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The Study of The Morphological Structure of English PDF
The Study of The Morphological Structure of English PDF
(Week 1-2)
1. Learning Objectives
Upon completing this chapter, students are expected to be able
to:
1.1 Identify the morpheme base affixes allomorph and morph.
1.2 Identify the types of morpheme
1.3 Identify the function of morpheme base affixes, allomorph and
morph.
1.4 Use the morpheme base affixes, allomorph and morph in
English correctly.
1.5 Be aware of different types of allomorphs in words.
2. Topics of Content
2.1 What is Morpheme?
2.2 What is Segmentation?
2.3 Types of Morpheme
2.4 Base
2.5 Affixes and Affixation
2.6 Allomorph
2.7 Morph
4. Teaching Materials
4.1 Main textbook
4.2 Supplementary materials
4.3 Transparencies
4.4 Charts
4.5 Worksheet
4.6 Textbooks
4.7 English Dictionary
Sentence
Clause
Group
Word
Morpheme
What is Morpheme?
Morpheme, an important division of the grammar of a language, deals
with the structure of words. It is the study of words words which
exhibit arrangements of morphemes. The study of wordformation or the
structure of words in a language is called the morphology of that
language.
The definition of the morpheme may not be completely unassailable
as will be evident from the discussion that follows, but it is certainly a
very satisfying definition applicable to a majority of words in any
language. Some linguists describe morphemes as the smallest recurrent
elements of grammatical patterning and leave meaning out of the
definition. The word receive may be regarded as one morpheme; if
broken down into smaller units, re and ceive, one can claim that
ceive is grammatically significant and recurs in a slightly different form,
cept, in adjective such as receptive, perceptive, perceptual, etc. Similarly,
the following words may be split up into two units: conceive (con, ceive),
transport (trans, port), report (re, port), export (ex, port), perceive (per,
ceive), etc. This represents one point of view, but not one which is
accepted by many other linguists since it totally excludes meaning.
The morpheme is the second basic unit in the expression system of
a language, the first being the phoneme. A morpheme may be defined
as the smallest meaningful unit in the structure of a language. It cannot
be sub-divided without destroying or drastically changing its meaning. For
example, man/ { / is a morpheme. We cannot subdivided it into /m-
/+/ / { n/ or /m/ +/{ / + /n/ because every time we do so, we get
units of language having meaning quite different from the meaning given
by /m{ n/. Therefore the unit /m{ n/ is a morpheme, the smallest
meaningful unit of English language.
The English word unassailable is made up of three morphemes, un,
assail, able, each one of which has a particular meaning distribution and
a particular phonological form or shape.
A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language, and
morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:
woman +
boy - s
What is Segmentation?
A large number of words can be broken down into segments and
are said to be determinate with respect to segmentation.
Examples:
boys boy-s
playing play-ing
passed pass-ed
unable un-able
knowingly know-ing-ly
watches watch-es
But there are several words which can either not be segmented
(indeterminate) at all, or are only partially determinate with respect to
segment.
Examples:
men, children, mice, sheep, went, took, broke, sung, brought, better,
best, worse, worst.
The problems of segmentation in all such words may vary in kind as
well as in degree. This presents a serious problem. Although better and
went stand in the same grammatical relationship with good and go and
as lower and walked have with low and walk, yet the words better and
went cannot be segmented into parts (as lower and walked) as per the
given definition of the term morphemes. Since we know that better has
the same grammatical function vis-a-vis good as shorter has vis-a-vis
short, we can express the relationship as a proportion of grammatical (or
distributional) equivalence:
good : better : best :: short : shorter : shortest
Good and short are both adjectives and the expression better and
shorter are grammatically alike in the sense that they both express only
the comparative degree of the adjective. Similarly, best and shortest too
are alike as they express the superlative degree of the adjective. Now
suppose, on an analogy from algebra, we resolve each of the six words
given above into factors/components, the word good being denoted by
the factor a, short by b, there the positive, comparative and superlative
functions being marked by factors x, y and z respectively, the above
equation can be rewritten as:
ax : ay : az :: bx : by : bz
All the three words on the left hand side have the component a (i.e.
good) in them and those on the right hand side have the component b
(i.e. short) in them. Components x, y and z stand to mark the positive,
comparative and superlative degrees of the adjectives in question. All
these components, or distributional factors of words are morphemes.
Thus, a morpheme may not necessarily be a part of a segment of a
word, but may merely have a factorial role as indicated above.
Types of Morphemes
Morphemes in English can be classified into two categories: free
morphemes and bound morphemes.
2.1 Free morphemes
A free morpheme is independent for it can occur alone by itself
as a word in the language. Free morphemes are those that can occur
alone: dog, girl, good, run, two, have, I, you, of, can, the, love, bad,
etc. A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning.
For instance, in reply to What are you going to do now? you might
answer Eat. This is a free morpheme. A bound morpheme, unlike the
free, cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It is always annexed to one
or more morphemes to form a word, e.g. antedate, replay, manly,
keeper, unable. The underlined morphemes in the examples are all
bound, for one would not utter in isolation forms like ante-, re-, -ly, - er,
and un-.
Classification of Morphemes
MORPHEMES
Bases
Another classification of morpheme puts them into two classes: bases
and affixes. A base morpheme is the part of a word that has the
principal meaning. A base is a morpheme which is the core of the word
that contains the words basic meaning. The underlined morphemes in
these words are bases: denial, lovable, annoyance, reenter, disagree,
pretest, manly.
Bases are very numerous, and most of them in English are free
morphemes; but some are bound, like- sent in consent, dissent, and
assent. A word may contain one base and several affixes. Readability,
for example, contains the free base read and the two affixes abil- and
ity; and unmistakable has the free base take and the affixes un-, mis-,
and able.
In the words like unhappy, disregarded, childhood, etc. morphemes
such as happy, regarded and child can stand on their own as
independent words. Such morphemes are called free morphemes. On the
other hand, morphemes like un-, dis-, -ed, -hood, etc. cannot stand on
their won as independent words. They are always attached to a free
morpheme. Morphemes such as dis-, un-, -ed, -hood are also called
bound affixes. The form to which an affix is attached is called a base.
Here is a tree diagram showing the morphological analysis of the word
unknowingly:
Unknowingly
affix
base
un- -knowingly
base
affix
(knowing) (-
ly)
act actor
base word affix
play replay
b. Possessive marker-s
Samran Samrans
(Samrans pen)
Kinds of affixes
There are three kinds of affixes, which are: prefixes, infixes, and
suffixes:
Prefixes are those bound morphemes that occur before a base, as in
import, prefix, reconsider, unhappy. Prefixes in English are a small class
of morpheme, numbering about seventy-five. Their meanings are often
those of English prepositions and adverbial.
Prefixes in English usually modify the meaning of the base form. The
following are some of the active prefixes, together with their approximate
meaning.
Prefix Approximate Meaning Examples
anti- against anti-people
arch- chief arch-enemy
bi- twice, two bi-monthly, bi-plane
co- with co-passenger
contra- against contra-dication
counter- against counter-move
de- from, away decentralize
dis- away, without disable
em- in, on emplane
en- encircle
equi- equal equidistant
ex- former ex-president
extra- outside extra-constitutional
hyper- abnormally high hyper-sensitive
I- illogical
i + m- not immobilise
n- invisible
r- irresponsible
inter- between inter-college
intra- within intra-college
mal- defective, bad(ly) maladjustment, maltreat
mini- small miniskirt
mis- not misbehave
non- not non-committal
pan- all pan-Indian
post- after postgraduate
pre- before predegree
pro- favouring pro-capitalist
pseudo- sham pseudo-intellectual
quasi- half, seeming(ly) quasi-passive
re- back, again regain
semi- half semi-circle, semi-final
sub- under sub-committee
super- very high degree super-diplomat
trans- across trans-continental
tri- three tri-junction
ultra- excessively ultra-modern
un- not unusual
Infixes are bound morphemes that have been inserted within a word,
although in English these are rare. Occasionally they are additions within
a word, but, infixes in English are most commonly replacements, not
additions. They occur in a few noun plurals. Like the ee- in geese,
replacing the oo- of goose, and more often in the past tense and past
participles of verbs, like the o- of chose and chosen replacing the oo-
of choose.
Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base, for example
shrinkage, failure, noisy, realize, nails, dreamed. A suffix can occur after
another suffix but not directly after a prefix. Suffixes may pile up to the
number of three of four, whereas prefixes are commonly single, except
for the negative un- before another prefix. In normalizes we perhaps
reach the limit with four: the base norm plus the four suffixes al, -ize,
-er, -s. when suffixes multiply like this, their order is fixed: there is one
and only one order in which they occur.
Suffixes are generally divided into two classes: (a) those that
serve some grammatical functions, and (b) the others that are used to
derive new words from the base form. According to these two functions
the first group is called grammatical or Inflectional Suffixes and the
second group is called lexical or Derivational Suffixes.
Classification of Affixes
Affixes may be classified as derivational and inflectional according
to their effect on the base.
Inflectional affixes
Inflectional affixes are bound morphemes that mark grammatical
meanings such as plurality, past tense, or comparison. They do not
change the word class of the base to which they are attached.
Inflectional affixes are those that do not change words (to which
they are added) from one word class or subclass to another.
For example:
understand misunderstand
v
v
countable uncountable
adj.
Adj.
boy boys
n n
In English, as in many other languages, words are sometimes
modified or changed to meet grammatical requirements. For instance, the
word like in Dogs like meat. The forms are so changed or modified to
indicate their connection with or dependence on other words in the
sentence, or for other grammatical functions snf are called the
Inflectional forms of the words; and this is usually done by adding
inflectional suffixes to the base form. However, unlike some highly
inflected languages (e.g. Sanskrit, Latin, etc.) where even entire sentence
can be squeezed into a single inflected form, English uses inflection only
for a few limited purposes. They are:
1. Tense affixes
The tense affix is used by adding it at the end of an auxiliary or
a verb which is the first element in the predicative structure, The tense
affix in English is divided into two kinds: present and past.
(i) The present tense affix in a verb has two forms: /- s /and //
the form s is used if the subject of the sentence is singular with a
third person in the present tense, thus done by adding s or es to the
base form in writing, the form // will be used if the subject of the
sentence is plural or I, You, or if the sentence consists of modal (M)
/-s/ if the subject of sentence is
singular
present tense affix
/-/ if the subject of sentence is
plural or I, you or if the sentence
consists f modal (M)
Subject Predicate
A girl takes my pen
She has a book
Men take my books
They have books
You have one book
A girl may take my pen
She can have a book
take -s
have + present have
have
The allomorphs of this morpheme too are phonetically identical
with the plural and case-suffixes and occur under similar phonetic
contexts, namely:
(ii) The past tense affix has two forms: -ed and
ed
past tense affix
The form of the past tense affix will be shown at the first element
of the predicative structure of a sentence. For examples
A sentence : She went to Lomsak.
Is the string : she + go + past + to + Lomsak
went
open - ed
(iii) The plural affix is added at the end of the word, for a
countable noun, therefore, it is the suffix. The plural affix has two
forms :/-s/ and // .
The plural affix taking the form -s
girl girls
chair chairs
dog + plural dogs
pen (-s) pens
etc. etc,
The plural affix taking form
deer deer
fish fish
sheep sheep
man men
child + plural children
woman women
goose geese
etc. etc.
-s
plural affix
is
She is coming.
All full verbs and the auxiliaries Be and have (auxiliary Do has
no ing form) regularly take the ing suffix to form the present participle
and the gerund. Since both of these are identical in form and sometimes
difficult to distinguish grammatically, they are conveniently labelled as
the ing form of a verb.
The suffix is regarded as inflectional when its function is purely
grammatical. For instance, is inflectional in the continuous (progressive)
tense of the verb. It becomes a derivational functional suffix when the
resultant form has an adjectival or nominal function, e.g. Seeing is
believing (here the suffix is used to derive the two nominals); A rolling
stone gathers no moss (here the suffix is used to derive the adjectival).
A sentence:
He has been here.
he + have + present + be + participle + here
has been
-ed
Participle affix -en
The participle forms of regular verbs are spelt d or ed, and
three different forms can be added to the base. They are:
/t/ : after a voiceless sound except /t/, e.g. looked
/d/ : after a voiced sound except /d/, e.g., begged
/id/ : after /t/ or /d/, e.g., seated ; sounded
As in the case of the ing suffix, these suffixes may be
inflectional or derivational according to their functions. They have
grammatical functions in the formation of the tenses (simple past and
the perfect tense) and in passivisation, and therefore in these functions,
they are inflectional. On the other hand, the past participle form (like the
ing form) is sometimes used in a purely adjectival function, e.g. the
wanted man. In this function it is derivational, and it can even be added
to nouns: e.g. bearded, talented (cold), blooded, etc.
The verbs which take these suffixes are called regular verbs
because the great majority of the English verbs use them. They are also
regularly added to any new verb acquired by the language.
2.1 Nearly all one syllable adjectives: big/ bigger small /smaller
young/
younger long/ longer short/shorter.
2.2 A number of twosyllable adjectives; particularly those ending
in y: dirty/dirtier, happy/happier, friendly /friendlier.
2.3 Three syllable adjectives made by adding the prefix un- to
words of the second group: unhappy /unhappier, unfriendly/ unfriendlier.
In Comparative transformation , two sentences, each with the
same adjective or adverbs in the predicate, are put together with suffix
er the word than to form a result sentence.
Somyos is old.
Samran is old.
Result: Somyos is old + er + than + Samran is old
= Somyos is older than Samran is.
= Somyos is older than Samran.
possessive
possessive
st nd
Subject Objec 1 Genitive 2 Genitive Reflexiv
form t (dependent, (independen e form
form i.e. followed t, i.e. not
by a noun) followed by
a noun)
Singular
st
1 Person I me my mine myself
nd
2 Person you you your yours yourself
rd
3 Person
(c) Neuter
2
nd
Person they them their theirs yoursel
rd
3 Person ves
themsel
ves
Note:
Sometimes, the distinction between the two kinds of suffix is not
very clear-cut. For example, in forms like doctors childrens, wives, etc.,
the two inflectional suffixes (viz., the plural and the genitive) occur
together. The forms of markedly, reportedly, etc, (-ed followed by ly)
and writings, doings, willingness, willingly (-ing followed by both
inflectional and derivational suffixes) can be explained by assuming two
derivational suffixes (-ed and ing) identical in form with the two
derivational suffixes. This accounts for the inclusion of these two suffixes
in the list of inflectional as well as in derivational suffixes. In each case
there are two phonemically identical forms, one inflectional and the other
derivational.
Derivation affixes are bound morphemes which are added to the base
in order to add meaning, to form a new word, or to change the word
class (part of speech) of the base. A derivation affix may appear in the
final position or may be followed by other derivational suffixes.
However, there is a large set of affixes in English called derivational
affixes that usually (not always) change words from one part of speech
to another. By adding the derivational affix signaled by al to the verb
base arrive, we get the noun arrival.
Compare: They usually arrive early.
Their early arrival was typical.
The addition of the derivational suffix ment to the verb employ
gives the noun employment.
Compare: They employ many new workers each year.
His employment was terminated.
Sometimes the addition of a derivational affix changes a noun
form to a verb form.
You are my friend.
You befriend me.
The addition of the affix be- to the noun friend gives the verbs
the verb befriend in the above example.
You bring me joy.
I enjoy you company.
The addition of the affix en- changes the noun joy to the verb
enjoy.
Derivational suffixes usually do not close off a word; that is, after
a derivational suffix one can sometimes add another derivational suffix
and can frequently add an inflectional suffix. For example, to the word
fertilize, which ends in a derivational suffix, one can add another one,
-er, and to fertilizer one can add the inflectional suffix s, closing off the
word.
The following diagram summarises all the statements made above
(applicable to English language only):
Morpheme
Prefixes Suffixes
Allomorph
An allomorph may be defined as the variant of morpheme which
occurs in a certain definable environment.
One of the various distinct forms of a morpheme is an allomorph.
Allomorphs occur in predicable environments.
A morpheme may have one or more allomorph.
Allomorphs can be described in terms of phonemes.
An abstract such as plural morpheme in English can be represented
in three forms:
-s as in books, pens, marks
-es as in beaches, dishes, peaches
-en as in oxen, children, women
The suffixes s, -es and en, each, represent the plural morpheme in
the English language. Each of these distinct forms cannot be established
as a morpheme because they cannot occur independently, but do occur
under phonetic conditioning, as follows:
-s occurs after sounds spelled with p, t, k, d, g, f, v, th, l, r, n,
m, ng, y, w.
-es occurs after sounds spelled with ch, sh, s, z, x.
-en does not occur under phonetic conditioning, but is a matter of
convention.
{Plural Morpheme}
Zero suffix
Certain words in English do not show any change of form
when inflected
either of pluralizing or being made into past tense form. These singular
plural and present tense forms are alike.
Set A Singular Set B (Plural)
sheep sheep
deer deer
cattle cattle
Set A Present Tense Set B Past Tense
cut cut
put put
hit hit
beat beat
But we know that set A words are in the present tense and
that set B
words are in the past tense. With this understanding we use the words.
There is a sheep.
There are sheep.
He cuts
He has cut
We can say that a zero suffix of plural and a zero suffix of
the past tense
has been added to these forms. The change is not one of overt
alternation in the phonemic shape of the morpheme (allomorph). They
are said to undergo a zero modification. This is shown by // symbol
which is called zero allomorph.
Thus, sheep is written as / : + /
cut is written as / + /
Vowel mutation
Let us take another example; the plural form of man is
men that of
woman is women, and louse is lice. In making them plural we see
that nothing has been added, but a change in the vowel and diphthong
has been made.
/a/ -- > /e/
/au/ -- > /aI/
Similarly, for making past tense, we can change the vowels
as shown
below:
find found /aI/ -- > /au/
swim swam /I/ -- > /{ /
bring brought /I/ -- > / /
seek sought / : / -- > / : /
catch caught /{ / -- > / : /
feed fed / : / -- > /e/
These changes too cannot be explained by the process of
phonetic
change. These irregular changes are known as vowel-mutation.
A few more examples can to be seen below:
fly flew /aI/ -- > /u:/
slay slew /eI/ -- > /u:/
get got /e/ -- > / /
meet met /I:/ -- > /e/
take took /eI/ - > /u/
Vowel mutation can also be seen in verb-making,
adjectivising, noun-
making, and so on.
Consonant change
Apart from vowel changes, pluralizing is effected by
changes in
consonants also. Some English words ending in /f/ -leaf, life, wife, knife,
shelf, loaf, make their plural by converting /f/ into /v/ and adding /z/.
Examples are given below:
shelf / elf/ -- > shelves / elvz/
sheaf / I:f/ -- > sheaves / I:vz/
knife /naIf/ -- > knives /naIvz/
wolf /wulf/ -- > wolves /wulvz/
wife /waIf/ -- > wives /wIvz/
Morph
The concept of morph recognizes that a morpheme has a phonetic
shape. This phonetic representation is called its morph. The word writer
has two morphemes, write and -er. These are realizable in the
phonetic shapes as / / and / -:/. These are two morphs of
the morpheme (or word in this case).
When the word is segmented into parts, the different parts are
referred to as morphs. For the analysis of word structure, a term related
to morpheme is established: morph. When a word segment represents
one morpheme in sound or writing, the segment is a morph. For
example, unhappiness, is comprised of three segments un-, happy, ness,
and each segment represents one morpheme. We say that unhappiness
consists of three morphemes; famous contains two morphs; and mouse
has just one morph. The word happier thus consists of two morphs
which can be orthographically written as happy and er (conventions of
English orthography allowing a charge of y into i). In phonological
transcription the two morphs can be represented as /h{ pI/ and / /.
Each morph thus represents (or is the exponent or factor of) a particular
morpheme.
The terms morpheme and morph are thus comparable to the
term form and substance given by Saussure. The morpheme is an
element of form which may be represented directly by phonological (or
orthographical) segments with a particular shape i.e. by morphs. It is
customary to represent morphemes between braces. For example the
word went (phonologically /went/) which cannot be segmented into
morphs, represents the combination of two morphemes.
Sometimes, a particular morpheme may be represented not by the
same morph but by different morphs in different environments. Such
different representations of a morpheme are called allomorphs.
Examples:
Plural morpheme
Allomorphs
/Iz/ in the case of word ending in /s/, /z/, / /, / /, / /
, d /
e.g. buses /b sIz/, vases /v :zIz/, bushes /b Iz/,
rouges /re: Iz/, churches / ; Iz/
{e(s)} /s/ in the case of word ending in a voiceless consonants
(other than / /,/s/
/ / e.g. cats /k{ t/, cap /k{ ps/
/z/ in the case of words ending in voiced sounds (other
than /z/, / / and /d / e.g. boys /b Iz/, bags /b{ gz/
Lexicon
(Lexical Analysis)
Morpheme
(Segmented)
Morphs
Allomorphs
I possibl
m e
- regulari
ze -s
Ir
logical -
happy e
appropr
em
iate
-
Summary
A word may consist of a single morpheme or a number of
morphemes. For instance, the word meaningful is made up of three
meaningful units or morphemes; namely mean, ing and ful. Of these
meanings, however, only one, namely, mean, can stand by itself; the
others, though carrying some meaning, cannot stand singly. The
morpheme that can stand by itself is called a free morpheme and the
one that cannot is called a bound morpheme. A morpheme is a minimal,
meaningful unit in the grammatical system of a language. A systematical
study of morphemes or how morphemes join to form words is known as
morphology. A large number of words can be broken into segments.
Such words are said to be determinate with respect to segmentation
while some others (e.g. broke, better) are indeterminate with respect to
segmentation. In the case of the word belonging to the latter type, it is
conventional to use the term factor for morphemes, e.g. spoke =
{speak} + {ed}.
Sometimes a particular morpheme may be represented not the by
same morph but by different morphs in different phonetic environments.
Such different representations of a morpheme are called allomorphs. The
plural morpheme in English, for example, is represented by three
different allomorphs: /s/, /z/, / z/ in a different environment. Consider
the following cases:
2) The plural morpheme s is pronounced in three different
common
ways: in cats it is /-s/ : in boy it is /-z/, and in rose it is /- z/.
3) The past tense morpheme ed in verbs is pronounced in
three
different common ways: in ruled it is /-d/ : in stopped it is /-t/ : and in
wanted it is / d/.
Thus /s/, /z/ and / z/ above are three allomorphs of a single
morpheme or are members of the same plural morphemes. Similarly, :
/-d/, /-t/, /- d/ are three allomorphs of single past-tense morphemes.
They are considered as such because they occur in a certain definable
environment as,
- /-s/ (as also /-t/) occurs after voiceless consonants.
- /-z/ (as also /-d/) occurs after voiced consonants.
- /- z/ occurs after the consonants /s/, /z/, / /, / /.
- /- d/ occurs after the consonants /t/ and /d/.
Some morphemes can stand on their own as independent
morphemes (e.g. sad, regard, girl). Such morphemes are called free
morphemes. On the other hand, morphemes like ed and -un can not
stand on their own as independent words, and are called bound
morphemes. Bound morphemes are also called affixes. Affixes may be
divided into prefixes and suffixes. These are two important kinds: