major_kerina | Form Classes (Grammar Work) (Reply)

Word classes that can be identified by their morphological form

Membership in one of these classes is determined by the forms of the words.
The class can be identified by the presence of derivational or inflectional morphemes that constitute the word.
Word classes that can be identified by their derivational form are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Word classes that can be identified by their inflectional form include nouns, gradable adjectives, and verbs.
Inflectional form can be actual or potential. (Book and Books)
The word classes that constitute the form classes are open classes
They admit new membership.

Nouns and Derivational Morphemes
Some derivational morphemes derive nouns and only nouns from bases of different word classes.
Remember that derivational morphemes are generally not highly productive (do not produce new words?) and will apply to only a few bases in a given class. Inflectional morphemes are more useful in deducing form classes because of their wider abilities.

Chart - Here - All derive nouns.

Morphemes - The Plural
To say that nouns can be pluralized is too strong of a statement.
English has sub-classes of nouns.
Proper nouns are usually capitalized, and because they each refer to a single entity it is difficult to pluralize them.
Mississippi
New York City
Son of Sam

Other sub-classes of nouns
Mass nouns (non-count nouns) generally cannot be modified with a determiner or a numeral, and they cannot be pluralized.
linguistics haste tennis sugar water *note - what about waters, sugars in some contexts - maybe email prof*
The most common sub-class of noun is the count noun. These nouns can be preceded by determiners and numerals, and they can be pluralized.
course book pencil noun desk

Hierarchy - Nouns on top followed by Proper Nouns, Non-Count Nouns, Count Nouns (Regular and Irregular). Irregular is like - Man Men and Ox Oxen.

Almost all count nouns in English are regular and can be pluralized with the regular plural inflectional morpheme.
computer computers
house houses
stick sticks
Some count nouns are exceptional, for even though they can be made plural, the form is irregular.

Exceptional count nouns:
goose geese
foot feet
man men
woman women
ox oxen
child children

Other count nouns do not change form for the plural.
Examples of count nouns that do not change form:
sheep sheep
deer deer
fish fish

Count Nouns pluralized with different styles (man - men) and where the forms are identical (fish fish)

The possessive

As is true of all inflectional morphemes. the possessive co-occurs with the words of a single word class--in this case, nouns.
Unlike other inflectional morphemes, the possessive appears to derive a word of a different word class--a determiner.
Tom’s job is not very satisfying.
His job is not very satisfying.

The possessive can also function as a complete noun phrase in itself, actually a type of noun phrase substitute.
Dan’s job is not very satisfying.
But Anna’s is.
(Note - the 2nd is nominal by name, one word replacement for a noun phrase).

Singular and Possessive
In oral English, the singular and plural possessive sound identical.
Some sentences taken out of context could be ambiguous.
The dogs food ran out (apostrophe omitted).
Is this one dog or more?

In written English, however, the ambiguity is resolved by the different placement of the apostrophe.
The dog’s food ran out.
The dogs’ food ran out.
You have all heard a rule for the placement of apostrophes in English.
What is the rule?

Practice
Make the following words possessive.
Tess
Roger
cats
ox
oxen
Charles
doctors

Stem Plural Singular Possessive Plural Possessive

child children child’s children’s
teacher teachers teacher’s teachers’
Thomas Thomases Thomas’s Thomases’

So the rule then is -
If the written noun ends in the -s of plurality, form the possessive with an apostrophe after the -s. In all other cases, use ‘s to form the possessive.

A small number of derivational suffixes derive verbs from bases of other word classes.
The newly derived verbs are all regular. (the two -en s are different in which morpheme they are and both -ify)

Word class
of base      Base    Derivational morpheme Derived word
noun         length             -en                         lengthen
adjective     ripe             -en                           ripen
adjective    solid             -ify                         solidify
noun          beauty          -ify                          beautify

English has four inflectional morphemes that co-occur with verb stems.
The third person singular of the present tense (I walk You walk He/She/It walks) (s or -es)
The past tense (-ed usually - I walked [pronounced with a T])
The present participle (-ing - he was <--(aux) running)
The past participle (participle - co-occur with auxilliary verbs - I have <-(aux) walked)
The two most irregular forms (speak) are the present tense (spoke) and the present participle (spoken)

Most verbs in English are regular and will have at least three distinct forms:
walk (3rdSingPres) walks  (Past tense) walked (present part) walking (past part) walked
visit                          visits                       visited                         visiting                  visited
In English, the past tense and past participle forms of regular verbs are written and pronounced identically.

For a verb to be irregular in English only one form in the paradigm needs to be irregular. (same distribution)
Speak                                 speaks      (irr) spoke   speaking   (irr)spoken
Choose                              chooses    (irr) chose   choosing  (irr) chosen
Cut                                          cuts      (irr) cut        cutting        (irr) cut
The irregular forms are almost always the past tense and past participle.

Adjectives
Some derivational suffixes derive adjectives from bases of other word classes. Productive creative words.

Word class
of base
                 Base          Derivational morpheme     Derived word
noun        poison                 -ous                          poisonous
noun         nation                 -al                             national
noun          king                   -ly                             kingly
verb         assert                  -ive                           assertive

Many of you have heard that if a word ends in -ly, it is an adverb. Examine the words below to determine the word class of the base and the derived word.
friend (noun)  friendly (adj)
dead (adj)  deadly (adj)
quick (adj) quickly (adverb...finally)

The two inflectional morphemes that co-occur with adjectives are the comparative and the superlative.
However, they do not apply to all adjectives, but rather to a sub-class called gradable adjectives.
Make the words below comparative and superlative.
fat   thin smart   happy   crazy
fatter fattest thinner thinnest smarter smartest happier happiest crazier craziest

Now try to make these words comparative and superlative.
dead pregnant alive lost last first
These words are non-gradable adjectives.
What is the difference between the two types of adjectives? Non-gradable cannot be made comparative and superlative. Gradable can.

The semantic quality expressed by a non-gradable adjective is either extant or not (present or not). It's either dead or not.
In contrast, the semantic quality expressed by a gradable adjective has many different degrees of realization.

Other adjectives appear to be gradable, but they cannot be made comparative or superlative through the use of inflectional morphemes (-er and -est).
beautiful
intelligent
interesting
Are these adjectives gradable? Yes but with more and most.
Can they be comparative and superlative?

These words can be made comparative and superlative through the use of the words more (comparative) and most (superlative).
more beautiful   most beautiful
more intelligent   most intelligent
more interesting   most interesting

By examining the gradable adjectives below, discover the regularity for why some are formed into the comparative and the superlative morphologically whereas others are formed syntactically.
So what keeps them apart? Not based on semantics. Morphological vs. Syntactic.
tall  statuesque
pretty  beautiful
smart  intelligent
great  stupendous

As you have seen only a few morphemes exist for deriving adjectives from bases of other word classes.
Fortunately, a very simple test exists for distinguishing adjectives from other word classes.
You can test for adjectives by using an adjective frame.

And the Frame....
Only words of certain classes can fill a particular syntactic position.
One such position is between a determiner and a noun.
Any one word that appears between a determiner and a noun is an adjective.

The Frame (determiner---(adj goes)---noun)
the    (long)      book
this    (old)     house
a       (lousy)     student
an     (ingenious)      idea
that     (cold)         water

Adverbs are harder than the other form classes to recognize by their morphological structure.
No inflectional morphemes apply to adverb stems.
Few derivational morphemes derive adverbs from bases of other word classes.
A large number of adverbs do not have any special morphological features.

Word class of base   Base Derivational morpheme Derived word

adjective                quick             -ly                          quickly
noun                       health            -wise                     healthwise
noun                         sky             -ward                     skyward

Because so few derivational morphemes derive adverbs from bases of other word classes, very few morphological clues are available for distinguishing adverbs from words of other word classes.
However, adverbs are very mobile in English and can easily be moved from one position to another.

Moving Adverbs

Sentence Adverbs (modify the content of an entire sentence)
It rained for three hours yesterday.
Yesterday it rained for three hours.
Predicate Adverbs (move near the predicate...between auxilliary verb and a main verb here)
The Germans were decisively defeated at the Battle of the Bulge.
The Germans were defeated decisively at the Battle of the Bulge.