Derivational ad inflectional morphology

SWEET SIXTEEN

A critical look at what's like being sixteen

It isn't easy being sixteen. It's a time of conflicting feelings and desires. You want to go out and have fun, have a social life, have a boyfriend or girlfriend, maybe start a serious relationship. At the same time, important public exams are clouding the horizon and your school work is becoming more and more demanding. At home, you want your parents to treat you like an adult yet you still depend on them for money, food and practical help. It's also a time when friendships can be unstable as you experiment with your own self-image. You may feel a sense of loss as you drop old friends or are yourself dropped by them. These feelings of pressure and conflict at school, at home and amongst your peers are not generally helped by those tactless adults who tell you to "make the most of the best years of your life because it's all downhill after you leave school."

The fact is that 16-year-olds today are a lot busier than those adults were 30 or 40 years ago. You seek your pleasures more actively and cram a lot more into your lives. You're impossibly busy trying to get homework done, revising for a science test, playing in a match, rehearsing for a play, looking your best for your new boyfriend / girlfriend and go to a friend 's party. Many of you are trying to solve your constant money shortage by doing a part-time job. At the same time, your parents are suddenly expecting more help from you at home, with washing-up, baby-sitting and other domestic duties. You realize that you have to establish priorities, but you find it hard, especially when your parents want to do it for you.

It is the difference between your own and your parents' priorities that makes family life explosive when you're sixteen. Many parents don't worry too much about whether their child is popular, having a good social life or going out with friends. Instead they emphasize the importance of doing well at school and getting good exam results. You know that they're right, up to a point - that you have to have qualifications to get anywhere in this competitive world. But at the same time you realize that however brilliantly you do in your exams, you won't be happy if you haven't got any friends. You also know that if you don't collect new experience, and take social and emotional risks, you will not become an independent and self-reliant adult.

Sex can be another cause of conflict between 16-year-olds and their parents. At 16 it becomes legal in Britain for heterosexuals to have sex. However, this legal milestone does not bring with it a sense of liberation for all teenagers. For those who are shy with the opposite sex and don't have a boyfriend /girlfriend, it can actually cause a feeling of failure. Those who do not want a sexual relationship face practical difficulties. Quite apart from a fairly prevalent fear of AIDS, there are very few 16-year-olds whose parents allow them to bring their boyfriend /girlfriend home for the night. For gays, the problem is worse. Gay sex is not legal in Britain until eighteen, and it takes great courage for a 16- year-old to speak openly about being gay to friends and family.

What words of comfort or useful advice can we give to teenagers? You, not your parents, must decide on your priorities even if you won’t always make the right choices. Keep your options open by balancing school work, sexual life, relationships and hobbies. Living with your parents won't last for ever. So while you're with them, make the most of not having to pay electricity and heating bills. Enjoy having a fridge full of food and your laundry done for you. And remember being 16 only lasts a year.

From “English Reader’s Digest

EXERCISES

I. Find in the text the Russian for:

to go out; to have a social life; to treat somebody like an adult; unstable friendships; a sense of loss; to cram a lot into smb's life; to solve constant money shortage; to establish priorities; to collect new experiences; to cause a feeling of failure; it takes great courage.

II. Match the adjectives on the left with the nouns on the right accbrding to the text.

IV. Choose the correct answer or explanation.

1. 16-year-olds prefer

a) doing a part-time job.

b) washing, baby-sitting and other domestic duties.

c) going out and having fun, having a social life, starting a serious relationship.

2. At home 16-year-old boys and girls want their parents to treat them like

a) children.

b) adults.

c) elderly people.

3. Young people may feel a sense of loss as they

a) drop all friends or are dropped by them.

b) make acquaintance with new people.

c) decide on their own priorities.

4. Many young people are trying to solve their constant money shortage by

a) begging.

b) doing a part-time job.

c) asking their parents for money constantly.

5. When you are 16 the difference between your own and your parents' priorities makes family life

a) cloudless and happy.

b) explosive and troublesome.

c) full of sense.

6. Being worried about their children's life and future many parents emphasize the importance of

a) doing well at school and getting good exam results.

b) rehearsing for a play and going out with friends.

c) having a social life and starting serious sexual relationship.

Derivational ad inflectional morphology

Warming Up

Linguistic terms.

What is the origin of terms? Terms are very often a result of a semantic shift (metaphor). Which means that the word belongs both to General English and a set of terms. The following are the definitions of words from general meaning you are to identify the word and give terminological definition

________– the usually underground part of a seed plant body that usually functions as an organ of absorption, aeration, and food

________– the main ascending axis of a plant; a stalk or trunk. b. A slender stalk supporting or connecting another plant part, such as a leaf or flower.

________– one of various distinct forms of an organism or species.

________– fasten, to secure, to attach

________ – descent or origination

Pre-reading task.

Discuss in pairs what is the difference between inflection and derivation (in Russian “formoobrazovanije” and “slovoobrazovanije”).

Task 1. Read the text and check your ideas.

Inflectional vs. derivational morphology

Inflectional morphology is one of the two main branches of morphology, the other being derivational morphology. In a nutshell, inflectional morphology distinguishes different inflections of the same lexeme, whereas derivational morphology distinguishes different lexemes that are related to one another; but they both use much the same range of morphological resources to do it. For example, the -ing of painting is inflectional in (1) and derivational in (2).

(1) He was painting a picture.

(2) We bought a painting.

In (1), painting is just one of the four distinct forms of the lexeme PAINTv (the verb PAINT), contrasting with paints, painted and paint. In (2) it is a distinct lexeme, the noun PAINTING, whose two inflected forms are painting and paintings.

Here are the main differences between inflectional and derivational morphology:

Inflectional morphology relates forms of the same lexeme; derivational morphology relates distinct lexemes.

Inflections are distinct word classes with distinct grammar (e.g. there are rules that mention `singular' and `plural'), whereas derivational morphology creates new lexemes which are grammatically indistinguishable from underived members of the same word classes (e.g. apart from their morphology, the grammar does not distinguish derived nouns like PAINTING from simple ones like BOOK).

Inflectional morphemes are always 'outside' derivational ones; e.g. the plural of PAINTING is {paintings}, not {paintsing}.

In grammar the difference between derivational and inflectional morphology lies in the relation 'whole', which is reserved for inflectional morphology. A word's whole is its fully inflected form, so this can only be produced by inflectional morphology; so what inflectional morphology has to explain is whatever differences there may be between the word's whole and its `stem' - e.g. the difference between the stem {dog} and the whole {dogs}. This difference is a matter of inflectional morphology because it is due to the inflection Plural.

In contrast, derivational morphology is only concerned with stems, not wholes. It explains the relations between the stems of different lexemes, for example, the relation between {dog} and {doggy}, which are stems of different lexemes.

Both derivational and inflectional morphology may use the same morphemes and morphological patterns, so these are best described separately. In WG they are described in terms of x-forms; e.g. the 'ing-form' of an English word may be used as:

the whole of an active participle (e.g. He was walking.) - inflectional

the stem of an adjective (e.g. an interesting book) - derivational

the stem of a noun (e.g. a drawing) - derivational

Task 2. a) Do you remember what the following is:

reduplication

incorporation

alternations

stress shift

affixation

blending (telescoping)

clipping

compounding

conversion

zero derivation

agglutination

inner inflection

b) Which of these processes typical for the English language?

c) Arrange the terms you choose for Task 2 (b) into two columns. Note that some terms may enter both sets. Give examples for each process from English

Task 3. Which word is odd? Rationalize your choice.

a) Inflection, alternations, lexicon, suppletion, incorporation, reduplication

b) Conversion, compounding, clipping, affixation, morphology, blending

Task 4. Read the text

Date: 2014-12-22; view: 1117