Cas LX 02 Semantics 3a. Word meaning 6ish Lexical semantics

Derivational morphemes

• So, alongside the content words like likely we have derivational morphemes like un-, together combining to form a word (with a predictable meaning) unlikely.
• Recall: unrefaxeristically.
• Or: antidisestablishmentarianism (opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England)
• These (anti-, dis-, -ment, -ary, -ian, -ism) are lexemes in their own right.
• Finding the morphemes isn’t trivial (ally, prism, canary, cement, distant), but they do seem to exist.

Inflectional morphemes

• Derivational morphemes like iN- (impossible, irregular, incapable, intractable) are often distinguished from inflectional morphemes (walk, walks, walked) in that derivational morphemes carry a heavier semantic load. Inflectional morphemes are agreement (with, e.g., a 3sg subject).
• Practically, it’s a difficult line to draw precisely, but generally grammatically enforced morphology (agreement, tense/aspect marking) is in the “inflectional” category. Some linguists in fact argue that the distinction isn’t a meaningful one, but that isn’t the consensus view.

Derivational morphology

• Derivational morphology is also capable of changing a word’s category.
• The road is wide. (adjective)
• The road widened. (verb)
• He refaxed the memo. (verb)
• He is a refaxer. (noun)
• He acted in a refaxeristic manner. (adjective)
• He acted refaxeristically. (adverb)

Causatives/inchoatives

• A reasonably large class of verbs seem to be able to alternate between inchoative (change of state) verbs and causative verbs.
• The door is open. (adjective)
• The door opened. (verb; inchoative)
• I opened the door. (verb; causative)
• I sank the boat, I melted the chocolate.