2. OUTLINE OF THIS PRESENTATION
Introduction – what is morphology?
Category of word, types of morphemes and classification of English
morphemes
Morphological Processes
Morphological types of languages
The Hierarchical Structure of Derived words
Morphological analysis
Importance of studying morphology
Summary
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3. WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?
The study of the structure of words and how words
are formed out of smaller meaningful pieces and
other words.
The smallest meaningful part of a word is called a
morpheme.
Morpheme is a minimal unit in which there is an
arbitrary union of sound (phonological form)and a
meaning (lexical meaning or grammatical
function).
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4. Word Category
Functional
Category
Ex. Adding an “s” after a
noun to delicate plural
form
Lexical Category
Open Lexical
Categories
Closed Lexical
Categories
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Form Affix
Noun -y
= adj. windy
Adj. -ness
= noun happiness
Verb -able
= adj. drinkable
No new members
preposition on, of,
under, for
pronouns we, she, it
determiner
s
a, the, his,
this
Function Affix
3rd person – sing.-
present simple
-s
He plays football.
Past tense -ed
He played football
yesterday.
plural -s,es
Two cats are in the
house.
Derivation is the process of creating words out of
other words and a new word performs one or
more operation on it.
Inflection is the process of creating
different grammatical forms of words. –
new word still performs the same
function.
5. TYPES OF MORPHEMES
Free morphemes
Is a morpheme that by itself can function as a word in a language
Content words (n, v, adj, adv) and function words (prep., conj, pron.,
determinations)
Examples: Boy, gentle, man, want
Bound morphemes
Is a morpheme that cannot stand by itself to form a word; it must be joined to
other morphemes. It is bound because although it has meaning, it cannot stand
alone. It must be attached to another morpheme to produce a word.
Example: -ish -ness -ly dis-
Free morpheme : poor
Bound morpheme : ly
Word : poorly
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9. 1. AFFIXATION
Prefix
Prefixes are letters that are added to the beginning of the word.
A prefix changes the meaning of a word.
Example: “premature” done before the usual or proper time.
Pre- = before, mature = full-grown
Suffix
Suffixes are letters that are added at the end of the word.
A suffix changes the meaning and the word class of a word.
Example: “powerful” having great power or strength
- ful = full of, forming adjective from noun.
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11. 2. COMPOUNDING
is a process that forms new words not by means of
affixes but from two or more independent words.
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Examples of English compounds
Compounding of free
morphemes
Compounding of affixed
words
Compounding of
compounded words
‘greenhouse
‘cheapskates
‘textbook
‘make-up
‘mother-in-law
‘air-conditioner
‘lifeguard chair
‘aircraft carrier
life-insurance salesman
13. 3. REDUPLICATION
is a process of forming new words by doubling either an
entire free morpheme (total reduplication) or part of it
(partial reduplication).
Example: bye bye, night night, sit sit, super-duper
In conversational speech, reduplication may be used to
indicate intensity; this can happen with verbs, adjectives,
and nouns.
"So... do you like like me, or just like me?"
“I have to go now, now I have the phone call.”
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14. 4. ALTERNATIONS
Making morphemes internal modifications
Vowel modifications
Some irregular verbs show an internal modification:
[I] – [oe] – [v] = begin – began – begun, ring – rang – rung
[ai] – [au] = find – found, bind – bound
Some verbs show both an alternation and the addition of an affix
Root Alternation Alternation and Affixation
break broke broken
bite bit bitten
fall fell fallen
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16. 5. SUPPLETION
A morphological process whereby a root morpheme
is placed by a phonologically unrelated form in order
to indicate a grammatical contrast.
Examples:
Present Verb / past tense verb = is /was, go /went
Adjective /comparative /superlative = good/ better/
worst
Singular / plural = woman/ women
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18. MORPHOLOGICAL TYPES
OF LANGUAGES
Analytic languages words that made up of sequences
of free morphemes – each word consists of single
morpheme, used by itself with meaning and function
intact.
They are also called ISOLATING LANGUAGES – do not use
affixes to compose words.
Position of a word in a sentence shows its function.
- People like dogs.
- Dogs like people.
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19. MORPHOLOGICAL TYPES
OF LANGUAGES
Synthetic Languages
Bound morphemes are attached to other morphemes – a word may be
made up of several meaningful elements.
Stem refers to that part of the word in affixes are added. Example: rerun(s)
3 types of synthetic languages
1. Agglutinating languages – morphemes are joined together loosely, so it is
easy to identify
2. Fusional languages – the affixed are characteristically fused with the stem.
Spanish – [ablo] = I am speaking, [abla] = S/he is speaking, [able] = I spoke.
3. Polysynthetic language – highly complex words may be formed by
combining several stems and affixes. (India)
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20. THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE OF
DERIVED WORDS
A word is not a simple sequences of morphemes. It has an internal structure.
Hierarchical structure is an essential property of human language.
It can be represented by a tree diagram that indicates the steps involved in the
formation of the word.
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(V)
Adj
usere
Verb
able
(V)
Adj
useun
Adj
able
The difference is “reuse” is a verb but “unuse” is not a word.
21. THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE OF
DERIVED WORDS (CON.)
Ambiguous Morphemes and Words
Are words that can be associated with more than one meaning for
example “unlockable”. It could mean either ‘not able to be locked’ or
‘able to be unlocked’.
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22. THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE OF
DERIVED WORDS (CON.)
Morphemes that can attach to more than one lexical
category.
Most prefixes combine with a verb, the result of a new word
is still a verb. Example re+do (v) = redo (v).
Or adding an adjective after a prefix creates an adjective.
Example: un+happy (adj.) = unhappy (adj.)
There are a few prefixes that do not attach exclusively to one
lexical category.
For example “pre”
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23. THE HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE OF
DERIVED WORDS (CON.)
Pre- means before time, the combination of pre- and word will
result in a change of meaning.
Pre- + Verb = Verb
Preexist
Premeditate
Preboard
Pre- + Noun = Adjective
Preseason
Pregame
Prewar
Pre- + Adjective = Adjective
Predental
Prehistoric
prefrontal
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24. MORPHOLOGICAL
ANALYSIS
Analyzing words into their linguistic components (morphemes).
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word Function Morphological Analysis Morphemic analysis
teachers noun 3 morphs teach/er/s 3 morphemes {teach}+{-
er}+{pl}
smaller adj 2 morphs small/er 2 morphemes {small}+{-er}
working verb 2 morphs work/ing 2 morphemes
{work}+{prs.prt}
working noun 2 morphs work/ing 3 morphemes
{work}+{gerund}+{sg.}
25. IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING
MORPHOLOGY
Decoding – Readers who recognize morphemes read more
quickly and accurately.
Vocabulary – Knowledge of meaning of word parts expands
reader’s vocabulary.
Comprehension – knowledge of morphemes helps make
meaning from text.
Spelling – Morphemes are units that can be predictably
spelled.
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26. SUMMARY
Morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.
Parts of speech are free morphemes
Free morphemes consist of open and closed class morphemes
Open classes are Noun, Adj., Adv, Verb
Closed classes are Pronouns, Preposition, Determination,
Conjunction
Bound Morphemes are affix and root
Derivation is the process of creating words out of other words and a
new word performs one or more operation on it. (affix)
Inflection is the process of creating different grammatical forms of
words. – new word still performs the same function.
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Derivation is the process of creating words out of other words and a new word performs one or more operation on it.
Inflection is the process of creating different grammatical forms of words. – new word still performs the same function.
A morphological process is a means of changing a stem to adjust its meaning to fit its syntactic and communicational context.
Concatenation is a process which deals with the formation of new lexical items by putting at least two distinct morphemes together.
The difference between these 2 are reuse is classified as a verb and unuse is not a verb.
