How language shapes the way we think by Lera Boroditsky

Lera Boroditsky is a cognitive scientist. This is a talk delivered by her at TEDWomen 2017 (November 2017).

There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language -- from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses cardinal directions instead of left and right to the multiple words for blue in Russian -- that suggest the answer is a resounding yes. "The beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is," Boroditsky says. "Human minds have invented not one cognitive universe, but 7,000."

The suffix "-ster" in "Get Fuzzy"

The follow comic strip displays an excellent use of the suffix "-ster".

Published 10th July 2017

Longman Dictionary defines the suffix "-ster" is as:

1. a person who is.
Eg.: a youngster (a young person),

2. a person who is connected with, deals with, or uses.
Eg.: a trickster (a person who plays deceiving tricks),
a gangster (a member of a gang),
a pollster (someone who carries out polls).

Often, the suffix "-ster"is used in a humorous and/or derogatory manner. It is true in the case of this cartoon strip.

The table below explains the meaning of the root words and the root words + suffix, as used in this comic strip.

Root word	Meaning	Root word + Suffix	Meaning
Hip	Aware, informed, up-to-date, trendy. Also: cool, groovy. (Source)	Hipster	1. A person who is keenly interested in the latest trends or fashions.  2. A member of Bohemian counterculture. 3. An aficionado of jazz who considers himself or herself to be hip. (Source)
Limp	Lacking internal strength, energy or vigour.	Limpster	A person who lacks internal strength, energy or vigour. Also: lazy.
Dip	Stupid or foolish.	Dipster	A stupid or foolish person.

It is good to note that while "limpster" is not yet recognised as an English word, "dipster" is already a widely used slang which means "a person who actually thinks being a hipster is cool. Will never refer to themselves as one, but is obviously trying to be one." It's a blending of "dipshit" and "hipster"(source).

However, in the context of the comic strip, the character Bucky Katt precedes his use of the word "dipster" with his definition: "...he's not smart enough to realize he looks silly," obviously referring to the word "dip", a slang in North America which means stupid or foolish.

Analysis of Derivational Morphemes in Malay

Earlier borrowing from the three languages saw more of whole-word transfer, including the affixes which come with the lexical items.  However, in the course of time, education and knowledge of these languages had created an awareness of the meanings of specific morphemes. Therefore, later, morphemes of the languages are also transferred into Malay and used with other Malay lexical items.

In Malay, there are four types of derivational affixes: prefixes, suffixes, infixes and confixes. The following tables demonstrate affixes in Malay and their functions.

Prefixation is when a bound morpheme is added in front of the lexical item in the pre-positioning. In Malay, sometimes prefixes alter the word class of the lexical items.

	Prefix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	be	1.  to put on or wear	berseluar berbaju bertopi
		2.  to own or to show something	berumah berada
		3.  to change a word into a verb	bercukur berjalan belajar bekerja
2.	ke	1.  to change a word into a noun	ketua kehendak
		2.  to show collectiveness	kedua-dua kesemua
		3.  to show position (numeral)	ketiga keduapuluh
3.	se	1.  to show only one	sejenis sepadan sebaya seribu
		2.  to indicate entirety	sekampung senegara sedunia se-Malaysia
4.	ter	to change a word into an adjective	terendam tersayang teroboh tersenyum
5.	me	to change a word into a verb	meyakin melawat mendarat mencuba membawa membaling mengasah mengecap mengebom menyurat menyapu
6.	pe	to change a word into a noun	pewangi pemakai pembawa penjahit pendengar pengedar penulis pemanis pertapa pelajar
7.	memper	1.  to indicate extra effort	memperdalam memperkaya memperluas
		2.  to treat as something	memperhamba memperisteri
8.	di	to change a word into a verb	diumum diumpat diskru
9.	juru	to show a person who is an expert in an area/field	juruterbang jurukimia jururawat juruoptik juruprogram jurutaip juruwang juruukur jurugambar jurubahasa juruaudit jurulatih

Table 10: Prefixes in Malay.

As the table above demonstrates, there are nine derivational prefixes in Malay. These prefixes are have several functions, such as to change a lexeme into a verb (prefix be, me and di), change a lexeme into a noun (ke and pe) and change a lexeme into an adjective (ter). Other functions of prefixes are, prefix be is also used with other lexical items to show action of wearing (such as berseluar) and to own or to show something (such as berumah), prefix ke is also used to show collectiveness (such as kesemua) and numeral position (such as ketiga), prefix se is used to indicate singularity (such as sejenis) and entirety (such as sekampung), prefix memper is used to indicate extra effort (such as memperkaya) and to treat as something (such as memperhamba), and prefix juru is used to show a person who is an expert in a area (such as juruterbang).

Suffixation is a process where a bound morpheme is placed at the back of a lexical item, in post-positioning. In Malay, most of the times suffixes alter the word class of the lexical items involved.

	Suffix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	an	to change a word into a noun	masakan minuman hinaan jaminan
2.	kan	to change a word into a verb	tingkatkan timbunkan tetapkan
3.	i	1.  to show imperative	sayangi takuti kaburi
		2.  to change a word into a verb	lindungi naiki

Table 11: Suffixes in Malay.

There are only three derivational suffixes in Malay, which are an, kan and i. Suffix an is used to change a lexeme into a noun (such as masak becomes masakan), and suffix kan and i are used to change a lexeme into a verb (such as tingkat becomes tingkatkan, and saying becomes sayangi).

Infixation in Malay occurs when a bound morpheme is inserted within a lexical item, right after the initial consonant. Generally, infixes do not change the word-class of the lexical items.

	Infix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	en	to form a new lexical item of almost similar characteristics	tenusu (from tusu/susu)
2.	er		seruling (from suling) keruping (from kuping) rerambut (from rambut) gerigi (from gigi)
3.	el		kelemumur (from kemumur) telunjuk (from tunjuk) jelajah (from jajah)

Table 12: Infixes in Malay.

According to Heah, infixation is an obsolete morphological process which was revived recently to create lexical items. In Malay, there are only three infixes, which are en, er and el.

Confixation is a process where a bound morpheme occurs in front of and at the back of a lexical item, in pre-position and post-position. Most of the times, confixes change the word-class of the lexemes involved.

	Confix	Meaning in Malay	Example
1.	me…i	1.  having attributes of something	meragui membasahi
		2.  to indicate repeated action	memukuli
		3.  to change a word into a verb	membanjiri menasihati mengotori
2.	me…kan	1.  to cause something to happen	menaikkan mengakibatkan menakutkan
		2.  to change a word into a verb	membetulkan mencalonkan mengambilkan melarikan
3.	ke…an	1.  having attributes ofsomething	kejahatan ketaatan kehausan kebiruan
		2.  to change a word into a noun	kehadiran kedudukan
4.	memper…i	1.  to indicate becomingsomething	mempereloki memperteguhi
		2.  to change a word into a verb	mempersenjatai mempelajari
5.	memper…kan	to change a word into a verb	mempersuamikan memperdebatkan memperlagukan
6.	pe…an	to change a word into a noun	perbuatan pengambilan pembinaan

Table 13: Confixes in Malay.

As demonstrated in the table above, there are six derivational confixes in Malay, which are me_i, me_kan, ke_an, memper_i, memper_kan and ke_an. One of the main functions of confixes is to change a lexeme into a noun, as in confix ke_an and pe_an.

In the Tables 10 and 12, we can observe that in morphemes be, me and pe, each has a few allomorphs. The allomorphs for morpheme be are {be} as in bekerja, {ber} as in bermain and {bel} as in belajar. Allomorphs for morpheme me (in both prefix and confix categories) are {me} as in melawat, {men} as in mendarat, {mem} as in membaling, {meng} as in mengasah, {menge} as in mengebom and {meny} as in menyurat. Allomorphs for morpheme pe (in both prefix and confix categories) are {pe} as in pewangi, {pem} as in pemakai, {pen} as in penjahit, {peng} as in pengedar, {penge} as in pengecat, {per} as in pertapa and {pel} as in pelajar. This is perhaps due to the influence of the sounds after the morphemes in the lexical items, known as phonological conditioning. Thus, we can say that, for example, the morpheme pe is phonologically realized as seven different allomorphs based on the place of articulation.

References

Tatabahasa Bahasa Melayu (2004). Retrieved on 5^th Sept. 2004 from http://tatabahasabm.tripod.com/tata/index.htm.

Loga Baskaran (2003). General Linguistics: Phonetics and Phonology (Lecture notes). Faculty of Languages and Linguistics: University of Malaya.

Heah, L.H.C. (1989). The Influence of English on Lexical Expansion of Bahasa Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka.

"Verbing" - changing of Nouns into Verbs

"Verbing", as in changing a noun into a verb is not a new phenomenon. However, it recently gained more attention as internet memes become more popular.

Linguistically, the changing of nouns into verbs without affixes is called Conversion. More on that here: Morphological process : Noun to Verb.

Here are some examples of "verbing" in memes:

An interesting further reading: moreintelligentlife.com.

“Weird Al” Yankovic: “Word Crimes”

This is a fun song by “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Word Crimes.” It pokes fun at the popular trend these days of abbreviating words, misspelling and erroneous grammar in general. I should think English teachers particularly would perhaps find this a useful teaching aid.

All copyrights by alyankovicVEVO.

Functions of reduplication in Bahasa Malaysia

Reduplication is a common morphological device widely used in Bahasa Malaysia (BM). According to Tham (1990), the process of duplication is used “to either create derivative meanings or extend the meaning of a linguistic category by connotation.” In BM, almost all linguistic categories can be duplicated, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, numerals and particles.

*In this analysis, the use of suffixes [me], [be] and [ter] is treated as carrying more weight in terms of grammar function than meaning.

There are two reduplication patterns in Bahasa Malaysia:

1.  Total/stem reduplication

For example:  kuda becomes kuda-kuda

2.  Partial reduplication

For example: terang becomes terang-benderang

Reduplication serves several functions in BM (the following functions and examples are not exhaustive):

1.  To show plurality

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
rumah	a house	rumah-rumah	houses
jari	a finger	jari-jemari	all fingers
pokok	a tree	pokok-pokok	trees
buku	a book	buku-buku	books

2.  To create new words

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
awak	informal, second person pronoun “you”	awak-awak	sailors, crew of a fishing vessel
pura	city, town or state	pura-pura	pretending (to deceive)
agar	so that	agar-agar	jelly

3. To show conceptual similarity

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
langit	sky	langit-langit	the ceiling or palate
jari	fingers	jari-jari	spoke, radius or bar
suka	to like	suka-suka	aimless or meaningless fun
orang	people	orang-orang	scarecrows
jalan	to walk	jalan- jalan	sightseeing

4. To show continuous action

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
pukul	to hit	memukul-mukul	to hit continuously
cari	to search	mencari-cari	to search continuosly
cakar	to claw	mencakar-cakar	to claw continuously
tulis	to write	menulis-nulis	to write continuously
lalu	to pass by	lalu-lalang	passing by in both directions (usually high traffic)

5. To show intensification of action

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
tunggu	to wait	menunggu-nunggu	to wait for a long time
panggil	to call	memanggil-manggil	to call for a long time
goyang	to shake	menggoyang-goyang	to shake continuously to no avail
kejar	to chase	terkejar-kejar	to chase continuously to no avail

6.  To show aimlessness of action

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
esak	to sob	teresak-esak	to sob aimlessly
tanya	to ask	tertanya-tanya	to ask aimlessly
lari	to run	terlari-lari	to run aimlessly
raba	to touch (with palm)	meraba-raba	to touch or feel  aimlessless (in the dark)

7. To show reciprocity

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
gaduh	to quarrel	bergaduh-gaduh	to quarrel with each other
lumba	to race	berlumba-lumba	to race with each other
sahut	to respond to a call	bersahut-sahutan	to respond to each other’s calls
tolak	to push	tolak-menolak	to push each other
tendang	to kick	tendang-menendang	to kick each other

8. To show variety

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
masak	to cook	masak-memasak	all sorts of cooking
jual	to sell	jual-menjual	selling in general
jahit	to sew	jahit-menjahit	all sorts of sewing
potong	to cut	potong-memotong	all sorts of cutting

9. To show inter-connectedness

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
dua	two	dua-dua	both
lima	five	lima-lima	all five

10. To show indefiniteness

For example: 

Base word	Meaning	Reduplicant	Meaning
mana	where	mana-mana	wherever
bila	when	bila-bila	whenever
lama	long (time)	lama-lama	eventually; sooner or later
lain	others	lain-lain	everything else

References and some examples are from:

Tham  S.C. (1990). A Study of the Evolution of the Malay Language: Social change and cognitive development. Singapore: NUS

Reduplication. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduplication.