Introducing Linguistic

Morphology
By Laurie Bauer

 Introducing Linguistic Morphology, written by Laurie

Bauer
Published in 2003. by Edinburgh University Press
366 pages
Three main chapters:
1. Fundamentals
2. Elaborations
3. Issues

 The term morphology was brought from biological

sciences in the XIX century.
It is a study of the shapes of words, and also it is used
for the collection of units which are used in changing
the forms of words.

A close look at words

All dogs were barking except that one dog, which was
standing all alone and did not bark at all.

Weve never met such a blue-eyed boy.

1.
a) Merry talked to her.
b) Merry spoke to her.

2.
a) Merry has talked to her.
b) Merry has spoken to her.

 Three kinds of words:

1. Orthographic word
2. Lexeme
3. Grammatical word

 When we segment a sentence we get word-forms.

When we segment word-forms we get units which are
called morphs.
Morphs have a constant form, and realize or are related
to a constant meaning.

 Everyone lives by selling something.

Two types of morphs:
1. Potentially free morphs (Every, one, lives, by, sell, some, thing)
2. Obligatory bound morphs (-s, -ing)

 Any morph which can realize a lexeme and is not further

analysable is called a root.
Obligatory bound morphs which do not realize lexemes
and which can be attached to roots, already attached
affix or a base to produce word-forms are called affixes.
Three types of affixes:
1. Before a base -> a prefix
2. After a base -> a suffix
3. In the middle of a base -> an infix