Analyzing Words

1.2.1. Morphemes
Characteristics of morphemes
Problem morphemes
1.2.2. How to analyze words
The 4 Steps of Word Analysis

1.2.1. Morphemes
Word analysis involves breaking a word into its morphemes. So what exactly is a
morpheme? Literally, the word "morpheme" means 'an element in a system of
forms.' Linguists define it more precisely this way:

MORPHEME
The smallest form which is paired with a particular meaning"
Language works because human beings can form relationships
between forms and meanings. A form can be any kind of physical structure. It is
easy to think of the letters on a page as shapes or forms, but what about spoken
language? Think of the sounds which reach your ears when a speaker says the
words "cat" and then "bird." These two words sound different, just as the
written forms of these two words look different. From the point of view of our
auditory system, these two words have different physical structures, or auditory
forms. Each different form evokes a different meaning. We say that each
form plus the meaning linked to it is a single morpheme.


The longest word in English (according to Webster's Unabridged Dictionary)
contains 45 letters; it can be broken down into 9 morphemes.

Characteristics of morphemes
1. Morphemes cannot be subdivided and retain the same meaning.
- By definition, morphemes are the smallest meaningful units of language. If you try to divide a
morpheme into smaller pieces, all you will get are sounds. The individual sounds of language
don't have any meaning by themselves; they have to be combined with other sounds before
they have meaning. For example, we could break the morpheme "cat" down into the "c"
sound, the "a" sound, and the "t" sound.
2. Morphemes add meaning to a word.
-Each morpheme contributes to the overall meaning of the word. However, some morphemes
may affect the overall meaning much more than others. For example, when we began with the
morpheme "cat" and added the morpheme "bird," we created a new word with a radically
different meaning. In another case, we could begin with "cat" and instead add the morpheme "-
s" (meaning 'plural') to get "cats.".
3. Morphemes can appear in many different words.
Morphemes are recyclable. Word analysis is such a powerful skill because the same
morphemes show up over and over in many different words. Once you've learned the meaning
of a morpheme and learned to spot it in its different forms, you'll know something about the
hundreds of words that use it. For example, in Morpheme Set 1, you are studying the Latin
morpheme duc 'lead, draw ,pull'. Here are a few of the words which use it:
reduce 'to pull back'
deduce 'to draw away from'
seduce 'to lead apart'
Another example is ped 'foot' (also from Latin).
pedal 'pertaining to the foot'
pedestrian 'one who use his/her feet for transportation'
biped 'a creature with two feet '

4. Morphemes can have any number of syllables.
-Don't confuse morphemes with syllables. A syllable is a unit of sound, a morpheme is a unit of
meaning. Sometimes a single morpheme will have several syllables. For example, English
speakers would probably consider the word "hurricane" as a single morpheme (although a
speaker of Carib, the language from which it originated, might be able to break it into several
morphemes).
Syllables may divide a morpheme. This is a good reason to ignore syllables when you are doing
word analysis. For example, the word "pregnant" has three morphemes:
pre- / gn / -ant
'before' 'birth' 'one who'
literally 'one who is before giving birth'
However, there are only two syllables: preg + nant. The morpheme gn is split in half by the
syllable structure of the word.
Problems with morphemes
It would nice if there were always a neat one-to-one correspondence between form and meaning,
i.e. if each meaning always had its own individual form. Unfortunately, natural human language
isn't like that. Now we'll take a look at some potentially tricky situations that can arise. As we
consider these problems, the important thing to keep in mind is that a morpheme is a FORM +
MEANING unit; both parts of the unit must be considered when we are trying to decide if we are
dealing with one morpheme or two.
1. One form, two (or more) meanings.
Two different meanings can be expressed using the same arrangement of sounds. Since there are
clearly two different and unrelated meanings, we would want to say that there are two different
morphemes. For example, in Morpheme Set 2, we will learn the two morphemes,
in- 'not' in words like incapable and insufficient, and
in- 'into, within' , as in invade and include.
Similarly,
gon 'birth, type ,origin' as gonorrhea, and gon 'knee, angle as in diagonal, are
not related.
2. Two (or more) forms, one meaning.
When two different forms have the same meaning, they could be different morphemes -- or they
might be a single morpheme. We'll take a look at both situations.
a. Two forms, one meaning = two morphemes
There are two situations in which two forms have the same meaning, but they are different
morphemes.
(1) In the first case, the forms are usually rather different from one another. For example,
consider
andr 'man ,male' as in android, and
vir 'man, male' as in virile.
(2) In the second case, the forms may be the same or very similar, but they came into
English from different sources. For example,
in- 'into, within' is a prefix English borrowed from Latin. We also
have
in 'into, within', a native English preposition.

b. Two (or more) forms, one meaning = one morpheme
Sometimes two forms with the same meaning may be alternate forms of the same morpheme. For
example, in Morpheme Set 1 we have
a- and an- , different forms of a Greek morpheme meaning 'not, without'.
Another case is
pan- and pant- , which are different forms of a Greek morpheme meaning 'all ,overall'.

1.2.2. How to analyze words
As we mentioned in Web Lecture 1.1, we will only be analyzing words which were
borrowed from either Latin or Greek. We won't be able to analyze Exotic words, nor
will we be analyzing Native words. As you learn more and more morphemes from the
Classical languages, you will begin to recognize them in words you encounter.
There are four steps in the complete analysis of a word. They are:
1) PARSE
To parse a word means to divide it into its morphemes.
On homework problems, look for morphemes that you have memorized. Then use the
glossary to find other morphemes that you don't know. DO NOT pay any attention to the
syllables in the word. As we discussed above, morphemes often to do not correspond
to the syllables of the word. Write the word with slashes between the morphemes and
include any hyphens that are shown with the morpheme.
For example, consider the word "repellent." Using the morphemes in Set 1, we
can parse it this way:
re- / pel / (l) / -ent
Notice that the word contains an extra letter which does not go with either of the
morphemes beside it. You should always try to use each letter as part of a morpheme;
however, sometimes this isn't possible. In many cases, the extra letters are relics of the
grammar of Latin and Greek. In other cases, such as this one, the extra letter is
required by the spelling conventions of English.
2) GLOS
To gloss means to give the meaning for a morpheme.
In a complete analysis, you need to provide a meaning for each morpheme. The gloss is
written underneath the parsed morpheme in singl S
e quotes.
For example,
re- / pel / (l) / -ent
'again, back' 'push'

A, N
Notice that there are sometimes two or more meanings for a single morpheme. They should all
be included as part of the gloss. Also, there is no gloss for the extra letter in parenthesis, since it
is not a morpheme and has no meaning. Finally, notice that the last morpheme is glossed 'A, N.'
The letters stand for 'ADJECTIVE, NOUN' and indicate that the word can be used either as
an ADJECTIVE or a NOUN.
3) GIVE A LITERAL MEANING
The final step in word analysis is to use the meanings from the glosses to construct a literal
meaning for the word. For our sample word, we might construct a literal meaning this way:
re- / pel / (l) / -ent
'again, back' 'push'

A, N
'something which pushes back'
A literal meaning should be a phrase which sounds sensible to English speakers. Constructing
such a phrase often requires a little bit of creativity. For example, in the word "repellent,"
the concept of 'back' comes before the concept of 'push'; however in the literal meaning, the
order of these two concepts is reversed. It is often necessary to rearrange the glosses in order to
arrive at a sensible English phrase.
4) GIVE A DICTIONARY DEFINITION
In our example, the literal meaning of the word is very close to the dictionary definition. This is
not always the case. Frequently, the literal meaning must be metaphorically extended to arrive at
the actual meaning of the word. Later in the course, we will discuss how meanings can shift.
Also, the meaning of a word can vary depending on the context in which the word is found. For
example, the word "morphology" can be analyzed this way:
morph / (o) / log / -y
'shape, form'

'study,
speak'
A, N
'the study of shape or form'
By using the principles of word analysis, we can determine that "morphology" is 'the study of
shape or form.' But in order to know exactly what kind of forms are being studied, we need to
know the context. In the context of a Biology class, we are probably studying the form of plants
and animals, but in a Linguistics class, we would be studying the form of words.
Usually, the literal meaning plus your knowledge of metaphorical shifts of meaning and the
context in which the word was found are sufficient to understand it. In a few cases, the meaning
shift is so great that you may need to consult a dictionary. Some homework problems will
require a dictionary definition, but this will not be necessary on exams. All exam words will use
literal definitions, or definitions that are transparently derived from literal.

` `
FORMING WORDS
A word consists of a series of letters. Every word must have at least one
vowel in it. Each syllable is made by blending the sounds of each
component, that is, reading the word by adding one sound at a time, as in -
e, -ed, bed. The following are some rules for spelling and pronouncing
words.
1. c followed by e, i or y usually has the soft sound of s.
Examples: cyst, central, and city.
2. "G" followed by "e, i or y" usually has the soft sound of "j". Example:
"gem", "gym", and "gist".
3. When two consonants a joined together and form one new sound,
they are a consonant digraph. They count as one sound and one
letter and are never separated. Examples: "ch, sh ,th,ph and wh".
4. When a syllable ends in a consonant and has only one vowel, that
vowel is short. Examples: "fat, bed, fish, spot, luck".
5. When a syllable ends in a silent "e", the silent "e" is a signal that the
vowel in front of it is long. Examples: "make, gene, kite, rope, and
use".
6. When a syllable has two vowels together, the first vowel is usually
long and the second is silent. Examples: "pain, eat, boat, res/cue,
say, grow". Diphthongs don't follow this rule.
7. When a syllable ends in any vowel and is the only vowel, that vowel
is usually long. Examples: "pa/per, me, I, o/pen, u/nit, and my".
8. When a vowel is followed by an "r" in the same syllable, that vowel is
"r-controlled". It is not long nor short. "R-controlled "er, Ir ,and ur"
often sound the same (like " er "). Examples: "term, sir, fir, fur, far, for,
su/gar, or/ der" .
Words may have prefixes or suffixes added to them, which will modify
their meaning. For example, the root word use and the suffix -able combine
to create the word usable.