrated) about the different ways in which other languages may inflect, L2 speakers of English are often grateful for the little inflection :)

Number

  • Many languages inflect in number -English does.
  • However, in the case of nouns, we have different morphemes for the plural: while -(e)s is the most common one, there are others too
Singular Plural
Cat cats
Dog dogs
Church churches
Ox oxen
Child children

Number in other languages

  • Some languages (for instance, Yup’ik) have a dual number, which refers to only two elements.
Gloss Singular Dual Plural
‘ḱayak’ qayaq qayak qayat
‘beaver’ paluqtaq paluqtak paluqtat
  • Other languages do not inflect for number in nouns at all, such as Mandarin.

Person

  • Many Indo-European languages (including German) inflect for person in verbs:
Sing. Plural
1st sage sagen
2nd sagst sagt
3rd sagt sagen
  • However, some languages inflect for person in nouns (Indo-European languages tend to use possessive pronouns for this). Here is an example from Mohawk:
Sing. 1st k-hnia’sà:ke ‘my throat’
2nd s-hnia’sà:ke ‘your throat’
3rd ie-hnia’sà:ke ‘his throat’
ra-hnia’sà:ke ‘her throat’
Plural 1st iakwa-hnia’sà:ke ‘our throat’
2nd sewa-hnia’sà:ke ‘your pl. throat’
3rd konti-hnia’sà:ke ‘their M. throat’
rati-hnia’sà:ke ‘their F. throat’

Inclusive vs. exclusive

  • The first person plural (we) may have two forms, depending on whether the hearer is included or not
  • The inclusive form of the first person could be thought of as a combination of first and second person marking, and the exclusive as a combination of first and third person marking.
  • Mohawk has inclusive and exclusive in 1st person plural and dual:
Inclusive Exclusive
1st plural tewa-hià:tons ‘we all (you pl. and I) are writing’ iakwa-hià:tons ‘we all (they and I) are writing’
Dual teni-hià:tons ‘we two (you and I) are writing’ iakeni-hià:tons ‘we two (s/he and I) are writing’

Gender

  • Grammatical gender \(\neq\) natural gender!
  • Many Indo-European languages have grammatical gender, which is usually not marked in the noun itself (therefore, we need to memorize them when we learn a second language).
Masc Fem Neuter
French l’homme ‘the man’ la femme ‘the woman’ –
le rat ‘the rat’ la souris ‘the mouse’ –
le bureau ‘the desk’ la table ‘the table’ –
German der Mann ‘the man’ die Frau ‘the woman’ das Kind ‘the child’
der Tisch ‘the table’ die Mauer ‘the wall’ das Fenster ‘the window’
der Hund ‘the dog’ die Maus ‘the mouse’ das Pferd ‘the horse’
  • As seen on the table above, the best way to tell whether a noun corresponds to any given gender is to look for agreement: in German, masculine nouns go with der, etc.

Case

  • Case is another grammatical category that may affect nouns (or whole noun phrases).
  • In languages with case inflection, nouns take a given case based on whether they function as:
    • subject
    • direct object
    • indirect object
    • location
    • time
    • instrument
    • object of a preposition, etc.
  • The number of cases in a language may also vary: German has 4, Finnish has 15

Latin

  • Five cases
  • Singular and plural forms for each case
  • Also, they are five ways to decline nouns, depending on the type of noun
    • (Then things get messy, but we won’t go there)
  • First declension, for verbs with -a stems:
Singular Plural
Nominative rosa rosae
Genitive rosae rosarum
Accusative rosam rosas
Dative rosae rosis
Ablative rosa rosis

Latin

  • What does each case mean?
    • Nominative: subject of the sentence (who/what Verbs)
    • Accusative: generally for the direct object (what is being Verbed)
    • Dative: for the indirect object (to receives the action of Verb)
    • Genitive: is used for the possessor (Whose)
    • Ablative: is used for the objects of prepositions (e.g., cum ‘with’ … ), although some prepositions take objects in the accusative case (ad ‘to’, post ‘after’).
  • Latin displays what is commonly called a nominative/accusative case system
    • Subjects of verbs are nominative, whether the verbs are transitive (i.e., they take an object) or intransitive (they don’t take an object).

Ergative/absolutive systems

  • Less common than the nominative/accusative system is the ergative/absolutive system

Ergative/absolutive systems

In this kind of system, the subject of a transitive verb gets a case called the ergative. The subject of an intransitive verb gets a case called the absolutive, which is also the case used for the direct object of a transitive verb.

  • An example of a language with such a system is Georgian:

But, what does transitive and intransitive mean?

  • We can think about verbs in terms of valency, just like in chemistry
  • Some verbs have one hand, which is usually for the subject. These are intransitive verbs.

  • Other verbs have two hands. They are for the subject and an object. These are transitive verbs.

Tense

  • Tense and aspect refer to time in verbs, but they are not the same.
  • Tense refers to the point of time of an event in relation to another point; generally the point at which the speaker is speaking.
    • Present tense: Speaking time = Event time
    • Past tense: Event time is before speaking time
    • Future tense: Event time will occur after speaking time

Tense

  • English and German have inflectional affixes for the past tenses, but not for the future. Instead, a periphrastic form is used.
English German Spanish
1Sg Present I love Ich liebe Yo amo
1Sg Past I loved Ich liebte Yo amé
1Sg Future I will love Ich werde lieben Yo amaré
  • Some languages distinguish several kinds of past tense and several kinds of future tense, based on how close or distant the event spoken about is from the time of speaking.

Aspect: perfective/imperfective

  • Aspect refers to the internal composition of the event or “the way in which the event occurs in time” (Bhat 1999: 43).
  • There are several types of aspectual distinctions:
    • Perfective/imperfective aspect:
      • With perfective aspect, an event is viewed as completed; we look at the event from the outside, and its internal structure is not relevant (“I ate the apple”)
      • With imperfective aspect, actions are ongoing; we look at the event from the inside, as it unfolds (“I was eating the apple”).

Aspect: perfective/imperfective

  • Spanish has a verbal system where the past and the future have a perfective and imperfective aspect (though the perfective form of the future is expressed periphrastically: habré amado)

Aspect: inceptive/continuative/completive

  • Some languages inflect to indistinguish different points in time during an event:
    • Inceptive aspect focuses on the beginning of an event
    • Continuative aspect focuses on the middle of the event as it progresses
    • Completive aspect focuses on the end
  • Here is an example from Manipuri:

Aspect: Quantificational

  • How many times is an action occurring? Languages can also inflect for this kind of aspectual distinction
    • Semelfactive aspect refers to actions that occur once
    • Iterative aspect refers to actions that occur repeatedly
    • In habitual aspect, an action is performed routinely

One more thing about aspect:

Aspect is not so straightforward

Most of the times tense and aspect are intertwined, so telling them apart is not that simple. For instance, the present tense in English can express both habitual and imperfective aspect: compare dogs bark (everey night at 3am) and a dog barks (now).

  • English, just like many other languages, can express aspect periphrastically.
    • I began to run (inceptive)
    • I usually run (habitual)
    • I ran over and over (iterative)
    • I keep on running (continuative)

Voice

  • Voice can be active (the agent of the action is the subject) or passive (the subject of the sentence is the patient).
  • Again, languages may or may not inflect for this. For those who don’t, there is a periphrastic form.
  • English:
    • The cat chased the mouse
    • The mouse was chased by the cat.
  • Latin:
    • Ego amo (‘I love’)
    • Ego amor (‘I am loved’)

Mood

  • Languages often have three moods:
    • Declarative for statements
    • Interrogative for asking questions
    • Imperative for giving commands
  • However, many Indo-European languages also have subjunctive/conjunctive mood:
    • Spanish: Ella vuelve a casa (‘she is coming back home’) vs. Es posible que ella vuelva a casa (‘It is possible that she comes back home’)
    • German: Wenn ich Zeit habe, helfe ich dir (‘I will help you when I have time’) vs. Wenn ich Zeit hätte, würde ich dir helfen (‘If I had time, I would help you’)
    • English has a trace of subjunctive mood, which is expressed with the plural: If I were you, I would take that advice

Evidentiality

  • In languages that inflect for evidentiality, speakers specify how they obtained the information:
    • Was it confirmed by the speaker him/herself?
    • Did someone else tell the speaker about it?
    • Is knowledge of the fact shared by the listener and the speaker?
  • Languages such as Central Pomo distinguish five types of evidentials:

Summary

  • Inflection does not involve changes in category or meaning, but adds agreement and grammatical context within the sentence
  • Some inflection targets nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and/or articles, while other inflection is specific to the verb
  • Languages may convey the same idea in different ways: while some have special affixes for this, others use periphrastic forms
  • English is relatively poor inflection-wise when compared to other languages, but we will talk a bit more about this next week

Next week

  • Read Lieber, Ch. 6 (“Inflection”, sections 6.1 and 6.2)
  • Attend the tutorial