CONTRASTIVE MORPHOLOGY

CONTRASTIVE MORPHOLOGY

1. What is morphology?

   • Studies the composition and behavior of morphemes
     • What are morphemes?
       • Are the minimal meaningful unit in a language

2. Inflectional morphology

   • It leads to the same word category after morpheme
     • Marks Grammatical properties (case, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, comparison)
       • Example:
         • 'Cat' remains a noun when adding 's' fro plurality (Cats)
         • In Spanish, 'Jugar' is a verb, and when joined by the inflectional suffix 'ando', it remains a verb (jugando)

3. Derivational morphology

   • It often leads to a different word category after adding a morpheme
     • Example:
       • In Spanish 'Capaz' is an adjective, but becomes a noun when turned into 'Capacidad'
       • 'Eat' is a verb, but when merged with the derivational suffix 'er', it becomes a noun (eater)
     • a) denominal (e.g. N>A, N>V) e.g. home (n.) > hom eless (adj.)
     • b) deverbal (e.g. V>N, V>A) e.g. bake (v.) > baker (n.)
     • c) deadjectival (e.g. A>V, A>N) e.g. national (adj.) > nationalise (v.)

4. English vs. Spanish

   • Noun
     • In Spanish, nouns are inflected for number and gender, whereas in English they are also inflected to express possession
       • However, English noun inflection affecting gender is very limited and unproductive
   • Adjectives
     • While Spanish adjectives follow the same rules as nouns for number and gender
       • English adjectives do not display any of these morhpological features
   • Verb
     • Spanish finite verb forms are inflected for: (I)Tense, (II)Person, (III)Number, (IV)Mood, (V)Aspect.
       • In English, inflection is only displayed for tense, person and number.

5. Evaluative suffixation

   • Diminutives
     • Spanish has a more productive form of diminutives than English
       • They are tipically realted to size and they can express othe meanings such as affection, friendliness and irrelevance
   • Argumentatives
     • Can be used to describe a large size of something. Only Spanish has argumentative suffixes
   • Pejoratives
     • Spanish has an abundant number of pejorative suffixes. English uses them, but in a less productive manner.