Lexical vs Grammatical Morphology

The meaning behind our use of morphology

Types of morphology:

• Lexical
• Derivational - changes word class (creates new words)
• e.g. nouvelle -> renouveller (adj -> verb)
• Grammatical 
• Inflectional - does not change word class 
• e.g. nouvelle -> nouvelles, fermer -> fermerai 
• word form changed but no new word created

Types of Morphemes:

•  Bound - can't exist independently
• e.g. donn-ais - 'ais' can't exist independently
• has to be bound to make sense
• Free - can make sense independently
• e.g. - "les sans travail"

Morphological Meaning:

• The underlying meanings of morphology are very universal - e.g. the idea that certain morphemes indicate certain times exists across many languages

Tense - morphemes which indicate tense anchor events in time

• e.g. je donne vs j'ai donné vs je donnerai
• -e = present morpheme, -é= past morpheme, -erai = future morpheme

Aspect - the different ways of presenting an event within one time frame

• e.g. two verbs can be in the past tense, yet present the event in different ways 
• French - passé composé vs imparfait - aka the perfective and imperfective 
• Perfective - implies action completed, once
• Imperfective - implies a habitual, incomplete action
• English examples of aspect - progressive vs non-progressive
• I am speaking English vs I speak English
• Doesn't exist in French
• languages differ in how they mark aspect

Aspectual values:

• Perfective
• Perfect value e.g. j'ai déjà vu le film
• relating to present 
• Aorist e.g. je suis sorti à cinq heures
• completed, not related to the present
• Imperfective 
• Characterising/Continuous 
• e.g. j'habitais dans un appartement quand j'étais à Paris
• characterises the continuous whole of the time in Paris
• Habitual 
• e.g. "je sortais de temps en temps quand j'étais ..."
• refers to several incidents, habits during this time
• Progressive 
• e.g. il quittait quand je suis arrivé"
• expresses a sense of 'was doing', of being in progress during one particular moment

 Modality:

•  expresses possibility or doubt concerning an event 
• e.g. "il est possible qu'il soit en retard"
• soit = may, might

The concepts of Tense, Aspect, Modality are so universal that they are known as TAM

Number and Person:

• Verbs:
• Morphemes can indicate plurality e.g. 'e' vs 'ent'
• And which person the verb is referring to (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
• Nouns 
• Morphemes can indicate plurality of a noun
• e.g. livre-s interessant-s - plural markers on nouns and adjectives
• also on past participles - e.g. les livres que j'ai achetés
• English has less markers of plurality than French
• less differentiation for verb endings
• no adjective endings

Gender:

• Often expressed morphologically, moreso in French than in English
• e.g. le livre vs la langue
• French articles express gender, English articles do not
• e.g. elle est sortie 
• French past participles (verbs) express gender, English do not

Pronominal Reference: 

• Pronouns are used to avoid repeating nouns
• e.g. J'ai vu le film. Il était très intéressant.  
• French and English pronoun use differs, especially under word order
• Can refer to a noun or people 
• e.g. mes amis m'ont accompagné
• Pronouns don't exist independently of sentences, i.e. they're morphemes 

 Conclusions: 

• Are grammatical morphemes a communicative luxury in language?
• it is possible to be comprehensible without morphology 
• however without morphemes, many subtleties of language would be lost
• e.g. Moi hier aller cinéma vs Je suis allé au cinéma hier
• Morphology allows communicative efficiency
• Cross linguistic differences (i.e. between languages) exist
• Is it possible for variation to exist within the grammar of a language when grammatical rules for morphology invariably apply 
• Does morphological homogeneity exist across time/people/space (geographical variation)
• see 'futurity' and 'on' vs 'nous' variation