Morphology

Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words

A morpheme/ is the smallest meaningful form in a
language whereas a word is the smallest meaningful free form
in a language. In other words, a morpheme can be free or bound
while a word must be free. Moreover, a morpheme has a constant
shape and meaning (cf. lian2 zi3 lotus seeds vs. lian2 zi
curtains)

E.g. books pens men hit eat
E.g. M: / C: we one / first

Four grammatical levels: (1) morpheme/ (the smallest),
(2) word, (3) phrase/, (4) sentence (the largest)


1
Morpheme
1 word = 1 morpheme = 2 syllables

E.g. camels
| ?
? |

1 word = 2 morphemes = 2 syllables

E.g. camels hair (cf. coffee C:
| camels hump dark coffee light
| cats hair coffee color* a
cup of coffee)

2
Morphology
Morphology is the study of the internal
structure of words and concerns how new
words
are formed

E.g. John likes to go.
E.g. Going is impossible.
E.g. He picks up the chopsticks.
he-pick-up-chopstick



3
Morphology
Morphology is the study of the internal
structure of words and concerns how new
words
are formed

E.g. blackboardreporterbok choy
E.g. blackboard reporter
tank





4
Morpheme
Substitution is often used to test whether X (a character or
a syllable) is a morpheme or not

1 word = 1 morpheme = two syllables

E.g. roses (cf. curry, trumpets)
| ?
? |

E.g.
| ? corals
? |

5
Morpheme
1 word = 1 morpheme = 2 syllables

E.g. camels
| ?
? |

1 word = 2 morphemes = 2 syllables

E.g. camels hair (cf. coffee C:
| camels hump dark coffee light
| cats hair coffee color* a
cup of coffee)

6