--- # Creativity in Morphology ### Dr. Will Styler - LIGN 120 --- ### Today's Plan - Productivity vs. Creativity - Making new words - Creativity - Reanalysis - An alternative view of morphology --- # Productivity vs. Creativity --- ### Some uses of morphemes are *productive* - They are understandable, and feel *right*! - Describe -> Describable - Describe -> Described - Indescribably right! --- ### Productive processes are boring - They feel perfectly grammatical - They're perfectly understandable - They're easy to interpret --- ### Some usages are *creative* - They're understandable, but a bit off - "Unbreak my heart, uncry these tears" - "Can you stop linguisting and help me vacuum?" - "Put down the haterade" - "The problem was solved computeringly" --- ### Creative processes raise eyebrows - They are usually understandable - ... but they don't feel super legal - ... and they can take a moment to figure out - ( ... the computeringliest solution) --- ### Creativity can often be a form of wordplay --- N-now th-that that don't kill me Can only make me stronger I need you to hurry up now 'Cause I can't wait much longer I know I got to be right now 'Cause I can't get much wronger --*Kanye West's 'Stronger'* --- ### Productivity and Creativity are a continuum - It's hard to say when an affix is being used 'off label' - Measurements of how 'innovative' a usage is are tough to do - There's not a hard and fast line - ... and the distinguishability of the two is a theoretical question --- ### Creativity comes in many forms - We've talked about applying morphemes out of their productive domain - Sometimes, you're making up new words entirely! --- # Word Creation --- ### We have many ways to create new words - We've talked about derivational morphology - ... but there are other processes --- ### Common Word Creation Methods - Blending - Clipping - Acronyms - Backcronyms - Initialisms - Univerbation - Metaphorical Extension - Coining - Borrowing --- ### Blending multiple words - Trendetarian - Eats whatever is trendy (Trendy+Vegetarian?) - Staycation - A vacation at home (Stay+Vacation) - Frenemy - Somebody who is both a friend and an enemy - Mansplain - To condescendingly explain something (from Man+Explain) - Backcronym - "Backwards Acronym" --- ### Clipping existing words - Fam - From "Family" - Cray - From "Crazy" - Totes - From "totally" - He caught an L - From "Loss" - Feels --- ### Creating Acronyms - *Acronyms are pronounceable!* - Bobo - 'Bohemian bourgeois' - JSOC - 'Joint special operations command' - NASA - 'National Aeronautics and Space Administration' - Thot - 'That hoe over there' --- ### Backronyms - "hodl" - "Hold on for dear life" - USA PATRIOT Act - "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" --- ### Creating Initialisms - *Initialisms are pronounced as a series of letters* - UCSD - University of California San Diego - FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation - IPA - International Phonetic Alphabet - Or India Pale Ale, to some weirdos --- ### Univerbations - over-the-top - unheard of - through-street - under-the-table - netflix and chill --- ### Metaphorical Extension - spam - mouse - salty - to pitch (a sale) - to shift (a car) --- ### Coining brand new words! - Bling - doggo - dongle - uwu - xerox --- ### What other new words can you think of? --- ### Do we always work with whole words or known affixes? --- ## No! --- ### Last time, we talked about losing affixes ---
*... and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend, legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, the morpheme passed out of all knowledge. Until, when chance came, it ensnared another bearer.* --- # Reanalysis --- ### Morphological Analysis is what we've been doing - "Where are the boundaries between these morphemes?" - "What does each of these morphemes mean?" --- ### Morphological Analysis is something that happens over and over! - ... and anything that happens over and over, can change! - Speakers will sometimes re-segment words to create new affixes - Kids learn something as an affix that was once a part of a monolithic word --- ### Morphological Reanalysis "A change in the structure of a word that does not involve any immediate or intrinsic modification of its surface manifestation" (Paraphrased from Langacker 1977) --- ### Resegmentation is the most common type of morphological reanalysis - Re-evaluating the presence, absence, or location of morpheme boundaries *within an existing word!* - "No, older generation, that's analyzeable!" --- ### Resegmentation
--- ### Cran-
--- ### This often happens with borrowings - Pease -> Peas -> Pea - Statistics -> Statistic - Burglar -> Burgle - Tamales -> Tamale - Euthanasia -> Euthanize --- ### Sometimes, these are modern words - Babysitter -> Babysit - Bookkeeper -> Bookkeep - Dingy -> Dinge - Mentor -> Mentee - Taser -> Tase - Typewriter -> Typewrite --- ### Speakers can differ in their acceptance of these forms - Uncouth -> Couth? - Enthusiasm -> Enthuse? - Disgruntled -> Gruntled? - Disdained -> Dained? --- ### An affix is born! - #
Alcohol
ic
- #
Alc
oholic
--- ### -oholic is now a *productive* affix - Chocoholic - Workaholic - Enchiladaholic - (Does this mean that Catholics really like cats?) --- ### Arnold Zwicky coined a term for these: 'libfix' - -burger - -tard - -naut - Cran- - -gate --- ## Wow, we're really creative! --- ### Indeed! - This is why we're teaching this class from a strongly *analytic* perspective! - We can't teach you faster than speakers can innovate - Morphology is an active, ongoing process - You need to be active, ongoing linguists! --- # An alternative viewpoint --- ### Reanalysis is the splitting of monolithic words into affixes - We're discovering affixes within whole words using *analogy* within the lexicon - "These are usually stored and accessed as whole words, but I guess these parts all do the same thing" - "I'll bet I could snap off that component alone and use it!" --- ### What if that's how *all of morphology* works? ---
--- ### Recall Split vs. Single Component Morphology
--- ### Both approaches make an assumption
--- ### Are words really 'built to order'? - "Let's see, I need to talk about gluing this thing, again, in the past. That's 'glue', plus 're-', and '-ed'." - "OK! One 'reglued' coming up!" --- ### Or are we just choosing from the vending machine?
--- ### Words may be grabbed whole from the lexicon - "Let's see, I need to talk about gluing this thing, again, in the past. Looks like 'reglued' is the meaning I need!" - "Comes with cheese, egg salad, and phonology" - \
--- ### We'll talk more about this idea soon! - ... but be thinking about the possibilities and predictions --- ### Wrapping Up - Productive uses of words are easily interpretable and friction free - Creative uses of words take a bit more effort, but we can get there - New words can be created through many processes - Existing words can be reanalyzed, allowing the parts to be usable - ... and maybe that's how all of this works! --- ### For Next Time - We'll talk more about a morpheme-based lexicon ---
Thank you!