Morphology

First: What is Morphology? It is the ”study of forms” (Yule). It is the study of word structure. It is “the system of categories and rules involved

in word formation and interpretation” (O’GRADY). It is “the identification, analysis and description of

the structure of words” (Wikipedia) As a result, when we study morphology, we

examine the different categories of morphemes that make up words and the different morphological processes through which new words are formed.

Morphology

What is a MORPHEME? A morpheme is the smallest unit of language

that carries information about the meaning or function. It is “the minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function”.

Example:

The word “hospitalize" has two morphemes: hospital (with the meaning of a place where patients are treated) and –ize (which indicates that the entire word functions as a verb with the meaning of ’being admitted to a hospital‘).

Morphology

What is a Free Morpheme ? A free morpheme is a morpheme that

can be a word by itself.

Examples: cut, car, book, and pray

Morphology

What is a Bound Morpheme ? A bound morpheme is a morpheme

that cannot stand alone as an independent word. It must be attached to another element.

Examples: -ed, -s, re-, in-, and –ness.

NOTE: Refer to page 76 for an important observation.

Morphology

What is a Lexical Morpheme ? Words that have meaning by

themselves—boy, food, door—are called lexical morphemes.

Morphology

What is a Functional Morpheme ? words that function to specify the

relationship between one lexical morpheme and another—words like at, in, on, -ed, -s—are called functional morphemes.

NOTE: Sometimes functional morphemes are referred to as grammatical morphemes.

Morphology

Derivational Morphemes “Morphemes that change the meaning or part of speech of a word they attach to” (Clark, 1998).

Examples: happy and unhappy happy and happiness

Morphology

Inflectional Morphemes: “Morphemes that serve a purely

grammatical function, never crating a new word but only a different form of the same word, are called inflectional morphemes” (Clark, 1998).

Examples: Car and Cars Look and Looked

Morphology

Inflectional Morphemes:STEM SUFFFI

XFUNCTION EXAMPLE

WAIT -s 3rd per. sg. present

She waits there at noon.

WAIT -ed Past tense She waited there last night.

WAIT -ing Progressive She is waiting there now.

EAT -en Past participle Ahmed has eaten the apples.

CHAIR -s plural The chairs are in the room.

CHAIR -’s Possessive The chair’s leg is broken.

FAST -er Comparative Jill runs faster than Joe.

FAST -est Superlative I have no idea what the fastest car is.

Morphology

Tree Diagrams: Some practice with tree diagram. Reformer Reconstruction Unbreakable Nonrefundable Irreplaceability Overgeneralization* Activation Unhappiness*

Out of context!!

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