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Chapter I SIX GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES |
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Lesson 2 Expansion & Conversion
2-1 [Morpheme + Morpheme = Word]
A morpheme carries a meaning; it is a group of sounds in the spoken language and a group of letters in the written language. Conversation or written passages consist of several morphemes. Suppose you wish to send the following message. (1) A cat danced happily on the round table.Sentence (1) presents the message in written letters. The pattern of the sentence is "a group of letters -- a vacancy -- a group of letters -- a vacancy -- ...", where a group of letters and a vacancy alternate. This group of letters is called a word. In sentence (1) above, "A", "cat", "danced", "happily", "on", "the", "round", and "table" are all words. Notice that a word may consist of one morpheme as in "cat" and "table" or two (or more) morphemes as in "dance-d" and "happi-ly". Look at the tree diagrams for "cat" and "table" which are both made up of a morpheme.
(2) (cat) (3) (table)
Word Word
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Morpheme Morpheme
(cat) (table)
The tree diagrams for "danced" and "happily", on the other hand, would be as follows.
(4) (danced) (5) (happily)
Word Word
Some morphemes are always smaller than a word. A morpoheme such as "-ed" or "-ly" is called an affix.2-2 [Morpheme + Morpheme = Phrase] In this book, a group of two or more words which do not yet constitute a sentence(cf.9-1) is called a phrase. The combinations "a cat", "danced happily", and "on the table" are all phrases. Combinations like "*happily on" and "*on the" are not phrases because they carry no complete meaning. The diagrams of "a cat" and "danced happily" are as follows.
(6) (a cat)
Phrase
In (6), "a" as a word and a morpheme plus "cat" as a word and a morpheme make the phrase "a cat". In (7), "dance" as a word and as a morpheme is combined with "-ed" as an affix and as a morpheme to make the word "danced". Similarly, the word "happy" and the affix "-ly" are combined to make the word "happily". Thus, the phrase "danced happily" is made up of two words but four morphemes.2-3 [Compounds] Used idiomatically, some phrases are written (i)separately, (ii)with a hyphen, or (iii)as a word. These are often called compounds.
(i) Separate Compounds
(8) whipped cream, White House,
bottom line, cat's eye, etc.
(ii) Compounds with a hyphen
(9) break-in, H-bomb, great-grandchild, face-to-face,
up-to-date, do-it-yourself, three-fifths, passer-by,
etc.
(iii) Compounds as a word
(10) headache, income, onlooker, throwaway, overflow, etc.
As you can imagine easily, some compounds are written separately, with a hyphen and as a word.
(11)a. stomach ache
b. stomach-ache
c. stomachache
"Stomach ache" in (11a) is taken as a phrase of two words, while "stomachache" in (11c) is taken as a word. "Stomach-ache" in (11b) is taken as an in-between.2-4 [Expansion] Let's get back to morphemes and look at the combinations of two morphemes from a different point of view. The word "unable" is made up of two morphemes. One is a word morpheme "able" and the other is an affix morpheme "un-". Notice that "able" and "unable" are used in the same grammatical environment.
(12) John is [able/unable].
Thus, "able" and "unable" can be said to belong to the same grammatical category. In other words, "un-" does not change the grammatical nature of "able". Diagram:
(13) (unable)
Y
Similarly, in the following "can" is added to "swim" to make the phrase "can swim". Again "swim" and "can swim" have the same grammatical environment.
(14) All the villagers [swim/can swim] in the river.
In the case of "can swim" as well, "can" does not change the grammatical nature of "swim". Diagram:
(15) (can swim)
Y
In this book we will call combinations such as "un + able" and "can + swim" cases of expansion. The combination of expansion is shown as follows.
(16) X + Y
2-5 [Conversion] The word "ability" is made up of two morphemes. One is a word morpheme "able" and the other is an affix morpheme "-ity". Notice that "able" and "ability" are not used in the same grammatical environment. They belong to different grammatical categories.
(17)a. The boss had an [able/*ability] secretary.
b. The boss appreciated his secretary's [ability/*able].
The morpheme "able" combined with the morpheme "-ity" has changed into another kind of grammatical category.Diagram:
(18) (ability)
Z
The case is the same with "to swim" in the following.
(19)a. You can [swim/*to swim] here.
b. I like [to swim/*swim].
Diagram:
(20) (to swim)
Z
In this book, morpheme combinations such as "ability" and "to swim" are called cases of conversion. The combination of conversion is shown as follows.
(21) X + Y
2-6 [Major Morphemes vs Minor Morphemes] Whether in expansion or in conversion, some morphemes play a major or stem-like role, while others play a minor or complementary role. The former ones are called major morphemes, while the latter ones are called minor morphemes. Review the examples in 2-4 and 2-5.
(22) un- + able
As in the above, all the affix morphemes are minor morphemes, and some word/phrase morphemes can also be minor morphemes.
(24) can + swim
The underlined parts in (24) to (27) are also minor morphemes because they are always dependent on major morphemes.2-7 [Minor Morpheme : Expander(EPD)/Convertor(CVT)] Some minor morphemes are of affix level and others are of word/ phrase level and their essential significance is their function. Some function for expansion, while others function for conversion. In this book, we call a minor morpheme functioning for expansion an expander or an EPD and a minor morpheme functioning for conversion a convertor or a CVT. The underlined parts in (22) to (27) are all minor morphemes. They can be rearranged as expanders or convertors.
(i) <EPDs>
a) Affix EPD
(28) (unable)
X
Thus, "un-" in (28), "can" in (29), and "be going to" in (30) are expanders(EPDs) because they do not change the grammatical nature of their partner, while "-ity" in (31), "to" in (32), and "because of" in (33) are convertors(CVTs) because they do change the grammatical nature of their partner.Remember that a major morpheme cannot be an expander or a convertor. An expander or a convertor must be a minor morpheme. Consider the following:
(34) young + people
Combination (34) is an example of expansion because the output "young people" syntactically behaves just like "people". On the other hand, combination (35) is the example of conversion because the output "People die" behaves like neither "people" nor "die". However, there is no minor morpheme in either example. So there is no expander nor convertor in (34) or (35). Diagram:
(36) (young people) [Expansion]
Y
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Y [expansion]
(The sign 
Z [Conversion]
(The sign |
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