Introduction to English

morphology
2nd semester, 2011
By Fitri

What is morphology
Morphology is the study of the
structure of words.
Morphology analyzes the internal
structure of words.
Words are made up of morphemes.

Why is morphology important?

The form of a word can give us
important information about its
function.
If we learn to analyze the structure of
words we may understand the
meaning of new words.
Morphology is very unpredictable.

The unpredictability of
morphology (I)
Morphology, that is words, do not
always combine following a logical
rules
Consider the unpredictability of
morphology in the following slides

The unpredictability of
morphology (II)
-ese
Chinese, Japanese, Lebanese, Portuguese, Taiwanese
-an
African, Australian, American, Cuban, Jamaican, Mexican
-ian
Argentinian, Brazilian, Canadian, Egyptian
-ish
Spanish, Irish, British, Flemish, Polish, Scottish
-i
Iraqi, Israeli, Kuwaiti, Pakistani
-?
French, German, Greek, Dutch

The unpredictability of
morphology (III)

ADJECTIVE
(relate to place X)
American
Polish
Scottish
Spanish

NOUN
(a citizen of place X)
American
Pole
Scot
Spaniard

Morpheme (I)
A morpheme is the smallest
meaningful unit.
The meaning that a morpheme gives
can be:
Grammatical (for instance: the part of
speech, if the word is plural or singular, the
tense of a verb, etc.)
Lexical (that is the dictionary meaning
Both grammatical and lexical

An example
COWRITERS

lexical:
grammatica
l:

togeth
er
---

make
marks on
paper

one who
Xs

verb

noun

--plural

Morpheme (II)
A word that contains more than one
morpheme is a morphologically
complex word
One morpheme is the basic one,
the core of the form root or stem
The add-ons bound morphemes are
affixes
E.g. rearranged
teachers

Type of morphemes
Free Vs. Bound Morphemes
Free
Can stand alone as
separate words
Single morphemes
e.g. hunt, kill, the,
play, child, book.

Bound
Cannot occur on their
own as separate
words
Affixes
-s in dogs
-ness in happiness
-ed in walked

Free Morphemes
its divided into lexical and functional
morphemes.
Lexical morphemes
As content words:
carry the content of
the message
Includes nouns,
verbs, adjective,
adverbs:

Functional
morphemes
as function words

Include pronouns,
articles, conjunctions,
prepositions: as, the,
on, from, and, in, etc.

Bound Morphemes (I)

Affixation
Prefix: An affix that is attached to
the front of a base, e.g. re-play.
Suffix: An affix that is attached to
the end of a base, e.g. kind-ness.
Infix: An affix that occur within a
base, e.g. (in Indonesian) s-inambung.

Bound Morphemes (II)

Its divided into derivational and
inflectional morphemes.
Derivational
morphemes make
new words in a
language- different
grammatical
category from the
stem

e.g. suffix ness in

happiness

Inflectional
morphemes
indicate aspects of
grammatical
function of a word.

e.g. suffix ed in
walked indicate
past tense

Derivation Vs. Inflection

It changes the

category and/or the

type of meaning of
the word to create a
new word.
e.g. suffix ment in
government

It does not change

either the
grammatical
category or the type
of meaning found in
the word.
e.g. suffix s in
books

English Inflectional Morphemes

Nouns
s
plural
s
possessive
Verbs
s
third person singular present
ed
past tense
en
past participle
ing
progressive
Adjectives
er
comparative
est
superlative

examples of English
Derivational Morpheme
: Noun Adj
: Verb Noun
: Adj Adv
: Adj Noun
: Verb Adj

;
;
;
;
;

-ship

: Noun Noun

; friend friendship

re-

: Verb Verb

; cover recover

in-

: Adj Adj

; definite indefinite

-ic
-ance
-ly
-ity
-able

alcohol alcoholic
clear clearance
exact exactly
active activity
read readable

Review
Morphemes

Free

Lexical

Functional

Bound

Inflectional Derivational

Analyzing words
The girls wildness shocked the teacher
The functional
girl lexical
-s inflectional
Wild lexical
-ness
derivational
Shock
lexical
-ed inflectional
The functional
Teach lexical
-er
derivational

Analyze different types of

morphemes
The young boy played with his friends.
The

Young

Functional
Lexical

Lexical

Boy

Play

-ed

With

Functional

His

Functional

Friend

Lexical
Inflection

Lexical

Allomorphs
Sometimes, because of historical or
phonological reasons, the same
morpheme can have different forms
(different realizations)
impossible, incredible, illegal,
irrelevant
These different realizations are called
allomorphs.

An exercise of allomorphy
English has a single morpheme to
indicate plurality in nouns, but that
morpheme is realized in different
allomorphs:
[s]
-S

[z]
[iz]

cats, rocks, clocks,

tests
dogs, balls, bags, cans
horses, churches,
quizzes

Describe the italic affixes:

1) impossible
2) terrorized
3) terrorize
4) desks
5) dislike
6) humanity
7) fastest

1) Derivational
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

prefix
Inflectional suffix
Derivational
suffix
Inflectional suffix
Derivational
prefix
Derivational

Describe the italic affixes:

8)
9)
10)
11)
12)
13)
14)

premature
untie
darken
fallen
oxen
faster
lecturer

8) Derivational prefix
9) Derivational prefix
10) Derivational suffix
11) Inflectional suffix
12) Inflectional suffix
13) Inflectional suffix
14) Derivational suffix