Republic of the Philippines

Surigao del Sur State University

Graduate Studies
Main Campus, Rosario, Tandag City
Name: QUENNEE R. ESCOBILLO
Program: MAELT
Course Title: Educ 201: Foundation of Language Studies
Instructor: Dr. Trexie Alawi
Date of Submission: April 11, 2022

CLASSWORK #4:
Topic Outline

A. TITLE: WORD STRUCTURE: MORPHOLOGY

B. Objectives:

● Define Morphology and Morpheme;

● Identify the difference between content and function words; and free

and bound morphemes;

● Differentiate derivational morphology and inflectional morphology; and

● Illustrate Morphological processes: Back- formation and Compounds

C. Outline:

WORD STRUCTURE: MORPHOLOGY

1. Definition of Morphology and Morpheme

1.1. Morphemes: The Minimal Units of Meaning

 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Graduate Studies
Main Campus, Rosario, Tandag City
Morpheme: is a word derived from the Greek word ‘morphe’ which

means “form”. It is the linguistic term for the most elemental unit of

grammatical form. It is the minimal linguistic unit- is thus an arbitrary

union of a sound and a meaning (or grammatical function) that

cannot be further analysed. (Fromkin, 37)

Morphology: is the study of the internal structure of words, and of

the rules by which words are formed. The word itself consists of two

morphemes, morph + ology. The morpheme –ology means “branch

of knowledge”, so the meaning of morphology is “the branch of

knowledge concerning (word) forms.” It refers also to the internal

grammatical knowledge concerning the words of our language,

and like most linguistic knowledge we are not consciously aware of

it. (Fromkin, 38)

2. Two (2) Kinds of Words

2.1. Content words

 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Graduate Studies
Main Campus, Rosario, Tandag City
⮚ These are words that denote concepts such as objects,

actions, attributes and ideas that we can think about like

children, build, beautiful and seldom. Nouns, verbs, adjectives

and adverbs are the content words. Content words are

sometimes called the open class words because we can and

regularly do add new words to these classes, such as

Facebook (noun), blog (noun, verb), frack (verb) and online

adjective, adverb). (Fromkin, 35)

2.2. Function words

⮚ These are the words that do not have clear lexical meaning or

obvious concepts associated with them, including

conjunctions such as and, or and but; prepositions such as in

and of; the articles the and a/an, and pronouns such as it.

These kinds of words are called function words because they

specify grammatical relations and have little or no sematic

content. These words are sometimes called closed class

 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Graduate Studies
Main Campus, Rosario, Tandag City
words. This is because it is difficult to think of any articles,

conjunctions, prepositions, or pronouns that have recently

entered the language. (Fromkin, 35)

3. Bound and Free Morphemes

3.1. Prefixes and Suffixes

Free morphemes: these are words that may constitute words by

themselves such as boy, desire, gentle, and man. (Fromkin, 39)

Bound morphemes: these are never words by themselves but are

always parts of words such as –ish, -ness, -ly, pre-, trans- and un-. These

affixes are bound morphemes and they match at the beginning, the

end, in the middle, or both at the beginning and end of a word.

(Fromkin, 39)

Prefixes: affixes precede or follow other morphemes, for example, pre-

(premeditate, prejudge). They occur before other morphemes.

Suffixes: affixes following other morphemes, for example, -ly (manly,

sickly, friendly)
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Graduate Studies
Main Campus, Rosario, Tandag City
4. Rules of Word Formation

4.1. Derivational Morphology

⮚ Bound morphemes are called derivational morphemes. When

they are added to a base, a new word with new meaning is

derived. (Fromkin,44)

4.2. Inflectional Morphology

⮚ Unlike derivational morphemes, inflectional morphemes never

change the grammatical category of the stems to which they

are attached. (Fromkin,46)

5. Other Morphological Processes

5.1. Back Formation

⮚ Are words created by misinterpreting an affix look-alike such

as –er as an affix, so, for example, the verb peddle was

formed under the mistaken assumption that peddler was

peddle+er. (Fromkin,64)

5.2. Compounds
 Republic of the Philippines
Surigao del Sur State University
Graduate Studies
Main Campus, Rosario, Tandag City
⮚ Are formed by uniting two or more root words in a single word,

such as homework. The head of the compound (the rightmost

word) bears the meaning of compounds is not easily

predictable and must be learned as individual lexical items,

such as laughing gas. (Fromkin,64)

D. References

Fromkin, Victoria, et. Al. “An Introduction to Language”. 11th Edition, 2017,
pp. 33-58.