Introduction to English morphology2nd semester, 2011By Fitri

What is morphologyMorphology 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-anAfrican, Australian, American, Cuban, Jamaican, Mexican-ianArgentinian, Brazilian, Canadian, Egyptian-ishSpanish, Irish, British, Flemish, Polish, Scottish-iIraqi, Israeli, Kuwaiti, Pakistani-?French, German, Greek, Dutch

The unpredictability of morphology (III)

ADJECTIVE(relate to place X)NOUN(a citizen of place X)AmericanPolishScottishSpanish AmericanPoleScotSpaniard

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 meaningBoth grammatical and lexical

An example

lexical:

grammatical:together

---make marks on paperverbone who Xs

noun---

plural

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

Type of morphemesFree Vs. Bound Morphemes

FreeBound Can stand alone as separate wordsCannot occur on their own as separate wordsSingle morphemese.g. hunt, kill, the, play, child, book.Affixes-s in dogs-ness in happiness-ed in walked

Free Morphemesits divided into lexical and functional morphemes.

Lexical morphemesFunctional morphemesAs content words: carry the content of the messageas function wordsIncludes nouns, verbs, adjective, adverbs: children, love, beauty, play, singInclude pronouns, articles, conjunctions, prepositions: as, the, on, from, and, in, etc.Open class wordClose class words

Bound Morphemes (I)AffixationPrefix: 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-in-ambung.

Bound Morphemes (II)Its divided into derivational and inflectional morphemes.

Derivational morphemes make new words in a language- different grammatical category from the steme.g. suffix ness in happinessInflectional 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 governmentIt does not change either the grammatical category or the type of meaning found in the word.e.g. suffix s in books

English Inflectional MorphemesNounss plurals possessiveVerbs s third person singular presentedpast tenseen past participleingprogressiveAdjectivesercomparativeestsuperlative

examples of English Derivational Morpheme-ic : Noun Adj ; alcohol alcoholic-ance : Verb Noun ; clear clearance-ly : Adj Adv ; exact exactly-ity : Adj Noun ; active activity-able : Verb Adj ; read readable-ship : Noun Noun; friend friendshipre- : Verb Verb ; cover recoverin- : Adj Adj ; definite indefinite

Review MorphemesFreeBoundLexicalFunctionalInflectionalDerivational

Analyzing wordsThe girls wildness shocked the teacherThe functionalgirl lexical-s inflectionalWild lexical-ness derivationalShock lexical-ed inflectionalThe functionalTeach lexical-er derivational

Analyze different types of morphemesThe young boy played with his friends.

The Young Boy Play -ed With His Friend -s FunctionalLexicalLexicalLexicalInflectionFunctionalFunctionalLexicalinflectional

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

An exercise of allomorphyEnglish has a single morpheme to indicate plurality in nouns, but that morpheme is realized in different allomorphs:

Describe the italic affixes: impossibleterrorizedterrorizedesks dislikehumanityfastestDerivational prefixInflectional suffixDerivational suffixInflectional suffixDerivational prefixDerivational suffixInflectional suffix

Describe the italic affixes: premature untie darken fallen oxen faster lecturerDerivational prefixDerivational prefixDerivational suffixInflectional suffixInflectional suffixInflectional suffixDerivational suffix