ENG 121 NOTES MODULE 1
considered the final phase of the Old English
HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
• According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the
English language itself really took off with the
invasion of Britain during the 5th century. Three
Germanic tribes, the Jutes, Saxons and Angles were
seeking new lands to conquer, and crossed over
from the North Sea.
• During the invasion, the native Britons were
driven north and west into lands we now refer to as
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
• The word England and English originated from the
Old English word Engla-land, literally meaning “the
land of the Angles” where they spoke Englisc.
OLD ENGLISH (5th to 11th Century)
• Albert Baugh, a notable English professor at the
University of Pennsylvania notes amongst his
published works that around 85% of Old English is
no longer in use.
• Old English can be further subdivided into the
following:
• Prehistoric or Primitive (5th to 7th Century) –
available literature or documentation referencing
this period is not available aside from limited
examples of Anglo-Saxon runes.
• Early Old English (7th to 10th Century) – this
period contains some of the earliest documented
evidence of the English language, showcasing
notable authors and poets like Cynewulf and
Aldhelm who were leading figures in the world of
Anglo-Saxon literature.
• Late Old English (10th to 11th Century) – can be
language which was brought about by the Norman
invasion of England. This period ended with the
consequential evolution of the English language
towards Early Middle English.
MIDDLE ENGLISH
• It was during this period that the English
language, and more specifically, English grammar,
started evolving with particular attention to syntax.
• It was during the 14th century that a different
dialect (known as the East-Midlands) began to
develop around the London area.
• Geoffrey Chaucer, a writer we have come to
identify as the Father of English Literature and
author of the widely renowned Canterbury Tales,
was often heralded as the greatest poet of that
particular time.
• It was during the mid-1400s that the Chancery
English standard was brought about. The story goes
that the clerks working for the Chancery in London
were fluent in both French and Latin. It was their
job to prepare official court documents and prior to
the 1430s, both the aforementioned languages
were mainly used by royalty, the church, and
wealthy Britons. After this date, the clerks started
using a dialect that sounded as follows:
• gaf (gave) not yaf (Chaucer’s East Midland dialect)
• such not swich
• theyre (their) not hir
EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
• The changes in the English language during this
period occurred from the 15th to mid-17th Century,
and signified not only a change in pronunciation,
vocabulary or grammar itself but also the start of
the English Renaissance.
• 16th Century- The Printing Press was key in
standardizing the English language through
distribution of the English Bible. It was when
Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (the Death of
Arthur).
• The end of the 16th century brought about the
first complete translation of the Catholic Bible, and
though it didn’t make a markable impact, it played
an important role in the continued development of
the English language, especially with the English-
speaking Catholic population worldwide.
• The end of the 16th and start of the 17th century
would see the writings of actor and playwright,
William Shakespeare, take the world by storm.
• Shakespeare started writing during a time when
the English language was undergoing serious
changes due to contact with other nations through
war, colonization, and the likes.
• It was during the early 17th century that we saw
the establishment of the first successful English
colony in what was called The New World.
Jamestown, Virginia, also saw the dawn of
American English with English colonizers adopting
indigenous words, and adding them to the English
language.
• Migration during the 17th, 18th and 19th century
meant a variety of English dialects springing to life,
this included West African, Native American,
Spanish and European influences.
LATE MODERN ENGLISH
• The Industrial Revolution and the Rise of the
British Empire during the 18th, 19th and early 20th-
century saw the expansion of the English language.
• The advances and discoveries in science and
technology during the Industrial Revolution saw a
need for new words, phrases, and concepts to
describe these ideas and inventions. Due to the
nature of these works, scientists and scholars
created words using Greek and Latin roots e.g.,
bacteria, histology, nuclear, biology.
• Colonialism brought with it a double-edged
sword. It can be said that the nations under the
British Empire’s rule saw the introduction of the
English language as a way for them to learn,
engage, and hopefully, benefit from “overseas”
influence.
ENGLISH IN THE 21st CENTURY
• World Englishes refers to the differences in the
English language that emerge as it is used in various
contexts across the world. Scholars of World
Englishes identify the varieties of English used in
different sociolinguistic contexts, analyzing their
history, background, function, and influence.
• The inner circle refers to the countries where
English is used as the primary language, such as the
USA, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
• The outer/middle circle denotes those countries
where English usage has some colonial history. This
includes nations such as India, Bangladesh, Ghana,
Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines,
Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Zambia.
• The expanding circle includes countries where
English is spoken but where it does not necessarily
have a colonial history or primary/official language
status. This includes nations such as China, Japan,
South Korea, Egypt, Nepal, Indonesia, Israel, Korea,
Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, USSR, and Zimbabwe. Any
country where English is regularly spoken (even in
limited contexts—e.g., for international business)
that does not fall under the first two categories is
considered to be in the expanding circle.
HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN THE
PHILIPPINES
1762- Britain invaded Manila and nearby port of
Cavite for twenty months
1901- Around 504 US teachers came to the country.
Between 1920 – 1941- Around 209 Filipino scholars
were sent to get a college degree in various fields
like Medicine, Law and Animal Science.
1940s onwards- golden age of the young writers of
English
21st Century- Philippine English is in the process of
standardization.
ENG 121 NOTES: MORPHEMES
Morphology – in Linguistics, it is the study of the
forms of words, and the ways in which words are
related to other words of the same language.
ETYMOLOGY: Greek and Latin Roots
ON LATIN:
Three thousand years ago it was spoken only in a
small area around Rome, but by AD 400 it was the
official language of the western half of the Roman
Empire and the vehicle of a huge and varied written
literature.
It was also the liturgical language of all West
European Christians until the Protestant
Reformation of the sixteenth century and remained
the predominant liturgical language of Catholics
worldwide until the 1970s.
The study of Latin was still a routine part of what
was considered a ‘good education’ throughout the
English-speaking world until the second half of the
twentieth century. Particularly after the
Renaissance, or revival of learning, in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, it is not surprising that
many words were adopted into English from Latin
directly, rather than by way of French.
ON GREEK:
The Romans revered Greek culture, and most of
classical Latin literature emulates Greek models.
Green influence on English started when Western
Europeans began to learn about Greek culture for
themselves in the fifteenth century.
From the point of view of word formation, the main
influence of Greek has been in its use in the
invention of scientific and technical words.
EXAMPLES:
BEAR - fer [Latin], pher [Greek] both mean to carry.
CAL in CALCIUM, CALCITE – stone, calx "lime“
[Latin] χάλιξ (khalix) "pebble" "limestone“ [Greek]
BIOLOGY - GREEK βίος; romanized bíos meaning
"life" and -λογία; romanized logía (-logy) meaning
"branch of study" or "to speak."
Ethos (Greek)
hē ēthikē tekhnē (Greek – science of morals)
ethice (Latin)
ethique (Old French)
ethos (English)
ethic (late middle English)
a- (Gr) without sylē (Gr) right of
seizure
asylos (Gr) refuge, sanctuary
asylum (L)
COMMON WORD ROOTS
GREEK: aqua (water), biblio (book), chrono (time),
geo (earth), photo (light),
LATIN: audi (hear), circ (round), jur (law), manu
(hand), pac (peace)
MORPHEME – in linguistics, the classic definition of
a morpheme is a minimal structural shape or piece
that expresses meaning.
For example, the word dogs contains two
morphemes: dog and –s.
Problems with the traditional definition of a
morpheme include such facts as (1) the meaning
contributed by a morpheme may vary depending
on other morphemes in the word, and (2) the
whole message may be more, less than, or simply
different from the sum of the “meanings” of all the
morphemes in the message. For these reasons, it is
appropriate to think of morphology as an
established system of variations in the shapes of
words, rather than simply strings of meaningful
pieces.
FREE MORPHEME – morpheme that may not need
to be attached to some other form in order to be
used naturally in discourse. Essentially the words of
the language that may have no additions. Nouns,
verbs, prepositions, etc. Dog, sky, eat, on.
BOUND MORPHEME – morpheme that must be
attached to some other morpheme in order to be
used naturally in discourse. Added to free
morphemes to alter their grammatical effect in
various ways. Affixes, roots, or clitics. -s, -ed, duce
(in deduce), ‘s in she’s.
INFLECTIONAL – morpheme that is used to mark
grammatical information (plurality, tense), All are
affixes.
{PLU} = plural (Noun) (-s) boys
{POSS} = possessive (Noun) (-'s) boy's
{COMP} = comparative (Adj) (-er) older
{SUP} = superlative (Adj) (-est) oldest
{PRES} = present (Verb) (-s) walks
{PAST} = past (Verb) (-ed) walked
{PAST PART} = past participle (Verb) (-en) driven
{PRES PART} = present participle (Verb) (-ing)
driving
Including irregular forms such as good = better,
drive = drove, sheep = sheep
DERIVATIONAL – morpheme that makes
fundamental changes to the meaning of the stem
(noun becoming an adjective, verb to noun), can be
a prefix or suffix.
{ize} attaches to a noun and turns it into a verb:
rubberize.
{ize} also attaches to an adjective and turns it into a
verb: normalize.
{ful} attaches to a noun and turns it into an
adjective: playful, helpful.
{ly} attaches to an adjective and turns it into an
adverb: grandly, proudly.
A different {ly} attaches to a noun and changes it
into an adjective: manly, friendly.
English also has derivational prefixes, such as: {un} ,
{dis} , {a} , {anti} , all of which indicate some kind of
negation: unhappy, dislike, atypical, anti-aircraft.
STEMMING – strip prefixes and/or suffixes to find
the base root, which may or may not be an actual
word. Spelling corrections not required. It reduces
the word to the “unchangeable part” hence the
stem. Rule-based approach.
Dogs – dog // produced – duc // sees – s
LEMMATIZATION – strip prefixes and/or suffixes to
find the base root, which will always be an actual
word. Spelling corrections are crucial. It reduces the
word to its dictionary base form hence the lemma.
Dictionary-based approach
Dogs – dog // produced – produce // sees – see
STEMMING
Change
Changing
Changes chang
Changed
Changer
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LEXEME AND MORPHEME
Lexeme refers to a single word and all of its forms.
For example the word “go” in English has the forms
“go” and “goes”, “went” and “going”. All of these
words are from the same lexeme “go”.
Morpheme refers to the smallest unit of meaning a
word can be broken down into. For example, the
word “cats” this can be broken down into “cat-s”
“cat” carries the meaning of the furry four legged
animal and “-s” carries the meaning of plural.
ENG121: Morphological Processes
Morphological Process – a morphological process is
a means of changing a stem to adjust its meaning to
fit its syntactic and communicational context.
Key points to remember:
Murray (1995) states that, “new words can enter
English in only two general ways: either they are
borrowed from another language, or they are
created from elements that already exist in
English”.
• Dated - the point where the word has ceased
being novel, entered formal linguistic acceptance
and even may have passed into becoming a cliché.
• Passé - when a neologism becomes so culturally
dated that the use of it is avoided because its use is
seen as a stigma, a sign of being out of step with
the norms of a changed cultural tradition, perhaps,
with the neologism dropping from the lexicon
altogether.
Categories of Morphological Processes:
Concatenative - Linear combination
Nonconcatenative - Internal modification
Concatenate - means add, link, combine.
Concatenative Processes:
Compounding - combining two old words to make
one new one.
1. NOUN-NOUN (earthquake, basketball)
2. NOUN-VERB (haircut, rainfall)

LEMMATIZATION Newly created words entering a language tend to 3. ADJECTIVE-VERB (dry clean, public speaking

Change pass through the following stages (Behera & 4. ADJECTIVE-ADJECTIVE (bittersweet, fat-free)
Mishra, 2013):
Changing 5. ADJECTIVE-NOUN (greenhouse, software)
• Unstable - very new or being used only by a small
Changes change sub-culture (also branded as protologisms) 6. VERB-NOUN (washing machine, swimming pool)

Changed • Diffused - having attained a noteworthy incidence 7. VERB-PREPOSITION (roll on, stand by)

Changer of use, but not yet having gained pervasive
acceptance
• Stable - having gained recognizable, being in
vogue, and perhaps, gaining lasting acceptance
8. PREPOSITION-VERB (on call, in touch)
1. Closed compound words are formed when two
unique words are joined together. Example:
baseball, cannot, sunflower, grandmother.
2. Open compound words have a space between
the words but when they are read together a new
meaning is formed. Example: ice cream, game plan,
contact tracing.
3. Hyphenated compound words are words
connected by a hyphen. Example: over-the-counter,
runner-up, in-depth.
Incorporation – This is a phenomenon by which a
word, usually a verb, forms a kind of compound
with, for instance, its direct object (object
incorporation) or adverbial modifier, while
retaining its original syntactic function.
Examples: You head-cut it (You cut its head).
She doesn’t meat-eat (She does not eat meat).
My mother is dish-cleaning (My mother is cleaning
dishes)
Affixation - This is the process of adding bound
morpheme (affix) to a word.
Prefixation – Beginning – undo.
Suffixation – Ending – houses, housing.
Infixation – Middle – tumungo (Filipino)
Circumfixation – Two ends – Kabutihan.
Transfixation – Discontinuous affix – Kataba
(Arabic)
Nonconcatenative Processes:
Reduplication − Total/Exact repetition: blah-blah,
bye-bye, cha-cha, so-so. Partial repetition
• Rhyming: hocus-pocus, fuddy-duddy, topsy-turvy, (The words editor and sculptor appeared first in the
nitty-gritty English language which gave rise to edit and sculpt,
respectively)
• Ablaut: Ping-Pong, ding-dong, seesaw
Other examples:
Internal Modification
typewrite (from typewriter)
1. Vowel Modification begin- began, sing-sang, ring-
rang, sit-sat, find-found housekeep (from housekeeper)
2. Consonant Modification mouth-mouth, advice- televise (from television)
advise, belief-believe, proof-prove, offense-offend
Babysit (from babysitter)
3. Mixed Modification catch-caught, seek-sought,
Clipping – This is shortening of polysyllabic words.
life-live, bath-bathe, breath-breathe
Philo – Philosophy
4. Stress Modification record-record, insert-insert,
ad- advertisement
conduct-conduct, subject-subject
Aral Pan – Araling Panlipunan
Conversion – This is the process of changing the
function of a word, such as a noun to a verb, as a Acronymization – This is word formation from the
way of forming new words, also known as initial letters of the several words in the name.
“category change” or “functional shift”.
AIDS - Acquired Immunes Deficiency Syndrome
I can send you an email. I can email you.
COVID - Coronavirus Disease
The researcher had to rewrite her drafts. The
researcher submitted her rewrites. SCUBA - Self-Contained Underwater Breathing
Apparatus
The couples did invite their friends. The couples
LASER - Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission
sent their invites to their friends.
of Radiation
Back Derivation – Also known as back-formation,
this is the formation of new words by the removal UPCAT - University of the Philippines College
of an affix from an existing word. Admission Test
editor – edit
Sculptor- sculpt
ENG121: Morphophonological Processes
Antidisestablishmentarianism (twenty-eight letters)
originally described opposition to the
disestablishment of the Church of England, but now
it may refer to any opposition to withdrawing
government support of a particular church or
religion.
Morphology – study of word structure and
formation process.
Phonology – study of the pattern of sounds in a
language.
Morphophonology – study of the interaction
between phonology and morphology; sound
changes in morphemes when they combine to form
words.
Morphophonological Processes
ABLAUT / APOPHONY – pattern of vowel alteration
in the roots of inflectionally or derivationally
modified words.
Bind – bound, ring – rang, for past tense.
Goose – geese, foot – feet, for plurality.
Sing – song for change of lexical category.
CONTRACTION – is an optional procedure where a
once-free morpheme becomes bound, finding a
host to which it attaches itself.
He is = He’s
Will not – won’t
Must have – must’ve
EPENTHESIS – addition/insertion of vowel or Good – better – best
consonant sound.
Bad – worse – worst
Hamster - /hæm(p)stɚr/
Be – is – are – was – were
Warmth - /wɔɹmpθ/
TRUNCATION – akin to clipping (word-based
Glass - /’gIlɑːs/ morphology)
Plaster - /pəlæstər/ Professor – prof
PHONESTHEMES – particular sound or sound Brother – bro
sequence that suggests a certain meaning. Deletion of a morpheme if it is internal to another
/sl/ - negative (slit, slip, slide) suffix (morpheme-based morphology)
/I/ - smallness (bit, sip, kit) Removing – ate
Evacuate – evacuee
/gl/ - light (gleam, glitter, glisten)
METATHESIS – reverse order of segments. Nominate – nominee
Relevant – relevant DIMINUTIVE – a root word is modified to convey a
slighter degree of its meaning, emphasizing
Ask – aks smallness (addition of diminutive suffixes)
Integral – integral Duck – duckling
Whisper – whisper Kitchen – kitchenette
Foliage – foilage Book – booklet
SANDHI – modification of the sound of a Red – reddish
morpheme (such as a word or affix) conditioned by
syntactic context in which it is uttered. ADVANCED WORD FORMATION PROCESSES
ANALOGY – the pattern of correspondence
ed as /d/ in glazed and as /t/ in paced.
between similar words of constructions that
a in a cow and of an in an old cow enables the language user to make new words or
constructions in conformity with that pattern.
SUPPLETION – the use of two or more phonetically
distinct roots for different forms of the same word; Landscape – seascape
morpheme is changed instead of adding in affix.
Watergate – Irangate
Software – hardware
Overwhelm – underwhelm
Prolong – proshort?
CREATIVE SPELLING – word are formed by simply
changing the spelling of a word to form a new
word; usually observed among brand names.
Kleenex – from clean, tissue.
Qwikster – move-by-mail service.
Krunch – crunch
Xmas – Christmas
Nite – night
4eva – forever
FOLK ETYMOLOGY – refers to the changing of the
word or a phrase over time which results from the
placement of an unfamiliar form by a more familiar
one.
“Bryd-guman” from old English was changed to
bridegroom as the old English was guma (man) was
obsolete.
NEAR SYNONYM – words are almost synonyms, but
not quite; very similar, but also not identical, in
meaning; not fully intersubstitutable, but instead
varying in their shades of denotation, connotation,
implicature, emphasis, or register (DiMarco, Hirst
and Stede 1993)
Fib, lie, falsehood
Sleep, snooze, slumber
Mist and fog A bicycle can’t stand on its own because its two-
tired.
NEOLOGISM – also called coinage, a new word or
expression in a language, or a new meaning for an Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
existing word or expression.
REANALYSIS – occurs when a complex word is
Dellionaire – one who is rich because of having reanalyzed morphologically, and the components
stocks at dell. are used as morphemes themselves.
Internot – person who refuses to use the internet. Hamburger – came from hamburg (german city)
(hamburg + er)
Chillax – relax
It became hamburger, then burger becomes a root
NOVEL CREATION – forming a word without
word (reanalyzed) which makes another word such
starting from other morphemes. It is as if the word
as cheeseburger, chickenburger.
is formed out of ‘whole cloth’, without reusing any
parts. Alcoholic – alcohol + ic
Googol (mathematical term) Holic – shopaholic, workaholic, chocoholic
Slang (no obvious etymology) MULTIPLE PROCESSES – combination of two or
more processes.
Basically any new word that came to exist from
nowhere. Snowball
PORTMANTEAU – also called ‘blend’; fusion of two Snow + ball = compounding
morphemes into one so as to combine their
Snowball (verb) – conversion
meanings as well.
Internet
Guess + estimate = guestimate
International network = open compounding
Smoke + fog = smog
Inter, net = clipping
Pragmatics + semantics = pragmantics
Internet = portmanteau
PUNNING – forming of word play that exploits
multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding
words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical
effect.
I was struggling to figure out how lightning works,
but then it struck me.