Cross-linguistic Morpheme Analysis

[birdeen's call]

O.k. Let's get on the job.
Polish involves the most complicated language network I've ever seen.

How would you translate it into English? Is the categorization acceptable? We will work on morphological matters later.
(That's a Koranic verse)

I'm unfortunately not familiar with the rules of diagramming sentences you use... :-( I learned traditional grammar with subjects, predicates, objects and complements some time ago. But I did look it up on the web and I have an impression that something's wrong about your diagram. I'm probably wrong so I'll wait with explaining what I mean a little, and for now I'll only give a translation.

Prowadź nas drogą zbawienia.
Lead us down/along the/a path of salvation.

As you can see, the sequence is exactly the same as in English. The difference in the number of words is a result of the fact that Polish doesn't use articles and that it still uses suffixal inflesion, so we use prepositions a little bit less often.

 

[chester_100]

I. I knew something about the non-existence of articles in Polish, but that's not a problem- that's a structural similarity between Polish and Persian.

II. So, if prepositions are not usually used in Polish but they're understood, there's an implied prepositional phrase in the deep structure of the sentence, but it is absent in the surface structure. In that case, I'm skeptical too- because it's not clear if 'drogą zbawienia' is a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase. Yet, I'd take it as a noun phrase.

III.ZBAWIENIA: I think it's O.K. to consider this word an adjective. Since 'droga' is a feminine noun, its adjective is feminine too - like 'wspaniały' that is changed to 'wspaniała' when it refers to a female.
Furthermore, 'of salvations' semantically functions as an adjective, even though it's structurally a prepositional phrase.

Good luck,

 

[birdeen's call]

I. I knew something about the non-existence of articles in Polish, but that's not a problem- that's a structural similarity between Polish and Persian.

I think articles are a pretty new invention in Indo-European languages and some simply didn't invent them? Am I wrong?

II. So, if prepositions are not usually used in Polish but they're understood, there's an implied prepositional phrase in the deep structure of the sentence, but it is absent in the surface structure. In that case, I'm skeptical too- because it's not clear if 'drogą zbawienia' is a noun phrase or a prepositional phrase. Yet, I'd take it as a noun phrase.

No, no, I think you misunderstood me. There is no preposition there and using a preposition would be grammatically incorrect. I'll explain under your 3rd point.

III.ZBAWIENIA: I think it's O.K. to consider this word an adjective. Since 'droga' is a feminine noun, its adjective is feminine too - like 'wspaniały' that is changed to 'wspaniała' when it refers to a female.
Furthermore, 'of salvations' semantically functions as an adjective, even though it's structurally a prepositional phrase.

I don't know, maybe it's OK to think "zbawienia" is an adjective, but I don't know any Polish person who would think so... To us, it's a noun. I agree that its function here seems very adjectival, but for a Pole, "zbawienie" is "salvation" and "zbawienia" is "salvation's". "Zbawienia" is a genitive form of "zbawienie". So maybe a more "structurally correct" (whatever it means) translation would be:
Lead us down/along salvation's path.

Note how "down the path" is an exact translation of "drogą". "Droga" (the nominative form) means way/road. (I translated it to "path", because it sounds better to me - I don't think it has any impact on syntax analysis.) "Drogą" is the instrumental case (the eighth case) of "droga". It somehow happened in the minds of my ancestors that they thought that a way was an instrument in the action of leading...

 

[chester_100]

I think articles are a pretty new invention in Indo-European languages and some simply didn't invent them? Am I wrong?
Historical linguistics is responsible for answering such questions. But I think, articles were existent is Persian but they became obsolete.

No, no, I think you misunderstood me. There is no preposition there and using a preposition would grammatically incorrect. I'll explain under your 3rd point.
I see.

I don't know, maybe it's OK to think "zbawienia" is an adjective, but I don't know any Polish person who would think so... To us, it's a noun. I agree that it's function here seems very adjectivial, but for a Pole, "zbawienie" is "salvation" and "zbawienia" is "salvation's". "Zbawienia" is a genitive form of "zbawienie". So maybe a more "structurally correct" (whatever it means) translation would be:
Lead usdown/along salvation'spath.

So, the original picture is right as far as categorization is concerned, but 'drogą zbawienia' can be an instance of compounding. That is, a noun + noun structure.
Needless to say, this is a diagram for sentence representation, so we can't classify the morphemes there. As a result, that should be a noun phrase- even though it's in genitive case.

Note, how "down the path" is an exact translation of "drogą". "Droga" (the nominative form) means way/road. (I translated it to "path", because it sounds better to me - I don't think it has any impact on syntax analysis.) "Drogą" is the instrumental case (the eighth case) of "droga". It somehow happened in the minds of my ancestors that they thought that a way was an instrument in the action of leading...

Considering the context and the register of the word ZBAWIENIE which is used in religion, I believe 'path' is a better choice.
And, yes, it doesn't have any effect on the syntax, but it's stylistically more appropriate.

Thank you,





.

C

 

[chester_100]

A word diagrammed?

 

[birdeen's call]

A word diagrammed?

Yes, I think it's correct.

I have a question to you. Would you agree that diagramming words seems more difficult than diagramming sentences? I think it is, because the syntax of sentences is more strongly perceived by the users, while the morphology is often not recognized by them. Also, morphology keeps many antiquated forms... It escapes me now, but I think it can cause problems.

How would you diagram these English words: chuckle, huggle, laughter?

PS: Hmm... Wait a minute... Now that I'm thinking about it it seems to me that there's another morpheme in "zaabsorbować", i.e. "-owa-". I think the root is "absorb". "-owa-" makes a verb out of it and "-ć" makes it an infinitive.

 

[Frank Antonson]

I can contribute NOTHING to this discussion, but I LOVE reading it. I encourage you both.

 

[chester_100]

birdeen's call,
In a sense, I'd agree.

But, most of the morphological studies are concentrated on Greek and Latin roots. These words are scientifically significant and morphologically well-formed. So we need analyzable words. Words without these characteristics cannot be dissected.
However, we still have a choice: phonological diagramming. I'll introduce it later.

Here are some reasons:
The words that don't have a clear history. For instance, hlæhhan is the origin of laugh. Do you find any resemblance?
The following is one of the other reasons that I mentioned on 24-Jun-2010. You can find it on page 6 of this thread:

'Borrowing can be defined as the process of orthographical and phonological adaptation of a foreign word to the requirements of the second language, regardless of the morphological disharmony that the word brings about in the second language.

Is it really possible for a linguist to accept the phenomenon as normal?'

 

[chester_100]

I can contribute NOTHING to this discussion, but I LOVE reading it. I encourage you both.

Thank you!

 

[birdeen's call]

I can contribute NOTHING to this discussion, but I LOVE reading it. I encourage you both.

My contribution consists in being a native Polish speaker only... Chester seems a great specialist to me. I've been reading this thread now and I can see that you're also a great linguist. It's an honour for me that I can be having this conversation with you, being just a regular language user!

 

[chester_100]

About 'absorb':

Thank you for your accuracy.
Just one question: can 'absorb' be used as an independent morpheme in Polish? If so, what part of speech is it?

 

[chester_100]

My contribution consists in being a native Polish speaker only... Chester seems a great specialist to me. I've been reading this thread now and I can see that you're also a great linguist. It's an honour for me that I can be having this conversation with you, being just a regular language user!

Clearly, you're a good translator!
And, considering the structure of Polish and the knowledge a Pole accumulates in her life, I believe Poles can make great linguists.

 

[birdeen's call]

About 'absorb':

Thank you for your accuracy.
Just one question: can 'absorb' be used as an independent morpheme in Polish? If so, what part of speech is it?

No, it can't! The noun is "absorpcja" (absorption) or "absorbowanie" (absorbing - gerund), the present adjectival participle is "absorbujący" (absorbing - adjectival participle). (This is weird! I was taught participles were still verbs, but there's no "-owa-" part here!). And so on. "Absorb" isn't a Polish word.

 

[chester_100]

How about this one? It contains 'owa' and 'c'. But surely 'awanse' is an independent word.

 

[chester_100]

No, it can't! The noun is "absorpcja" (absorption) or "absorbowanie" (absorbing - gerund), the present adjectival participle is "absorbujący" (absorbing - adjectival participle). (This is weird! I was taught participles were still verbs, but there's no "-owa-" part here!). And so on. "Absorb" isn't a Polish word.

Thank you!
That's why I didn't risk counting it as a Polish morpheme. Apparently, it's Latin.

 

[birdeen's call]

How about this one? It contains 'owa' and 'c'. But surely 'awanse' is an independent word.

That's exactly how I feel this word!

"Awans" without "e" at the end of it is an independent word (a noun) in Polish. "Awanse" is one (a little dated but used) of two possible plural forms. The other is "awansy".

 

[birdeen's call]

Thank you!
That's why I didn't risk counting it as a Polish morpheme. Apparently, it's Latin.

But if it isn't a morpheme in Polish, then what is it? "-owa-" is most certainly a Polish morpheme; it exists in very many verbs! So is "-ć". Then what about the remaining "absorb-"? It has a meaning so I think it is a morpheme...?

PS: We have many roots in Polish that aren't words themselves! They often need affixes to become words!

 

[Frank Antonson]

Please keep this up! I am loving reading it -- understanding little, but loving it.

Well, let me TRY to make a contribution. Polish is an Indo-European language. I was once told (by a Lithuanian) that Lithuanian was the oldest of the Indo-European languages. I also suspect that Icelandic actually IS very old in its structure. When I studied linguistics, I remember running into the term "the decay of the cases". How many cases are in Polish? I think linguists believe that there were seven in Indo-European. Each case, I think, can make at least one (maybe more) preposition redundant. E.g. "the boy's" vs "of the boy" in English.

If what I have just written makes no sense, please forgive me. I had ONE linguistic course in college -- loved it, but was intimidated.

 

[chester_100]

You know, we can't separate the morphemes of the Latin absorbere in English, because English only accepts absorb.
Similarly, the word cannot be analyzable in other languages.

In Polish, it can be acceptable only if it's a Polish affix with which you can form other words too.

 

[birdeen's call]

Please keep this up! I am loving reading it -- understanding little, but loving it.

Well, let me TRY to make a contribution. Polish is an Indo-European language. I was once told (by a Lithuanian) that Lithuanian was the oldest of the Indo-European languages. I also suspect that Icelandic actually IS very old in its structure. When I studied linguistics, I remember running into the term "the decay of the cases". How many cases are in Polish? I think linguists believe that there were seven in Indo-European. Each case, I think, can make at least one (maybe more) preposition redundant. E.g. "the boy's" vs "of the boy" in English.

If what I have just written makes no sense, please forgive me. I had ONE linguistic course in college -- loved it, but was intimidated.

I think it makes very much sense!!

I think the Proto-Indo-European language is believed to have had eight cases. I'm pretty sure it's not seven, because Polish has seven cases and I know we have lost at least one. Generally, Baltic languages (Latvian is another one) are archaic I think. They have changed least in comparison to other Indo-European languages. But Slavic languages, I heard, are also quite archaic, and quite similar to Baltic ones. I heard the researchers say there must have been some Balto-Slavic stage. I don't know much about it. I was always curious about the history of my language and that's what I learned.

It may be interesting for you that there was such a thing as the "dual grammatical number" in addition to the singular and the plural! I think it still exists in Lithuanian or Latvian, but I know it because there are some remainings of it in Polish too!!

PS: As for making prepositions redundant, we simply don't use prepositions everywhere you use them! We won't say "of the boy". We don't even have a word for "of"! We will say "the boy's". We won't say, "He killed him with a sword." We don't have a word for "with" (when it is used like this). We use the instrumental case!