What’s morphology
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Transcript of What’s morphology
What’s morphology?
Morphology is the study of the
structure of words.
It deals with the internal
structure of words.
Matthews, P.H. (1991). Morphology, Cambridge textbook in linguistics. Cambridge;
Cambridge University Press.
However, the concept of word itself
defies simple definition. In English
words tend to be smaller than the
sentence, and we combine words to
form sentences.
One tricky thing, however, is that
in many languages, a single word
can have “sentence” meaning.
Here’s an example from
Spanish: hazmelo.
One word, one sentence
This “word” is actually a
command that is best translated
as “do it for me” [do (haz) it (lo)
for me (me)].
Into smaller units
If we take English as an example,
we have a clear sense that
sentences can be broken down
into smaller units (words), each
of which generally contributes
to the meaning of the whole.
For example: Pigs like mud
is a sentence containing three
words
(pigs, like, mud).
Morphology is the study of word
structure and word formation.
Monomorphemic word
Words that have only one
morpheme are also called
monomorphemic words (e.g. pig).
Polymorphemic word
Words with more than one
morpheme are called
polymorphemic words, as in
foolishness (fool + ish + ness).
How many morphemes does the world have?
It is comprised of three morphemes:
1.-
Govern
2.-
-ment
3.-
-s
Governments
Note that govern is the kind of
morpheme that can also stand on its
own, as in the sentence,
“Some people think it is a good idea to
govern with an iron fist”.
Cannot stand on their own
The other two morphemes,
[-ment] and [-s], cannot stand on
their own. Rather, they have to be
attached, i.e. they have to make
up part of a large word.
There’s even more exciting news on the
morpheme front. Let’s focus more closely
on the two bound morphemes
[-ment] and [-s]
in the word [govern-ment-s].
More important distintions
They do not have the same
function
While [-ment] is added to the verb
“govern” to give us a new word, the
noun “government”,
[-s] simply makes the noun plural.
The diference is that [-ment] is a
derivational suffix,
while plural [-s] is an inflectional
suffix.
Derivational and inflectional
Affixation: a way of building up words
by adding prefixes, suffixes, infixes, or
a combination of these. Example:
[cat-s] is formed by affixation. In
particular, by the suffixation of the
plural morpheme [-s].
Word formation processes
Borrowing: words taken from other
languages.
Alcohol (Arabic), boss (Dutch),
croissant (French), piano (Italian),
pretzel (German),
pyjamas/pajamas (Hindi),
chocolate (Azteca), etc.
Borrowing
Compounding: a way of building up
words by combining two words.
Blackbird, air conditioner, bookcase,
timetable, drugstore, bathroom,
suitcase, schoolbooks, backyard,
wallpaper, whiteboard, sunglasses,
toothpaste, newspaper, etc.
Compounding
Blending: blending is like
compounding in that it involves
combining words. But, a part of
each word gets lost along the way.
Motel (motor + hotel), smog (smoke
+ fog), telecast (television + cast),
etc.
Blending
Clipping: words that are reduced.
Ad (advertisement), lab (laboratory), math (mathematics), fans (fanatics), doc (doctor), paper (newspaper), plane (airplane), etc.
Clipping
Conversion: a change of a function
of a word. It can be a noun used as
a verb.
Hammer, butter, water, book, etc.
Conversion
Acronyms: the initials of an expression.
ELT English Language Teaching.
ESL English as a Secound Language.
EFL English as a Foreign Language.
EAP English for Academic purpose.
Acronyms
Multiple processes: words that can have
different uses.
Deli (delicatessen) --- clipping and
borrowing
Snowball --- the problems snowballed ---
conversion and compounding.
Multiple processes