MORPHOLOGY: DERIVATION, INFLECTION, AFFIXATION

MORPHOLOGY: DERIVATION, INFLECTION, AFFIXATION

This paper deals with Morphology regarding Derivation, Inflection, and Affixation discussed by Hanafi (2016), in which the examples related to the three topics provided by Hanafi are going to be associated with Katamba’s (1993) theory. First of all, the discussion will be focused on Derivation. According to Trask in Hanafi (2016), derivation is a branch of morphology concerning with word-formation “in which the process of obtaining new words by adding affixes to the existing words or stems occur (Hanafi, 2016)”. By means affix, it is bound morpheme, which can only be attached to a word or stem, and the process of it is able to change the word semantically and grammatically. Besides, Katamba (1993) pointed out that “derivational morpheme forms new words by either changing the meaning of the base to which they are attached or by changing the word-class that a base belongs to. Thus, for the clearer explanation, Hanafi (2016) outlined some word-classes in which affixes occur, as follows:

·    Noun Markers

Traditionally, noun refers to the word naming such things as person, place, and idea. Commonly, nouns are marked by some markers (usually suffix), such as -cy, -ion, -ty, -ship, -al, er, -or, -ist, -ce, -ing, -ate, and -logy. Yet, there are some nouns do not have any markers, such as the words dream, wish, and so forth. Noun, in English word-formation, derives from noun, verb, and adjective. For instances, the words independence (noun) becomes independency (noun), propose (verb) becomes proposal (noun), happy (adjective) becomes happiness (noun). According to Katamba (1993), “suffix –ship is used to change a concrete noun base into an abstract noun (meaning, state, condition”. For example, as Hanafi (2016) putted it “friend (noun) becomes friendship (noun)”, in which suffix added changes noun base into abstract noun.

·    Verb Markers

Verb constitutes a word showing action or state of being. Commonly, the markers in a verb deal with -en, -ize, and -en. The verbs, in English, can be derived from noun with -en prefix (noun: danger becomes verb: endanger). In this case, Katamba (1993) stated that -en can be meant ‘make’, or else -en can mean ‘to put in’ as the word danger with prefix -en that becomes en-danger (to put in danger). Further, the verb can be derived from adjective as well, with –ize and -en suffixes (adjectives: modern and black become verb: modernize and blacken), from adverb with -en suffix (adverb: fast becomes verb: fasten. In another case, dealing with a verb derives from noun, it is not marked by any affixes and is called as zero marking (-0), in which a word has two grammatical categories. The noun glue, for example, that does not have any marker in its verb, which is glue.

·    Adjective Markers

Spears in Hanafi (2016), revealed a statement regarding adjective, as quoted “adjective is a member of group of words that are used to modify, supplement, add to, or restrict the meaning of nouns or nominal. Commonly, the marker in adjective can be found in such forms as -ic, -ous, -ing, -ed, -ive, -al, and -ial. Similar to the case of verb and noun markers, adjective deals with zero marking as well, such as in the words sad and black. Referring to the affixes mentioned, adjective can be derived from noun with suffixes -ic, -ous, -ing, and -al. The word interest (noun), for example, becomes interesting (adjective). Besides, adjective can be derived from verb with suffixes -ed, -ing, and -ive. For instance, the word confuse (verb) becomes confused (adjective). Moreover, adjective can be derived from adjective with suffixes -ial, such as in the word confident (adjective) becomes confidential (adjective).

·    Adverb Markers

According to Spear, as cited by Hanafi (2016), adverb is a word or phrase that modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb and sentence. “The adverbs markers can be -ly, very, and zero marker” (Hanafi, 2016). For instances, beautifully, very fast, and fast with zero marker. Further, an additional example refers to adjective happy that becomes adverb happily.

In addition, there is also a term Precategorial, which is a lexeme that does not belong to any class membership (Hanafi, 2016). Besides, once the word of precategorial is marked with affixes, it will become a verb, and it belongs to one of open classes. Dealing with precategorial, Hanafi provided some examples of verbs in Bahasa; they are juang that becomes berjuang, peleset that becomes terpeleset (to be slipped off).

Afterward, “derivational affixes are used to create new lexemes by either modifying significantly the meaning of the base to which they are attached, without necessarily changing its grammatical category, or they bring about the shift in the grammatical class of a base as well as a possible change in meaning (as the concrete into abstract), or they may cause a shift in the grammatical sub-class of a word without moving it into a new word-class” (Katamba, 1993).

Secondly, the discussion will be given to Inflection. Regarding the inflection, Trask gave a statement, as cited by Hanafi (2016) that “inflection is a particular bound morpheme expressing an inflectional distinction”. Besides, Spears in Hanafi (2016), pointed out that inflection is grammatical marker (such as affix) used as grammatical property signal. Besides, Katamba (1993) stated that inflectional morpheme do not change referential or cognitive meaning. Further, Hanafi (2016) revealed that the word class of derived bases could not be changed by inflections. Hence, Hanafi outlined the inflections dealing with various forms, as follows:

·    Verb Agreement (Concord)

In this part, noun phrase (functioning as subject) usually agrees with its verb. For example, “John is a police”, if the to-be ‘is’ is replaced by ‘are’, the clause will be ungrammatical. This is due to ‘are’ represents plurality, whereas the subject (John), in this case is singular. Thus, it can be inferred that the subject and the verb does not agree each other. Additionally, another example is “John play-s a guitar”, if suffix –s in the verb is omitted, then the verb does not agree with the subject due to the subject constitutes singularity that has to use –s in its verb. With this respect, Katamba (1993) provided examples, which one of them constitutes that when stem of verb refers to 3^rd singular, then such stem has to be attached by using suffix -s.

·    Person and Number Agreement

This form deals with the plurality of the subject while the gender differences are not recognized. Katamba, in Hanafi (2016), gave the examples of singularity and plurality of the subject, in which the example is in Bantu language of Uganda in Africa, as follows:

Omu-shomesa  a-za

3SG-Teacher   3SG-Come

(the teacher is coming)

Aba-shomesa  ba-za

3PL-Teacher   3PL-Come

(the teachers are coming)

The first example shows that the singular subject is marked with omu- prefix, which agrees with singular verb marked with a- prefix. Meanwhile, the second example shows that the plural subject is marked with aba- prefix controlling the verb marked with ba- prefix in order to show the plurality. Additionally, referring to the examples given above, the differences of the gender could not be recognized.

·    Gender and Number Agreement

This part deals with Arabic example, in which gender can be identified, as follows:

Huma               ya-jlis-aani                             fid daari

DUAL             Male-sit-PRES-DUAL           in door

Huma              ta-jlis-aani                               fid daari

DUAL             Female-sit-PRES DUAL        in door

Based on the example above, the markers are distinguished in gender. For example, ya- is the marker (prefix) for male, while ta- is a marker (prefix) for female by adding aani- in the verb to inflect the duality.

·    Intensifiers

Trask in Hanafi (2016) pointed out that “intensifier is a lexical category, or a member of this category, whose members typically function as modifiers of an adjective or adverb and express the degree to which the quality expressed by that item is present”. Hence, Hanafi (2016) provided the examples of English intensifier consisting of very, too, so, rather, quite, fairly, and extremely. For example in the sentence “it is too delicious for me”. In Bahasa, however, the intensifier is shown differently. For example “ini ke-enak-an untukku”. The intensifier in Bahasa is marked by confix ke- -an.

·    Genitive Markers

Genitive marker is similar to possessive marker. In English, the markers consist of -‘s, of, and -s’, in which the way to use them are as follows:

John’s book

The legs of the chair

James’ book

Concerning with some examples above, -s is used when the nominal refers to human being, while ‘of’ is used when the nominal is non-human being. To be noted, however, if the nominal is animate (non-human being), either -s or ‘of’ can be used (Hanafi, 2016). In addition, Quirk and Greenbaum in Katamba (1993) revealed that affix added to the noun (marking the noun) refers to the possessor of something (John’s book). Katamba also gave other examples as it is able to describe something, such as in the sentence “as in the winter’s tale” and it can be used as a measure, in sentence “in two day’s time).

·    Noun Plural Markers

In English, plural noun can be marked in many ways, such as using double vowel e in the word ‘teeth’, suffix -s in the word ‘books’ or -es in the word ‘boxes’, and -en in the word ‘oxen’ whose base is ‘ox’. Katamba (1993) stated that “inflectional morpheme is only able to modify the form of a word so that it can fit into a particular syntactic slot”. Afterward, given to the example, the -es and -s suffixes solely inform the number of the entities.  Further, there is also a case in which the noun does not have any marker to show its plurality, such as the word ‘sheep’.

The third discussion concerns with Affixation, which is a bound morpheme (Katamba, 1993) merely occurring if it is attached to word or stem (Hanafi, 2016). Basically, there is probability that affixes have to do with derivation and inflection. Given to such probability, Trask in Hanafi (2016) gave a statement, as quoted “Affixes may be derivational or inflectional”. Thus, Hanafi (2016) gave the explanation regarding affixation consisting of prefixes, infixes, suffixes, and circumfixes or confixes.

·    Prefixes

Prefix is one of affixes that precede the root, stem or base to which it is bound. Additionally, Katamba (1993) pointed out that “prefix is an affix attached before a root or stem or base like re-, un-, and in-. There are some prefixes in English given by Hanafi (2016), as follows:

- re- in reform,             - a- in amoral                           - arch- in archenemy

- un- in unlike,             - aero- in aerogram                  - auto- in automatic

- dis- in disloyal,         - ambi- in ambivalent              - be- in beside

- pre- in pretest           - ante- anteroom                      - mis- in misinform

- post- in post-war     - anti- in anticlimax                 - tele- in telephone

Considering to the examples above, the prefixes re- on the verb base, un- and dis- in the adjective bases, and pre- and post- on the noun bases change the meaning but do not alter their word classes. Further, Katamba (1993) argued that when pre- derive noun from noun, it can be meant ‘before’. Thus, based on the example above, pre- in ‘pretest’ means ‘before test’.

·    Infixes

Trask, as cited by Hanafi (2016), that “infix is one of affixes that occupies a position in which it interrupts another single morpheme”. In this sense, infix interrupts the lexeme, which is the vocabulary item listed in dictionary (Sciullo & William in Katamba, 1993). Due to English does not posses such thing as infixes (Katamba: infixing is rare in English), thus Hanafi provided some examples in Bahasa, as follows:

Suling becomes s-er-uling (bamboo flutes)

Sidik becomes s-el-idik (to investigate)

Kuning becomes k-em-uning (yellowish), etc.

The various examples above show that the infixes -er-, -el-, and -em- occupy the positions by interrupting the morpheme of the word.

·    Suffixes

“Suffix is a bound morpheme that follows the root in the form containing it” (Trask in Hanafi, 2016). Most of English suffixes are functioned as noun markers and a few as adjective marker. For example, -er (teach-er), -or (corrupt-or), -al (accident-al), -an (librari-an), -ant (stimul-ant), -ate (affection-ate), -ary (dignit-ary), -dom (free-dom), -ee (trust-ee), -eer (auction-eer), -ese (chin-ese), and -ess (count-ess). Dealing with suffix –er in ‘teach-er’, Katamba (1993) stated that when -er is attached to verb, it derives noun with general meaning, which is the one who does the action of the verb). Besides, Katamba gave an additional suffix as well, which is -ness. If adjective is marked with -ness, it produces noun meaning that has the state or condition (Katamba, 1993).

·    Circumfixes

Trask, as cited by Hanafi (2016), pointed out that circumfix refers to the combination between prefix and suffix. Dealing with circumfix, Katamba (1993) named it differently, which is multiple affixations. In this case, Katamba gave an example containing several derivational morpheme starting from the latinate root, which is ‘dict’ which is able to become bene-dict-ion, contra-dict-ory, and contra-dict-oriness. In Bahasa, circumfixes are in form of ke- -an, ber- -an, per- -i, and per- -kan. The followings are the example provided by Hanafi (2016):

Ke- -an circumfix on the adjective base forms a noun and functions as noun marker: adil = ke-adil-an (justice) and keras = ke-keras-an (brutality).

Ber- -an circumfix on the verb base forms another verb and functions as an interative marker (glossed ITE):

Muncul            = Ber-muncul-an (continually turn up)

               Turn up-ITE

            Per- -i circumfix on the adjective base forms a verb that has an imperative sense (glossed IMP):

            Baru    = per-baru-i (renew)

                           New-IMP

            Per- -kan circumfix on the verb base forms another verb that has imperative sense:

            Tahan  = per-tahan-kan (hold)

                           Tahan-IMP

All in all, Derivation, Inflection, and Affixation deal with the process of attaching affixes in the word, in which in derivation, the attaching affix is able to change the meaning, while in inflection, the attaching affix does not change the referential or cognitive meaning. Regarding the test of examples provided in Morphology book written by Hanafi (2016), it clearly showed that the examples in various languages are unmistakable by referring to the theory introduced by Katamba (1993).

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Monday, July 17, 2017 AFFIXATION DERIVATION INFLECTION morphology