MORPHOLOGY

& WORD FORMATIONS

MORPHEMES, CONDITIONING & WORDS

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 A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the flea: ‘Let us fly’.
Said the fly: ‘Let us flee’.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

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WORD CLASSES

• Content Words
→ noun, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
→ “open class” vocabulary

• Function Words
→ pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliaries, etc
→ “closed class” vocabulary
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WORD RELATION & MORPHEME
• Words can be related to other words, e.g. happy – unhappy.
→ fundamental elements: morpheme
→ rules of combination: Word Formation Rules

• Morpheme: the smallest unit that carries information about

meaning or function

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MORPHEMES

• 1. be identifiable from one word to another

• 2. contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole
word.
e.g. attack, stack, tackle and taxi

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MORPHEME
 MONOMORPHEMIC
Simple words single morpheme
e.g : train
track

 POLYMORPHEMIC
Complex words more than one morpheme

e.g :builder build + er

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HOW MANY MORPHEMES ARE THERE IN
EACH OF THE FOLLOWING WORDS?
• happy unhappier

• happier
• unhappy unhappy -er
• unhappier
• unhappiness
un- happy
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RECOGNITION OF MORPHEMES

• The dinosaur sniffed arrogantly and plodded forwards.

• The dinosaur grunted loudly and edged backwards.

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BOUND & FREE MORPHEMES

door free morpheme

Can be a word by itself

doors
bound morpheme
s
Must be attached to another
element
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INFLECTIONAL & DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES

clouds cloudy
• Inflectional morpheme
→ provides further information about an existing
lexical item
e.g : car cars
jump jumped

• Derivational morpheme
→ creates an entirely new word March 1, 2021 10
Derivational Morpheme . . . .
AFFIXES

• morphemes added to free forms to make other free

forms

• four kinds of affixes:

1. prefixes → unable
2. suffixes → refusal
3. infixes → in-bloody-credible
4. circumfixes → enlighten
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STUDY THE WORDS BELOW

adjective verb verb noun

dark darken sing singer

black blacken dance dancer

red redden write writer

white whiten compute computer

What word formation rules can we make? March 1, 2021 12

ZERO MORPHEMES

Consider the following words:

adjective verb The relationship between

yellow (adj) - yellow (v)
yellow yellow
is exactly the same as
brown brown white – whiten
clear clear → zero morpheme

comb Comb
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ALLOMORPHS
The variant forms of morpheme
e.g: a, an
cats, dogs, horses, oxen, sheep, geese
• Phonological conditioning
→ its form is dependent on the adjacent
phonemes
• Lexical conditioning
→ its form seems to be a purely accidental one,
linked to a particular vocabulary item
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COMPOUNDS
 the combination of two free forms
 In English, the HEAD of a compound is usually the right-hand
member
 The HEAD supplies the category and basic meaning for the
whole compounds
 Compounds can be used with affixation to produce larger
words

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e.g. blackbird, sleepwalker, bookcase, happy hour, etc

What about the following words:

- blackberry
- blueberry
- strawberry BOUND ROOTS
- cranberry
- huckleberry

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HOMOPHONOUS MORPHEMES &
REDUPLICATION
Homophonous Morphemes
• two morphemes having the same pronunciation (form) with
different meanings

Reduplication
• the copying of a part of a word
e.g. the language of the people of Madura
in English?
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OTHER WAYS OF FORMING WORDS
• Blends
→ smoke + fog = smog
motor + hotel = motel
• Onomatopoeia
→ bang, buzz
• Words from names
→ jumbo, sandwich
• Truncation (Clipped words)
→ gym(nasium), (tele)phone
• Acronyms
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→ AIDS
DISCUSS…

1. What are the differences between inflectional and

derivational morphemes?
2. In the words below, identify all bound, free,
derivational, and inflectional morphemes:
nonconformist, decontextualized, repeating, upon,
scariest, untested, carelessly
3. What do you know about open and closed word
class?

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