What is Morphology?

Citation

Aronoff, M., & Fudeman, K. (2022). What is Morphology? (3rd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.

Chapter Summary

The third edition, in Wiley-Blackwell's Fundamentals of Linguistics series, has nine chapters in about 270 pages, followed by a glossary, references and an index. Front matter includes notes on transcription, the IPA chart and a guide to the companion website. Chapters 1–7 each end with a section on Kujamaat Jóola, an Atlantic language of the Basse-Casamance region of Senegal, which the authors chose because its morphology is complex but highly regular; every chapter has further reading and exercises. The publisher states that answers to all exercises are on the instructor companion site and that some new and revised chapters are written by other experts.

Chapter 1: Thinking about Morphology and Morphological Analysis

The chapter opens with the history of the term "morphology" and the notion of the morpheme, then shows "morphology in action" through novel words and word play, noting that new words strike us in a way new sentences do not. A section on the authors' background and beliefs sets out their stance: languages differ in interesting ways, theory must be grounded in description, and morphology is a distinct component of grammar. The analysis section contrasts analytic and synthetic approaches, presents four analytic principles taken from Eugene Nida's textbook Morphology, and works through sample problems with solutions. The case-study section introduces Kujamaat Jóola and its phonology.

Chapter 2: Words and Lexemes

Asks what a word is, gives empirical tests for wordhood and distinguishes types of words. It introduces the distinction between inflection and derivation, compares the Item-and-Arrangement and Item-and-Process approaches to morphology, and discusses the lexicon. The case study is Kujamaat Jóola noun classes.

Chapter 3: Morphology and Phonology

Covers allomorphs, prosodic morphology, primary and secondary affixes, linguistic exaptation, leveling and analogy, and morphophonology as seen in secret languages. The case study is Kujamaat Jóola morphophonology.

Chapter 4: Derivation and the Lexicon

Starts from the Saussurean sign and moves to motivation and compositionality, the structure of derived words and lexicalization.

Chapter 5: Derivation and Semantics

Treats the polysemy problem and the semantics of derived lexemes, with a case study on derivation and verbs in Kujamaat Jóola.

Chapter 6: Inflection

Asks what inflection is, revisits the inflection–derivation distinction, surveys the types of inflectional morphology, and covers syncretism and typology. The case study is agreement in Kujamaat Jóola.

Chapter 7: Morphology and Syntax

Distinguishes morphological from syntactic inflection and discusses structural constraints on inflection, inflection and Universal Grammar, and grammatical function change. The case study is Kujamaat Jóola verb morphology, the last of the running case-study sections.

Chapter 8: Morphological Productivity and the Mental Lexicon

Defines productivity and relates it to structure through English negative prefixes, then treats degrees of productivity, salience and methods for testing productivity, ending with the mental lexicon in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. The publisher describes coverage of productivity and processing as expanded in this edition.

Chapter 9: Computational Morphology

New to this edition. After early work and a statement of the problem, it compares knowledge-based, data-driven and hybrid methods and lists resources for computational morphology.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–2: Basics

• Morpheme: the traditional minimal unit of form and meaning, which the authors introduce while noting problems with its classic formulation.
• Analysis and synthesis: taking words apart into their pieces versus building words from pieces.
• Lexeme: a word as an abstract dictionary unit, distinct from its inflected forms.
• Item-and-Arrangement vs. Item-and-Process: two classic models of morphology, as arrangements of morphemes or as processes applied to stems.

Chapters 3–5: Sound, Structure and Meaning

• Allomorphy: the different phonological shapes of a single morpheme.
• Prosodic morphology: morphology defined by prosodic units such as syllables.
• Compositionality and lexicalization: how far a derived word's meaning follows from its parts, and how words lose that transparency.
• Polysemy problem: the many related meanings that a single derivational affix can have.

Chapters 6–7: Inflection and Syntax

• Inflection: morphology that expresses grammatical properties of a lexeme rather than forming a new one.
• Syncretism: one form serving several cells of a paradigm.
• Grammatical function change: morphology that changes the grammatical relations in a clause.

Chapters 8–9: Productivity and Computation

• Productivity: the degree to which a morphological pattern is used to form new words, and how it can be measured.
• Mental lexicon: how words and their parts are stored and processed in the mind and brain.
• Data-driven methods: computational approaches that learn morphology from corpora rather than hand-written rules.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Teaches analysis step by step. The first chapter gives explicit analytic principles and then works through sample problems with solutions, so students see how a morphologist moves from data to analysis before they try the exercises.
• A running case study. The Kujamaat Jóola sections in Chapters 1–7 let students analyse one language's noun classes, morphophonology, derivation, agreement and verbs as the relevant topic is introduced. The authors explain the choice: the morphology is complex but highly regular, spread across nouns, verbs and pronouns, and well documented in J. David Sapir's grammar.
• Concise and descriptive. The publisher describes the book as introducing phenomena with a descriptive theme and minimal theory, requiring only basic linguistics; at about 270 pages it can be covered in one term.
• Open about its assumptions. The section on the authors' background and beliefs states their foundational views, for example that theory must rest on description, so students know the perspective from which the book is written.
• Up to date on productivity and computation. Chapter 8 on productivity and the mental lexicon and the new Chapter 9 on computational morphology extend the book beyond classic analysis.

Limitations

• Answers held by instructors. Answers to all exercises are on the instructor companion website, so self-study readers have only the sample problems in Chapter 1 as worked models.
• Uneven case-study coverage. The Kujamaat Jóola sections stop after Chapter 7, Chapter 4's is only about a page long, and Chapters 8–9 have no case-study section, so the running analysis does not reach productivity or computation.
• Light on theory. By design the book uses minimal theory. Students who need to compare formal frameworks will need a more theory-oriented text afterwards.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the most hands-on of the introductory morphology books in this course and a natural first text. Rochelle Lieber's Introducing Morphology is a similarly gentle undergraduate introduction that also gives students practice analysing word patterns; the two can be used interchangeably as a starting point, with Aronoff and Fudeman's running case study being the main difference. Geert Booij's The Grammar of Words is the next step for interfaces with phonology, syntax and semantics and for morphology and the mind.

For theory, Haspelmath and Sims's Understanding Morphology develops the contrast between morpheme-based and word-based models that Chapter 2 introduces through Item-and-Arrangement and Item-and-Process, and Katamba and Stonham's Morphology moves on to current theoretical models. Bauer, Lieber and Plag's Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology is a descriptive reference for checking English facts, for example when working on the English negative prefixes discussed in Chapter 8.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduates with a basic introduction to linguistics, and postgraduates or professionals new to morphology; the publisher also mentions readers in language technology such as speech recognition and machine translation. Some phonetics is needed for the transcriptions, and the front matter supplies the IPA chart.

• Core: Chapters 1–3 and 6 give the basic toolkit: morphemes, words and lexemes, allomorphy and inflection. Read Chapter 1's analytic principles and sample problems carefully before any exercises.
• Next: Chapters 4–5 on derivation and Chapter 7 on syntax. Chapter 8 is valuable for anyone interested in psycholinguistics or quantitative methods.
• Optional: Chapter 9 for students in computational linguistics or language technology; it can be read on its own after Chapters 1–2.

Treat the Kujamaat Jóola sections as a cumulative project: keep notes on the language's phonology from Chapter 1, since later sections build on it, and try to state each pattern in your own words before reading the authors' analysis. Do the exercises in every chapter, and compare solutions in class or with an instructor, since printed answers are not provided.