Ch. 6 Morphology 2nd Term 2021-22

Chapter 6
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Levels of Linguistics
The study of the

analysis of the structure Pragmatics
of words
Semantics
Syntax
Morphology
Phonology
Phonetics
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
3 Morphology
 In many languages, what appear to be single forms
actually turns out to contain a large number of ‘word-
like’ elements.
ni- ta- ku- penda

I will you love
 What about the Arabic word “‫? ”س أحبك‬

‫ك‬ ‫أحب‬ ‫س‬
you love I will
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab
Lec. Tahani
4 Morphology
 What we have been describing as ‘elements’ in the
form of a linguistic message are technically known as
‘morphemes’.
 Unbelievable (three elements)
‫ال يصدق‬
‫غير معقول‬
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Chapter Outline
5
 Morphology
 Morphemes
-Free and bound morphemes
-Lexical and functional morphemes
-Derivational morphemes
-Inflectional morphemes
 Morphological description
 Morphs, allomorphs and special cases
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
The Word “Morphology”
6
In biology >>>> used to study the form and structure of

plants and animals.
Middle of 19th century, it has also been used to describe

the study of those basic "elements” (words) used in a
language.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
7 What is Morphology?
 Morphology is the study/ analysis of the internal

structure of words (forms) in a language.
e. g. Unbelievable
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
8 Morphology
 Morphology helps to add new words
New Word Morpheme Morpheme
Streets street -s (plural)
New word Morpheme Morpheme

Coolness cool -ness
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
9 Morphology
New word Morpheme Morpheme
retell Re- tell
New word Morpheme Morpheme Morpheme
Peacefully peace -ful -ly
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
10
The Importance of Studying
Morphology
 Decoding
 Vocabulary
 Comprehension
 Spelling
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
The Importance of Studying
11 Morphology
 Decoding: readers who recognize morphemes read
more quickly and accurately.
 Vocabulary: knowledge of meaning of word parts
expands reader’s vocabulary.
 Comprehension: knowledge of morphemes helps
makes meaning from text.
 Spelling: morphemes are units that can be predictably
spelled.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
12 MORPHEMES
 Morphe >> Greek >> means “form”.

 -eme >>> means “class of”
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
13
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani https://kurdistantribune.com/importance-of-morphology-english-language-as-prime-example/
14
Morphemes
 English word forms may consists of a number

of elements such as:
-agreed, disagree, agreement, disagreeable
-talks, talker, talked, talking
 All these elements are described as

morphemes.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
15
What is a Morpheme?
 A morpheme is “a minimal unit of meaning or

grammatical function.”
Table 6.1, p. 73
Different elements in the words “renew” and “tourists.”
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
16
 What is the difference between a

“phoneme” and a “morpheme”?
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
17
What is the difference between a “phoneme”

and “morpheme”?
HOT VS DISAGREEMENT
CAT AGREED
STUDENT
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
18
Phoneme Morpheme
1-studied in phonology. 3- studied in morphology.
1- the smallest meaning 1- the smallest linguistic unit

distinguishing sound in a of meaning or grammatical
language. function in a language.
2-HOT (For example) is made 2- can be a single word or an

of several phonemes. attached lexical item.
Disagreement
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab https://pediaa.com/difference-between-morpheme-and-phoneme/
Lec. Tahani
19 Other Examples:
The police reopened the investigation.
How many words are in the above sentence?

How many morphemes are in the above
sentence?
Which word has three morphemes?
Which word has two morphemes?
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
20 Other Examples:
The police reopened the investigation.
It consists of three morphemes.

•One minimal unit of meaning is open.
•One minimal unit of meaning is re- (meaning ‘again’)
•One minimal unit of grammatical function is -ed
(indicating past tense).
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
21 How many morphemes in the following
words?
Comfortable
Reply vs replay
Eats
Corner
Untruthfulness
Doorbell
Carpet
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
22
How many morphemes in the following words?
Comfortable 2
Reply vs replay 1 vs 2
Eats 2
Corner 1
Untruthfulness 4
Doorbell 2
Carpet 1
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
23
-The young boy reordered two meals yesterday.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
24
-The young boy reordered two meals yesterday.

Types of morphemes:
Free:
young, boy, order, yesterday
Bound:
Reordered, meals
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
25
VS
Free Bound
Morphemes Morphemes
1-Words with a complete 1-Lexical items

meaning, so they can incorporated into a word
stand alone as an as a dependent part.
independent word in a -They can not stand alone,
sentence. but must be connected to
another morpheme.
e.g. girl, eat, books,
quickly… etc. e.g. reopen, lived, girls,
agreeable …etc.
un-, -ed, -s, -able…etc.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab
Lec. Tahani
26
VS
Free Bound
Morphemes Morphemes
2-It can be identified as 2-All affixes (prefixes and

the set of separate English suffices) are bound
word forms such as basic morphemes.
nouns, adjectives, verbs
and adverbs.
e.g. reopen, lived, girls,
e.g. girl, eat, books, agreeable …etc.
quickly… etc. un-, -ed, -s, -able…etc.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Free vs Bound Morpheme Examples
27
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Free & Bound Morphemes (Continued)
28
 When free morphemes are used with bound
morphemes attached, the basic word forms are
technically known as stems.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Free & Bound Morphemes (Continued)
29
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
30
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Free Morpheme
31
Lexical Functional
Morphemes VS Morphemes
(content words) (grammatical words)
1-includes nouns, verbs, 1-includes conjunctions,

adjectives and adverbs articles, pronouns and
(words that carry the prepositions.
‘content’ of the messages -and, but, because
we convey. -the, a, an
-girl, house, students -she, them, that, it
-study, break, sit -in, on, near , above
-sad, long, cold -(verb to be (am, is, are),
-always, tonight, never, quickly. auxiliaries, modals)
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Free Morpheme
32
Lexical Functional
(content words) (grammatical words)
2-Open class of words: 2-Closed class of words:

new lexical morphemes new functional
can be added to the morphemes can never be
language. added to the language.
-(serve more grammatical role

connecting words together
within and across sentences)
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
33
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Bound Morpheme
34
Derivational Inflectional
Example: Some examples:

-Happy >> unhappy (meaning?) -Nora’s book.
-Flowers
-Good (adj.) >> goodness (n.) -He likes to travel.
-Organize (v.) >> organization (n.)
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Bound Morpheme
35
Derivational Inflectional
1-Make new words 1- Do not produce new

(meanings) or make words words, but indicates
of a different grammatical aspects of the
category from the stem. grammatical function of a
word
>>> plural / singular,
past tense or not,
comparative or possessive
…etc.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab
Lec. Tahani
Derivational VS Inflectional Morphemes
36
Inflectional
Morphemes
English has only eight inflectional morphemes, all are suffixes,

illustrated in the following sentences.
Examples:
 Jim’s two sisters are really different.
 One likes to have fun and is always laughing.
 The other liked to read as a child and has always taken things
seriously.
 One is the loudest person in the house and the other is quieter than a
mouse.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab
Lec. Tahani
Eight Inflectional Morphemes
37
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Inflectional Morphemes (continued)
38
There is some variation in the form of these

inflectional morphemes.
For example:
•Those boys’ bags
(the possessive sometimes appears as a plural form -s’ )
•They have talked already

(the past participle as –ed )
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Morphemes Summary
39
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Morphological description
40
Some bound morphemes can be inflectional and

derivational morphemes.
A derivation morpheme can change the meaning or

the grammatical category of a word.
An inflectional morpheme never changes the
grammatical category of a word.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Morphological description (continued)
41
Therefore, some bound morphemes can be inflectional

& derivational as the following:
(1)The affix –er can be:

a. Inflectional morpheme >>> comparative adjective
quiet >>> quieter & old (adj.) >>>> older (adj.)
b. Derivational morpheme as a part of a noun

(teach >>> teacher)
Just because they look the same (-er) doesn’t mean they do the same
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab
kind of work.
Lec. Tahani
42 Morphological description (continued)
(2) The affix -ed can be:

a. Inflectional morpheme >>> ‘past tense’:
(walk >>> walked )
b. Derivational morpheme to change N. >> Adj.

(head (n.) >>> headed (adj.))
(A strong headed person)
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
(3)The affix -ing can be:

a. Inflectional morpheme >>> ‘present progressive’:
(I am going to school. )
b. Derivational morpheme to change N. >> Adj.

sleep (v.) >>> sleeping (n.)
(Sleeping early keeps you healthy )
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 Whenever there is a derivational suffix and

inflectional suffix used together, they will always
appear in this order:
Players
Believers
Teachers
 First, the derivational suffix ( -er )
 Then, the inflectional suffix ( -s )
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 We can now take most sentences of English apart and

list all the ‘elements’.
 For example:
The teacher’s wildness shocked the girls’ parents.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 In the previous sentence, we can identify thirteen
morphemes.
The teacher -er -’s wild -ness
Functional Lexical derivational inflectional lexical derivational
Shock -ed the girl -s’ -er -s
Lexical inflectional functional lexical Inflectional derivational Inflectional
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 A useful way to remember all these different types of
morphemes is in the following chart, p. 76
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Problems in Morphological Description:
48
Morphs, Allomorphs and Special Cases
 So far, we have only considered examples of English

words in which the different morphemes are easily
identifiable as separate elements.
 Yet, there are a number of outstanding problems in

the analysis of English morphology.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
49
• Variations in morphological realization rules

• Inflectional morphemes special cases:
1. Plural
2. Past tense
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
50
• Inflectional morphemes special cases:
1. Plural
What is the inflectional morpheme that makes the plural

form of the following words?
cats vs men vs sheep
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
51
• Cat >>>> cats

• Man >>>> men
• Sheep (singular) >>>> sheep (plural)
 The above words are exceptions and have to be

treated as special cases.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
52
 One way to treat differences in inflectional

morphemes is by proposing variations in
morphological realization rules.
 In order to understand these differences in

inflectional morphemes (cat/cats, man/ men, sheep/
sheep, ), we refer to the processes already noted in
phonology.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
53
Phonology Morphology
 Phonemes >> (smallest  Morphemes >> (the smallest
meaning- distinguishing sound meaningful unit/ element in a
in a language) language)
 Phones >> actual phonetic  Morphs >> actual forms used

realization of phonemes. to realize morphemes.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
54 Morphs, Allomorphs and Special Cases
 Just as we treated phones as the actual phonetic realization
of phonemes >>> ‘allophones’ of a phoneme, we can
propose morphs as the actual forms to realize morphemes
>>> ’allomorphs’ of a morpheme.
 Allophones  Allomorphs
Phoneme /t/ -Morpheme: plural

Top >> [tʰ] phone Cats >> /-s/ morph
Writer >> [ɾ] phone Dogs >> /-z/ morph
Butter >> [Ɂ] phone Horses >> /-əz/ morph
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab
Lec. Tahani
 Allomorphs are variations of morphemes (different forms of the same morpheme,

or basic unit of meaning
>>> one of a closely related set of morphs.
 Allophone is one of a closely related set of speech sounds or phones.
 Allophones  Allomorphs
Phoneme /t/ -Morpheme: plural

Top >> [tʰ] phone Cats >> /-s/ morph
Writer >> [ɾ] phone Dogs >> /-z/ morph
Butter >> [Ɂ] phone Horses >> /-əz/ morph
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab
Lec. Tahani
 There are three forms to realize the inflectional

morpheme ‘plural’ which consists of
 (a lexical + inflectional morpheme).
 The three allomorphs of the one morpheme “plural” are
shown in table 6.3, p. 77.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 How to analyze irregular plural forms?

Sheep >>> sheep
There is a “zero-morph” when we add the “plural” morpheme to an
uncountable word like sheep, analyzed as the following:
Sheep >>>>> /ʃi:p/ + /Ø/ plural
 But what about irregular plural like the word man >>> men
/mᴂn/?
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 How to analyze irregular plural forms like the word

‘men’?
man /mᴂn/ >>>> men /men/
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
The two separate forms /mᴂn/ and /men/ are treated

separately as two distinct lexical morphemes,
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
But when you want to analyze the word “men”

morphologically, it will consist of
Men >>> {man} + {irregular plural, change of vowel}
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 Just as we noted that there were ‘allophones’ of a
particular phoneme, so we can recognize the existence of
allomorphs of a particular morpheme.
‘cat + plural’ cats >>>> /s/

‘dog’ + plural dogs >>>> /z/
‘horses + plural’ horses >>>> /ǝz/
‘sheep + plural’ sheep>>>> /Ø/
‘man’ /æ/ + plural’ men >>>> /e/
(irregular plural form)
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 There is a similar pattern in the way “past tense” is

realized in English.
 The inflectional suffix –ed is used in the typical

derivation: lived & hugged.
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 Past tense -ed:
1. Walked >>>> /-t/ morph
2. Lived >>>> /-d/ morph
3. wanted >>>> /-ɪd/ morph
 How many morphemes are in the above words?
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
 The irregular forms are like separate lexical morphemes: go (went),

be (was / were).
1. How many morphemes in the following verbs?

 was
 were
For more allomorphs of past tense, refer to Task C, page 81
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
1. How many morphemes in the following verbs?

was {is} + {irregular past tense ‘was’}
free lexical morpheme + bound inflectional morpheme
were
{are} + {irregular past tense ‘were’}
For more allomorphs of past tense, refer to Task C, page 81
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Application
66 Analyze the following words into their types of morphemes:
Words Number of Write Down the Write Down the

Morphem FREE BOUND Morphemes
es Morphemes (Inflectional OR Derivational
# OR Both)
Inflectional Derivational
1. Actions
2. People’s

3. Nonrefundable
4. Walked

5. Went
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

6. Mice
Lec. Tahani

Application

67 Words Number Write Down the Write Down the
Analyze the of words into
following FREEtheir typesBOUND Morphemes
of morphemes:
Morphem Morphemes (Inflectional OR Derivational
es OR Both)
# Inflectional Derivational
1. Actions act plural -s -tion

3
2. People’s people Possessive ______
2 –’s
3. 4 fund ______ Prefix non- ,
Nonrefundable re-
Suffix -able
4. Walked walk -ed ______
2
Dr. 5. Went
Nesreen Nawwab 2 The present Irregular past ______
Lec. Tahani tense ‘go’ tense ‘went’
Application
68
 What are the allomorphs of 'plural' in this set of

English words?
a. balloons _______________
b. women_______________
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
69
Balloon >>>> /-s/

Women >>>> irregular plural, change of vowel
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
Application
70
 What are the allomorphs of ’past tense' in this set

of English words?
a. ran _______________
b. put_______________
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
71
Ran >>> irregular past tense , change of vowel
Put >>> no change
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
72
 Assignment:
Answer questions # 1-8 on p. 80
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani
73
End of Chapter 6
Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Lec. Tahani

Ch. 6 Morphology 2nd Term 2021-22

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ch. 6 Morphology 2nd Term 2021-22

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 6

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

The study of the

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

ni- ta- ku- penda

 What about the Arabic word “‫? ”س أحبك‬

 Unbelievable (three elements)

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

In biology >>>> used to study the form and structure of

Middle of 19th century, it has also been used to describe

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

 Morphology is the study/ analysis of the internal

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

New Word Morpheme Morpheme

Streets street -s (plural)

New word Morpheme Morpheme

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

New word Morpheme Morpheme

retell Re- tell

New word Morpheme Morpheme Morpheme

Peacefully peace -ful -ly

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

 Morphe >> Greek >> means “form”.

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

 English word forms may consists of a number

 All these elements are described as

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

 A morpheme is “a minimal unit of meaning or

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

 What is the difference between a

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

What is the difference between a “phoneme”

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

1- the smallest meaning 1- the smallest linguistic unit

2-HOT (For example) is made 2- can be a single word or an

The police reopened the investigation.

How many words are in the above sentence?

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

The police reopened the investigation.

It consists of three morphemes.

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

How many morphemes in the following words?

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

-The young boy reordered two meals yesterday.

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

-The young boy reordered two meals yesterday.

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

1-Words with a complete 1-Lexical items

2-It can be identified as 2-All affixes (prefixes and

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

1-includes nouns, verbs, 1-includes conjunctions,

Dr. Nesreen Nawwab

2-Open class of words: 2-Closed class of words:

-(serve more grammatical role