The Morphological Structure of English Words

Words are made of morphemes – the smallest meaningful units of the language.
In morphological analysis a word consisting of a single morpheme is called a
monomorphemic word, its opposite is called a polymorphemic word.
We distinguish root morphemes and affixational morphemes. Root morphemes carry
the lexical meaning of words, serving as their semantic centre. Affixational morphemes are
of two different types. Those indicating the grammatical form of the word (e.g. number – a
cat/cats, tense, voice – open/opened, and so on) are called inflexions. Those which take part
in word formation are called derivational affixes. Derivational affixes preceding the root
morpheme are termed prefixes; those following it - suffixes.
Thus, words like boy, true, make are monomorphemic words consisting of single root
morphemes; words like boyish, truly, maker are polymorphemic words containing a root
morpheme and a derivational affix. A polymorphemic word may also consist of two root
morphemes (e.g. a boyfriend, a workshop, snow-white).
So, there are three different structural types of words in English: root words
(корневые), or simple words, derived words (производные), and compound words
(сложные cлова). Thus, make is a root word, maker is a derived word, film-maker is a
compound word.
Analyzing a word structure we also distinguish the word stem – that part of a word to
which affixes are joined. Structurally, stems may be simple, or root stems, as the stem dance
in the word dancer, derived stems as the stem wonderful in the word wonderfully and
compound stems as short-sight in the word short-sighted.
Stems are also classified into free and bound. Free stems are those which can occur
as separate words. Bound stems are those which cannot occur so. Thus, in the verb disagree
we have a free stem agree, in the verb distort – a bound stem tort.
A special method is applied in structural analysis – the so called analysis into
immediate and ultimate constituents (анализ по непосредственно составляющим – IC-
analysis and UC-analysis). The method is based on a binary principle, i.e. the whole
procedure goes in stages and at each such stage the word is divided into two constituent
parts. The analysis comes to an end when the word defies further division. Then, what we
get are ultimate constituents.
If we analyze the word unbreakable, we start the analysis by dividing this word into
the prefix un- and the adjective stem -breakable. We cannot start the analysis by taking
away the suffix -able, because the verb unbreak is not found in the vocabulary of the
English language.
At the next stage of our analysis we get another pair of immediate constituents: the
verb stem break and the suffix -able. Now, since break is indivisible into other immediate
constituents, there comes the end of the analysis. So, the ultimate constituents of the word
unbreakable are un-break-able.
Sometimes the analysis into immediate and ultimate constituents is not so easy to
apply. Take, e.g. the word untruly. Though we do not have much difficulty in arriving at its
ultimate constituents which will be un-tru-ly, it is not so easy to decide which is the first
pair of immediate constituents – un+truly or untru+ly, since both elements truly and untrue
exist as free independent words in English. Yet, if we refer to our linguistic experience we
shall come to the conclusion that the prefix un- is not customarily combined with adverb
stems, but is very freely added to adjective stems, e.g. unfortunate, unhappy. So, we will be
justified in stating that the immediate constituents of the word untruly are untru- and -ly.