M&S Week2

Ch 8:
(pp. 87 –
Morphemes
90)

Prepared by
Ms. Nora F. Boayrid
Presented by
Dr. Walaa Mohammad

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Outline
:
• Morphology
• Morphemes
• Types of
morphemes
 Free
 Bound
 Affixes
 Bases

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What is
Morphology?
• Is the study of the internal structure of
words.
• It analyzes the structure of words and
parts of words.
• The term morphology is Greek and is
a makeup of morph- meaning ‘shape,
form’, and -ology which means ‘the
study of something’.
• The linguistic term "morphology" is
believed to be coined by the German
linguist August Schleicher in 1859.
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What is
Morpheme?
• Is a single unit of meaning.
• Is the smallest meaningful unit in a word.
• Is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:
a. It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning.
b. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its
meaning or without meaningless remainders.
c. It recurs in different verbal environments with a relatively stable meaning.

Quote: “In two words: im – possible.”

*Verbal slip attributed to the American movie producer, Goldwyn.

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Examples of morphemes in light of the
three criteria:
1. Straight
a. It is a word and has meaning.
b. It loses its meaning if divided into smaller parts.
c. It recurs with a relatively stable meaning in different
environments (e.g. straightedge, straighten, and a straight
line).

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Examples of morphemes in light of the
three criteria:
1. -en (as in brighten)
a. It is a part of a word and has meaning ‘make’.
b. It loses its meaning if divided into smaller parts.
c. It recurs with a relatively stable meaning in different
environments (e.g. soften, darken, and deepen).

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• Exercises (8 – 1,2 | P.
78)

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Classifications of
Morphemes
A. Free and bound
morphemes
B. Bases and affixes

*Note that these classifications are not independent of one

another.

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 A. First Classification of
Morphemes
1. Free morpheme
- Can stand alone with
meaning.
- It forms a word in itself.
- E.g., Peace/ book/
table/chair
2. Bound morpheme
- Can’t stand alone with meaning.
- Not considered as a word, a
part of a word.
- It needs to be attached to one
or more morphemes to form a
word.
- E.g., im-, re- , pre-, -vene.
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• Exercise (8 -
3)

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 B. Second Classification of
Morphemes

1. 2. Affixes
- A bases morpheme is a part of a word that
Bases
has the principle meaning. (e.g. - An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs
Friendship) before (i.e. prefixes), within (i.e. infixes), or
after a base (i.e. suffixes).

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1.
Bases
A base morpheme is a part of a word that has the principle
meaning. E.g., peaceful, lovable, describe.
• Bases are mostly free morphemes, but bound morphemes can
also be bases as in “describe”.
*A word may contain one base (and) one or more
affixes. E.g., readability  read, -abil, and –ity.
• It is difficult to attach a precise meaning to a bound base.
• However, we can search for the meaning common to all the
words that contains the base.
• E.g., eject, inject, project, ject  throw
• re
E.g., Sentiment, consent, assent, dissent, resent  feel
• Another way is to look up the dictionary and see the Latin or
Greek meaning (etymology).
• See Ex (8-5,p: 90) for more examples of bound bases.
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Revie
w
1. The word unbelievable has ……………
morphemes:

• Three
• Four
• Five

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2. The bound morpheme in
voucher is:

• Vouch-
• -Cher
• -Er

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3. The base annu as in
annual is:

• Free
• Bound

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4. Which of these is not considered as a
morpheme:

• -s
• Un-
• Str-

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