Morphology:

Introduction
Teacher’s name:
Mr. Martin Castillo
Group work
 Work in groups of three and try to answer
the following questions:
◦ What is languange?
◦ What is the different between human and animal
language?
◦ Which are the characteristics of human
language?
◦ What is linguistics?
◦ Which are the areas in linguistics?
◦ What is word?
◦ What is morpheme?
◦ Which are the basic types of criteria that are
used for identificacion of words?
WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
It is a Communication
of thoughts and
feelings through a
system of arbitrary
signals, such as voice
sounds, gestures, or
written symbols.
MORE DEFINITIONS
 Let’s have a look what the experts have to say.

1. Edward Sapir (1921):

Language is a purely human and
noninstinctive method of communicating
ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a
system of voluntarily produced symbols.
2. David Crystal (1989):

The discussion may be summarized by

referring to language as human vocal noise
(or graphic representation of this noise in
writing) used systematically and
conventionally by a community for purposes
of communication.
HUMAN VS ANIMAL LANGUAGE
Human language has what we call
grammar, it allows more creation of
sentence patterns.
CHARACTERISTICS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE
 Charles F. Hockett (1958) enumerates a number of features
which , he argues, constitute human language:

◦ Interchangeability: transmitting and receiving

information

◦ Productivity: the ability to vary a message to reflect

differences in circumstances concerned.

◦ Cultural transmission: the ability to learn from others.

WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?
 Linguistics is the scientific study of
language.

 There are many branches in Linguistics,

for example:
◦ Applied Linguistics
◦ Historical Linguistics
◦ Psycholinguistics
◦ Computational Linguistics
◦ Sociolinguistics
WHAT DO WE STUDY IN LINGUISTICS?
We will study the following areas in
Linguistics:

1.Phonetics: It is the study of sound

production (physical production, that is
how the sounds are produced in the
mouth)
2.Phonology: the study of sound patterns
3.Morphology: the study of word structure
4.Syntax: the study of sentence patterns.
Unit 1:
Basic Concepts
DEFINING THE WORD
DEFINITION OF WORD
1. The term word is used to designate an
intermediate structure smaller than a whole
phrase and yet larger than a single sound
segment.
2. It can be defined depending on whether we
focus on its representation, the thought
which it expresses, or purely formal criteria.
3. However, although it may be difficult to
define word, even nonliterate speakers can
divide the speech chain into words.
Definition1
The term word is used to designate an intermediate structure
smaller than a whole phrase and yet larger than a single
sound segment.

 Writing traditions (separate by spaces sequences

of letters or characters).
 Not always it is real.
 In speech segments do not exist because it is a
phonetic continuum and breaks are done only
between some larger syntactic units, such as
phrases or clauses.
E.g. School, household, in, fall out, waste paper basket, forget-
me-not, runner-up.
Value of these spaces?
 Consequently, a definition based on writing
traditions alone cannot be entirely
satisfactory.
Definition 2
It can be defined depending on whether we focus on its
representation, the thought which it expresses, or purely
formal criteria.
 The second type of definition considers the indivisible
unit of thought as the most essential criterion. The
main problem faced by this view is the delimitation
which offers us three possible alternatives:
 A) the word as represented in writing represents a
thought unit or a psychological unit, e.g. table, house,
courage, faith, intelligence, tall, short, sleep, eat…
 B) The word forms one block but includes two units of
thought: e.g. farmer, rethink, spoonful.
 C) The psychological unit exceeds the limit of the
graphological unit and spreads over several words,
which is then a more complex unit: e.g. all of a
sudden, as usual, coconut.
Definition 3
However, although it may be difficult to define word, even
nonliterate speakers can divide the speech chain into words.

 By L. Bloomfield, who suggested a formal

definition of word. He contrasted it with other
significant units, the morpheme or minimal
meaningful unit, and the syntagma or structure,
consisting potentially of more than one word.
 For Bloomfield, a minimal form is morpheme. A
form which may occur alone is free, and the one
which cannot occur alone is bound: F book, man ;
B -ing, -er.
 Word is a minimal free form, which can occur in
isolation and have meaning but which cannot be
analysed into elements which can all occur alone
and also have meaning.
DEFINITION OF WORD - reloaded

 The word is an uninterruptible unit of

structure consisting of one or more
morphemes and which typically occurs in
the structure of phrases or sentences.
 The morphemes are the ultimate
grammatical constituents, the minimal
meaningful units of language.
Wordhood: criteria
According to Haspelmath (2011), there are four
basic types of criteria that are used for
identification of words: orthographic, phonological,
semantic, and morphosyntactic (grammatical); but
we are going to talk about six basic types of
criteria: Orthographic, semantic, phonological,
morphological, grammatical and syntactic.
orthopraphic • A word is what occurs between spaces in writing

• A word has a semantic coherence

semantic • It expresses a unified semantic concept

• Potential pause: a word occurs between potential pauses in

speaking. Though in normal speech, we generally do not pause,
we may potentially pause between words, but not in the middle of
phonological words.
• Stress: a word spoken in isolation has one and only one primary
stress.

• A word has an internal cohesion and is indivisible by other units.

Morphological • A word may be modified only externally by the adition of suffixes
and prefixes.

Grammatical • Words fall into particular classes.

• A word has external distribution or mobility.

Syntactic • It is moved as a unit, not in parts.
Orthographic
A word is what occurs between spaces in writing
Semantic
A word has a semantic coherence
It expresses a unified semantic concept
Syntactic
A word has external distribution or mobility.
It is moved as a unit, not in parts.
Morphologycal
A word has an internal cohesion and is indivisible by other units.
A word may be modified only externally by the adition of suffixes
and prefixes.
Phonological
Potential pause: a word occurs between potential pauses in
speaking. Though in normal speech, we generally do not
pause, we may potentially pause between words, but not in
the middle of words.
Stress: a word spoken in isolation has one and only one
primary stress.

/ˌɹɛvəˈluːʃən/
/ˌɹɛvə/ /ˈluːʃən/

/ˈɪn.sʌlt/ /ɪnˈsʌlt/
Grammatical
Words fall into particular classes.