Download German Language: Verb and Adjective Formation Rules and more Assignments Linguistics in PDF only on Docsity! P. M K: L 20. W 2007. Assignment C [Week 2] (5 Points per exercise, do 4 out of 5 exercises) The exercises below may either be solved on the basis of spelling or on the basis of pronunciation (if you happen to know it, of course). Either way is correct. Exercise C.1. Here are some facts about German verbs. From a stem the infinitive is formed by adding a suffix en. To the left you find some stems of verbs, and on the right the perfect active stems. Present Perfect führ geführt to lead ausführ ausgeführt to execute aufführ aufgeführt to perform anführ angeführt to cite sag gesagt to say aussag ausgesagt to give evidence aufsag aufgesagt to recite ansag angesagt to announce In this exercise, try to formulate a hypothesis about the structure of the verbal stems on the left. Form the infinitives of the verbs above. Answer There are two stems, führ and sag, and three optional prefixes: auf, aus and an. The infinitives are führen, aufführen, ausführen, anführen, sagen, ansagen, aufsagen, aussagen. Exercise C.2. (Continuing the previous exercise.) Write a rule that captures the formation (that is, give the morphs and environments) of the perfect active stem (given in the middle column). Answer The verb V is decomposed into prefix (P) and stem (S). P may be empty. The rule is V→ PgeSt. (On the basis of this data; the real situation is much more complicated.) So, the morph of the perfect has two parts: ge and t, which are interleaved with prefix and stem in the way shown. Exercise C.3. Suppose you have a word of the form 1-2--1-2 Draw all structures of this word without annotating word classes. (You may use brackets instead of drawing.) Answer (((1-(2-))-1)-2) ((1-((2-)-1))-2) ((1-(2-(-1)))-2) (1-(((2-)-1)-2)) (1-((2-(-1))-2)) (1-(2-((-1)-2))) (There is no choice in which way the prefixes are added, nor is there is a choice between the suffixes. Write P for ‘add the next prefix’ and S for ‘add the next suffix’. Then there are six possible sequences of operations: PPSS, PSPS, SPPS, PSSP, SPSP, SSPP.) Exercise C.4. Adjectives of English have three forms. For example, from the adjective simple we can form the comparative simpler and the superlative simplest. For longer adjectives (for example, all words with more than two syllables) the gradation goes beautiful/more beautiful/most beautiful. Identify the morphemes for the comparative and superlative. The morpheme for the comparative and superlative has more than one allomorph. Can you find them? Can you find the allomorphs of good (which is a stem)? Answer The comparative has the following allomorphs: r (simple·r), er (hard·er), more (more beautiful). Roughly the distribution is this. The first is used on words with at most two syllables ending in a vowel. The second on wirds with at most two syllables not ending in a vowel. (The list might be longer if you consider forms such as redder, though one would not analyse matter this way. If someone come up with these examples, it’s fine. Extra points if they suggest that this is rather a matter of reduplication rather than allomorphy.) The superlative has the allomorphs: st (simple·st), est (hard·est), most (most beautiful). Distri- bution is the same. On the basis of this we may propose for good the allomorphs bett and be (!). Exercise C.5. Some languages have a case called inessive; given a noun N that means X (say box) the inessive means in X (eg in (the) box). The inessive case in Hungarian is formed in the following way (the spelling is pretty much indicative of the pronunciation):
