Word-structure in Modern

English
Lecture 2
Outline

I. Word-segmentation into morphemes

II. Allomorph
III. Classification of morphemes
IV. Morphemic segmentability of words
V. Morphemic analysis
The linguistic discipline of morphology – the term is derived from the Greek word morphos meaning
„form‟ – examines the internal makeup and structure of words as well as the patterns and principles
underlying their composition.

✓ Morphology is between the traditional boundary of grammar and lexicon.

✓ Morphology deals with the form and the meaning of the linguistic sign, analyses and describes
both the component parts of words and the principles underlying the composition of words.

✓ Morphology does not analyse words in terms of syllables but in terms of morphemes, i.e.
components of words that are carriers of meanings.

meaning “male parent”

father both consist
of
two syllables the verb “teach” (“instruct”)
teacher
the nominalizing suffix –er
(„someone who does something”)
Morphology is traditionally divided into two major areas.

• Inflectional morphology – deals with the markers of grammatical categories such as CASE, NUMBER,
TENSE and ASPECT.

• Word-formation – deals with the patterns and rules guiding the formation of new words.

e.g. Unemployment → base employ + the derivational morphemes un- and –ment
Employment agency - compounding

Infotainment - information and entertainment - blending

Flu - influenza
 1. Word-segmentation into morphemes

➢M o r p h e m e s defined as the smallest indivisible two-

facet language units
 flower-pot shoe-lace

flower- pot- shoe- lace-

flower-show pot-lid shoe-brush lace-boots

pottery lacing
flowerful shoeless
 What is the difference between a word and a morpheme?
Like a word a morpheme is also a two-facet language
unit -- an association of a certain meaning with a certain
sound-pattern.
But: a morpheme is not an autonomous unit and can
occur in speech only as a constituent part of the word.
 2. Allomorphs

Allomorph - any of two or more actual representations

of a morpheme.

e.g. the plural endings [s]

✓ [s] (as in bats)
✓ [z] (as in bugs)
✓ [ɪz] (as in buses)
3. Classification of morphemes

➢from semantic point of view

➢from structural point of view
 Semantically morphemes fall into two classes

root - morphemes non - root morphemes

(affixational)
helpless, handy, blackness, Londoner, refill

help-, hand-, black-, London-, -fill

helping – helped – helper – helpful
hand – handed – handy - handing
 Root-morphemes

✓has an individual lexical meaning

✓possess all types of meaning except the part-of-

speech meaning

✓is isolated as the morpheme common to a set of

words making up a word-cluster
 Non-root morphemes

inflectional morphemes affixational morphemes

or inflections or affixes

prefixes suffixes

decode helpful

робити

зробити
 Structurally morphemes fall into:

• FREE MORPHEMES

• BOUND MORPHEMES

• SEMI-FREE / SEMI-BOUND
MORPHEMES
A free morpheme is the one that coincides with the stem or a
word-form

friendship friend

bookish book
A bound morpheme occurs only as a constituent part of a
word

-ness un-
-ship dis-
-ise / -ize de-

readiness unnatural
comradeship to displease
to activise to decipher
Semi-bound / semi-free morphemes are the ones that can
function in a morphemic sequence both as an affix and as a
free morpheme

half
well

sleep well (RM) half an hour (RM)

half-eaten
well-known (BM) (BM)
half-done
 Morphemes of Greek and Latin or combining forms
tele- ‘far’
telephone
possess a definite
graph - ‘writing’
telegraph
lexical meaning scope – ‘seeing’
phonoscope
micro – ‘small’
microscope
phone – ‘sounds’

a suffix?

telegraph phonograph
telephone seismograph
telegram autograph
a prefix? a root
root morphemes? morpheme?
 3. A zero / null morpheme

robot + s = robots
I often put my bag on the table.
fish + 0 = fish
Suddenly she put her bag on the table.
deer + 0 = deer

bison + 0 = bison
I, often, she , suddenly
 3. Morphemic segmentability of
WORDS

segmentable non-segmentable

allowing of segmentation not allowing of segmentation

into morphemes into morphemes

agreement
house
information
girl
fearless
woman
quickly
husband
door-handle
 Three types of morphemic segmentability of
words

1. complete
2. conditional 1. Complete segmentability

3. defective
Agreement

Fearless

quickly
 2. Conditional morphemic segmentability

retain
contain [ri-] rewrite
re-

=
detain reorganise
receive [di-] deorganise
de-
deceive decode
conceive [кэn-]

perceive
 3.Defective morphemic segmentability

streamlet

ringlet “diminutiveness”

leaflet

hamlet
 A unique morpheme

сranberry
defective
gooseberry morphemic
segmentability
strawberry
 4. Procedure of morphemic analysis

✓The procedure generally employed for the purposes of segmenting

words into the constituent morphemes is the method of
Immediate (IC) and Ultimate Constituents (UC).
 friendliness
IC IC = UC
friendly -ness
-happiness
-friendly- looking -darkness
-friendly
-unselfishness

IC = UC IC = UC
friend -ly
 Used literature:
1. Schmid, Hans-Jörg (2015), "Morphology". In: Natalie Braber, Louise
Cummings and Liz Morrish, eds., Exploring Language and Linguistics,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 77-110.
2. Ginsburg R.S. A Course in Modern English Lexocology. Paragraph IV.
Questions for revision:
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