Lesson 5: MORPHOLOGY 1
November 21, 2018
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What is it?
The study of the internal structure of words, or word FORMS, and of the rules by which words are structured, or word FORMATION, is morphology.
This word itself consists of two morphemes:
morphe (GREEK) - form the suffix -logy means ‘branch of knowledge,’ so the meaning of morphology is ‘the branch of knowledge concerning (word) forms.’ 2
ď Ž
Morphology also refers to our internal grammatical knowledge concerning the words of our language.
ď Ž
Like most linguistic knowledge we are not consciously aware of it.
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What is a morpheme? ď Ž
Morpheme is the smallest unit of language with its own meaning or with its own grammatical function.
ď Ž
Also: a minimal unit in which there is an arbitrary union of sound and a meaning (lexical meaning or grammatical function).
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What is a word?
An arbitrary unit of language with is own meaning, which has grammatical stability and positional mobility. Grammatical stability: morphemes within a word structure are strictly ordered and cannot be rearranged. Positional mobility: a word may change its position in a clause, sentence or in a text.
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Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning “They gave it me,” Humpty Dumpty continued, “for an un-birthday present.” “I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a puzzled air. “I’m not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I mean, what is an un-birthday present?” “A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.” LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking-Glass, 1871 6
The prefix un- means ‘not,’ as further shown in the following pairs of words: A
B desirable likely inspired happy developed sophisticated
undesirable unlikely uninspired unhappy undeveloped unsophisticated
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A single word may be composed of one or more morphemes: one morpheme two morphemes three morphemes four morphemes more than four
boy desire meditate boy + ish desire + able meditate + tion boy + ish + ness desire + able + ity gentle + man + li + ness un + desire + able + ity un + gentle + man + li + ness anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism
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Morphological
structure of words includes roots, bases and affixes.
Affixes
are subdivided into prefixes, infixes and suffixes.
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ROOTS & STEMS
Root : is a non-affix lexical morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts. Roots may or may not stand alone as a word
Examples : paint (paint-er); read (re-read)
Stem : is that part of a word to which either grammatical or inflectional affixes (or both!) are added.
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Free and bound morphemes
According to structural placement morphemes can be
Free Bound
Free morphemes are morphemes which can be used as a word “on their own” They generally consist of separate English word forms such as nouns, verbs and adjectives.
girl, system, happy, act, plane, etc . 11
ď Ž
Bound morphemes are morphemes which cannot occur on their own as an independent word.
ď Ž
They are generally prefixes and suffixes like re-,ist,-ed,-s in the words re-print, typ-ist, talk-ed and boy-s,for example, and are attached to other forms which are described as stems or -basic word forms. 12
For example: un + happy + er prefix + stem + suffix bound + free
+ bound
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Affixes
Affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before (prefix), after (suffix), in the middle of (infix), and around (circumfix) word stems (root morphemes) Prefix: un-, pre-, biSuffix: -ing, -er, -ist, -ly Infix: un-freaking-believable (morphemes that are inserted between other morphemes) 14
Morphology
is also divided into:
Inflectional morphology, which studies different grammatical forms of one word and Derivational morphology (word formation), which studies formation of completely new words.
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INFLECTIONAL VS. DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
Derivational
morphemes “make new words from old ones” (Crystal, p. 90.)
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DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES GENERALLY: Change
the part of speech or the basic meaning of a word. -ment added to a verb forms a noun (judg-ment). -re when added to the verb means repetition re-activate means "activate again."
Are
not prominent outside the word.
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DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES GENERALLY:
Typically occur between the stem and any inflectional affixes.
Thus in governments,-ment, a derivational suffix, precedes -s, which is an inflectional suffix.
In English, they may appear either as prefixes or suffixes: pre-arrange, arrange-ment.
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INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES  Inflectional
morphemes: vary (or "inflect") the form of words in order to express grammatical features, such as singular/plural or past/present tense.
 Thus
boy and boys, for example, are two different forms of the "same" word; the choice between them, singular vs. plural, is a matter of grammar and thus the business of inflectional morphology. (Crystal, p. 90.) 19
INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES GENERALLY: Do
not change basic meaning or part of speech, e.g., big, bigg-er, bigg-est are all adjectives.
Express
grammatically-required features or indicate relations between different words in the sentence.
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INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES GENERALLY:
Are productive.
Inflectional morphemes typically combine freely with all members of some large class of morphemes, with predictable effects on usage/meaning.
Occur outside any derivational morphemes. Thus in ration-al-iz-ation-s the final -s is inflectional, and appears at the very end of the word, outside the derivational morphemes -al, -iz, -ation.
In English, are suffixes only!
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English Inflectional Morphemes
Examples
-s third-person singular present She wait-s at home. -ed past tense She wait-ed at home. -ing progressive She is eat-ing the donut. -en past participle Mary has eat-en the donuts. -s plural She ate the donut-s. -’s possessive Disa’s hair is short. -er comparative Disa has short-er hair than Karin. -est superlative Disa has the short-est hair. -ing gerund Dissa likes swimming. 22
EXERCISES I Specify the inflectional paradigms for the following verbs:
to be, to speak, to clean, to put, to go. 23
II
In the following group of words bug, bee, beetle,
can b- be considered a morpheme?
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III Can the "cranberry words" be segmented into more than one morpheme?
cranberry, boysenberry, raspberry, huckleberry…
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IV Decide whether the given morphemes are lexical or grammatical: -ed, fast,
-ing, boy, -s, in, with 26
V Which of these words consist of a root and a affix? Which consist of
two roots?
teacher, kingdom, blackbird, sunflower, beautiful, undress, homesick, pickup, rename, restate, outburst, without.
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VI Think of words which could be formed with these affixes:
pre-, re-, sur-, un-er, -ment, -ful, -en, -s
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COMPOUNDING noun-noun compound: note + book → notebook adjective-noun compound: blue + berry → blueberry verb-noun compound: work + room → workroom noun-verb compound: breast + feed → breastfeed verb-verb compound: stir + fry → stir-fry adjective-verb compound: high + light → highlight verb-preposition compound: break + up → breakup preposition-verb compound: out + run → outrun adjective-adjective compound: bitter + sweet → bittersweet preposition-preposition compound: in + to → into
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COMPOUNDING Are the following compounds endocentric or exocentric? headache, head master, high-school, sunflower, cowboy, cutpurse, cats' eye, ladybird, waste paper, bedroom, hardback, daredevil, pickpocket, scarecrow, longlegs, fast-food, manservant, showoff,textbook, handbag
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CLIPPING What are the clippings made from the following words: 1.
advertisement
alligator
examination
gasoline
gymnasium
influenza
laboratory
mathematics
memorandum
photograph
public house
reputation
telephone
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BLENDING
advertisement + entertainment → advertainment
biographical + picture → biopic
breakfast + lunch → brunch
chuckle + snort → chortle
cybernetic + organism → cyborg
guess + estimate → guesstimate
hazardous + material → hazmat
motor + hotel → motel
prim + sissy → prissy
simultaneous + broadcast → simulcast
smoke + fog → smog
Spanish + English → Spanglish
spoon + fork → spork
telephone + marathon → telethon
web + seminar → webinar
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