Introducing Linguistic Morphology (review)

The author, Professor of Linguistics at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, is a productive morphologist (no pun intended). He has greatly expanded Ch. 5 of the present publication into his Morphological productivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). This book is a most welcome revision of the well-done first edition of 1988. Perusing the references (345–58), one sees many recently published works utilized. I recommend this updated and expanded edition as a thorough introduction to current thinking in the field, ideal for intermediate classes. In addition to such classical topics as phonological criteria used to define a phonological word, including vowel harmony, inflection vs. derivation, and compounding, there are meaty chapters on lexicalist morphology (166–95), word-and-paradigm morphology (196–213), nonlinear approaches (214–29), morphological typology and universals (230–52), natural morphology (253–67), and diachronic morphology (268–79). The last chapter, ‘Morphology in the mind’, discusses connectionism and the dual route using the notion of parallel distributed processing, among other psycholinguistic topics (28–93). Here the author affirms that many theoretical linguists have given up the notion of the morpheme (281).

The following remarks take up a few details. Semitic languages are well known for root-and-pattern morphology (340). Bauer refers to discontinuous affixes and discontinuous bases as ‘transfixes’, which he asserts ‘appear only in the Semitic languages’ (30). Even though this term is a good one, it is hardly known. Other terms discussed in Ch. 3 on the morphological structure of words include circumfix (German ge-frag-t ‘asked’), infix, interfix (German Auge-n-arzt ‘eye doctor’), reduplication, and suppletion (24–53).

Let us now consider the notion of unique morphs, also known as cranberry morphs (48). I agree that kith in kith and kin is a unique morph in that it occurs only in this fixed expression; however, I disagree about vim in vim and vigor. It is not a unique morph, since it occurs alone meaning ‘ebullient vitality and energy’ (American heritage dictionary of the English language, 4th edn., 2000, p. 1919). Cranberry is not unique either, because cran-, although unique at one time, now occurs in forms like crangrape and cranapple (though interestingly the meaning of the form cran- in these is ‘cranberry’, not whatever cran- alone means in cranberry).

A morphome is defined as a ‘family of morphemes’ (335) and is illustrated in English {-s}, {-en}, {-im}, and so on (116–17, 151, and passim). The aforementioned suffixes are usually referred to as allomorphs of the {pl.}. For B, the latter must involve phonetic conditioning (324). The form *oxes, which B says does not occur (151), is now in the process of replacing oxen (at least to judge from responses I have been given by undergraduates) and the expression dumb ox pluralizes with {-es} to the exclusion of {-en}. A parallel {-es}-form noted is silly gooses (288).

In the discussion of blocking (80–83, 325), it should be noted that football player blocks footballer and footballist in American English, but not in British English (Chambers English dictionary, Cambridge: Chambers, 1988, p. 552).

A good overall summary of the work’s contents may be gleaned by examining the excellent glossary (324–44). Among the useful items explained are: bahuvrihi compound, binyan, dvandva compound, hapax legomenon, and portmanteau morph.