Lecture 3

Morphological Structure of the English Words

Plan
1. Morphological structure of a word.
2. Word-building:
а) morphological;
б) syntactico-morphological;
в) syntactical.
3. Morphemic and word-building analysis.
4. Affixation:
а) suffixation;
б) preffixation.
5. Polysemy, homonymy and synonymy of affixes.

1. The word is the smallest unit of the language. The word consists of morphemes. The
morpheme can be defined as minimum meaningful language unit. Letters and syllables are
smaller units but they have no meaning, they are not meaningful.

All the morphemes in the English language can be divided into two main groups:

MORPHEME
FREE BOUND
Free root m. Root m. Affixes
It can stand alone without changing It is always bound to smth. else Prefixes
Suffixes it’s meaning e. g. boy, dog e. g.
receive, deceive e. g. dislike

Functional Derivational
e. g boys e. g. cooker

The morphemic classification of words is as follows:

1) One root morpheme – a root word e. g. boy;
2) One root morpheme plus one or more affixes – a derived word e. g. boyhood;
3) Two or more stems – a compound word e. g. boy-friend;
4) Two or more stems and a common affix – a compound derivative e. g. lady-killer.

2. Word-building or word-formation is a process of creation of new words from the

elements already existing in the language.
Speaking about word-building we traditionally divide this process into three main
types: 1. Morphological word-building
2. Syntactico-morphological word-building
3. Syntactical word-building

1. Morphological word-building (characterized by a change in morphological structure) include:

affixation, word-composition, shortening, sound gradation, semantic stress, reduplication, back-
formation, blending.
2. Syntactico-morphological word-building where both morphological and syntactical features of
the word are changed. This type includes: juxtapositional word-composition, substantivization,
conversion.
3. Syntactical word-building where a combination of words is semantically and structurally
isolated to form a word without any changes in the syntactico-semantic relations (e. g. maid-of-
all-work, mother-in law, good-for-nothing, hide-and-seek).
Note: There is one more way of word-building that stands apart from the above-
mentioned. Sound imitation or onomatopoeia – naming of an action or a thing by a more of less
exact reproduction of natural sound associated with it. (e. g. hiss, splash, drop, cuckoo, etc.).

3. Affixation is the process of coining a new word by adding an affix or several affixes to some
root morpheme.
Suffixation is more productive than prefixation.
PREFIXES
A prefix is a derivational morpheme standing before the root and modifying meaning.
Prefixation is the formation of words with the help of prefixes.
I. According the origin prefixes can be divided into: Germanic, Romanic, Greek.
II. According to the meaning the following groups of prefixes may be distinguished:
1) Prefixes of negative meaning. 2) Prefixes denoting reversal or repetition of an action.
3) Prefixes denoting space and time relations.
III. According to the role in making new words prefixes are subdivided into: Productive, Semi-
productive, Non-productive.
SUFFIXES
A suffix is a derivational morpheme following the stem and forming a new derivative in a
different part of speech or a different word class. Suffixation is the formation of words with the
help of suffixes.

I. According the origin suffixes are usually divided into: Germanic, Romanic, Greek.
II. According to the part of speech they form suffixes are subdivided into: Noun-forming
suffixes, Adjective-forming suffixes, Verb-forming suffixes, Numeral-forming suffixes, Adverb-
forming suffixes.
III. According to the meaning suffixes may be classified as follows:
Noun-forming suffixes denoting: agent or doer, political or scientific adherence, nationality,
abstract concepts, etc. Adjective-forming suffixes denoting: capacity, fitness or worthiness to be
acted upon, a certain (not great) degree of some quality, the presence/absence of quality, etc.
Verb-forming suffixes denoting: “to make, to make like”, “to produce, to bring to a certain state”.
Adverb-forming suffixes denoting: the manner of the action, course or direction to, etc.
IV. According to the role in making new words suffixes are subdivided into: Productive, Semi-
productive, Non-productive.
SEMI-AFFIXES
There are a few words in English which have developed great combining ability in the position
of the second element of a word and a very general meaning similar of that of an affix. These are
semi-affixes. They receive this name because semantically, functionally and structurally they
behave more like affixes than like roots. E. g. –man is a semi-affix (sportsman, gentleman,
seaman, policeman, statesman, etc.).
Other examples of semi-affixes are – land (England, Ireland, Scotland, fatherland), -like
(ladylike, businesslike, flowerlike), -proof (soundproof, waterproof, fireproof).
Semi-affixes may be also used in prepositions like prefixes: mini- (mini-budget, mini-car,
mini-skirt), midi- (midi-coat), maxi- (maxi-coat), self- (self-help) and others.

ALLOMORPHS
Allomorphs are positional variants of a morpheme occurring in a specific environment
and characterized by complementary distribution. E. g. The allomorphs of the prefix in- are: il-
before l (illegal, illogical), im- before bilabials (immovable, immobile), ir- before r (irrational,
irregular).
4. Polysemy is the ability of one and the same affix convey different lexical meanings.
E. g -age a) act or process (marriage, passage); b) place of abode (orphanage).
Synonymy is the ability of different affixes convey similar lexical meanings.
E. g. -or, -ier, -er denote agent or doer (sailor, speaker, cashier);
Homonymy is the ability of one and the same affix convey different grammatical meanings.
-er – Noun-forming suffix (driver, keeper); r – Verb-forming suffix (shiver, glimmer);