Chapter 7: Morphology

Introduction to Linguistics LANE 321

Instructor: Alaa Al Mohammadi

Morphology

What is a word? Items marked in black separated by spaces??? What about thecatsatonthemat?

Morphology
In Swahili: nitakupenda In English: I will love you I = ni/ will= ta/ ku= you/ penda = love The Swahili word is different from the English word However, similar elements from the message can be found in both languages. So, the concept word turns out to be a complex fuzzy category.

Morphology

What is morphology? It is the field of linguistics that studies the internal structure of words.

Morphology
talk, talks, talker, talked, talking These words consist of: one element talk other elements -s, -er, -ed, -ing All these elements are described as morphemes.

Morphology

What is a morpheme? A minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.

Cant be broken down any further

Morphology

The police reopened the investigation.

reopened

reMinimal unit of meaning

open
Minimal unit of meaning

-ed
Minimal unit of grammatical function

Morphology

The tourists were so happy.

tourists

tourMinimal unit of meaning

ist
Minimal unit of meaning

-s
Minimal unit of grammatical function

Free & Bound Morphemes

Morpheme

Free

Bound

Morphemes that can stand by themselves as single words

Morphemes that cannot normally stand alone and are typically attached to another form

EXAMPLE: open, tour

EXAMPLE: re-, -ist, -s

Morphology: Bound Morpheme

Bound Morphemes: All affixes; prefixes, suffixes and infixes

Morphology: Bound Morpheme

Affixation Prefix An affix that is attached to the front of a base, e.g. replay. Suffix An affix that is attached to the end of a base, e.g. kindness. Infix An affix that occurs within a base, e.g. (in Indonesian) sin-ambung.

Morphology: Morphemes

Free Morphemes: separate English word forms (basic nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc.) When free morphemes are used with bound morphemes, the basic word forms are known as stems.

Morphology: Morphemes
EXAMPLE:

undressed un- dress -ed prefix stem suffix bound free bound

carelessness care -less -ness stem suffix suffix free bound bound

Morphology: Morphemes
Lexical Morphemes: ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs carry the content of the messages we convey EXAMPLE: girl, man, house, tiger, sad, long, yellow, open, look, break. New lexical morphemes can easily be added to the language and this is referred to as open class of words

Morphology: Morphemes
Functional Morphemes: Functional words (conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns) EXAMPLE: and, but, when, because, on, near, above, in, the, it, them. We almost never add new functional morphemes to the English language and this is referred to as closed class of words.

Morphology: Morphemes
Derivational Morphemes: We use them to make new words or words of a different grammatical category from the stem. They include suffixes & prefixes EXAMPLE: good (adj.) >> goodness (n.) care (n.) >> careful or careless (adj.)

Morphology: Derivational Morphemes

-ic -ly -ate -ity -ship

: Noun : Adj : Noun : Adj : Noun : Verb

Adj Adv Verb Noun Noun Verb

; alcohol ; exact ; vaccin ; active ; friend ; cover

alcoholic exactly vaccinate activity friendship recover

re-

Morphology: Morphemes
Inflectional morphemes: Not used to produce new words in the language. Used to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word. (plural, singular, past tense, comparative, possessive) In English, all the inflectional morphemes are suffixes.

Morphology: Inflectional Morphemes

English has only 8 inflectional morphemes:
Nouns s plural s possessive Verbs s third person singular present ed past tense en past participle ing progressive Adjectives er comparative est superlative Trees the girls book walks walked eaten walking taller tallest

Morphology: Morphemes
An inflectional morpheme never changes the grammatical category of a word. EXAMPLE: old, older, oldest are all adjectives A derivational morpheme can change the grammatical category of a word. EXAMPLE: teach (v.) >> teacher (n.) Bound morphemes always appear in order, first derivational then inflectional. EXAMPLE: teachers

Morphology: Morphemes

Derivational Morphemes:
We use them to make new words or words of a different grammatical category from the stem. They include suffixes & prefixes EXAMPLE: good (adj.) >> goodness (n.) care (n.) >> careful or careless (adj.)

Morphology: Morphemes

lexical Free Morpheme Bound functional

(child, teach) (and, the)

derivational (re-, -ness) inflectional (-s, -ed)

Morphology: Morphemes
EXAMPLE: The childs wildness shocked the teachers.
The child -s Wild ness
functional lexical inflectional lexical inflectional

shock -ed the teach -er -s

lexical inflectional functional lexical derivational inflectional

Morphology: Morphemes
Reduce receive repeat?
Bound stems

Plural of man? Plural of sheep? Institution and institutional Law and legal? Mouth and oral?

Morphs and allomorphs

Morpheme of plurality represented as -s E.g Cats digs forces Allomorphs are represented {-s}, {-z} and {iz}
Phonetic influence of neighboring sound

Men and sheep Allomorphs for the morpheme of past tense ed?

Morphs and allomorphs

Morphs are the actual realization of morphemes. Morphemes are abstract units, morphs are discrete units. Some morphemes are realized by one or more morphs according to their position in a word or a sentence allomorph.

Describe the Affixes:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Impossible Terrorized Terrorize Desks Dislike Humanity Fastest Premature Untie Darken Fallen Faster Lecturer

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Derivational prefix Inflectional suffix Derivational suffix Inflectional suffix Derivational prefix Derivational suffix Inflectional suffix Derivational prefix Derivational prefix Derivational suffix Inflectional suffix Inflectional suffix Derivational suffix

Analyze the different types of morphemes

The young boy played with his friends.
The Young Boy Play -ed With His Friend -s Functional Lexical Lexical Lexical Inflection Functional Functional Lexical inflectional

Thank you