INTRODUCTION

TO MORPHOLOGY

Phan Thanh Tuấn MA

What is MORPHOLOGY?

 Morphology is the branch of

linguistics that studies the structure of
words.
 Morphology deals with the syntax of
complex words and parts of words,
also called morphemes, as well as
with the semantics of their lexical
meanings.
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 WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?

It is the study of the structue

of words, the study of

morphemes as the different

forms, and word formation

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 IMPORTANCE OF STUDYING MORPHOLOGY

Decoding – Readers who recognize

morphemes read more quickly and accurately
Vocabulary – Knowledge of meaning of word
parts expands reader’s vocabulary
Comprehension - Knowledge of morphemes
helps makes meaning from text
Spelling - Morphemes are units that can be
predictably spelled
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 MORPHEMES
Morphemes are the minimal
unit of word building in a
language; they cannot be
broken down any further into
recognizable or meaningful
parts.
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 INFLECTIONAL DERIVATIONAL

FUNCTION

MORPHEMES

NATURE POSITION

FREE AFFIXES
BOUND

PREFIXES SUFFIXES
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 MORPHEMES

are or

BOUND
FREE
they are
can stand AFFIXES

ALONE can be
INFLECTIONAL DERIVATIONAL

CHANGE
the

CATEGORY

of the

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 WORD = MORPHEME?

Word - the Morpheme –

smallest the smallest
free- sign in a
standing language
(smallest
sign in a
form with a
language specific
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meaning).
 Free vs Bound Morphemes
There are several important

distinctions that must be
made when it comes to
morphemes:
Free vs Bound Morphemes
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 Free Morphemes
 also known as “unbound
morphemes”
 are those which can stand by

themselves or alone as words

of a language.

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 Free Morphemes
❑Content words/ Lexical words
This group includes such as
nouns, verbs, adverbs and
adjectives:
Ex: happy, run, man, pizza, pretty,
easy
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 Free Morphemes
❑Function words/ Grammatical
words
This group includes conjunctions,
articles, pronouns and prepositions
Ex: to, but, and, that, therefore, first,
often, soon, none, all

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 Root or Base
Every word has at least

one free morpheme,
which is referred to as
the root, stem, or base.

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 Bound Morphemes
Bound morphemes never

exist as words
themselves, but are
always attached to some
other morphemes such as
un-, -im, -es, tele-
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 We can further divide bound
morphemes into two
categories:
 prefix un-happy
 suffix happi-ness
The general term for both is
Affix.
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 FREE MORPHMES
 Free morphems are words
with a complete meaning, so
they can stand alone as an
independent word in a sentence.
Ex: girl, boy, mother, etc

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 BOUND MORPHMES
 Bound morphemse are lexical
items incorporated into a word as
a dependent part. They cannot
stand alone, but must be
connected to another morpheme.
Ex: un-, -s, -ed, tele-

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 MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY deals

with the differences between the
shapes of the inflectional forms of
variable lexemes.
DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY is the
study of how affixes combine with
stems to derive new words.
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 Inflectional Morphology
 Noun Inflectional suffixes
Plural maker-s
◼girl-girls
Possessive maker´s
◼Minh´s car

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 Inflectional Morphology
 Verbs Inflectional Suffixes
3rd.Person present singular
marker
◼bake-bakes
Past tense marker:-ed
◼Wait-waited

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 Inflectional Morphology
Progressive marker -ing
◼sing => singing
Past Participle markers -en or -ed
◼eat => eaten

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 Inflectional Morphology
Adjective inflectional
suffixes
◼Comparative maker -er
◼fast => faster
◼Superlative make -est
◼fast => fastest

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 Derivational Morphology
 Derivational affixes often
change the part of the speech of
the base morpheme. Thus, read
is a verb, but readable is an
adjective.

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 MORPHEME= SYLLABLE?

 A morpheme is not equal to a

syllable:
 "coats" has 1 syllable, but 2
morphemes.
 “happy" has 2 syllables, but only 1

morpheme
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 HOMOMORPHS

▪ Morphemes with the same form but

different meanings
• -ER 1 (comparative): fatter and bigger

• -ER 2 (nominal derivational): worker

and teacher
• -ER 3 (derivational suffix meaning

repetition): chatter, glitter

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 HOMOMORPHS

• -ING (present participle): watching,

teaching
• -ING (nominal derivational): building,
meeting
• -ING (adjectival derivational): burning,
interesting
• - ING (gerund derivational): writing,
singing
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 HOMOMORPHS

• -ED (past participle): watched, walked

• -ED (adjectival derivational): interested,
bored
• -LY (adjectival derivational): manly,

daily
• -LY (adverbial derivational): quickly,

quietly
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 ALLOMORPHS
▪ Allomorph is variant form of morpheme
about the sounds and phonetic symbols
but it doesn’t change the meaning. There
are two types of allomorph,
phonologically, morphologically.
▪ Example: The allomorphs of the plural
morpheme {-s pl} are /-s/, /-z/, and /-iz/

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 ALLOMORPHS
1. Phonologically conditioned
allomorph
 The choice of allomorph is
predictable on the basis of the
pronunciation
▪ Allomorph of the indefinite article:

an (before vowels, ex : an elephant)

and a (before consonant, ex : a dog)
both of them have meaning one,
single.
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 ALLOMORPHS
▪Allomorphs of the regular past tense
and past participle morpheme:
o{-d pt} & {-d pp}=/-Id/~/-t/~/-d/

1. /id/ after -d, -t: hated

2. /t/ after all other voiceless sounds:

picked
3. /d/ after all other voiced sounds:
wedged

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 ALLOMORPHS

• Allomorphs of the prefix /in-/

1. /im-/ before bilabial sounds:

impossible
2. /il-/ before consonant /l/:
illegal
3. /in-/ elsewhere: independent

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 ALLOMORPHS

2. Morphologically conditioned allomorph

 The choice of allomorph is determined by
particular morphemes, not just by their
pronunciation
ex: The morpheme –sume in changes to –
sumpt- in (consume => consumption)
{-s pl.} = /-iz/~ /-z/
~ /-s/ ∞ /-ʌn/ ∞ / Ø /

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 ALLOMORPHS

The choice of allomorph is unpredictable,

thus memorized on a word by word
basis. ex:
ox – plural => oxen
sheep – plural => sheep

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Kinds of Words according to
Morpheme Structure

1. Simple Word
- with a single morpheme.
ex:
house, I, the, off, salamander

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Kinds of Words according to
Morpheme Structure

2. Complex words
- root word + at least 1 affix.
ex:
worker, reread, retelling

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Kinds of Words according to
Morpheme Structure

3. Compound words
- with 2 root words
ex:
ashtray, mailbox, lazybones,
backbone
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