CHAPTER 6 MORPHOLOGY

MORPHOLOGY: investigates basic forms in a language. This term literally means “the study of forms”.

Morphology analyzes all those basic elements used in a language. Those elements are technically known as
MORPHEMES.

MORPHEME: the minimal unit of meaning or gramatical function. Units of gramatical function include forms used to
indicate past tense or plural, for example. ( english Word forms such as talks, talker, and talking must consist of one
element talk, and a number of elements such as -s, -er, -ing. All these elements are the morphemes)

FREE MORPHEMES Can stand by themselves as single words Open / tour / dress / care
They can be identified as the set of separate english
Word forms such as basic NOUNS/ADJECTIVES/
VERBS ETC

CATEGORIES: Lexical: set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs, Girl / man / house / sad / long /
LEXICAL AND that is words that carry the “content” of the message yellow / sincere / open / look /
FUNCTIONAL we convey. follow / break / tiger
We can add new lexical morphemes to the language,
so they are treated as an OPEN CLASS OF WORDS

Functional: set of functional words such as

conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns And / but / when / because / on /
They are described as a CLOSED CLASS OF WORD near / above / in / the / that / it /
them

BOUND Cannot normally stand alone and are typically Undressed

MORPHEMES attached to another form RE-, -IST, -ED, -S. [un- prefix (bound)]
AFFIXES (PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES) in english are [dress – stem (free)]
bound morphemes. [-ed – suffix (bound)]
When free morphemes are used with bound
morphemes attached (join), the basic Word forms
are known as STEM

CATEGORIES: Derivational: include suffixes such as the -ish, -ly-, - Foolish / quickly / payment
DERIVATIONAL ment. The list also includes prefixes such as re- , pre-,
AND ex - , mis- , co-, un- and many more.
INFLECTIONAL: We use bound morphemes to make nwe words or to The addition of the derivational
make words od a different grammatical category morpheme -ness changes the
from the stem. adjective good to the noun
goodness.

Inflectional: these are not to produce nwe words in a

language, but rather to indicate aspects of the
grammatical function of a Word. Inflectional
morphemes are used to show if a Word is plural or
singular, if it is past tense or not, and if it is
comparative