Morphology and Syntax

Dr.Vijay Babu
Assistant Professor
HSS Department,Dr.Vijay Babu
NIT Raipur
Assistant Professor
HSS Department, NIT Raipur

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Definition

 The linguistic field of study dedicated to

morphemes is called morphology.

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Meaning

 Morpheme is the smallest meaningful

unit in a language. A morpheme is not
necessarily the same as a word.
 The main difference between a
morpheme and a word is that a
morpheme sometimes does not stand
alone, but a word, by definition,
always stands alone.

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 When a morpheme can stand alone, it is
considered a root because it has a meaning
of its own (such as the morpheme book).
 When it depends on another morpheme to
express an idea, it is an affix because it has
a grammatical function (such as the –s in
books to indicate plurality).
 Every word is composed of one or more
morphemes.
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 Morphology is the study of the
structure of words.
 We combine words into sentences.
A word is an arrangement of letters
in the meaningful way.

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Morphology and Syntax
 Morphology is the study of
word structure and word
formation.
 Syntax: The arrangement of
words and phrases to create
well-formed sentences in a
language.

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 The smaller meaningful part of a word is
called a morpheme.
 Words that have only one morpheme are
also called monomorphemic words.
Eg. Boy, book, cat etc.
 Words with more than one morpheme are
called polymorphemic words.
Eg. Foolishness- fool+ish+ness

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  Morphemes: Minimal unit in which there is an
arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning :
Lexical meaning or grammatical function.
A morpheme may be represented by a singe
sound ‘a’ in ‘amoral’
May be represented by a single syllable
(Child-ish)
May be represented by more than one syllable :
2 syllable: Ca-mel, la-dy, wa-ter
3 syllable: Cro-co-dile
4 syllable: e-le-va-tor

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Morphemes-
Homonyms(Homophones)
 One of two or more words
pronounced alike but differ in
meaning or spelling.
Eg. To, too, two
 Homograph: One of two or more
words spelled identical but differ
in meaning or pronunciation.
Eg: bow and arrow
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Morpheme types: 1. Morpheme-occurrence-Free-
bound
2. function- inflection(grammatical- inflects:
-s, ed, ing, s, es,)-derivation.(en,ly,er etc.)
Free morpheme: is a morpheme that by itself can
function as a word in a language
Eg: boy, desire, man, gentle
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.
eg:-ish, -iness, -ly, dis-, trans-
Free morpheme is bad: Bound morpheme is badly

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 Example:
"Unstoppable" is composed of three
morphemes:
 un-(a bound morpheme signifying "not"), -stop- (the
root, a free morpheme),
 and -able (a free morpheme signifying "can be done").
 Allomorphs of the plural morpheme for regular
nouns: /s/ (e.g., in cats /kæts/), /ɪz, əz/ (e.g., in
dishes /dɪʃɪz/), andExamples"Unbreakable" is
composed of three morphemes: un- (a bound
morpheme signifying "not"), -break- (the root, a free
morpheme), and -able (a free morpheme signifying
"can be done").Allomorphs of the plural morpheme for
regular nouns:
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 /s/ (e.g., in bats /bæts/),
/ɪz, əz/ (e.g., in dishes
/dɪʃɪz/),
and
/z/ (e.g., in dogs /dɒɡz/).

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 Word formation: Types of morphemes
 1. Affixism: The process of putting affixes to base or root.
eg. Happy - un happy
happ- iness
Fear-Fear-ful
Fear-less-ness (Affixes of fear)
Anti-dis-establish-ment
2. Allomorphe: Variation of morpheme of sound
/s/-//p/ /k/ /t/
/z/ -/d/ /g/ /b/ /m/
3.Compounding:One type of process of creating new words.
Green-house Black-board (Adj+N) Call-letter (V+N)
Adj- +
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 3. Noun strings: Combination of nouns into a
string.
Eg: US+energy+consumption
4. Blending(Portmanteau):
Breakfast+lunch= brunch
Mobile+hotel=Motel
5. Acronyms: Acronym is different from
abbreviation.
Eg. NATO, ISRO,UNESCO
6. Clipping:
Professor-Prof. Microphone- mike or mic.
Document- doc. Telephone-phone

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 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.
 Eg. Inter+net= Internet
 Neologism or coinage, is the word formation process of
inventing entirely new words (neology).

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 Thanks

Dr.Vijay Babu

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