Copyright © 2003 by K. Stromswold

Psychology of Language Lab 4: Morphology

Part I: Inflectional Morphology: Morphological analysis of Telugu

Each of the following words in Telugu (a Dravidian language spoken in India) is translated into English by an entire sentence. Each word is complex, that is, composed of several morphemes. Analyze the words by identifying the morphemes occurring in each word and answer questions A-C. Note: the verbal morphology of Telugu is very complex, a fact that is not reflected in this exercise.

Telugu form	English gloss
1. ceppeenu	I told
2. ceppincunu	I cause (someone) to tell
3. cuustaam	We will see
4. ceppeem	We told
5. ceppanu	I will not tell
6. navvincum	We cause (someone) to laugh
7. cuustunnaadu	He is seeing
8. ceppeeyi	They told
9. kodataanu	I will beat
10. paadataanu	I will sing
11. ceppeeru	You (pl.) told
12. ceppavu	You (sg.) will not tell
13. ceppeevu	You (sg.) told
14. ceppam	We will not tell
15. ceppeedu	He told
16. cuuseedu	He saw
17. cepparu	You (pl.) will not tell
18. kodatunnaayi	They are beating
19. ceestunnaanu	I am doing
20. adugutaam	We will ask
21. ceeseenu	I did
22. adugutaadu	He will ask

A. List the Telugu morphemes that correspond to the English words listed

1. Verbs
a. tell
b. sing
c. see
d. laugh

e. ask

f. beat

g. do

2. Person-marking of subjects
a. I
b. you (singular)
c. he

d. we

e. you (plural)

f. they

3. Others
a. past tense
b. present tense (-ing form in English)
c. future tense

d. negative future tense

e. causative

B. List the order in which the morphemes occur in the Telugu words (for example, in ceppincunu, which morpheme comes first? The verb? The subject? Tense?) Use terms such as causative, tense, subject, verb.

C. Translate the following English sentences into Telugu
a. You (pl.) are singing
b. They will not laugh
c. You (sg.) will cause someone to ask.

Part II: Derivational Morphology: The -ive affixation in English.

Consider the following words:

	List I	List II
A.	1. repress	repressive
	2. oppress	oppressive
	3. impress	impressive
	4. select	selective
	5. progress	progressive
	6. regress	regressive
B.	7. elude	elusive
	8. permit	permissive
	9. recede	recessive
	10. submit	submissive
	11. subvert	subversive
	12. admit	admissive
	13. intrude	intrusive
C.	14. prevent	preventive
	15. invent	inventive
	16. support	supportive

A. Phonological change:

1. Given the data in A (1-6) only, what phonological change takes place?

2. Now consider the data in B (7-13). What additional phonological change takes place?

3. Now consider the pairs in C (14-16). Do these examples conform to your description of the above data? If not, explain what the difference is and speculate about why the difference may exit.

B. Category change:

1. What part of speech does -ive attach to? (i.e., What part of speech are the words in List 1?)

2. What part of speech are the derived words? (i.e., What part of speech are the words in List 2?)

C. Semantic change:

What meaning change is caused by the suffix -ive? That is, in the ideal case, what element of meaning does -ive contribute?