MORPHOLOGY

Valene Hope Cebuco

Jeffren Pancho Miguel
What is MORPHOLOGY?
System of categories and rules involved in
word formation and interpretation.

Two basic goals in studying

morphology
• To isolate the component parts of words
• To determine the rules by which words are
formed
 THE SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES
The Eight Parts of Speech
• Noun
• Pronoun
• Verb
• Adjectives
• Adverb
• Prepositions
• Conjunctions
• Articles
MORPHEME
• It is a part of a word that change meanings,
make one part of speech into another, and show
such grammatical functions as tense and
plurality.

Example: buyers

{buy} + {er} + {s}

BOUND AND FREE
Morphemes
 Bound Morphemes – cannot occur
unattached.
 Free Morphemes – can stand on its own.
(root words and function words)

Ex. glasses
glass – free morpheme
-es – bound morpheme
FREE MORPHEMES
Lexical Category (content words)
• Noun
• Adverb
• Adjectives
• Verb

These syntactic categories are also

called
OPEN CLASS WORDS.
Grammatical Category (function)
• Pronoun
• Conjunction
• Preposition
• Article

These syntactic categories are

also called CLOSED CLASS words
BOUND MORPHEMES
• Affixes (prefixes, suffixes, infixes,
circumfixes)
-derivational
-inflectional
DERIVATIONAL
Ex. Impossible
Im- deriv. Possible – root word
INFLECTIONAL
Eight inflectional affixes in English
• Plural ( -s, -es)
• Possessive (‘s)
• Comparative (-er)
• Superlative (-est)
• Tenses ( -s, -ed)
• Participle (-en, -ing)
 MORPHOLOGY
Identifying the Morphemes

Word Free Open Inflectional Affix

Bound Closed Derivational (prefix)
(suffix)
(root)
Insensitivity -in Bound Derivational Prefix
- sense Free Open Root
- itive Bound Derivational Suffix
- ity Bound Derivational Suffix

Disengaged dis- Bound Derivational Prefix

engage Free Open Root
-d Bound Inflectional Suffix
 Disengaged (verb)

dis - engaged (verb)

(v) engage -d
 Insensitivity (noun)

insensitive (adj) - ity

in - sensitive (adj)

sense - itive
 WORD ORIGINS
Etymology – the study of word origins.
Lexical gap – nonsense words
RULES ON WORD FORMATION
• Inheritance
• Neologisms (Creation de Novo)
• Blending
• Acronyms
– Initialism
– Reverse Acronym
• Creation by Shortening
•Derivation
- by affixation
- Without Affixation
• Compounding
• Eponyms
- based on personal names.
- based on geographical names.
- names from literature, myths,
and folklore.
- based on commercial brand
names.

• Other sources.
• Hope , C. V. & Jeffren, M. (2012, April 18).
Morphology. PowerPoint presentation
available at http
://www.slideshare.net/JeffrenMiguel/morph
ology-12583580
Retrieved on July 4th, 2012.