Introduction to Words and Morphemes Dr. Leany Nani Harsa, M. Si
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2. Rule Productivity
Some morphological rules are productive, meaning that they can be used freely to form new words from the list of free and bound morphemes. The suffix –able appears to be a morpheme that can be conjoined with any verb to derive an adjective with the meaning of the verb and the meaning of –able, which is something like “able to be” as in accept + able, blam (e) + able, pass + able,
also been given as “fit for doing” or “fit for being done.” The productivity of this rule is illustrated by the fact that we find –able affixed to new verbs such as
We have already noted that there is a morpheme in English meaning “not” that has the form un- and that the prefix un- can be added to derived adjectives that have formed by morphological rules: un + believe + able un + accept + able un + speak + able un + lock + able
We can also add un- to morphologically complex verbs that consist of a verb plus a particle plus –able such as: pick + up + able turn + around + able chop + off + able talk + about + able
1.28 English Morpho - Syntax
un + pick + up + able, un + chop + off + able, un + talk + about + able,
Yet, un- is not fully productive. We find happy and unhappy, cowardly and uncowardly, but not sad and *unsad, brave and *unbrave, or obvious and unobvious. The starred forms that that follow may be merely accidental gaps in the lexicon. If someone refers to a person as being *unsad we would know that the person referred to was “not sad,” and an *unbrave person would not be brave. But, as the linguist Sandra Thompson points out, it may be the case that the “un-Rule” is most productive for adjectives that are themselves derived from verbs, such as unenlightened, unsimplified, uncharacterized, unauthorized, undistinguished, and so on. Morphological rules may be more or less productive. The rule that adds an –er to verbs in English to produce a noun meaning “one who performs an action (once or habitually)” appears to be a very productive morphological rule. Most English verbs accept this suffix: examiner, exam-taker, analyzer, lover, hunter,
same morpheme even though they are spelled differently). Now consider the following:
from
from
warm moisten from
moist
The suffix –ity is found in many other words in English, like chastity, scarcity, and curiosity: and –th occurs in health, wealth, depth, width, and growth. We find –en in sadden, ripen, redden, weaken, and deepen. Our knowledge of the related pairs, however, may permit us to use these examples in forming new words, by analogy with the existing lexical items. Other derivational morphemes in English are not very productive, such as the suffixes meaning “diminutive,” as in the words pig + let + and sap + ling. In the morphologically complex words that we have seen so far, we can easily predict the meaning based on the meaning of the morphemes that make up the word. Unhappy means “not happy” and acceptable means “fit to be accepted.” However, one cannot always know the meaning of the words derived
BING4316/MODUL 1 1.29
from free and derivational morphemes by knowing the meaning themselves. The following un- forms have unpredictable meanings:
Unloosen “loosen, let loose” Unrip
“rip, undo by ripping” Undo
“reverse doing” Untread
“go back through in the same steps” Unearth
“dig up” Unfrock
“deprive (a cleric) of ecclesiastic rank” Unnerve
“fluster”
Morphologically complex words whose meanings are not predictable must be listed individually in our mental lexicons. However, the morphological rules must also be in the grammar, revealing the relation between words and providing the means for forming new words.
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