MORPHOLOGY

WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY
 Morphology is the study of the structure of words.
-Paradoxically, however, the concept of word itself defies simple
definition. In English, for example, words tend to be smaller than the
sentence, and we combine words to form sentences. One tricky
thing, however, is that in many languages, a single word can have
"sentence" meaning
SUMMING UP THE TOPICS :
 Morphology is the study of word structure and word formation.
 Words, though impossible to define in absolute terms, can be thought of as
the units that are combined to form sentences in a language such as English.
 Just as sentences can be broken down into smaller units (words), we can
break words down into smaller, meaningful parts.
 The smallest meaningful part of a word is called a morpheme.
 Note: not all words have more than one morpheme. Words that have only one
morpheme are also called monomorphemic words (e.g. pig). Words with
more than one morpheme are called polymorphemic words, as in foolishness
(fool + ish + ness).
MORPHEMES

 minimal unit in which there is an arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning

(lexical meaning or grammatical function).
MORPHEMES
 A morpheme: may be represented by a single sound ( „a‟ in “amoral” )

: may be represented by a single syllable ( “child” “ish” )

: may be represented by more than one syllable

2 syllables: (camel ,lady , water)

3 syllables: (crocodile)
4 syllables: (elevator)
MORPHEMES
TYPES OF MORPHEMES

 Morphemes :

is a morpheme that by itself can function as a word in a language

Examples : Boy , desire , gentle , man.

CONTENT VERSUS FUNCTION
WORDS
TYPES OF MORPHEMES
 Bound Morpheme:

is a morpheme that cannot stand by itself to form a word; it must be joined to other
morphemes It is bound because although it has meaning, it cannot stand alone. It must be
attached to another morpheme to produce a word.
Examples : -ish -ness -ly dis- trans-
Free morpheme : bad
Bound morpheme : ly
Word : badly
AFFIXES
 Affix: is a bound morpheme that occurs before (prefix), after (suffix), in the middle of (infix), and
around (circumfix) stems (root morphemes)
Prefix: un-, pre-, bi-
Suffix: -ing, -er, -ist, -ly
Infix: un-freaking-believable
Morphemes that are inserted between other morphemes

Circumfix:
Morphemes that are attached to another morpheme both initially and finally. Also known as:
discontinuous morphemes
ROOTS AND STEMS
b). Two root morphemes e.g. ( compound stem as in blackbird)
c). A root morpheme plus a derivational suffix e.g. (a complex stem as in unscrew)

a) cats: single root morpheme: cat + inflectional suffix –s

b) crowbar: two root morphemes (crow + bar) ) + inflectional suffix –s
c) inventions: : root morpheme invent + lexical suffix - ion+ inflectional suffix -s
WORD
FORMATION
WORD FORMATION (WORD
COINAGE)

In linguistics, the ways in which new words are madeon the basis of other words or morphemes.
COMMON TYPES OF WORD
FORMATION
 Coinages
 Nonce words
 Borrowing
 Calquing
 Clipping
COINAGES
 Coinage is the word formation process in which a new word
is created either deliberately or accidentally without using
the other word formation processes and often from
seemingly nothing .For example, the following list of words
provides some common coinages found in everyday
English:
 Aspirin, Escalator, Heroin, Band-aid, Factoid, Frisbee,
Google, and linoleum.
NONCE WORDS
 Nonce words are new words formed through any number of word
formation processes with the resulting word meeting a lexical need
that is not expected to recur. Nonce words are created for a single
occasion. For example, the following list of words provide some
nonce words with definitions as identified in the Oxford English
Dictionary

 Cotton-wool: to stuff or close ears with cotton wool.

 Twi-thought: an indistinct or vague thought
BORROWING ARE ALSO
REFERRED TO AS
LOANWORDS
 Borrowing is the word formation process in which a word from
one language is borrowed directly into another language. For
example, the following common English words are borrowed
from foreign languages:

 algebra – Arabic, bagel – Yiddish, cherub – Hebrew, chow mein –

Chinese, fjord – Norwegian, galore – Irish, haiku – Japanese, kielbasa –
Polish, murder – French, near – Sanskrit, paprika – Hungarian, pizza –
Italian, smorgasbord – Swedish, tamale – Spanish, yo-yo – Tagalog
CALQUING
 Calquing is the word formation process in which a borrowed word or
phrase is translated from one language to another. For example, the
following common English words are calqued from foreign languages:
 beer garden – German – Biergarten, blue-blood – Spanish – sangre azul, commonplace
– Latin – locus commūnis, flea market – French – marché aux puces, free verse –
French – vers libre, loanword – German – Lehnwort, long time no see – Chinese – hǎo
jiǔ bu jiàn, pineapple – Dutch – pijnappel, scapegoat – Hebrew – ez ozel, wisdom tooth
– Latin – dēns sapientiae
 Calques are also referred to as root-for-root or word-for-word
translations
CLIPPING
 Clipping is the word formation process in which a word is reduced or shortened without
changing the meaning of the word. Clipping differs from back-formation in that the new
word retains the meaning of the original word. For example:

 advertisement – ad
 alligator – gator
 examination – exam
 gasoline – gas
 gymnasium – gym
 influenza – flu
 laboratory – lab
 mathematics – math
CLIPPING
 memorandum – memo
 photograph – photo
 public house – pub
 raccoon – coon
 reputation – rep
 situation comedy – sitcom
 telephone – phone

 The four types of clipping are back clipping, fore- clipping, middle clipping, and complex clipping.
Back clipping is removing the end of a word as in gas from gasoline. Fore-clipping is removing the
beginning of a word as in gator from alligator. Middle clipping is retaining only the middle of a
word as in flu from influenza. Complex clipping is removing multiple parts from multiple words as
in sitcom from situation comedy
IDENTIFYING MORPHEMS
1. Segmentation of words into minimal sound- meaning constituents
 basic strategy
 comparing and contrasting forms that are partially similar in sound and
meaning
 associating shared sound with shared meaning
 continuing to do so until forms cannot be broken into smaller sound-
meaning units
IDENTIFYING MORPHEMS
EXAMPLES
1. segmenting repayment into its constituent morphemes:
comparing contrasting isolating

1. repayment : payment re- payment

2. payment : pay pay-ment
re- pay-ment

prefix+root+suffix

2. segmenting instructions into its constituent morphemes:

Comparing contrasting isolating
IDENTIFYING MORPHEMS
1. instructions : instruction instruction-s
2. instruction : instruct instruct-ion
3. instruct : construct in-struct
in-struct-ion-s

prefix+root+suffix+suffix

3. segmenting inconsistent into its constituent morphemes:

comparing contrasting isolating
4. inconsistent : consistent in- consistent
5. 2. consistent : consist in-consist-ent
6. 3. consist : desist, insist, persist con-sist
IDENTIFYING MORPHEMS
in- con-sist –ent

prefix+prefix+root+suffix
identifying the meaning of the various forms

 the meaning of re-pay-ment =

the meaning of re- + the meaning of pay- + the meaning of –ment
 the meaning of in-struct-ion-s =
 the meaning of in- + the meaning of -struct + the meaning of -ion + the meaning of –s

 the meaning of in-con-sist-ent =

 the meaning of in- + the meaning of con- + the meaning of -sist + the meaning of -ent
IDENTIFYING MORPHEMS
2. Bound roots

 In segmenting a word into its constituent morphemes, not all morphemes obvious
 some of the segmentations, or breaks, are less obvious
compare: -sist in consist
re- in rewrite
-er in writer

 some root morphemes never occur alone

In modern English, morphemes such as -ceive, - mit, -fer have lost their independent
meaning – their meaning depends on the entire word in which they occur
DECODABLE AND SIGHT
WORDS
 Decodable Words: Words that are phonetically regular (following
one of the six syllable types) and can be blended or ‘sounded out’.

 Sight Words: Words that can be recognized at a glance or

recognized ‘on sight’ without having to break the component parts
down and blend them back together.
CONTEXT CLUES AND
VOCABULARY BUILDING
 Word context clues are an effective way to build your vocabulary.

 Context is Word context clues the sentence or phrase in which the word is found,
and understanding the sentence’s general meaning helps to understand a word that is
unfamiliar to you.

 Writers, unconsciously or consciously, often include context clues to the meaning of

words they use but think that some of their readers may not know.

 The context clue is to be found in the sentence or the paragraph in which the word is
used.
HOW TO USE WORD CONTEXT
CLUES TO BUILD YOUR
VOCABULARY
 Here are some ways that you find the meaning of a
word using word context clues. Word context clues
are a very useful way for the English language learner
to work out the meaning of the word:
HOW TO USE WORD CONTEXT
CLUES TO BUILD YOUR
VOCABULARY
Definition context clue

Sometimes, a definition appears alongside the word.

 Repetition of meaning context clue.

A sentence will contain the word and will be followed by another sentence saying the
same thing in a simpler way. For example:

‘Joe was very dexterous and therefore the most fantastic sculptor. He was so good with
his hands that every piece that he carved was detailed and perfect.’
HOW TO USE WORD CONTEXT
CLUES TO BUILD YOUR
VOCABULARY
 Synonym context clue

A synonym is used to help the reader understand the meaning of a

word, as it means the same as or nearly the same as the word that
is unfamiliar to the English language student.

‘Mary was incredibly ambitious and it was this strong desire and
determination to succeed that made her the best in her field’.
HOW TO USE WORD CONTEXT
CLUES TO BUILD YOUR
VOCABULARY
 Antonym context clue

An antonym is a word that means the opposite of another

word and can also provide a clue to word meaning.

‘Mary was ambitious, but Fred was lazy and therefore

never excelled in his field.’
HOW TO USE WORD CONTEXT
CLUES TO BUILD YOUR
VOCABULARY
 Description context clue

Other groupings of words which together provide the English

language learners understanding of a word can also work. Let’s look
at the word ‘vivacious” to describe Mary – we get what that means
when we hear this:

‘Mary was attractive, lively and animated and her presence

demanded your attention.’
HOW TO USE WORD CONTEXT
CLUES TO BUILD YOUR
VOCABULARY
Visual context clue

When you are using this context clue, you are relying on a picture, or another
type of image, along with some kind of related text to help you to understand the
meaning of a word. For example, a picture of an angry man and its caption will
help you understand that “Fred Mason reacted angrily to the journalist’s
questions”.

The importance of using context clues in building your vocabulary cannot be

underestimated, and you can learn new words when they are used in the contexts
that we have described above.
LEXICOGRAPHY
 the practice of compiling dictionaries.

 Lexicography is divided into two separate but equally important groups: Practical lexicography is
the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.

 Theoretical lexicography is the scholarly discipline of analyzing and describing the semantic,
syntagmatic, and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language,
developing theories of dictionary components and structures linking the data in dictionaries, the
needs for information by users in specific types of situations, and how users may best access the
data incorporated in printed and electronic dictionaries.

 This is sometimes referred to as 'metalexicography'.

REFERENCE
 https://www.slideshare.net/erensaturnino/morphology-linguistics
 www.informedliteracy.com/sight-words-vs-decodable-words/
 https://blog.talk.edu/grammar/word-context-clues/
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicography