1.

Morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other
words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words such as
stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Morphology also looks at parts of speech,
intonation and stress, and the ways context can change a word's pronunciation and
meaning.

morphology The study of the structure of words; the component of the grammar that
includes the rules of word formation.

A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be
used on its own, and is uninterruptible.

The major word classes, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, can be characterised in
terms of their morphological ('word-building') properties.

Notions of Word

Lexeme: word with unique meaning (stored in mental lexicon) o e.g.: talk

Word form: sequence of sounds/letters formed from one lexeme o e.g.: for 'talk': talk,
talks, talked, talking, ...

Open-class words:

Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs

→ adding new words possible

Closed-class words: Prep, Det, Pro, Conj, Aux, Part, Num

→ no new words can be added

2.
A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that has grammatical function or meaning

Types

1. Free morpheme: can appear alone ("good")

2. Bound morpheme (affix): must appear with free morpheme

- inflectional morphemes: express grammatical category ("-ed")

- derivational morphemes: change meaning and/or POS of a word ("-ness")

An allomorph is a variant phonetic form of a morpheme, or, a unit of meaning that varies
in sound and spelling without changing the meaning. 
Allomorphy

Allomorphs: variants of a morpheme that differ in pronunciation o semantically identical

Example: English past tense morpheme

1. /ed/ or /id/

'hunted' /hɅntid/; 'banded' /baendid/

/t/

'fished' /fijt/

/d/

'buzzed' /bɅzd/

There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and bound morphemes. "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.

4.
Derivational morphemes are added to forms to create separate words: {-er} is a
derivational suffix whose addition turns a verb into a noun, usually meaning the person or
thing that performs the action denoted by the verb. For example, {paint}+{-er} creates
painter, one of whose meanings is “someone who paints.”

3.
Inflection
• adding an inflectional morpheme to a stem

• to express a specific grammatical category

• does not change POS

• new word form from same lexeme

Inflectional morphemes do not create separate words. They merely modify the word in
which they occur in order to indicate grammatical properties such as plurality, as the {-s}
of magazines does, or past tense, as the {ed} of babecued does. English has eight inflectional
morphemes

5.
The morphological process is the process by which a word is adjusted to conform to a
certain context. It is the process of changing the form and function of a word to fit a context,
sometimes to the extent of changing the meaning and/or grammatical function.

Root, Base & Stem

1.Root: minimal free morpheme→ cannot be further divided into smaller morphemes

- "happy" in "unhappy"

2. Base: word to which a morpheme is added in inflection or derivation (can be complex)

- "unhappy" in "unhappiness"

3. Stem: base of an inflected form

- "reproduce" in "reproduced"