The Masters of

Morphology:

Teaching Morphology by: Ashley Jordan

To morph is to transform from one thing to another.

As Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, that is our special
power! To morph or not to morph, that is the internal
question, but to teach you about MORPHOLOGY is

The study of the structure of words is called

Morphology
I am Zordon, now lets start from the beginning!

MORPHEMES are the smallest unit of grammar

and are the building blocks of words.
Like legos, they connect to turn bird into birds.

Kimberly says, When

you add an s to the
end of a word, its
called an Inflectional

Suffix.
Those are the

Morphemes that
provide grammatical
Do you know any
information
about the
Inflectional
included
context.
Morphemes?
HINT: YOU CAN USE THESE TO
EXPRESS GENDER, NUMBER,
PERSON, CASE, DEGREE, AND
VERB FORM.

Derivational Morphemes
are affixes added to form
new words.
Like possible to impossible
and heard to unheard.

What

Derivational
Affixes can you
think of?

HINT: THEY CAN BE

EITHER PREFIXES OR
SUFFIXES.

The third category for a

MORPHEME is called word
Roots or Stems
They carry the basic
meaning of the word
within.

Word roots can either be

Free or BOUND
If you are confused, it is
as it sounds!
IDENTIFY THE FREE
AND BOUND
MORPHEMES

NEVERTHELESS
NEVER + THE +
LESS
INTERNATIONAL
INTER + NATION
+ AL

FREE roots are words

that can stand alone
Bound roots are words
that cant stand on their
own

Free roots can be

classified as either

CONTENT or
function.

Function words
include articles,
pronouns, prepositions,
and
conjunctions
They also
include modals and
auxiliary verbs!

Words that convey the

meaning of a sentence is
called CONTENT WORDS

The parts of speech that

are included are nouns,
adjectives, verbs and
adverbs.

Lastly, it is important
that a Syllable is not
confused for a

Morpheme
SYLLABLES are
phonological units of a
word but do not add to
the meaning

HAPPINESS ------- WORD

HAPPY + NESS --- MORPHEME
HAP + PY ---------- SYLLABLE