Thursday, March 19, 2020

Definition and Examples of Derivation in English

Definition and Examples of Derivation in English In morphology, derivation is the process of creating a new word out of an old word, usually by adding a prefix or a suffix. Adjective: derivational. Linguist Geert Booij notes that one criterion for distinguishing derivation and ​inflection is that derivation may feed inflection, but not vice versa. Derivation applies to the stem-forms of words, without their inflectional endings, and creates new, more complex stems to which inflectional rules can be applied (The Grammar of Words, 2005).   Derivational change that takes place without the addition of a bound morpheme (such as the use of the noun impact as a verb) is called zero derivation or conversion. From the Latin, to draw off. Examples and Observations Derivational morphology studies the principles governing the construction of new words, without reference to the specific grammatical role a word might play in a sentence. In the formation of drinkable from drink, or disinfect from infect, for example, we see the formation of new words, each with its own grammatical properties.(David Crystal, How Language Works. Overlook Press, 2005 Derivation versus Inflection Morphology may be divided into derivationrules that form a new word out of old words, like duckfeathers and unkissableand inflectionrules that modify a word to fit its role in a sentence, what language teachers call conjugation and declension. (Steven Pinker, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language. Basic Books, 1999)The distinction between inflectional morphology and derivational morphology is an ancient one. Fundamentally, it is a matter of the means used to create new lexemes (derivational affixes among other processes) and those used to mark the role of the lexeme in a particular sentence (accidence, inflectional morphology). . . .It seems that although we probably can maintain a distinction between inflectional and derivational morphology relatively well in Englishalbeit with certain problematical cases which do not invalidate the fundamental notionthe distinction is not helpful to us in understanding any other aspects of the morphology of English. The classification might be useful in terms of typology, but does not throw much light on the behavior of English morphological processes.(Laurie Bauer, Rochelle Lieber, and Ingo Plag, The Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology. Oxford University Press, 2013 Derivation, Compounding, and Productivity Word-formation is traditionally divided into two kinds: derivation and compounding. Whereas in compounding the constituents of a word are themselves lexemes, this is not the case in derivation. For instance, -ity is not a lexeme, and hence taxability is a case of derivation. The word income tax, on the other hand, is a compound since both income and tax are lexemes. Changing the word class of a word, as happened in the creation of the verb to tax from the noun tax, is called conversion, and may be subsumed under derivation. . . .Morphological patterns that can be systematically extended are called productive. The derivation of nouns ending in -er from verbs is productive in English, but the derivation of nouns in -th from adjectives is not: it is hard to expand the set of words of this type such as depth, health, length, strength, and wealth. Marchand (1969: 349) has observed some occasional coinings like coolth (after warmth)  but notes that such word coinings are often jocular, a nd hence do not represent a productive pattern. If we want to coin a new English noun on the basis of an adjective, we have to use -ness or -ity instead. (Geert Booij, The Grammar of Words: An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology. Oxford University Press, 2005 Changes to Meaning and Word Class: Prefixes and Suffixes Derivational prefixes do not normally alter the word class of the base word; that is, a prefix is added to a noun to form a new noun with a different meaning:Derivational suffixes, on the other hand, usually change both the meaning and the word class; that is, a suffix is often added to a verb or adjective to form a new noun with a different meaning: patient: outpatientgroup: subgrouptrial: retrialadjectivedark: darknessverbagree: agreementnounfriend: friendship (Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, and Geoffrey Leech,  Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman, 2002)

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Scientific Hypothesis Examples

Scientific Hypothesis Examples A hypothesis represents an educated guess about what you think will happen, based on your observations. Before experimenting, you propose a hypothesis so that you can determine whether your prediction is supported. There are several ways you can state a hypothesis. The best hypothesis is one you can test and easily refute. Why would you want to disprove or discard your hypothesis? Its because this is the easiest way to demonstrate two factors are related. What are some examples of a hypothesis? Hypothesis Examples Hypothesis: All forks have three tines.Disproven if you find any fork with a different number of tines.Hypothesis: There is no relationship between smoking and lung cancer.While it is difficult to establish cause and effect in health issues, you can apply statistics to data to discredit this hypothesis or to support it, if the rates of lung cancer are the same between smokers and non-smokers.Hypothesis: Plants require liquid water to survive.Disproven if you find a plant that doesnt need it.Hypothesis: Cats do not show a paw preference (cat equivalent to being right- or left-handed).You could gather data about the number of times cats bat at a toy with either paw and analyze the data to determine whether cats, on the whole, favor one paw over the other. Be careful here, because individual cats, like people, might (or might not) express a preference.Hypothesis: If plants are watered with a 10% detergent solution, their growth will be negatively affected.Some people prefer to state a h ypothesis in an If, then format. An alternate hypothesis might be: Plant growth will be unaffected by water with a 10% detergent solution. What hypothesis would you use? Youre welcome to post a reply offering additional hypothesis examples or discussing the type of hypothesis you prefer to formulate and test.