Morphology

A morpheme’s a morpheme,
no matter how small…as long
as it still has meaning
What is Morphology?
 Morphology is the study of the structure
and form of words (Shedd, 2008)
 Morpheme: “the smallest unit of meaning in a
language” (Gleason, 2005 p. 21)
 Free Morpheme: Morphemes that can stand alone
(cat, danger, etc.) (Gleason, 2005)
 Bound Morphemes: Morphemes that cannot stand
alone and are always attached to free morphemes
(Gleason, 2005)
What is Morphology? Cont’d
 Bound Morphemes Cont’d: Bound morphemes are found
affixed to free morphemes as prefixes (un in unclear) or
suffixes (ing in singing)
 Bound Morphemes can be used to change one word into
another that may be a different part of speech
 These morphemes are called derivational morphemes because
they can be used to derive new words (ness turning the
adjective happy into the noun happiness for instance)
 Morphemes can also provide grammatical information
 These morphemes are inflectional and include things like tense,
plurality, etc.
 The following is an example of how morphemes can change a
word in this way: “He dogs my steps” (verb), “It’s the dog’s dish”
(possessive), or “I have ten dogs” (plural)
The information above is from Gleason, J.B. (2005). The Development
of Language (6th edition). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Why Morphology is Important
 Using morphemic analysis, we can analyze a word’s
structure to predict meaning
 When a child can break a word into its morphemes and can then
define what each morpheme means, he/she can then figure out
what the word means
 Using free morphemes and bound morphemes, children
can build their vocabulary by using a root word like
happy and learning variations of the word (unhappy,
hapless, happiness, etc.)
 Some words have ten variations, some have 90
 It takes a teacher to point out the harder ones and how they
relate back to the root word

The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). More

Letter-Sound Knowledge, Vocabulary, and Morphology.
Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, MI
Activities and Assessments
 Create a word tree that starts with a single word
 Day after day, branch a word off of the root word and give its
definition
 Have the students discuss how the definition of the new word
relates to the definition of the root word
 This will build children’s vocabulary and help develop critical
thinking skills
 Nonsense words
 Give students a list of nonsense words and ask them to write the
plural and past tense form of these words
 This will test how well they understand general trends in the
English morphological system
The nonsense example is an adaptation from The Development of
Language, in which it discusses how adults can immediately tell the plurality
of new words into the English language (the example was Swoosh)
References
 Shedd, Meagan (2008). More Letter-Sound Knowledge, Vocabulary,
and Morphology. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, MI
 Gleason, J.B. (2005). The Development of Language (6th edition).
Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.