MORPHOLOGY

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of

words. Morph – form or shape, Ology – study of internal structure of
words, thus words constructed out of smaller units called morphemes
 It is a word or a part of a word that has meaning
 It has relatively the same stable meaning in different verbal
environments.

CLASSIFICATION OF MORPHEMES
- There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and bound
morphemes
o "Free morphemes" can stand alone with a specific meaning, for
example, eat, date, weak. "Bound morphemes" cannot stand
alone with meaning
- Morphemes are comprised of two separate classes called (a) bases
(or roots) and (b) affixes.

AFFIXES / ATTACHMENTS
- Suffixes - Are attached to the end if the stem  HappiNESS
- Prefixes - Are attached to the front of the stem  UNhappy
- Infixes - Are put in the middle of the word  NowAday
- Ablaut - Is change in a vowel that carries extra meaning
 Sing – SAng
SYLLABLE
A syllable is a unit of sound that creates meaning in language.
Consonants join vowels to create syllables smallest unit of sound in
a word. It is a single unit of speech
park - one syllable
silent - two syllable (si – lent)
Probably - three syllables (prob-a-bly)
Independent - four syllables (in-de-pen-dent)

1
6 SYLLABLE TYPES
• Closed - A closed syllable has a single vowel and ends with a
consonant
– Common com-mon
– Butter   but-ter
• Open - An open syllable ends with a single vowel. The vowel has a
long sound
– Total to-tal
– Motor mo-tor
• Vowel-Consonant-E (also known as Magic E or Silent E) the
magic "e" syllable ends with a consonant and a silent "e." It has a
long vowel sound
– While while
– Mate mate
• Vowel Team - syllable contains two vowels that make one vowel
sound
– Meat meat
– Awful aw-ful
• R-Controlled
– Perform per-form
– Mirror mir-ror
• CONSONANT-L-E
– Rule Rule
– While While
– When you have a word spelling in which the "-le" sounds like "el”
– Divide before the consonant before the le
– For example
– a/ble ta / ble    crum / ble
– cas / tle wres / tle mum/ble

2
FIND THE NUMBER OF SYLLABLES
• Listen Method
• Number of times that you hear the sound of a vowel is the
number of syllable in a word
• Chin Method
• Put your hand under your chin. Say the word.
• How many times does your chin touch your hand?
• This is the number of syllables.
• The "Clap Method" Rules
• Clapping may help you find syllables. Say the word.
• Clap each time you hear A, E, I, O, or U as a separate sound. The
number of claps is the number of syllables.
Examples:
• Number of times that you hear the sound of a vowel is the
number of syllable in a word
• Man Man (1 vowel/1 syllable)
• Progress pro / gress (2 vowels /2 syllables)
• Bicycle  bi /  cy /  cle_______(3 vowels / 3 syllables)
• Rhinoceros   rhi / noc /  er / us__(4 vowels) / 4 syllables)
• Prefixes and suffixes usually form separate syllables
• Un kind dif-fer
• When a word has a prefix or a suffix, each is counted as one
syllable
• As far as possible start a syllable with a consonant where there
is one
• Differ dif-fer
• Prefer pre-fer
• Locate lo-cate

3
 • The prefix
• Concealed              becomes            con / cealed
• Repeat                   becomes             re  /  peat
• Prepare                  becomes              pre  /  pare
• Unseen                  becomes              un  /seen
• The suffixes
• awaken              becomes                a  / wak / en
• stranger            becomes                strang  /  er
• happiness          becomes                happ/ i /ness
• playful                becomes                play  /  ful0
• A single consonant between two vowels goes the second vowel if
the first vowel is long
• Belong be-long
• If possible end a syllable with a consonant and begin it with a
consonant when there are two
• Helmet  hel-met
• Calculate cal-cu-late

Divide between two middle consonants

• Split up words that have two middle consonants
Hap/pen Bas/ket
• Yellow        becomes         yel / low
• Balloon      becomes         bal / loon
• Buffalo       becomes         buf / fa / lo
• Written      becomes          writ / ten
• Rabbit becomes rab/bit
• Letter becomes Let/ter
• Dessert becomes des-sert

4
• When a consonant is in the middle of a word, split the word in
front of the consonant. The first vowel often says its name
–  o/pen – pro/ject
– ba/by – pa/per
– a/ble – spi/der
• A compound word
– Made up of two words which have been joined together.
– To break a compound word into syllables, just divide it
again into two separate words
– basketball       becomes               Basket  /  ball
– sunflower        becomes                Sun   /   flower
– swordfish        becomes                 Sword /  fish      
– meatball          becomes                Meat  /  ball
– some-thing how-ever baby-sitter
– class-room break-fast