Introduction to Cognitive Psychology - Department of Psychological ...

Professor Greg Francis 8/14/12ExceptionsExceptionsThese exceptions generally come from otherYou can probably think of lots of exceptions tolanguages (with appropriate rules)these types of rules English adopts the words but not the rules many words seem to follow arbitrary rulesThese exceptions tend to be very common wordsPluralization, past tense» mouse, mice teach, taught» leaf, leaves buy, bought» man, men fly, flew drink-drank sink-sank throw-threw ring-rang sit-satblow-blewAll derive from a proto-Indo-European languagethat formed past tense by replacing one vowelPurdue Universitywith anotherPurdue UniversityLanguage familiesMany languages are related to each other and havebroad familiesVery special casesWhat is the plural of walkman? Which is why you see so many similar words across languages walkmans? walkmen? Neither feels quite rightTo answer this question we have to understandhow the word walkman is formed and what it isabout this tells us how to pluralize the wordPurdue UniversityPurdue UniversityHeadsHeads and compoundsMost words have a head that indicates whatthe word is aboutIn English it is always the rightmostmorpheme crunchable a thing that can be x-ed cruncher a thing that does x workman a type of person sawtooth a type of toothThe plural form of a compound word is basedon the plural form of the head of the compoundword toothbrush --> toothbrushesNstem sawtooth --> sawteeth snowman --> snowmen Nstem NstemIs walkman a compound noun? yes, but it is not normal walkmanPurdue UniversityPurdue UniversityPSY 200: Intro. to Cognitive Psychology 4