LECTURE 1

1/Morpheme
• Free morpheme
• Bound morpheme
• Root, base, stem
• Inflectional morpheme, derivational morpheme
2/Simple word, complex word
3/Bracket diagram

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WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?

• The study of the structure of words and

the processes of building new words
• The study of word structure & word
formation
• Word structure: WHAT forms a word
• word formation: How a word is formed
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IS WORD THE SMALLEST MEANINGFUL
UNIT OF LANGUAGE?

• a. Nation
• b. National
• c. Nationalize
• d. Nationalization
• Are they all words?
• Can they be divided into smaller meaningful units?
YES .
- E.g. d → 4 units: Nation/ al/ ize/ (a)tion
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The Morpheme
• A. Definition
• - The minimal meaningful unit of language that is used to build
up the word.
• E.g. hunt
• er hunters
• s
• In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes (the
smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound)
E.g. hunters: /h/, /u/, /n/, /t/, /ə/ and /z/
• In written language, morphemes are composed of graphemes (the
smallest units of written language)
E.g. hunters: h, u, n, t, e, r, s

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A MINIMAL MEANINGFUL UNIT OF
LANGUAGE: MORPHEME
• Morpheme has: - sound form
- meaning
It is used to constitute a word
But it cannot be subdivided into smaller meaningful units
How many morphemes are there?
- Bookish
- Unlucky
- Unfortunately
- Welcome
- denationalization
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- Book/ish
- Un/luck/y
- Un/fortun(e)/ate/ly
- Welcome
- De/nation/al/iz(e)/ation

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Various

Disinfected

Industrialized

Postgraduation

Materialistic

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Vari/ous
Dis/infect/ed
Industri/al/ize/(e)d
Post/graduat(e)/ion
Material/ist/ic

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 HOW MANY MORPHEMES ARE THERE IN THE
FOLLOWING SENTENCES?
1. He writes both novels and non-fiction books.
2. She often says you are the cleverest guy in the class.
3. My teacher isn‘t satisfied with my homework, so I have to redo
it.

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B. Characteristics (features):
- A morpheme cannot be broken down further, i.e. it cannot be divided
without altering or destroying its meaning.
E.g. kind  * kin - d
- Many morphemes cannot stand as words on their own. A morpheme is
free if it can stand alone, or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a
free morpheme.
E.g. un-break-able

bound free bound

- - Most morphemes as linguistic signs are arbitrary

- E.g.
- De/forest
- Delay 10
- De/-ice
- delight
Classification of morphemes:
Morphemes can be classified according to a variety of ways:
1. Lexical vs Grammatical Morphemes (Open vs Closed Categories):
- Lexical morpheme (content morpheme) has a sense (or meaning) in and of
itself. It names a concept/ idea in our record of experience of the world.
- - Grammatical morpheme (function morpheme) expresses some sort of
relationship between lexical morphemes.
- E.g. WorkN, runV, longA, fastADV vs a/theART, he/shePRO,,andCONJ,
2. Free and Bound Morphemes:
• Free morphemes can stand alone as independent words; bound morphemes
cannot but must be attached to another morpheme/word.
• E.g.1 teach er nation al ity

bound free free bound

3. Root and Affixes
- Affixes are bound morphemes which attach to a base, root or stem.
E.g. 1 teach er

af root
(bound) (free)
desir(e) able ity

root af
(free) (bound)
E.g. 2 perceive
conceive bound root (productive
morphemes in Latin)
receive
• Root morphemes are (usually free) morphemes around which words
can be built up through the addition of affixes.
• E.g. kind – kindly, kindness, kinder, kindest
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* Types of affixes: 1. Derivational
a) Prefix: an affix that is attached to the front of its stem
E.g. disappear , replay , illegal , inaccurate
b) Suffix: an affix that is attached to the end of its stem
E.g. quickly, beautiful, management, organizatio
 2. inflectional
Grammatical morpheme
E.g worked, the fastest, students, anticipated

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4. Base, stem and root morphemes:
•Root morphemes are (usually free) morphemes
around which words can be built up through the
addition of affixes.
E.g. kind – kindly, kindness, kinder, kindest
* Base can be defined as an element (free or bound,
root morpheme or complex word) to which
additional morphemes are added. Base is also called
a stem.
E.g. Kind-nesses
root
base/stem
word
• 'Root', 'stem' and 'base' are all terms used in
the literature to designate that part of a word
that remains when all affixes have been
removed. A root is a form which is not further
analysable, either in terms of derivational or
inflectional morphology. ... A base is any form
to which affixes of any kind can be added.
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• 5. Inflectional and Derivational Morphemes:
• Derivational morphemes are those that can be added to a word to
create another word with new meaning and/ or new synntactic
category.
• Inflectional morphemes do not change the meaning or syntactic
category of a word. They can mark a word’s grammar category such
as tense, number, aspect and so on.
• E.g. 1 teach + er + s

• root (action-V) der. (doer) infl.

• noun

noun
• E.g. 2 ING
•
• work (v) ED infl.

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• S
 Division of morphemes into various types
Morphemes

 
Root morphemes Affixational morphemes
(mostly free) (all bound)

 
Free Bound Infl. Der.
N (jobless) (convert) (N)+S/’S un+happy
V(worker) (incur) (V)+ED/ ING happiness
Adj.(reddish) (exclude) (Adj)+ER/ EST luckily
The word
A minimal free form that can occur in isolation , e.g. house
Its position to neighboring elements is not entirely fixed.
E.g. hunters can occur in different positions within the sentence:
The hunters pursued the bear
The bear was pursued by the hunters
* What about the units –er and –s? Can it function independently?
Can it occur in different
positions?(*erhunt? *serhunt?)
-er and –s are not words
* What about the hunters? Can it function independently?
Can it occur in different positions?
Can it be divided into smaller free
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forms?
The hunters is not a word, but a phrase
 WORDS: 2 KINDS(1)

• 1. Simple word: 1 morpheme: chair, table, door, learn,

study
• can not be broken down into smaller meaningful units
• 2. Complex: 2 or more morphemes- can be analyzed
into constituent parts → the subject matter of
morphology.
- derived word: 1 root & 1 or more
derivational morphemes
teach/er, stud/ent, amus/ing
- compound word: at least 2 roots with or without
derivational morphemes
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school/bag, lady-kill/er
The words of any language can be divided into two
broad types of categories:
• - closed/ function words: pronouns (he, it…);
conjunctions (and, if, because…), determiners
(a, my, any…). Newly coined words or
borrowed words cannot be added to this
category.
• - open/major lexical category: nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs

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 6. The difference between Lexical and Grammatical Morphemes

Criterion morphemic word stress meaning class member funtio

status size size -ship n
Lexical free large stress complex large open knowl
morphe ed edge
me
Gram. Bound,free small Un- simple small closed gram
morphe stress mar
me ed

7. Morpheme problems:
- Not all words can be analysed into morphemes so easily
E.g. Foot - feet
child - children
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 WORD STRUCTURE
A. Types of words: simple word vs complex word
• Simple words are those that cannot be broken down into
smaller meaningful units
E.g. and, boy, hunt, hospital, gentle
• Complex words can be analysed into constituent parts
E.g. boys, hunters, hospitalize, hospitalization, gentleman,
gentlemanly

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• B. Word structure:
• * Morphology deals with the internal structure of complex words
only
• * What sort of structure do complex words have?
• - The morphemes of a complex word are put together in a
particular way, with a particular arrangement and order. A
morpheme must be bound in a particular position. Each affix
attaches only to a particular lexical category, called its base and
results in a word of another particular lexical category.
E.g. nation
national * izenational
nationalize * nationdeizational
denationalize * dego ; * nationize
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denationalization
FEATURES OF WORD STRUCTURE

1. The parts have to be put together in a particular

way, with a particular arrangement & order
2. The order is so strict b/c each of bound
morpheme is an affix, a morpheme which not
only bound but must be bound in a particular
order
3. Each affix attaches only to a particular lexical
category (either N or V or ADJ) and results in a
word of another particular lexical category.
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* The representation of the internal structure of the word
Tree & Bracket diagram: The diagram shows how a word begins at
the root and is built up one affix at a time.
Tree Diagram
N N

v Af V Af

 
Adj Af af V
real ize ation dis agree ment
BRACKET DIAGRAM
Disagreement
[agree]V
[dis [ agree]V] V
[[dis [agree]V] V ment]N

Realization
[real]A
[[real]A ize] V
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[[[real]Aize]V ation ] N
BRACKET DIAGRAM

• Unharmonious
• Nonmotivated
• Interrelation
• Interpretation
• Interruption
• Greediness 27
* The internal structure of a complex word is not obvious
sometimes.
a) b)
N
N
Adj Af
Af N
Af Adj
Adj Af
un happy ness
un happy ness

- The diagram (b) is wrong because the prefix un- can combine
freely with adjectives, but not with nouns.