Moulay Ismail University

School of Arts and Humanities

Department of English
Meknés

Semester 4 “ Introduction to Linguistics”

Pr.D.Ben Atabou, Pr.A.Khalloufi, Pr. H.LAABIDI

Morphology
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and forms a core part of linguistic
study today. The term morphology is Greek and is a makeup of morph- meaning ‘shape,
form’, and -ology which means ‘the study of something’. Morphology as a sub-discipline of
linguistics was named for the first time in 1859 by the German linguist August Schleicher
who used the term for the study of the form of words

In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship
to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words,
such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Morphology also looks at parts of speech,
intonation and stress, and the ways context can change a word's pronunciation and meaning.
Morphology differs from morphological typology, which is the classification of languages
based on their use of words, and lexicology, which is the study of words and how they make
up a language's vocabulary.

1. Morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest grammatical unit in a language. It is a meaningful unit of
language that cannot be further divided. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the
principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas
a word, by definition, is freestanding. The linguistics field of study dedicated to morphemes is
called morphology. When a morpheme stands by itself, it is considered as a root because it
has a meaning of its own (e.g. the morpheme cat) and when it depends on another morpheme
to express an idea, it is an affix because it has a grammatical function (e.g. the –s in cats to
indicate that it is plural). Every word comprises one or more morphemes.

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 2. Types of morphemes

Free morphemes can function independently as words (e.g. town, dog). In other words,
Free morphemes can stand alone with a specific meaning, for example, eat, date, weak.

Bound morphemes appear only as parts of words, always in conjunction with a root and
sometimes with other bound morphemes. For example, un- appears only accompanied by
other morphemes to form a word. Most bound morphemes in English are affixes, particularly
prefixes and suffixes. Examples of suffixes are -tion, -ation, -ible, -ing, etc.

Bound morphemes can be further classified as derivational or inflectional. Derivational

morphemes, when combined with a root, change either the semantic meaning or part of
speech of the affected word. For example, in the word happiness, the addition of the bound
morpheme -ness to the root happy changes the word from an adjective (happy) to a noun
(happiness). In the word unkind, un- functions as a derivational morpheme, for it inverts the
meaning of the word formed by the root kind. Generally, the affixes used with a root word are
bound morphemes.

Inflectional morphemes, on the other hand, modify a verb's tense, aspect, mood, person, or
number, or a noun's, pronoun's or adjective's number, gender or case, without affecting the
word's meaning or class (part of speech). Examples of applying inflectional morphemes to
words are adding -s to the root dog to form dogs and adding -ed to wait to form waited. An
inflectional morpheme changes the form of a word. In English, there are eight inflections.

3. Other features of morphemes

Roots are composed of only one morpheme, while stems can be composed of more than one
morpheme. Any additional affixes are considered morphemes. An example of this is the word
quirkiness. The root is quirk, but the stem is quirky which has two morphemes. Moreover,
there exist pairs of affixes that have the same phonological form but have a different meaning.
For example, the suffix –er can be derivative (e.g. sell / seller) or inflectional (e.g. small /
smaller). These types of morphemes are called homophonous.

Some words might seem to be composed of multiple morphemes, but in fact, they are not.
This is why one has to consider form and meaning when identifying morphemes. For
example, the word relate might seem to be composed of two morphemes, re- (prefix) and the
word late, but this is not correct. These morphemes have no relationship with the definitions

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relevant to the word like “feel sympathy”, “narrate”, or “being connected by blood or
marriage”. Furthermore, the length of the words does not determine if it has multiple
morphemes or not. To demonstrate, the word Madagascar is long and it might seem to have
morphemes like mad, gas, and car, but it does not. Conversely, small words can have multiple
morphemes (e.g. dogs).

4. Allomorphs
Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme that differ in pronunciation but are semantically
identical. For example, in English, the plural marker -(e)s of regular nouns can be pronounced
/-s/ (bats), /-z/, (bugs), or /-ɪz, -əz/, (buses), depending on the final sound of the noun's plural
form.( See the figure below)

5. Morphological tree
A morphological tree is a visual representation of a word. For example, the morphological
tree of the word “ rehospitalizes” can be shown by the following diagram :

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 Moulay Ismail University Intoduction to Linguistics
School of Arts and Humanities Semester 4
Prof. Hicham LAABIDI
Department of English
Meknés

Practice
Morphology

Free and Bound Morphemes

I- List the morphemes in each word below, and state whether each morpheme is free
(F) or bound (B).
1. creating 4. unhealthy 7. seaward 10. keys
2. wastage 5. reconsider 8. poetic
3. modernize 6. incompletion 9. waiter
II - For each of the following bound morphemes, determine whether it is derivational
or inflectional and give two words in which it appears:
Example: –able:
derivational
eatable; readable
1. –ity 3. –ing 5. –ed 7. –er
2. –s 4. –al 6. un–

Derivational and Inflectional Affixes

I- For each word below, indicate whether the word is morphologically simple (S),
includes an inflectional affix (I), or includes a derivational affix (D).
1. rider 3. reader 5. colder 7. redder 9. rotation
2. silver 4. radish 6. lens 8. redness 10. legs
II - The component morphs of the morphologically complex words in (6a) to (6e) have
been separated by a hyphen (–). Indicate which of these morphs are bound morphs
and which are free morphs, and which of the bound morphs are inflectional and
which derivational.
Example: hit–s
hit: free
–s: bound, inflectional
1. en–courage–ment 3. king–dom–s 5. stud–ent–hood
2. anti–soviet–ism 4. bi–annu–al–ly 6. read–ing–s

Affixes

I - Underline the suffixes in the following words :

1. happiness 3. flowers 5. unkind
2. brother 4. freedom 6. blackboard
II - Underline the prefixes in the following words :
1. unable 3. receive 5. discourage
2. strawberry 4. establish 6. Amoral

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Roots

Underline the root in the words and state which syntactic category it belongs to.

Example: friendly; Noun

1. lamps 3. kindness 5. hinted

2. players 4. editors 6. Grandfathers

Word Trees

For each word below, draw a word tree.

1. shipper 4. simply 7. disobey 10. activity

2. resettled 5. digitizes 8. anticlimaxes
3. unemployment 6. confrontational 9. Jumping

Morphology (Practice 2)

1. Divide the following words into the smallest meaningful units and describe how
the words are formed, i.e. describe the morphological processes (derivation,
inflection) involved.

Example: unhappiness

The root is "happy". By adding the prefix "un–" to the root "happy" we derive
"unhappy".The morphological process involved is called derivation. By adding the
suffix "–ness" to "unhappy" we derive the word "unhappiness". The morphological
process involved is called derivation.

1. kingdoms 2. discourages 3. forgetful 4. submitted

2. The past-tense morpheme {PAST} (or {ed}) can be pronounced in three

different ways. Based on the pronunciation of the past-tense morpheme divide
the following words into three groups.

1. crashed 4. hinted 7. popped 10. accustomed

2. reached 5. classified 8. kissed 11. banged
3. lined 6. divided 9. fitted 12. flowed

3. What are the functional morphemes in the following sentence?

When he arrived, the old man had an umbrella and a large plastic bag full of books.

4. What are the lexical morphemes in the sentence?

Haitians are used at the best of times to queuing for things; waiting is, after all, the first
cousin of poverty. But in the nine days since the earthquake struck, they have become
experts. (from The Guardian, Jan. 21, 2010)

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5. What are the allomorphs of 'plural' in this set of English words?

1. ballons 3. phenomena 5. syllabi

2. women 4. churches 6. Children

6. What are the allomorphs of 'past tense’ in this set of English verbs?

1. jumped 3. ran 5. tied

2. became 4. Put

7. Divide the following words into their constituent morphemes. Identify the
morphemes, i.e., whether they are free or bound. If free, are they lexical or
functional? If bound, are they inflectional or derivational?

in the unresponsive unhappy

enter largest reproducing deregulated
goodness representatives respected telegram
fearlessness hopefully psychology geography
democratic appearance campfires extramural
displacement schools singers ex-models