The Internal Structure of Words

& Processes of Word Formation in

English

1
What is a morpheme? What is a
morph? Give examples for each.

• A morpheme = the smallest

meaningful unit in a language
• A morph = the concrete realization of
a morpheme

2
How many types of morphemes are
there? What are they?

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How many types of morphemes are
there? What are they?

• Lexical morphemes express lexical, or

dictionary, meaning. They can be categorized
into the major lexical categories or word
classes: noun, verb, adjective, or adverb.
They are generally independent words (free
roots) or parts of words (derivational affixes
and bound roots).
• Grammatical morphemes express relations
within the sentence. They may be parts of
words (inflectional affixes) or function words.
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Examples of inflectional morphemes

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How many types of morphs are there?
What are they? Give examples

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Free morph

• may stand alone;

• is always a root;
• carries the principle lexical or
grammatical meaning;
• there is greatest potential for
substitution
• may attach to other free or bound
morphenes
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Bound morph

• must always be attached to another

morph

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Bound roots

• are often foreign borrowings that

were free in the source language, but
not free in English
Eg: -vert
-mit
-ceive

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Affix

• does not carry the core meaning

• is always bound to a root
• a particular affix will attach to only
certain roots
• 2 kinds: prefixes and suffixes

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Derivational affix

• Is either a prefix or a suffix

• Has one of the 2 functions
– To convert one part of speech to another
 class changing
– To change the meaning of a root  class
maintaining

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Inflectional affix

• Is always a suffix
• Function: to indicate grammatical
meaning

14
Enclitic

• = a kind of contraction
• = a bound form which derives from an
independent word and must be
attached to the preceding auxilary

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Define the different types of
morphemes and morphs.

17
What are the differences between free
and bound morphs

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Derivation

• = the addition of a derivational affix

• Changes include:
– A phonological change
– An orthographic change
– A semantic change
– A change in word class

19
What are some processes of word
formation?

• Derivation
• Reduplication
• Conversion or functional shift
• Compounding
• Blends
• Back formations
• Shortening
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Reduplication

• = a process similar to derivation, in which

the initial syllable or the enrire word is
doubled
• 3 types of reduplication
– Exact reduplication: papa, mama ..
– Ablaut reduplication in which the vowel
alternates while the consonants are identicle:
criss-cross, zig-zag …
– Rhyme reduplication in which the consonants
change while the vowel remains the same:
helter-sketter, hodge-pogge … 21
Conversion or functional shift

• A functional shift is the conversion of

one part of speech to another without
the addition of a suffix

22
Compounding

• = combining 2 or more roots (plus

associate affixes

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Blends

• = compounding + clipping

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Back Formation
• = derive a morphologically simple
word from a form analyzed on the
basis of derivational and inflectional
patterns existing in English, as a
morphologically complex word

25
Shortening
• = deletion of sound segments without
respect to morphological bounderies
– Clipping
– Acronyms
– Initialism

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To what extent does the knowledge of
morphology contribute to students’
process of learning English?

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