Introducing Morphology
Third Edition
A lively introduction to morphology, this textbook is intended for undergraduates with relatively little background in linguistics. It shows students how to find and analyze morphological data and presents them with basic concepts and terminology concerning the mental lexicon, inflection, derivation, morphological typology, productivity, and the interfaces between morphology and syntax on the one hand and phonology on the other. By the end of the text students are ready to understand morphological theory and how to support or refute theoretical proposals. Providing data from a wide variety of languages, the text includes hands-on activities designed to encourage students to gather and analyze their own data. The third edition has been thoroughly updated with new examples and exercises. covering several current theoretical frameworks.
rochelle lieber is Professor of Linguistics at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, where she teaches a wide range of courses on theoretical linguistics and the English language. She is the recipient of a Teaching Excellence Award (1990), the Lindberg Award for Outstanding Teacher and Scholar in Liberal Arts at UNH (2013), and the Bloomfield Award given by the Linguistic Society of America for the Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology (with Laurie Bauer and Ingo Plag, Oxford University Press, 2015). She is the author of four monographs and over fifty articles and book chapters on morphology and related topics, and is the co-editor of three handbooks on morphology.
Cambridge Introductions to Language and Linguistics
This textbook series provides students and their teachers with accessible introductions to the major subjects encountered within the study of language and linguistics. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, each book is written and designed for ease of use in the classroom or seminar, and is ideal for adoption on a modular course as the core recommended textbook. Each book offers the ideal introductory material for each subject, presenting students with an overview of the main topics encountered in their course, and features a glossary of useful terms, chapter previews and summaries, suggestions for further reading, and helpful exercises. Each book is accompanied by a supporting website.
Books published in the series
Introducing Speech and Language Processing John Coleman
Introducing Phonetic Science Michael Ashby and John Maidment
Introducing Second Language Acquisition , Second Edition, Muriel Saville-Troike
Introducing English Linguistics Charles F. Meyer
Introducing Semantics Nick Riemer
Introducing Language Typology Edith A. Moravcsik
Introducing Psycholinguistics Paul Warren
Introducing Phonology , Second Edition, David Odden
Introducing Morphology , Third Edition, Rochelle Lieber
Introducing Morphology
Third Edition
Rochelle Lieber
University of New Hampshire
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Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108832489
DOI: 10.1017/9781108957960
Rochelle Lieber 2010, 2016, 2022
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2010
Second Edition 2016
9th printing 2019
Third Edition 2022
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lieber, Rochelle, 1954 author.
Title: Introducing morphology / Rochelle Lieber.
Description: Third edition. | Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2021. | Series: Cambridge introductions to language and linguistics | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021013065 (print) | LCCN 2021013066 (ebook) | ISBN 9781108832489 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108957960 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Grammar, Comparative and general Morphology. | BISAC: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Morphology
Classification: LCC P241 .L534 2021 (print) | LCC P241 (ebook) | DDC 415dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013065
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013066
ISBN 978-1-108-83248-9 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-108-95848-6 Paperback
Additional resources for this publication at www.cambridge.org/lieber3
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Preface to First Edition
One of the things that drew me to linguistics several decades ago was a sense of wonder at both the superficial diversity and the underlying commonality of languages. My wonder arose in the process of working through my first few problem sets in linguistics, not surprisingly, problem sets that involved morphological analysis. What I learned first was not theory indeed at that moment in linguistic history morphology was not perceived as a separate theoretical area in the US but what languages were like, how to analyze data, and what to call things. I love morphological theory, but for drawing beginning students into the field of linguistics, I believe that there is no substitute for hands-on learning, and that is where this book starts.
This book is intended for undergraduate students who may have had no more than an introductory course in linguistics. It assumes that students know the International Phonetic Alphabet, and have a general idea of what linguistic rules are, but it presupposes little else in the way of sophistication or technical knowledge. It obviously assumes that students are English-speakers, and therefore the first few chapters concentrate on English, and to some extent on languages that are likely to be familiar to linguistics students from language study in high school and university. As the book progresses, I introduce data from many languages that will be exotic to students, so that by the end of the book, they will have some sense of linguistic diversity, at least with respect to types of morphology.
There are some aspects of the content of this text that might seem unusual to instructors. The first is the attention to dictionaries in . Generally, texts on linguistic morphology do not mention dictionaries, but I find that beginning students of morphology retain a reverence for dictionaries that sometimes gets in the way of thinking about the nature of the mental lexicon and how word formation works.
