Practice Inflectional Morphology Problems 2

1. Tolkapaya Yavapai (The Yavapai data below is in practical orthography.)

a. Identify all the morphemes in the data, both the affixes and the stems:

b. Based on the morphology, you should be able to identify two different categories of stems: assuming that the morpheme meaning 'man' is a noun and that meaning 'fall' is a verb, list all the nouns and all the verbs in separate labeled columns.

Nouns Verbs

nya man-

ma chqwam-

humar swar-

pahmi

vqi

'wa

'hat

2 Nez Perce

The data below are somewhat simplified (you have been protected from some fairly complex phonological variation).

Note: ʔo is an auxiliary that indicates that the subject of the verb is third person and the verb is imperfective (you could say in these cases that ?o means ‘ is/was/are/were V- ing’.

ʔida 'this' hega 'that' -m plural of demonstrative

ʔuwi 'woman' ʔali 'child' gogs 'dog' milga:n 'Anglo'

To make a noun plural, reduplicate the initial CV and infix the copy after the first V (or prefix it the word--the data doesn't tell you which).

Demonstratives agree with the nouns they modify in number.

cipkan 'work' ko:s 'sleep' daha 'sit'

To make a verb agree with a plural subject, reduplicate the initial C and infix the copy after the first V.

5. Swahili (adapted from An Introduction to Language, Fromkin and Rodman)

Identify all the morphemes in the sentences above, both affixes and roots. Both case and agreement are marked in these data, and marked in a rather complicated (and somewhat typologically odd way). Be sure that you are clear about what is agreeing with what and what case is being marked.

ʔi:n 1st person singular pronoun -sa:qa past tense

ʔi:m 2nd person singular pronoun -sa present tense

waq- 'wake up' -oʔ future tense

wanptay- 'sing' -nim subject of transitive verb

mc'i- 'hear' -ne direct object

ha:cwal 'boy' -- subject of intransitive verb

χaχa:c 'grizzly bear' hi- 3rd person subject/not 3rd person object

ha:ma 'man' (no object or 1st or 2nd person object)

pa- 3rd person subject/3rd person object

3. Identify all the morphemes in the Quiché data below.

Verb: Tense + Agreement + Vstem

4. Identify all the morphemes and morphological processes in the Papago data below.

One of the characteristic features of Swahili (and Bantu languages in general) is the existence of noun classes. There are specific singular and plural prefixes that occur with the nouns of each class. These prefixes are also used for purposes of agreement between the subject-noun and the verb. In the sentences given, two of these classes are included (there are many more in the language).

a. Identify all the morphemes you can detect. Be sure to look for the other noun and verb affixes, including tense markers.

m- singular noun of H class a- subject-verb agreement with singular noun of H class

wa- plural noun of H class and subject-verb agreement with plural noun of H class

ki- singular noun of I class and subject-verb agreement with singular noun of I class

vi- plural noun of I class and subject-verb agreement with plural noun of I class

me- past (or present perfect)

na- present (progressive)

-fika 'arrive' -anguka 'fall' -lala sleep'

H Class Nouns I Class Nouns

-toto 'child' -su 'knife'

-tu 'man' -kapu 'basket'

b. How is the verb constructed? That is, what kinds of morphemes are strung together and in what order?

Agreement with subject + Tense + Vstem