2/26/2021

MORPHOLOGY
& SYNTAX

Look at these words. Can you find the relationship?

MORPHOLOGY

• danger • noun
• The other words all come
• endanger • verb
• endangers • verb from the word “danger”
• endangering • verb • They have similar meanings,
• endangered • verb
but different parts of
• dangerous • adjective
• dangerously • adverb speech/ different forms

Morphemes Morphemes

1
 2/26/2021

Morphology
MORPHOLOGY

What is morphology? What do we study?

• danger • the study of words, how they are formed, and their
• endanger relationship to other words in the same language.
• endangers
• the structure of words and parts of words, such as
• endangering
• endangered stems, root words, affixes (prefixes and suffixes)
• dangerous
• dangerously

Morphemes Morphemes

Morpheme
MORPHOLOGY
Look at these words
1. Which element do all words contain?
• danger
2. Which elements are added to the element all
• endanger
• endangers words contain?
• endangering
• endangered 1. danger
• dangerous 2. en-, -s, -ing, MORPHEME
• dangerously
-ed, -ous, -ly

Morphemes Morphemes

2
 2/26/2021

What is morpheme?
MORPHOLOGY

• a minimal unit of meaning Word Morpheme 1 Morpheme 2 Morpheme 3

endangered en danger ed
or grammatical function.”
threatening threat en ing
• a minimal unit of word that enlargement en large ment
has a meaning and cannot pays pay s
Does each morpheme have a meaning or a
be subdivided further. function? What are they?

Morphemes Morphemes

Practice 1: Identify the number of morphemes in each of the given

words. Complete the table given below. MORPHOLOGY
No Word Morpheme No Word Morpheme
1 Play 1 11 Keeper 2 (keep, -er)
2 Replay 2 (re-, play) 12 Able 1
3 Date 1 13 Unable 2 (un-, able)
4 Antedate 2 (ante-, date) 14 Mahogamy 1
5 Hygiene 1 15 Rain 1
6 Weak 1 16 Rainy 2 (rain, -y)
7 Weaken 2 (weak, -en) 17 Cheap 1
8 Man 1 18 Cheaply 2 (cheap, -ly)
9 Manly 2 (man, -ly) 19 Cheaper 2 (cheap, -er)
10 Keep 1 20 Honest 1

Morphemes Morphemes

3
 2/26/2021

Morpheme classification
MORPHOLOGY

• Look at these words. What are the morphemes of each word? Which one
can stand alone? Which one needs to be attached to another morpheme?

• tourist • tour, -ist →Morphemes in MORPHEME

red can stand alone
• reopens • re-, open, -s
• changed • change, -ed
• talker • talk, -er FREE BOUND

Morphemes Morphemes

Morpheme classification
MORPHOLOGY
• tourist • tour, -ist
MORPHEME
• reopens • re-, open, -s
• changed • change, -s
• talker • talk, -er Note: affix =
FREE BOUND prefix or suffix

Stem Affix
stand by themselves as single words, for cannot normally stand alone and are
example, open and tour typically attached to another form,
like re-, -ist, -ed, -s.

Morphemes Morphemes

4
 2/26/2021

Morpheme classification
MORPHOLOGY

undressed carelessness
un- dress -ed care -less -ness
prefix stem suffix stem suffix suffix
bound free bound free bound bound

Morphemes Morphemes

Practice 2: Identify the bound morphemes in each of the given words.

Complete the table below. MORPHOLOGY
No Word Morpheme No Word Morpheme
1 speaker -er 11 delivery -y
2 kingdom -dom 12 intervene inter-, -vene
3 phonemic -ic 13 revise re-, -vise
4 idolize -ize 14 dreamed -ed
5 selective -ive 15 undone un-

• receive
Note: Revise → Morpheme 1: re-, morpheme 2: vise • reduce
→Stem: vise → not a separate word → vise: bound stem • repeat
Free stem: tour (in tourist, detour, tours); • …..
open (in reopen, opens, opening)

Morphemes Morphemes

10

5
 2/26/2021

Free morpheme classification

MORPHOLOGY

• What are the content and function FREE MORPHEME

words from the following sentence?
“I will meet my brother this morning.”
• Content: meet, brother, morning
• Function: I, will, my, this LEXICAL FUNCTIONAL

nouns, adjectives, conjunctions, prepositions,

adverbs, and verbs articles and pronouns
“girl, open, love, “and, of, the, my,
long, sincere, soon” she, this, because”
Morphemes Morphemes

11

Bound morpheme classification

MORPHOLOGY

BOUND MORPHEME

DERIVATIONAL INFLECTIONAL

added to morphemes to form new words that added to the end of an existing word
may or may not be the same part of speech for purely grammatical reasons.
Prefix and suffix: re-, pre-, ex-, mis-, co-, un-, - Eight inflectional morphemes
ful, -less, -ly, … • Noun + -’s, -s
• Verb + -s, -ing, -ed, -en
• Adjective + -er, -est
Morphemes Morphemes

12

6
 2/26/2021

Morphological description
MORPHOLOGY
List all the morphemes from the sentence.
“The child’s wildness shocked the teachers.”

The child ‘s wild ness shock

functional lexical inflectional lexical derivational lexical

ed the teach er s
inflectional functional lexical derivational inflectional

Put the correct name: lexical, functional, inflectional and derivational

under each morpheme.

Morphemes Morphemes

13

SUMMARY
MORPHOLOGY

child, teach and, the re-, -ness -’s, -ed

Morphemes Morphemes

14

7
 2/26/2021

Problems in morphological description

MORPHOLOGY

• Sheep (singular) → sheep (plural)

Man (singular) → men (plural)
How many morphemes in “sheep” (plural) and “men” (plural)?
• Legal → how many morphemes? “Leg” and –al?
• Some English words like law and mouth have no adjectives formed from
adding another morpheme. In fact, legal and oral are adjectives

Morphemes Morphemes

15

Morphs and Allomorphs

MORPHOLOGY

• Look at the words and tell how many morphemes each word has?
• buses • bus + plural • Different forms of one plural
morpheme → allomorph
• sheep • sheep + plural
• Allomorph: /s/, /əz/, zero-morph
• men • man + plural (sheep + Ø), vowel change (æ→e), /ən/
• cats • cat + plural Allomorph: one of a set of forms that a
morpheme may take in different contexts
• oxen • ox +plural
• List the allomorphs of the morpheme “past tense”
• walk + ed → walked
• go → went (irregular past form)
• cut + ø → cut
Morphemes Morphemes

16

8
 2/26/2021

Practice 3. Underline the base (stem) in each of the given words.

Complete the table given below.
MORPHOLOGY

Morphemes Morphemes

17