LINGUISTIC I

UNIT 1
Introduction to Language System: Grammar &
Morphology
TOPIC 4
MORPHOLOGY
Éder Intriago Ph.D
 Learning objective
• Students will be able to form new words following morphological principles.

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 MORPHOLOGY
Morphology is a grammar
discipline which studies
Morphology is the study of Introduced in the the individual parts of the
the internal structure of sentence:
nineteenth century, treated
words
the form of words

Forms a core part of linguistic

study ✔ Articles
Morphology is Greek - “morph”
✔ Nouns
which means “shape” / “form”, and
“ology” which means “the study of ✔ Verbs
something” ✔ Prepositions
✔ Adjectives, etc.
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 MORPHOLOGY
Morphology is a sub-discipline
of linguistics and studies the The teacher carries a new book. Joselyn always cooks meat
form of words. The = definite article  
Examples: teacher = noun Joselyn = noun
carries = verb always = frequency adverb
a = indefinite article cooks = verb
new = Qualifying / descriptive adjective meat = noun
book = noun
 

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 FREE MORPHEMES

Examples:
Free Morphemes can stand The words made up of one free morpheme: “Book”
The words made up of two free morphemes or Compound
alone to function as simple words: “Notebook”
words of one morpheme
Other examples of simple words
House
Work
Chair

Other examples of compound words

Keyboard
Smartphone
Workbook
 BOUND MORPHEMES

“Un” - and – “ness” Bound morphemes are

Bound Morphemes are the bound also called affixes as
Bound Morphemes can only be morphemes, requiring they are attached to the
attached to another part of a word the root “kind” to stem (also called root)
to receive meaning form the word,
They cannot stand alone. “unkindness”

Example: The word There are two types of affixes

“Unkindness”
Prefix (placed in front of the root) = “Un

Suffix (placed at the end of the root) = “ness”

 FREE MORPHEMES CAN BE LEXICAL AND FUNCTIONAL

Free morphemes fall into

two categories: Lexical and
Functional
Functional
Lexical Morphemes =
Morphemes = Words that do not
Words that carry the carry the content
content of a of a message. They
message are functional
words.

Nouns (man. Dog) Conjunctions (and, but)

Adjectives (happy, tall) Prepositions (to, for)
Verbs (look, listen) Articles (a, the)
Pronouns (he, her)

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 BOUND MORPHEMES CAN BE DERIVATIONAL AND
INFLECTIONAL

Affixes (prefixes & suffixes)

which are bound morphemes a) Derivational Morphemes
are divided into two types: Used to make words of a different
derivational and inflectional syntactic category from the stem
morphemes (root).

Examples:
The morpheme “ness” + (Adj.) “good” = (N) “goodness”
The noun “care” + morpheme “full” = (Adj.) “careful”
The noun “care” + morpheme “less” = (Adj.) “careless”

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suffixes:
“ish” (in foolish, establish)
“ly” (in quickly, mainly)
“ment” (in payment, amusement)
prefixes:
“re” (in rewrite, redo)
“pre” (in preview, preadolescence)
“ex” (in exclude, exhale)
“mis” (in misunderstand, misspell)
“co” (co-worker, coexist)
“un” (unhappy, untrained)
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 INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES

Inflectional Morphemes are not used

Affixes (prefixes & suffixes) to produce new words in the language.
which are bound morphemes are
divided into two types:
Inflectional Morphemes indicate
derivational and inflectional
aspects of the grammatical function of
morphemes a word.

They show if a word is plural or singular (box, boxes)

They show if a word is past tense or not (work, worked)
They show if a word is a comparative form or not (tall,
taller)
They show if a word is a possessive form or not (he, his,
him)
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Activity: Write a paragraph between 150 – 200 words, it could be an
anecdote, a story, film/ book summary or a journal, and provide a tittle.
(1) Include word formation types: clippings, compounding, blending,
derivational and inflectional morphemes.
(2) Underline those words and,
(3) Classify them into a chart.

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 BIBLIOGRAFÍA

• Viney, B. (2008). The history of th

Engkish. Language. Oxford University Press
• Lazlo, V. (2010). Introduction to English linguistics.
Budapest 
• Julie S. Amberg and Deborah J. Vause. (2009).
American English: History, Structure, and Usage.
Cambridge University Press .