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WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2006

Malcolm A. Finney
Malcolm A. Finney
Affiliation:
California State University, Long Beach
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Extract

What is Morphology? Mark Aronoff and Kirsten Fudeman. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. Pp. xvii + 257. $29.95 paper.

This text introduces its readers to a wide range of morphological properties in multiple languages, including Standard American English and a number of typologically different languages (including Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Ancient Greek, Larike, and Jujamaat Joola). Each chapter is accompanied by examples in addition to morphological problems and exercises that contain data from multiple languages. Chapter 1 provides basic definitions of terminologies in morphology. Chapter 2 examines multiple types and definitions of words and lexemes and the effects of stress and affixation in different languages. Chapter 3 investigates the morphophonemic properties (including allomorphs, reduplication, and vowel harmony) of languages. Chapter 4 discusses different aspects of derivational morphology (including compounding, zero-derivation, and affixation), whereas chapter 6 explores the semantics involved in derivational morphology in different languages. Chapter 7 analyzes different kinds of inflectional morphology, with a focus on how it is different from derivational morphology across languages. Both universal and language-specific morphosyntactic processes in different languages are examined in this chapter, and chapter 8 investigates issues of morphological productivity with emphasis on different constraints on morphological processes observed in different languages.

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Type
BOOK NOTICES
Information
Studies in Second Language Acquisition , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 2006 , pp. 536
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

This text introduces its readers to a wide range of morphological properties in multiple languages, including Standard American English and a number of typologically different languages (including Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Ancient Greek, Larike, and Jujamaat Joola). Each chapter is accompanied by examples in addition to morphological problems and exercises that contain data from multiple languages. Chapter 1 provides basic definitions of terminologies in morphology. Chapter 2 examines multiple types and definitions of words and lexemes and the effects of stress and affixation in different languages. Chapter 3 investigates the morphophonemic properties (including allomorphs, reduplication, and vowel harmony) of languages. Chapter 4 discusses different aspects of derivational morphology (including compounding, zero-derivation, and affixation), whereas chapter 6 explores the semantics involved in derivational morphology in different languages. Chapter 7 analyzes different kinds of inflectional morphology, with a focus on how it is different from derivational morphology across languages. Both universal and language-specific morphosyntactic processes in different languages are examined in this chapter, and chapter 8 investigates issues of morphological productivity with emphasis on different constraints on morphological processes observed in different languages.

This book would be a valuable introduction to morphology text, as it covers an exhaustive range of morphological properties in a number of languages. It could also be a valuable resource for both first and second language acquisition researchers as well as language teachers interested in the morphological properties of English compared to those of other morphologically different languages. The chapter information, problems, and exercises provide students, researchers, and teachers with the opportunity to become familiar with and analyze morphological properties of multiple languages. The information presented is readily comprehended. The stated objective of the authors is to familiarize readers with minimal background in linguistics with a basic description and analysis of morphological properties of a variety of languages (including English) that vary considerably in morphological complexity and regularity.