WEEK 7

Morphology :The Words of

Language
How many words do you know ?
At the age of 6 13 000

After Form 5 60 000

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Today's Class
Types of Morphemes
Bound & Free Morphemes
1. Prefixes & Suffixes
2. Roots and Stems

Derivational & Inflectional Morphemes

Objective
Analyse a list of given words into their constituent
morphemes. Give a meaning to each morpheme.

Analyse the morphemic structure of words to

determine if the affixes are derivational or
inflectional.
MORPHOLOGY

Morphology
The study of words and their constituent parts; the internal structure of
words
Morph + ology (word form + science of)
The science of words form
Part of our grammatical knowledge of a language

> The study of the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which
words are formed >>>>>>> MORPHOLOGY
 Morphemes
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Morpheme
minimalunit of sound and meaning that cannot be further analyzed
The most elemental unit of grammatical form

>Smallest unit of meaning in a word >>>>>>>>>>MORPHEME

Morphological rules
the rules that combine morphemes into 'words'
 Types of morphemes
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Free morpheme:
Morphemes that can stand by themselves as single words.Eg: boy,
desire, gentle,man
Bound morpheme:
Morphemes that cannot normally stand alone but typically
attached to another form
Eg: -ish,-ness,-ly,-pre, trans-, un-
never words by themselves but are always parts of

words.
Free Morphemes => set of separate English word form.
Bound Morphemes => Affixes
Free Morphemes
Lexical Morphemes - Content words

Functional Morphemes Function word

Lexical Morphemes

1. Lexical morphemes
The words which carry the content or messages we

convey : ordinary nouns, adjectives, and verbs.

Eg: boy,man,house,tiger, sad, long, yellow, look,

break
Classified as open class of words can add new

lexical morphemes to the language easily.

Functional Morphemes
Consists largely of the functional words in the
language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles,
and pronouns
Eg: and, but, when, because, on, near, above, in, the,
that, it,..
We almost never add new functional morphemes to
the language => closed class of words
Bound Morphemes => Affixes

Affixes i) prefixes affix precedes or follows

other morphemes; before other morphemes

Eg: un-,pre- : premeditate, prejudge
bi-: bipolar, bisexual

ii) suffixes affix following other morphemes

Eg: -ing : sleeping, eating, running, climbing
-er : singer,performer, reader
-ly : manly,sickly,friendly
-ist : typist, pianist,novelist,linguist
iii) infixes morphemes that are inserted into other morphemes
 iii) Infixes
morphemes that are inserted into other morphemes
Bontoc, spoken in the Philippines, is such a language,
as illustrated by the following:
Nouns/AdjectivesVerbs
Fikas (strong)fumikas (to be strong)
kilad (red) kumilad (to be red)
Fusul (enemy)fumusul (to be enemy)

Refer page 45,Fromkin

Roots and Stems
Free morphemes are roots
Free morpheme used with bound morpheme known

as and stems.
Eg: 1.believe root

believe + ablestem
un + believe +ableword
2. systemroot
system + aticstem
un + system + aticstem
un+systematic+alstem
un+system+atic+al+lyword
 Roots contribute the 'basic meaning' of a word
Stems are forms (including roots) with which affixes
combine
Derivational & Inflectional
Morphemes
Derivational morpheme:
Morpheme that attaches to another morpheme or
word to derive a new word
They are new words and new dictionary entries.
Bound morphemes which change the category or
grammatical class of words.
Eg: verb>>>>>>>>>adjective
readreadable
like+ - able =likeable
thinkthinkable
Adjective >>>>>>>>>>> noun
Adjective >>>>>>>>>>> verb
Inflectional morphemes

Inflectional morphemes:
Bound morphemes which are for the most part
purely grammatical markers.
Do not change the category or the word nor they
create new dictionary entries.
Express grammatical information about case, tense,
aspect, number, person, and so on, rather than
changing meaning.
Adds grammatical information to an existing words
Eg: walk>>>>walksimform>>>>informed
Book>>>> bookstaller>>>>>>> tallest
 Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish
Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular

These affixes do not necessarily change the class of

the word, but this is normally the case, e.g. fame
(n.)> famous (adj.)
Since these words derive from others these
morphemes are called:

Derivational morphemes
 Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed,
Car-s, Write-s, Bigg-est

These affixes do not change the word class (verb,

noun, etc.), but rather contribute to meeting
grammatical constraints. These are called:
Inflectional morphemes
 Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish
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Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular

These affixes do not necessarily change the class of

the word, but this is normally the case, e.g. fame
(n.)> famous (adj.)
Since these words derive from others these
morphemes are called:

Derivational morphemes
 Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed,
Car-s, Write-s, Bigg-est

These affixes do not change the word class (verb,

noun, etc.), but rather contribute to meeting
grammatical constraints. These are called:
Inflectional morphemes
Rules of word formation
Morphemes are added in a fixed order
The order reflects the hierarchical structure of the
word.
Linguists use tree diagrams to represent the
hierarchical structure
 Words have Structure
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Column A Column B

happy unhappy

true untrue
Adj Adj
clear unclear

worthy unworthy
pre Adj
believable unbelievable

book *unbook

freedom *unfreedom happy un happy

 Applying the un Rule
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uncertain
unavailable
under
uncle
unite Adj
untie
unwrap
pre Adj
unpack

un certain
 Words have Structure
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Column A Column B

tie untie

wrap unwrap
V V
pack unpack

fold unfold pre V

lock unlock

do undo

button unbutton tie un tie

 Words have Structure
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Column A Column B

glad gladness

foolish foolishness
N
bright brightness

kind Kindness
Adj suf

state of
being X
bright ness
 Draw the hierarchical structure of
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these words.
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1. doable, useable, lockable, believable

2. reconstruct, redeliver, restart, rewrite

3. election, selection, protection, eviction

4. undeliverable; reconstruction
 Morphology helps..
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Study of morphemes helps students understand word
structure and decode text
Book (one morpheme)
Books (two morphemes: book + s [plural])

Cover (one morpheme)

Uncovered (three morphemes)

Same spelling, different morpheme

singER v. biggER, bookS v. swimS
Morphology helps..
to discern the meaning of many new words
Take the word abject, for example.
ab means away or down
ject means to throw
abject's root meaning of thrown down is quite close
to the dictionary definition of cast down in spirit
or sunk into depression.
MORPHOLOGY

THE END
WORD FORMATION PROCESS
1. Affixation
- the process whereby an affix is attached to a root

or stem.
Eg:books,singing,walked

2. Back-formation

- the process of creating new lexeme, usually by

removing actual or supposed affixes.

Eg: burger, teleise,edit

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 3. Compounding
-combining two or more words together to form a

new word.
Eg:postcard,honeymoon

4. Blending
- Parts of words are combined to form new word

- Eg:smog,brunch

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 5. Clipping
-Shortening od a longer word.
Eg:lab,gym
6.Acronyms
- Words created from the initial letters of several
words.
Eg:UNICEF,AIDS

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 7.Abbreviation
-Shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase,
used to represent the whole.
Eg: Dept,Jan

8.Coinage
-Refers to extension of products name from a specific
reference to a more general one.
Eg: Kleenex,Kodak
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