English-Polish Contrastive Grammar (4)

Lexis (2): English and Polish lexical morphology

In linguistics, morphology is traditionally defined as the study of words, the ways in which they are
formed and the relationships they have to other words. In other words, morphology is the study of word
formation – how words are built up from smaller pieces, referred to as morphemes and defined as the
minimal meaning-bearing units, which can be systematically combined, like stringing beads, to make
new words.
In the morpheme-based model of morphology, in which words are arrangements of morphemes and
word-formation rules may operate on morphemes (rather than lexemes/words), the different
morphemes or parts that make up words as referred to as
 a root,
 stem or stems
 an affix or affixes.
A root is the single morpheme in a word which carries its core (lexical) meaning, to which affixes can
be added.
A stem is the part of the word to which is added. A stem may equal a root, or it may equal a root to
which an affix has been added. The difference is shown below:

unfortunate

As shown above, a root can be part of a complex word when it is combined with a single affix, or a
series of affixes (e.g. fortune in fortunate, unfortunate, unfortunately, etc.) or it can be a word by itself
(e.g. fortune). In English, a root morpheme is often a free morpheme, i.e. a morpheme which may
appear with other bound morphemes attached to them, but does not need to have other morphemes on
it, unlike bound morphemes, which cannot occur independently of another morpheme or morpheme
combination.
An affix is a prototypical bound morpheme, i.e. a morpheme that attaches to roots (or stems).
Affixes are generally either prefixes or suffixes (but there are various other types, including an interfix
a type of affix that comes in between two roots/stems and joins them together into a new word/stem)
infix (a type of affix that is inserted inside a root/stem), circumfix (a discontinuous affix that comes in
two parts, one before and the other after the root/stem) and postfix (a type of affix employed mainly if
not only in Slavic linguistics in reference to a derivational affix which lies outside a stem including an
inflectional suffix), as illustrated a little later).
prefix:
 an affix that goes before a root/stem
 examples (English): re- in reread and un- in untidy, etc.
suffix:
 an affix that goes after a root/stem
 -est in quickest, -er in longer,-s in reads, -s in books,-dom in stardom, etc.
Morphemes are traditionally divided into derivational and inflectional types, based on their function
(inflectional or derivational). Inflection alters words to fit in different grammatical contexts, creating

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new word forms, but not new lexemes/words. Lexemes/words are formed by rules of word-formation,
which create stems (and not word forms).
The two processes are ordered:
 inflectional morphemes can be added to a stem that is a free morpheme (e.g., help +ed[past]) or
to a derived word (e.g., help +er[agentive] +s[plural]),
 a derivational morpheme cannot be added after inflection (e.g., *help +ed[past]+er[agentive]).
Unlike inflectional morphemes, derivational suffixes vary in their productivity and tend to be more
picky about the types of stems to which they attach. For example, a morpheme of present tense can be
added to any word as long as that word is a verb. By contrast, while borrowed (Latin) derivational
suffixes can attach to bound roots (e.g., nutri+tion), native lexical suffixes attach only to free roots
(e.g., *nutri+ful).
The morphological processes which serve to create new words out of the words and morphemes stored
in the lexicon of a language can be broadly divided into concatenative and non-concatenative. If
deriving a new lexeme consists in putting together a root/stem (or base) and an affix or two or more
roots or stems (which may contain affixes as well), the process is concatenative (where concatenation
can understood in terms of the ‘beads-on-the-string’ metaphor). If a new lexeme is introduced whereby
no morpheme is joined with another morpheme, the process involved in the derivation is non-
concatenative.
Bilingual investigations into the lexical morphology of the compared languages is concerned with
comparing and contrasting their inventories of root morphemes, bound morphemes, and the processes
(rules) for deriving words, both concatenative (affixation and compounding) and non-concatenative
(e.g. conversion). Some non-concatenative processes forming new words are not rule-governed and fall
outside lexical morphology proper. Such processes, e.g. clipping, blending, etc. are referred to as word
manufacturing.

Types of morphemes
English Polish
root: man, house, -logy, -crat root: dom-, syn-, geo-, bio-
where man and house are free morphemes most roots are bound in Polish. Examples of free
whereas –logy and –crat are bound roots, called roots include wczoraj, etc.
combining roots, i.e. bound roots combining with
other bound roots or with derivational affixes.
prefix: re- (reprint), un- (unfriendly), prefix: arcy- (arcy-mistrz), nie- (nieporządek),
dis- (dishonest), co- (coexist), anti- (anti-social), przy- (przykrótki), o- (ogłuchnąć, oślepnąć,
over- (overdo), mis- (miscalculate) oprzytomnieć), wy- (wyjechać, wypakować,
wynieść)
suffix: -er (writer), -ship (friendship), suffix: -arz (aptekarz), -sk(i) (krakowski),
-ful (mouthful), -ist (loyalist), -ant (inhabitant), -o (wysoko), -aln(y) (przemakalny), -yn(i)
-ment (amazement), -en (widen), -ize (symbolize), (zdrajczyni), -nik (ogrodnik), -acz (biegacz),
-like (childlike), -ish (selfish), -y/-i(e) (doggie) -och (tłuścioch), -ek (kotek)
interfix: -o- (gramophone, phonogram, interfix: -o- (żywopłot, smakołyk, bajkopisarz, -u-
landocracy, drunkometer, weatherology) (dwupłatowiec, stulecie), and -i/y- (łamigłówka,
cudzysłów).
infix: -bloody- (kangabloodyroo), infix: -ut- (słodziutki, wąziutki, cieniutki),
-goddam- (absogoddamlutely), -eń- (mateńka, córeńka, babuleńka, rybeńka)
-fucking- (unfuckingbelievable)
(caveat: although the expressive bloody is inserted (caveat: to the extent that -k is part of the root of
in the middle of the root/stem, qualifying as an e.g. słodki, -ut- may be analyzed as a bound
infix in the typology of affixes, it is atypical in morpheme inserted into the root, deriving a new
that it is not a bound morph proper, and word; but in e.g. rybeńka, as the root is ryb-, it is
formations like kangabloodyroo are not possible to analyze -eń- as part of a single suffix
lexicalized, so perhaps they should be treated as rather than as an infix inserted into the root, as
nonce-formations. If so, English may be taken to –eńka as a suffix derives words such as maleńka,
lack true infixes.) stareńka, etc., where –eńka- is attached to the end
of a root/stem and not inside it)

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circumfix: en-...-en (enliven, embolden) circumfix: u-...-i(ć) (ułatwić, utrudnić),
unproductive (i.e. does not derive new words) in od-...-i(ć) (odsiarczyć, odstawić),
English na-...-i(ć) (nasłonecznić)
absent in English postfix: -kolwiek (ktokolwiek, gdziekolwiek),
-ś (gdzieś, ktoś, coś), (non-reflexive) się (bać się)
note that e.g. –ś, which derives a new word, is
peripheral (i.e. follows) an inflected stem, e.g.
komuś vs. ktośmu, kogoś vs. ktośgo, etc.

English and Polish share the following types of morphemes and concatenative morphological process
that involve them (but see the caveats above):
 prefix/prefixation,
 suffix/suffixation,
 interfix/interfixation,
 infix/infixation
 circumfix/circumfixation.
Although suffixation and prefixation are productive processes in both English and Polish, prefixation is
much more productive in the verbal domain in Polish, as will be shown later when Polish derivational
aspectual morphology will be discussed. Infixation is (fairly) productive in Polish, but it may be absent
in English depending on how free morphemes like bloody, etc. are analysed, i.e. depending on whether
they can and should be analysed as grammaticalized, i.e.as affixes. Whereas Polish compounds are
typically derived with an interfix, e.g. księgozbiór vs. *księgzbiór, an interfix is rare in English
compounds (but: speedometer; see also examples below).
Circumfixation (alternatively prefixso-suffixal or prefixo-postfixal derivation) is unproductive in
English. In Polish, it is fairly productive in deriving verbs. Postfixation is absent in English and it is a
Polish (Slavic) speciality. Derivational postfixes are distinguished from derivational suffixes because
they are found outside inflection (e.g. modlili się vs. *modlisięli) whereas traditionally, inflection is
taken to follow derivation.

Compounding involves concatenation of at least two root morphemes (derivational stems). In English,
the roots are typically free morphemes and they are not joined with an interfix. In Polish, productive
compounding is usually accompanied by interfixation (see the examples above and also below) and
compounding is less productive than in English.

Compounding in English
Compounding is very productive in English. The bases that can be combined through compounding can
be of a different grammatical category:
N+N: leather shoes, kitchen chair
Adj+N: highchair, sweetcorn
Adj+Adj: dark blue, pale yellow
V+N: swivel chair, singsong, drawbridge
V+V: sleep-walk, blow-dry
N+V: vacuum clean, manhandle
Adj+V: highlight, dry-clean
N+Adj: colour-blind, duty-free
V+Adj: soaking wet, stinking rich
Compounds like kitchen chair are endocentric, which means that one root is the head and the other root
modifies the head. The semantic and grammatical properties of endocentric compounds are determined
by the head. For example, kitchen chair is a type of chair, tennis shoe is a kind of shoe and soaking wet
is wet to some (high) degree lexicalized in soak and soaking. Compounds like sit-in and pickpocket
have no phonologically realised element to determine their semantic and/or grammatical properties.
These are known as exocentric. In compounds like girl friend, woman doctor, sleepwalk etc., both roots
seem to make the same contribution to the meaning of the compound. Such compounds are
appositional.

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A frequently quoted phonological criterion for classifying a word as compound in English is
characteristic compound stress: main stress on the first element of a word with two or more roots is a
sufficient criterion of compound status. Thus, in view of their stress pattern goldfish, backdrop and
White House are considered compounds while gold medal, backbench and white knight are not lexical
compounds, but lexicalized syntactic phrases. However, this criterion is not necessary one. First of all,
some lexemes classified as compounds are stressed on the second element: ˌeasy'going, ˌabsent-
'minded, ˌbow 'window. Secondly, some compound-like expressions admit variation (which may be
dialectal): e.g. 'eye witness ~ ˌeye 'witness, BrE ˌapple 'pie ~ AmE 'apple pie (but compare 'apple tree
and 'apple cake in both dialects). What makes all of these words compounds, according to some
linguists, is that the elements are inseparable, cf. reliable eye witness / *eye reliable witness; delicious
apple pie / *apple delicious pie; delicious apple cake / *apple delicious cake, etc. (but then again gold
medal is inseparable too, cf. precious gold medal / *gold precious medal). What this shows is that
ultimately we speak of tendencies rather than absolute distinctions and the boundary between a
compound and a lexicalized syntactic phrase is to some degree fuzzy. This ambiguity between syntax
and morphology is especially seen in N + N combinations with corresponding Adj + N. The former are
traditionally classified as compounds and the latter as syntactic phrases, cf. the examples from Bauer
(2003: 136; a similar list is provided by Booij 2007: 82):
N + N compounds Adj + N phrases
atom bomb atomic bomb
gold ring golden ring
language development linguistic development
sea life marine life
verb paradigm verbal paradigm

Furthermore, Booij (2007: 76) suggests that compounding may be applied recursively, i.e. a root or a
compound may be attached to a root or an earlier derived compound word. In this approach, formations
like [[[[White]A [House]N]N [[travel]N [office]N]N]N [staff]N]N are compounds, too.

Most English compounds are formed by simply concatenating roots, but sometimes compounding may
be accompanied by affixation, specifically by interfixation. In the following compounds, the element
in-between the roots is an interfix: gram+o+phone, phon+o+gram, land+o+cracy, drunk+o+meter,
weather+o+logy. Notice that roots like –cracy are bound (combining) roots.
Compounding is less productive in Polish than affixation and less productive than English
compounding. Fairly productive compounds are endocentric and contain an interfix, e.g. cudotwórca.
There is no special rule of compound stress in Polish and compounds have regular stress. The
grammatical category of the compound is determined by the grammatical category of the rightmost
root/word or by the derivational suffix that accompanies compounding. The first element of a
compound does not inflect (królobójca: królobójcy vs.*królabójcy; królobójcą vs. *królembójcą, etc.).
Appositional compounds, which are less productive than endocentric compounds, can be illustrated
with kupno-sprzedaż, głuchoniemy, wodoziemny. In endocentric compounds, the head and modifier can
belong to various word-classes, similarly to English:
Compound nouns
N+N: nosorożec, wodogłowie
Adj+N: niskociśnieniowiec, pięknoduch
Num+N: tysiąclecie, trójnóg
V+N: gryzipiórek, łamistrajk
N+V: pracodawca, płetwonurek
Compound adjectives
Adj+Adj: ciemnobłękitny
Adj+N: całonocny, złotousty
Adv+Adj: wiecznożywy, równowarty
Num+Adj: półszlachetny, trójkolorowy
Num+N: pięcioramienny, trzydniowy
Num+V: obosieczny, dwuznaczny
N+N: laskonogi, błonkoskrzydły

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Syntactic derivation: a (minor) derivational process whereby an affix is added to a stem, which is a
(lexicalized) syntactic phrase. In English: old maid → old-maidish, blue eye → blue eyed, etc. In
Polish: byle jaki→ bylejakość, tu mi wisi→ tumiwisizm.

Combinations like zupa pomidorowa, kotlet schabowy, herbata ziołowa as well as szczoteczka do
zębów, maszyna do pisania etc. can be analysed as lexicalized syntactic phrases on a par with the
English backbench and red oak.

Non-concatenative processes creating new lexemes

Type of process English Polish
conversion fatherN → fatherV; cookN → znajomyAdj → znajomyN; palącyAdj →
(aka zero-derivation) cookV; emptyAdj → emptyV palącyN
the change consists only
in change in the
category of the word
(e.g. N, V) with no
phonologically overt
formative encoding the
change; this rule-
governed process is
much more productive
in English than in Polish
owing to the fact that
roots are very often free
morphemes in English,
but not in Polish
backformation lazyAdj → lazeV; proofreadingN brutalnyAdj → brutalN; purpurowyAdj →
a process taken to → proofreadV; tape-recoderN → purpuraN; niezdarnyAdj → niezdaraN
consist in the creation of tape-recordV
a non-existing root that
is stipulated to serve as
the input for a
derivational process.
For example: donate
[1845] was backformed
from donation [c.1425].
to serve as a putative
base from which the
latter could be derived;
Old French begar(d)
entered English as
beggar, and already in
Early Middle English a
verb beg [a.1225] was
created to underlie it;
German Schwindler
entered English as
swindler [1774], and a
verb swindle [1782] was
backformed.
paradigmatic derivation fizyka → fizyk; markiz → markiza; bu-
this process (aka fetowy → bufetowa
inflectional derivation)
consists in deriving a

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new word by shifting an
existing word from one
inflectional paradigm to
another
reduplication ping-pong; criss-cross; puff-puff baju-baju; pa pa; figo fago
a process involving
repetition (iteration) of
the entire root/stem or
only a part of it
(alternatively: a copy
can be perfect or
imperfect); the former is
complete reduplication
and the latter is partial
reduplication
clipping memo; bus; fridge spec; dyro; spoko; wporzo; nara;
shortening of a batalion → baon; geografia → gegra
polysyllabic word in a
more or less arbitrary
way
blending breathalyser; workoholic; żelbet(on); domofon; chuderlawy;
(aka contamination) slanguage; brunch zakupoholik
a process fusing together
fragments of two or
more roots or stems
alphabetisms and VIP; NATO yuppie (young urban PKO; GOPR; AIDS; sanepid; pekaes
acronyms profession-al)
words made by means
of abbreviation (letter-
to-letter, e.g. VAT for
value-added tax) or part-
to-part, e.g. Benelux for
Belgium, Netherlands,
and Luxemburg).
internal modification drip ~ drop; sell ~ sale; feed ~ papieros → papieroch; mięso →
a process deriving words food; life ~ live; advice ~ advise; mięcho; brzuch → brzuś; wnuk → wnuś;
by replacement of a bent ~ bend; breath ~ breathe Jan → Jaś
phonological segment or
segments within a word; the modification is not in terms of morphology;
internal modification we simply change the phonology of the root
can involve the
replacement of a vowel
by a vowel, a consonant
by a consonant, or it can
involve replacement of
two segments, a vowel
and a consonant at the
same time.
Exercises

1. Explain the ambiguity of the word below (consult an English language dictionary if you cannot
interpret the word in two ways on reading it out of context). Draw two trees to show the structure of
the word corresponding to each reading:

unclockable

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 Nosorożec - is an endocentric compound, the root "nos" serves as the head,
then there is the interfix "o" and the other root "rożec" serves as the modifier
of the head. "Nos" is a free morpheme and "rożec" derives from "róg" (it
underwent internal modification and changed to "rożec").

2. Analyse the structure of the word below and explain the reasons for your analysis:

nosorożec
3. Identify the process or processes involved in creating the following English words:

shopportunity, blending
boatel, blending A waterside hotel with facilities for mooring boats.

shop (verb), conversion

remote control, compounding
unselfishness, self -> selfish (suffixation) -> unselfish (prefixation) -> unselfishness (suffixation)
espresso, borrowing from Italian
sexapade, BLENDING or compounding with an interfix "a" ?? A combination of sex + escapade, it is a sexual experience.

hi-fi, clipping + compounding

beg, conversion
Lizzie (cf. Maggie, Patti) suffixation
Monday-morning idea compounding
4. Identify the process or processes involved in creating the following Polish words:

przekroczyć, 1. prefixation
gwiazdozbiór, 2. compounding + interfixation
skromniutki, 3. suffixation skromny -> skromniutki (there is no such thing as "skromnki" so it is not analogical to słodki -> słodziutki
(infixation)
gmaszysko, 4. suffixation
wygrana, 5. prefixation + suffixation + conversion
brach (cf. brat), internal modification
pieseczek, 7. pies -> piesek (suffication) -> pieseczek (infixation)
rozpłakać się 8. płakać->rozpłakać (prefixation) -> rozpłakać się (postfixation)
Grześ (cf. Krzyś, Antoś) internal modification
5. Comment on the derivation of the Polish zajekurwabiście. Can you provide more examples of
Polish words derived in the same way? Itacts
is an example of infixation where "kurwa" ( a free morpheme) serves as an infix inserted in the middle of the stem "zajebiście". It
similarly to "-fucking-" in English like in "un-fucking-believable"

6. In English, Mc-has recently been used as a prefix to derive words like McGarbage, McJob, McGod,
etc. Consult a recent dictionary of English (online) to find the meaning of Mc- in words like McJob.
Has Mc- also caught on in Polish? Can you find any Polish words with Mc- (or Mac-)? Use a search
engine to check this. McJob - Any menial, low-paying, unskilled, dead-end job, including (but not limited to) those in the fast food industry
Every Mc- word relates to McDonald food chain,
Polish; just "mak"

7. New words (or word groups) can also be introduced into the lexicon of a language by
reinterpretation of the morphological structure and assignment of a new meaning to an existing word.
Such words, which are typically puns, are referred to as daffynitions, the term itself being a blending
of Daffy (Duck) and definition. Some examples include:

a coffee – a person who is coughed upon

adultery – the state of being an adult
reinterpretation of an existing word, on
Analyse how the above and the following have been formed as daffynitions:
the basis that it sounds like another
(daj'lejt) normal meaning of dilate: Make or become wider, larger, or word (or group of words).
dilate live long (die-late) more open.. e.g eyes, pupil
isolate Me not on time. (I-(am)-so-late)
relief What trees do in Spring. (re-leaf)
/dɪˈsɪdjʊəs/ deciduous able to make up one’s mind normal meaning of decidiuous: (of a tree or shrub) shedding its leaves annually.

ignorant to totally disregard an insect, ant (ignore ant)

Can you think of any Polish daffynitions?
łamigłówka – ktoś kto złamał sobie głowę
komplementarny - lubiący komplementy

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8. Homer Simpson (from The Simpsons TV show) is known to produce words like edumacate,
saxomaphone, viomalin, hippomapotamus, sophistimacated, multiplimacation, etc. What type of
morpheme is ma in these words?

9. How is the verb embiggen derived in English?

Recommended (optional) reading:

Blake, B. All about language (Available on Teams).

Nagórko, A. Praktyczna gramatyka języka polskiego
or
Szymanek, B. A Pamorama of Polish Word-Formation.