1. verb to noun: -ant

 

[[X]V ant]N

 

assist → assistant     consult → consultant     defend → defendant

 

2. noun to verb: -ify

 

[[X]Y ify]V     Y= N,A

 

terror → terrify     horror → horrify     solid → solidify

 

3. output words in (1) as the inputs in (2)

 

assistant → assistantify     consultant → consultantify     defendant → defendantify

 

These resulting words are not well formed and are not already-existing words. These words do not make sense because the output words already have the ending affix -ant. When you combine the affix -ant with another affix -ify, you get a word that does not already exist and does not sound right. In this process, the only way you can successfully change words from different categories is by starting out with a regular word that has no affixes added on to it. If you start out by using a word that already has an added affix, you get a result of a non-existing word. 

• -or, [[X]V or]N
• Verb to Noun examples: terminate → terminator, illustrate → illustrator, navigate → navigator

 

• -ify, [[X]N,A ify]V where Y=N,A
• Noun to verb examples: fortitude → fortify, glory → glorify, terror → terrify
• (Also can change adjective to verb: false → falsify, beauty → beautify, simple→ simplify)

 

• terminator → terminatorify, illustrator → illustratorify, navigator → nagivatorify.
• The resulting words do not seem to be well-formed in my opinion, perhaps because I know that they are not already-existing words used in English. However, aside from that fact, these words do not appear to follow a comprehensible or logical pattern. For instance, the affixes that I used in my examples are “-or,” which means “one who ____” and “-ify,” which means “to make/cause ____.” In this case, if we look at the word illustrator, it means “one who illustrates.” If we were to add on the “-ify” prefix to it, it would mean something like “to make or cause an illustrator,” which does not really make any sense, so this process does not work. 

(1) Verbs to Nouns

-ance

-ance, [[X]V ance]N

Accept —> acceptance 

Assist —> assistance

Attend —> attendance

(2) Nouns to Verbs

-ed

-ed, [[X]N ed]V

Sign —> signed

Kill —> killed

Fail —> failed

(3) Output words in (1) as the inputs in (2)

Acceptance —> acceptanced

Assistance —> assistanced

Attendance —> attendanced

As a result, these new words are not well-formed words nor are they already-existing words. By adding the two affixes (-ance and -ed) to one word it does not make this process work. The words given as outputs in (1) would need to get rid of their existing suffix and switch it with the affix in (2) in order to make sense and be a well-formed word. I believe you can not change categories of a word unless it is a root word that can stand alone. Overall, we are able to note that words with affixes can not add additional affixes to make a “new word.”  

1. Ion – verb to noun

-ion, [[X]v ion] n

Introduce – Introduction, Abduct – Abduction, Reduce – Reduction

2. Ed – Noun to Verb

-ed, [[X]n, a ed] v where Y = N, A

Wait (n, v) – Waited, Want (n, v) – Wanted, Act (n, v) – Acted

3. Output-Input

Introduction – Introductioned, Abduction – Abductioned, Reduction – Reductioned

With the resulting words formed for the output-input, my chosen words were all not well-formed. Also, they are all not already-existing words. Nothing seems to work about this process because they are words that already end with the affix “ion” and therefore do not sound right if “ed” is added as an affix. Again, since these affixes do not work together, there is no other example used with these same affixes that will work, especially in situations like finding a category-changing affix for verbs-nouns or noun-verbs. However, these words need to be in its original form or have the right affixes matched up to make an actual or already existing word.

1. Verbs to Nouns

-ment, [[X]v ment] n

Govern –> government, state –> statement, commence –>commencement

 

2. Noun to verbs

-ed, [[X]n ed] v

message–> messaged, eye –>eyed, chair –>chaired

 

3. Output word in (1) as the input to process in (2)

Government –> governmented, statement –> statemented ,commencement –> commencemented. Looking at the words I have created from using outputs and inputs from different categories, I first of all do not think they are well formed words, also they do not look and sound like already existing words. In my opinion I believe in order to change categories of words from one to another, you have to start with plain or standard words; words that have no affixes added to them and from there you can build on changing it into whatever otherwise a combination of two affixes sometimes clashes resulting in the word sounding odd.

 

 

 

The evidence for these verbs to be complex is that complex words decomposed or break down into constituents; for-bid, for-get, for-give, for-go, for-swear. On the other hand, the possible evidence for these words being simplex is the for- is not “meaningful” in relation to the other verbs, bid, get, give, go, swear thus they can’t be broken down. I personally think that these words are complex, besides the given evidence for complex provided above,  the prefix “for” is a “meaningful unit” that indicates ” someone or something going to” as well it can stand on its own and in relation to the other verbs add extra meaning.

There is evidence showing for these verbs being complex because each word, when taken apart from each other, can have a meaning of its own. For example, when decomposing the words: forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, forswear, each word can become a meaningful constituent of its own.

Simplex on the other hand is when a word can no longer be taken apart or decomposed into smaller units, that can make sense on its own. Therefore, some may argue that the verbs are not simplex but complex.

I believe that the verbs: forbid, forget, forgive, forgo, forswear are complex words because the constituents for-  can appear in other word forms, as seen in the examples given. Thus, when decomposing the words, the word-base will be for- meanwhile the rest of the endings, –bid, -get, -give, -go and -swear is known as the affixes. Therefore, showing that it is a morphological constituent when decomposed from words.

These words are complex words because they can be broken down into two morphological constituents. A complex word can be broken down if there are two morphemes that can stand alone and have meaning on their own. “Forbid” and all these other words that begin with “for” are complex seeing as how the “for” can be divided from the second half of the word. However, I do see how these can possibly be simplex words because while “for” is a word itself, it cannot really stand alone because the word is always followed by another word. “For” was made to be used as a prefix. From last week’s class I took notice that suffixes can be included in complex words and considered a morphological constituent. For example, “eater” was used as an example to introduce the difference between simplex and complex words. This was considered a complex word because of the morphological constituent “er.”  If suffixes and affixes are included when determining complex words, then I believe prefixes can be as well.

After considering if the words “forbid,“ “forget,” ”forgive,” “forgo” and “forswear” are complex or simplex; I came to the conclusion that they are all simplex words. In order for a word to be complex it must be comprised of more than one constituent. Thus meaning that it can be broken down into “smaller meaningful units.” Another condition must also apply in order for a word to be considered complex is; the pattern of the constituents must be systematic. This means that if a word can be broken up into constituents, there must be similar word pairs to one of the constituents for it to be complex. All of the words listed above can be broken down into two constituents each- with “for” being it’s prefix. While this may appear to be systemic since each word has the same prefix- it is still not enough to qualify it as a complex word because there is no meaningful pattern with “for.”  “For” does not have the same meaning in relation to the second unit of each word, therefore making it not systemic and disqualifying it from being complex.

These verbs can appear to be complex because if you analyze the words, you will see that they can be broken down into a prefix, “for”, and each of the verbs that they derived from (or stems), “bid”, “get”, “give”, “go”, “swear”.  All of these verbs have a specific meaning, but with “for” added to the front of the words, they have different meanings.  Therefore, it can be argued that these original verbs are stems to all of the derived words within this paradigm.

These verbs can also appear to be simplex because although “bid”, “get”, “give”, “go”, and “swear” are all verbs with a particular meaning, if “for” was a prefix in this paradigm then the affix would have a parallel meaning throughout all of these words.  For example, adding the suffix “-ed” to any verb creates a word form of the lexeme which represents that the action has happened in the past.

I think that the words in this paradigm are simplex because despite the fact that it seems they all share a prefix, the ‘prefix’ does not have the same meaning in each word.  For example, if you compare 1)”give” and “forgive” to 2)”bid” and “forbid”, you will see that adding “for” to “give” changes the meaning from “to present voluntarily and without expecting compensation; bestow” to “to grant pardon for or remission of; absolve”.  Whereas, adding “for” to “bid” changes the meaning from “to command; order; direct” to “to command (a person) to not do something, have something, etc.”  In comparing these two examples you will see that adding “for” to each of the ‘stems’ does not create the same change.  Therefore these word forms are not systematically related to their original lexemes.  So I feel that it is safe to assume that “for”, in this given set of words, is not a morphological constituent.