WEEK 3

TOPIC 3
DERIVATIONAL
MORPHOLOGY
• MORPHEMES, MORPHS AND ALLOMORPHS
• FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES
• DERIVATIONAL AND INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES
• COMPOUNDING
• CONVERSION
• SHORTENING BASES

NURUL YASMIN BINTI MOHAMAD YUSOF

FEHA, KUPTMKL
 01 02
MORPHEMES, MORPHS FREE AND BOUND
AND ALLOMORPHS MORPHEMES
Definitions Representing Word Structure
Formation of New Words

03 04
DERIVATIONAL AND OTHER METHODS OF
INFLECTIONAL WORD FORMATION
MORPHEMES
Compounding
Criteria to distinguish Affixes Conversion
Inflectional Affixes Shortening bases
Derivational Affixes
 MORPHOLOGY

● The study of word formation.

● Specifically, the study of morphemes and the way they are
arranged.
● In linguistics, morphology studies on how words are
formed (i.e. What morphemes every word is made of)
 PHONETICS AND MORPHOLOGY

PHONEMES SYLLABLES WORDS

/k/ /ᴂ/ /t/ /k ᴂt/ cat

/f/ /l/ /aʊə/ /r/ /fla-ʊər/ flower
 WORDS

● Words are independent units of meaning.

● In writing, we put spaces between them. However, in
speaking we cannot see where the spaces occur.
● For example:

inwritingweputspacesbetweenthemhoweverinspeakingwe
cannotseewherethespacesoccur
 WORD BOUNDARIES

In / writing/ we/ put/ spaces/ between/ them/ however/ in/

speaking/ we /cannot/ see/ where/ the/ spaces/ occur/

● We have an understanding of the internal structure of

words.
● We know where the word begins and ends.
● Thus, we know where to put the spaces in writing.
 WORD STRUCTURE

● We need to know what is inside a word – the structure.

● In Linguistic theory, this refers to ‘lexicon’.

Lexicon – “The idea that the mind contains a vast stock of

stored mental representations of words”
 WORD STRUCTURE

Knowledge of word enables us to know:

 Sounds and how they are sequenced (e.g. pat, tap)

 Meaning
 Syntactic category (noun, verb, adjective, adverb)
 Internal structure/ composition (morphology)
01
MORPHEMES, MORPHS AND
ALLOMORPHS
 MORPHEMES: THE MINIMAL UNITS OF MEANING

“They gave it me,” Humpty Dumpty continued, “for an un-birthday present.”

“ I beg your pardon?” Alice said with a puzzled air.
“I’m not offended,” said Humpty Dumpty.
“I mean, what is an un-birthday present?”
“A present given when it isn’t your birthday, of course.”

LEWIS CARROLL, Through the Looking-Glass.

From the dialogue, Humpty Dumpty is well aware that the prefix un-
means “not”, as further shown in the following pairs of words:

A B

desirable undesirable

likely unlikely

inspired uninspired

happy unhappy

developed undeveloped

sophisticated unsophisticated
All the words in the B column un- means the same thing – “not”. Those
are words consist of at least two meaningful units: un+desirable,
un+likely, un+inspired, and so on.
Just as un- occurs with the same meaning, so does phon- in the
following words.

phone phonology phoneme

phonetic phonologist phonemic

phonetics phonological allophone

phonetician telephone euphonious

phonic telephonic symphony

 Phone- is a minimal form that
cannot be decomposed.

Ph does not mean anything;

Pho, though it may be pronounced like foe, has no

relation in meaning

On is not the preposition spelled “on”

However, in all the words on the list, phone has the

identical meaning, “pertaining to sound.”
 MORPHEMES

Definition: An element of a language, smaller than the word,

which represents a correlation between form and meaning.

It can be the form associated with meaning.

For example: un- means ‘not’

*It is not necessarily be the form of word that has meaning –

content word
MORPHEMES

WORDS

word + -s

two morphemes
 MORPHEMES

I bet you know it.

contain similar meaning
I am betting on this.

I am better today than I was yesterday. ≠ not the same

morpheme because it does not associate with the same
meaning.
 MORPHEMES

I have a car.
does not share meaning
I have a scar on my face.
 MORPHEMES

One morpheme Two morphemes Three morphemes More than three

morphemes
shall
market market-s
market super-market
market market-able market-able-ity
farm farm-er farm-er-s
nation nation-al nation-al-ise nation-al-is-ation

Table 1 Words consisting of one or more morphems

 MORPHS
Definition: The realization of a morpheme

MORPHEME: Abstract concept (smallest unit of a word that has meaning)

MORPH: Concrete element (phonetic realization of the morpheme)

Works just like lexeme and word form

Example:

Cats Buses
[cat + (-s)] [bus + (-es)]
 ALLOMORPH

Definition: Any of the different form (phonologically condition

realization) of a morpheme i.e. different pronunciations of the
same morpheme.

Example:
Past Tense: called [-d], talked [-t], glided [-ed]
Morpheme: [-d]
Allomorphs /-d/ /-t/ /-ed/
 ALLOMORPH

dogs dog[z]
/z/ and /s/ sounds
are two allomorphs
plural s to single plural
morpheme -s

hats hat [s]

PRACTICE 1
 Define the following terms:

MORPHEME

ALLOMORPH

LEXICON

MORPHOLOGY
 ANSWERS

MORPHEME The smallest meaningful unit of language

ALLOMORPH Different pronunciations of the same morpheme

The idea that the mind contains a vast stock of stored mental
LEXICON
representations of words (Mental dictionary)

MORPHOLOGY The study of word formation

02
FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES
 QUESTION

Does every
morpheme
consist of one
syllable? No. There is NO
one-to-one
correspondence
between
morphemes and
syllables.
 MORPHEMES

I bet you are happy now. one syllable, one morpheme

I do not know all the words of one syllable, two morphemes

the English language.
 FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

Remember the word words and how we agreed that it consists of

two (2) morphemes? One of the morphemes, word, is the word by
itself. The morpheme –s, however is not a word , but a form and
must be attached to another element.

The morpheme word is commonly referred to as a free morpheme

while –s is a bound morpheme.
FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

DEFINITION
Free morphemes are morphemes that can be
used as a word on its own right.
Examples: boy, table, orange, bag

Bound morphemes are morphemes that cannot

stand alone and must be ‘bound’ to other
morpheme.
Examples: unhappy, happiness, disempowerment
FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

Most free morphs are lexemes - can stand on their own.

They are not further analyzable into smaller grammatical units.

The basic irreducible core of a word is called root.

FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES
Example:

Planters
PLANT constitutes the root.
This root is then extended to form PLANT-er and then PLANT-er-s

In the word PLANTer-s, planter forms the base to which another morph (-s) is
attached. Any part of a word to which an affix is added is called a base.
A root can be a base (when we attach another morpheme to it), but a base does not
have to be a root.

Every English word must contain at least one free morpheme.

 FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

Free morphemes are often transformed by the addition bound

morphemes through a process called affixation.

Affixation – “A morpheme added to a word to change its

function or meaning”
 FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

Pref
ix
outfreakingstanding
undo
fanfreakingtastic doing
unhappy
absobloominglutely happiness
injustice
humanity
incomplete
fastest
rewrite
misbehave
 PREFIX, INFLIX AND SUFFIX
A prefix is an affix attached to the front of a word while a suffix is an
affix attached to the end of a word. Infixes are affixes that are
attached in the middle of the word.

In the word ‘empower’, for example, the prefix em- is attached to the
word or free morpheme power to form a new word -empower. The
free morpheme power is also referred to as the stem or the base
morpheme.
Similarly, the word empowerment contains both the prefix em- and a
suffix –ment. *There are few, infixes in the English language.

Prefixes Suffixes
disadvantages advantageous
reexamine examination
uneventful eventful
bicycle cyclical

Table 2 Examples of prefixes and suffixes

There are also more complex words that consist of more than four
morphemes. The word ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ , said to be the
longest word in the English language consists of six morphemes.

anti bound
dis bound
establish free
ment bound
arian bound
ism bound
PRACTICE 2
Instruction: Divide these words into prefixes and roots, and explain their basic meaning.

Example precede pre + cede Meaning : go before

1. proceed

2. recede

3. export

4. transport

5. reject

6. inject

7. inspect

8. exceed

9. propose

10. superscript
 ANSWERS

Example precede pre + cede Meaning : go before

1. proceed pro + ceed go forward

2. recede re + cede go back

3. export ex + port carry out

4. transport trans + port carry across

5. reject re + ject throw back

6. inject in + ject throw into

7. inspect in + spect look into

8. exceed ex + cede go outside

9. propose pro + pose put forward

10. superscript super + script write above

Instruction: Add in-, im-, il-, or ir- to the following words.

Example logical illogical

1. responsible

2. rational

3. credible

4. tangible

5. regular

6. balance

7. legal

8. active

9. legible

10. patient
 ANSWERS

Example logical illogical

1. responsible irresponsible

2. rational irrational

3. credible incredible

4. tangible intangible

5. regular irregular

6. balance imbalance

7. legal illegal

8. active inactive

9. legible illegible

10. patient impatient

Instruction: Add suffixes to the words in brackets so that they fit the sentence. Use your dictionary
to check that your word exists.
E.g. The sky was (cloud) and the wind was blowing. cloudy

1. (Care) people always have accidents.

2. You must be (logic) about this. Think clearly and don’t get (emotion).

3. I’m sorry. I know I behaved (stupid).

4. This is very (stress) time in my life.

5. The catches move (out) to fix the tray in place.

6. We can deal with this situation. It’s serious, but it’s (manage).

7. Jim is very (luck). He had a serious accident but he was unhurt.

8. (Hindu) teaches people to be kind to animals.

9. Aini is a very (attract) girl. She’s clever, too.

10. She’s very ill. The doctors have found a (cancer) growth in her stomach.
 ANSWERS

E.g. The sky was (cloud) and the wind was blowing. cloudy

1. (Care) people always have accidents. careless

2. You must be (logic) about this. Think clearly and don’t get (emotion). logical,
emotional
3. I’m sorry. I know I behaved (stupid). stupidly

4. This is very (stress) time in my life. stressful

5. The catches move (out) to fix the tray in place. outwards

6. We can deal with this situation. It’s serious, but it’s (manage). manageable

7. Jim is very (luck). He had a serious accident but he was unhurt. lucky

8. (Hindu) teaches people to be kind to animals. Hinduism

9. Aini is a very (attract) girl. She’s clever, too. attractive

10. She’s very ill. The doctors have found a (cancer) growth in her stomach. cancerous
Instruction: Identify the free morpheme in each of the following words in bracket.

E.g. The storm was extremely (destructive). It damages hundreds of destroy

homes.
1. Be careful with those bottles – they contain (explosive) gas.

2. Money doesn’t usually bring (happiness).

3. Your sister will be (furious) when she discovers you’ve lost her files.

4. The speaker will need a lot of (persuasion) to invest in your project.

5. The government has decided to (privatize) this hospital.

6. The soil here is too (acidic) to grow crops.

7. She used to be a bit wild, but (motherhood) has given her a new sense of
responsibility.
8. Don’t forget to add (postage) charges if you want us to send the parcel.

9. We’re hoping to get a (sponsorship) deal for the concert.

10. The field is too (muddy) to play football today.

 ANSWERS

E.g. The storm was extremely (destructive). It damages hundreds of destroy

homes.
1. Be careful with those bottles – they contain (explosive) gas. explode

2. Money doesn’t usually bring (happiness). happy

3. Your sister will be (furious) when she discovers you’ve lost her files. fury

4. The speaker will need a lot of (persuasion) to invest in your project. persuade

5. The government has decided to (privatize) this hospital. private

6. The soil here is too (acidic) to grow crops. acid

7. She used to be a bit wild, but (motherhood) has given her a new sense of mother
responsibility.
8. Don’t forget to add (postage) charges if you want us to send the parcel. post

9. We’re hoping to get a (sponsorship) deal for the concert. sponsor

10. The field is too (muddy) to play football today. mud

 REPRESENTING WORD STRUCTURE
The structure of word many be represented in two ways:
 Tree diagram

 Labelled brackets

For example: ‘bookshelf’

TREE DIAGRAM
 STEPS OF USING LABELLED BRACKETS

STEP 1 STEP 2
Begin by placing square Identify the grammatical
brackets around the stem. category of the word and
labelling its part of speech.

STEP 4 STEP 3
Place square brackets Imagine that the square
around this word and label brackets do not exist and
it. Repeat this process until look for the next word
all morphemes are formed through affixation.
accounted for.
 LABELLED BRACKETS
For example: ‘disempowerment’
Step 1: [power] N
Step 2: [em [power] N ]V
Step 3: [em [power]N]Vment]N
Step 4: [dis [em [power]N]Vment]N ]N
[dis [ [em [power]N]Vment]N] N
Labelled brackets can be
quite confusing. It may help
to remember that each
opening square bracket
must have its
accompanying closed
square bracket. The
number for each is equal to
the number of morphemes
in the word.
PRACTICE 3
Instruction: Draw tree diagrams to illustrate the structure of the following words, assigning
appropriate word class labels (N, Adj, Adv, V) in the trees.

Example disempowerment

1. believable

2. unbelievable

3. systematic

4. unsystematic

5. helpful

6. unhelpfulness

7. unassertively

8. redeclassify

9. helpless

10. helplessness
 FORMATION OF NEW WORDS
It should be noted that there are other ways to form new words
besides the use of affixes.

This includes reduplication as in Bahasa Melayu word “orang-

orang” or partial reduplication such as in “kekuda” in which the
reduplication affix “ke” is used.

Other methods of word formation from base morphemes without the

use of affixes include conversion or zero derivation, stress shift
and ablaut.
 FORMATION OF NEW WORDS

Formation of
New Words

Without
With Affixes
Affixes

Conversion /
Affixes Reduplication Zero Stress Shift Ablaut
Derivation

Figure 1 Methods used in forming new words from base morphemes

 CONVERSION
Definition: A new word is created by assigning an existing word to a
new syntactic category.

For example:
The word “release” can be a verb as well as a noun, depending on
how it is used.
In the sentence ‘Please release me’, the word is used as a verb,
while it is used as a noun in the sentence ‘His release was
imminent’.
 CONVERSION
Conversion is usually limited to unsuffixed word as shown in the
following table.

Father (noun) Father (verb)

Sleep (verb) Sleep (noun)

Comb (noun) Comb (verb)

Table 1 Examples of Conversions

 STRESS SHIFT
New words can also be created through stress shift.

For example:
per'mit (verb) 'permit (noun)

re'cord (verb) 'record (noun)

sub'ject (verb) 'subject (noun)

Table 1 Examples of Conversions

 ABLAUT
Definition: A systematic way in which vowels change in related forms
of a word.

For example:
VERB STEM ABLAUT NOUN

sell Sale

abide abode

sing song

Table 2 Examples of Ablaut

03
INFLECTIONAL AND
DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES
 INFLECTIONAL AND
DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES
One of the method to form new words is through the use of affixes.

However, it is important to see the difference between two types of

affixation.
 INFLECTIONAL AND
DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES

Affixation

Inflectional Derivational
Affix Affix
Figure 1 Classification of affixes
 DEFINITIONS

The inflectional affix is used to modify a word’s form in order to

create a word which belongs to a grammatical sub class of the
original word.

In contrast, the derivational affix works by creating a new word

from the base morpheme.
 CRITERIA TO DISTINGUISH AFFIXES
According to O’grady et al. (1993), there are three (3) criteria that are
generally used to distinguish between the two types of affixation.
Category
change

CRITERIA
Positioning

Distribution

Figure 2 Criteria to distinguish two types of affixation

 01
CATEGORY
CHANGE
 CATEGORY CHANGE

Inflection does not change the category of the word that the affix or
inflectional morpheme is applied to.

The meaning of the word also does not change.

 CATEGORY CHANGE
For example:

In the word chairs, the plural –s affix is attached to it.

With the attachment of affix, the word chairs does not change its
category. It is still functioning as a noun.

Similarly, the meaning of the word chair is hardly changed with the
addition of the plural –s suffix.

However, the word develop which is a verb changes into a noun

when the suffix –ment is attached.
 CATEGORY CHANGE

In addition, together with this change of grammatical category, there

is also a change of meaning.

For example:
In the word develop and development
CATEGORY CHANGE
CATEGORY CHANGE
 CATEGORY CHANGE

In the example, the plural suffix –s is a inflectional affix or

inflectional morpheme, while the suffix –ment is a derivational
affix or derivational morpheme.
 02
POSITIONING
 POSITIONING

A derivational affix or morpheme must be closer to the base or root

morpheme compared to an inflectional affix or morpheme.

In the word investments, for example, the root word is invest and the
affixes are –ment and –s.

As discussed earlier, the affix –ment is a derivational affix (DA),

while suffix –s is an inflectional affix (IA).
 POSITIONING
The position of DA is always closer to the base morpheme compared
to the IA.

When the morphemes are ordered with the DA closest to the base
morpheme, such as the following word invest (base) ment (DA) s
(IA), the resultant word investments is acceptable.

However, when the IA instead of the DA is placed next to the base

morpheme, this positioning yields an unacceptable word as
investsment [invest (base) s (IA) and ment (DA).
 03
DISTRIBUTION
 DISTRIBUTION

The third criterion is the distribution or sometimes referred to as

productivity of the affix.

In this case, inflectional affixes are generally more productive and

have higher distribution than derivational affixes. The –s plural affix
has greater distribution than the –ment derivational affix.
 DISTRIBUTION

While the –s affix can be used with an enormous number of singular

nouns to form the plural, it is obvious that the –ment derivational affix
is less free in its distribution as it can only be attached to certain
verbs.
 DISTRIBUTION

This is illustrated in Table 2.

enact enactment act actment*

treat treatment cure curement*

adjourn adjournment stop stopment*

* unacceptable form

Table 2 Examples of the Distributions of Affixes

 INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES

The inflectional affix was said to not change the grammatical

category nor the meaning content of the base morpheme it is
attached to.

However, there are contrasts that are created by the use of the
inflectional affix which must be noted.
 INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES

In nouns, for example, the inflectional affix can signal number, noun
class, gender, as well as case.

Number: In English, the inflection –s attached to the end of a noun in

the word chair indicates plurality.

Gender: In French, Spanish, Arabic and German, the inflectional

affix can signal gender.
 INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES

For example:
The Arabic inflection of ‘ta marbutah’ [ ] signals feminity.

Inflectional affix can also be seen in verbs.

These affixes can signal person and type of tenses and voice in
verbs.
 INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES

For example:
The inflectional affix –s attached to the verb run indicates a singular
verb used with a singular subject.

He runs very fast.

 INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES

Similarly, the various affixes of –ed, -ing, and –en are used to
indicate past tense, progressive and perfect aspects respectively.

With respect to passive voice, although in English the passive is

characterized by a free morpheme auxiliary verb be and the
participle form (-en) of the verb, other languages such as Turkish
uses inflectional affix to indicate the passive voice.
 DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES

Unlike inflectional affixes, derivational affix causes a word or

morpheme to change word class.

As such, the word quick, an adjective, becomes the adverb quickly

when the derivational affix –ly is used.

Similarly, the word sing becomes a noun, “singer” when the affix –er
is placed at its end.
 DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES

A word can be form through multiple derivations such as the word

organizational.

The word reputed to be the longest word in English is made of

multiple derivations. For example, in the word
antidisestablishmentarianism changes from one word class to
another, each time a derivational affix is attached.
04
OTHER METHODS OF
WORD FORMATION
 COMPOUNDING

In addition to inflectional affixes and derivational affixes, another

method of forming new words is compounding.

Compounding – a process of combining two existing words to form a

new word.

For example: Bedsheet

 COMPOUNDING

The word bedsheet is made up of the words bed and sheet.

A compound can be from any word class- i.e. a noun (bedsheet), a

verb (babysit) and adjective (housewarming).

Compounds are most often nouns.

 COMPOUNDING

N N

lamp shade
Figure 2 Simple tree diagram of compound words
 CLIPPING

Definition: Clipping refers to the process of shortening the words/

clipping the words.

For example:
doc – doctor
prof – professor
 BLEND
Definition: Blends refer to the process of joining / combining parts of
two free morpheme to form a new word.

Blend words are sometimes called portmanteaus.

For example:
motel (motor + hotel)
brunch (breakfast + lunch)
hangry (hungry + anger)
 BACKFORMATION

Definition: A derived form of word undergoes a process of de-

affixation

A new word is created by removing an affix from an already existing

word.

For example:
resurrect – resurrection
liaise – liaison
 ONOMATOPOEIA

Definition: Words are formed from the sound.

For example:
buzz – sound of bees
meow – sound of cat
METHODS OF FORMING NEW WORDS TO LANGUAGE

Methods of Word Formation with

Affixes

Compounding Clipping Blend Backformation Onomatopoeia

PRACTICE 4
 Question 1
Guess the actual words of the following blend words below:

1. Podcast –
2. Spork –
3. Brainiac –
4. Emoticon –
5. Groupon –
6. Camcorder –
7. Smog –
8. Chillax –
9. Smiggle –
10. Sitcom –
 Answers
1. Podcast – iPod and broadcast
2. Spork – spoon and fork
3. Brainiac – brain + maniac
4. Emoticon – emotion + icon
5. Groupon – group + coupon
6. Camcorder – camera + recorder
7. Smog – smoke + fog
8. Chillax – chill + relax
9. Smiggle – smile + giggle
10. Sitcom – situation + comedy
 Question 2
Determine the process involved in the formation of the following words:

1. Auto –
2. Honk –
3. Telecast –
4. Vacuum clean –
5. Fishbowl –
6. Infotainment –
7. Bike –
8. Cupcake –
9. Shush –
10. Handwriting -
 Answers
1. Auto – Clipping from the word automatic
2. Honk – Onomatopoeia sounds of machine noise
3. Telecast – Blend ( television + broadcast)
4. Vacuum clean – Backformation (from vacuum cleaner)
5. Fishbowl – Compounding
6. Infotainment – Blend (information + entertainment)
7. Bike – Clipping from the word bicycle
8. Cupcake – Compounding
9. Shush – Onomatopoeia sounds of the voice
10. Handwriting - Compounding
THANKS!
Do you have any questions?

yasmin_my@kuptm.edu.my
01132774487

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