Page 313 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 23: Word -Formation: Process and Rules

Inflection Morphology of English Pronouns: Pronouns are the words used as a replacement of Notes
noun. For example, words like - he, she, it they, I, me, mine, you, yours, etc. Such pronouns are
called personal pronouns. There is another form of pronoun which is called indefinite pronouns.
Indefinite pronouns refer to the words like somebody, someone, etc. Personal pronouns are marked
by following grammatical rules:
1. The Case Rule: According to this rule a personal pronoun can be used in nominative and
objective or possessive forms. Such use of pronouns depends on the function of noun, which
may vary from the subject of verb to the object of verb or it may combine with pronouns to
show that N2 is the possession of N1 (N2 = Pronoun, N1 = Noun)
2. The Person Rule: According to this rule pronouns can function as a first person (the speaker),
the second person (the addressee) or the third person (the third party)
3. Gender Rule: According to this rule pronouns can function as a masculine, a feminine, and a
neuter.
4. The Number Rule: This rule allows pronoun to be two different forms, i.e. singular and plural.
Thus keeping in mind these rules we can present the paradigm of pronouns as followings:

Person Number Gender Case
Nom. Obj. 1st Poss 2nd Poss
First Singular I me my mine
Plural we us our ours
Second you you your yours
Masc. he him his
Third Singular Fem. she her hers
Ncut it its
Plural they them their theirs

Indefinite pronouns do not have any number inflection; they only show case inflection like someone
someone’s, etc.
Inflection Morphology of English Adjectives: Degree rule is the only grammatical rule with
morphological result that applies on adjectives. According to this rule the base adjectives. According
to this rule the base adjective morphemes can combine with degree morphemes i.e. superlative
degreee and comparative degree, to show inflection.
There are several adjectives which donot add nay suffixes in their superlative and comparative
state, instead they add ‘most’ and ‘more’. There are some other adjectives which in their comparative
and superlative forms are completely unrelated to their base adjectives. For example, ‘good’ in
comparative and superlative forms is ‘better‘ and ‘best’
These adjectives are not taken into consideration when presenting the morphological paradigm of
adjectives as:

Base Positive Comparative Superlative
Sweet Sweet + Sweet + Sweet +
POSITIVE = COMPARATIVE = SUPERLATIVE =
Sweet Sweeter Sweetest

Inflection Morphology of Adverbs: Like adjective, adverbs also have only one rule for
morphological consequence, i.e. the degree rule. Adverbs share their inflectional paradigm with
adjectives, in fact there are number of adjectives which function like adverb without any change
in form like fast, short, hard, etc., and thus also have same degree of inflection.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 307