MORPHOLOGY

morphe (Greek)  = shape, form
-ology   = "science of"

MORPHOLOGY
The study of the internal structure of words, and of the rules by which words are formed.

To know a word, is to know

• spelling

• pronunciation

• definition

• part of speech

• history

• non-standard/slang

• whether the word is vulgar

• whether the word is obsolete

• examples
  

MORPHEME

• The smallest unit of linguistic meaning (parts of words which have some kind of meaning)

• A single word may be composed of one or more morphemes.

Example:      un+system+atic+al+ly
( the word unsystematically can be analyzed into 5 separate morphemes)

• A grammatical unit in which there is an arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning that cannot be further analyzed.

• Every word in every language is composed of one or more morphemes.

One morpheme         boy  (one syllable)
                                 desire, lady, water  (two syllables)
                                 crocodile (three syllables)
                                 salamander (four syllables), or more syllables

Two morpheme        boy + ish
                                  desire + able
Three morpheme       boy + ish + ness
                                  desire + able + ity
Four morpheme         gentle + man + li + ness
                                  un + desire + able + ity
More than four           un + gentle + man + li + ness
                                  anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism


The concept m o r p h e m e differs from the concept w o r d as 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.
Its actual phonetic representation is the m o r p h, with the different morphs
representing the same morpheme being grouped as its a l l o m o r p h s.

The word "unbreakable" has three morphemes:
"un-", a bound morpheme (a prefix);
"break", a free morpheme;
"-able", a bound morpheme (a suffix).

The morpheme plurals has the morph "-s", /s/, in cats (/kæts/), but "-es", /ɨz/, in dishes (/dɪʃɨz/), and even the voiced "-s", /z/, in dogs (/dɒgz/). "-s". These are allomorphs.

1. Free Morphemes : Morphemes which can be used as a word on its own (without the need for further elements, i.e. affixes)

                                          Example:    girl, system, desire, hope, act, phone, happy..
 

2. Bound Morphemes:  Morphemes which cannot occur on its own as an independent (or separate) word.
 

• Affixes (prefix, suffix, infix and circumfix) are all bound morphemes.

Prefixes	Suffixes	Infixes	Circumfixes (discontinuous morpheme)
Bound morphemes which occur only before other morphemes. Examples: un- (uncover, undo) dis- (displeased, disconnect), pre- (predetermine, prejudge)	Bound morphemes which occur  following other morphemes. Examples: -er (singer, performer) -ist (typist, pianist) -ly (manly, friendly)	Bound morphemes which are inserted  into other morphemes. Example:             fikas "strong"             fumikas "to be strong"                                              (Bontoc Language)	Bound morphemes that are attached to a root or stem morpheme both initially and finally. Example:              chokma "he is good"          ik + chokm + o "he isn't' good"                                        (Chickasaw Language)


3. Root vs. Stem
 

Root	Stem
Non-affix lexical content morphemes that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts  (ex.) cran (as in cranberry), act, beauty, system, etc..       Free Root  Morpheme: run, bottle, phone, etc.      Bound Root  Morpheme: receive, remit, uncount, uncouth, nonchalant, etc.	When a root morpheme is combined with affix morphemes, it forms a stem.  Other affixes can be added to a stem to form a more complex stem.

    Root           believe    (verb)
    Stem           believe + able    (verb + suffix)
    Word          un + believe + able   (prefix + verb + suffix)

    Root          system    (noun)
    Stem          system + atic    (noun + suffix)
    Stem          un + system + atic    (prefix + noun + suffix)
    Stem          un + system + atic + al     (prefix + noun + suffix + suffix)
    Word         un + system + atic + al + ly    prefix + noun + suffix + suffix + suffix
  4.  Derivational morphemes vs. Inflectional Morphemes (Bound morphemes)
 

Derivational Morphemes	Inflectional Morphemes
1. Derivational morphemes derive a new word by being attached to root morphemes or stems.	1. Inflectional morphemes signal grammatical information such as number (plural), tense, possession and so on. They are thus often called bound grammatical morphemes
2. They can be both suffixes and prefixes in  English. Examples:    beautiful, exactly, unhappy, impossible, recover	2. They are only found in suffixes in  English.  Examples:  boys,  Mary's , walked
3. Change of Meaning  Examples:       un+do (the opposite meaning of `do')                         sing+er ( deriving a new word with the meaning of a person who sings).	3. No change of meaning  Examples:       walk vs. walks                          toy vs. toys
4. Change of the syntactic category    (optionally)  i) Change of category Noun to Adjective                   boy (noun) + ish  ----> boyish (adj.)                                                 Elizabeth (noun) + an   ----> Elizabethan (adj.)                                                 affection (noun) + ate ---->affectionate (adj.) Verb to Noun                           sing (Verb) + er  ----> singer (noun)                                                 predict (Verb) + ion ----> prediction (noun) Adjective to Adverb                 exact (adj) + ly  ----> exactly (adv)                                                 quiet (adj) + ly ----> quietly (adv.) Noun to Verb                           moral (noun) + ize   ----> moralize (verb) Adjective to Noun                    specific (Adj.) + ity ---->specificity (noun)   ii)  No change  of category friend+ship  (Noun --> Noun)  pink+ish       (Adjective --> Adjective)  re+print        (Verb --> Verb)	4. Never change the syntactic category of the words or morpheme.   They are always attached to completed words Examples:          walk vs. walked or walks (V--> V)                              boy vs. boys (N --> N)                              eat vs. eating (progressive) (V-->V)  In English, inflectional morphemes typically follow derivational morphemes              Examples:     unlikelihood,  unlikelihoods   (not  *unlikeslihood)
	5. English Inflectional Morphemes        Examples -s     third person singular present             She waits at home. -ed   past tense                                        She waited at home. -ing  progressive                                      She is eating the donut. -en   past participle                                  Mary has eaten the donuts. -s     plural                                               She ate the donuts. -'s    possessive                                       Disa's hair is short. -er    comparative                                    Disa has shorter hair than Karin. -est  superlative                                       Disa has the shortest hair.


 

---