English Morphology

ED 684
Maria Dantas-Whitney

Definitions
Morphology: The study of words, the
internal structure of words and the
interrelationships among words.
Words can be broken down into smaller
and meaningful parts. These parts are
called morphemes.

Definitions
Free morphemes: units that can stand alone as
words by themselves.
Bound morphemes: units that must be
attached to a bound or a free morpheme.
Bound morphemes in English are either
prefixes or suffixes. (The general term affix
refer to either a suffix or a prefix).

Definitions
Inflectional morphemes add to a word without
changing the part of speech. In addition,
inflectional morphemes dont change the
meaning of a base word. In English they are only
suffixes.
plural -s, -es and possessive s added to nouns
-s, -ing, -es, ed, -en added to verbs
-er, -est added to adjectives and adverbs

Definitions
Derivational morphemes change the
meaning and can be either prefixes or
suffixes in English. Derivational
morphemes may change the part of
speech of the base word.
Examples:
un- added to the verb tie
-er added to the verb work

untie
worker

Types of words
Simple words: words with just one
morpheme (e.g., son)
Complex words: words with a free
morpheme and one or more bound
morphemes (e.g., sons)
Compound words: words with two free
morphemes (e.g., grandson)

Inflectional and derivational suffixes

provide clues about parts of speech
Part of
speech

Inflectional suffixes

Derivationa
l
suffixes

noun

-s, -es (plural)

s (possessive)

-ment
-tion
-ness
-ity
-ence
-er
-tist

Verb

-s (third person singular)

-ing (progressive)
-ed (past)
-en (past participle)

-ify
-ize
-ate

Adjective -er (comparative)

-est (superlative)

-ful
-ly (adverb)

Classifying words
Evidence from semantics, syntax and
morphology need to be considered when
determining the classification of a word. Many
English words can be nouns, verbs or adjectives
depending on the sentence.
Example:
The school is near here.
She was schooled at home
The school bus is late.

Classifying words
Content words carry the main meaning in
sentences (ie., bricks)
Function Words (i.e., mortar) include the following:

Determiners (e.g., the, this)

Quantifiers (e.g., one, every)
Pronouns (e.g., you, who)
Auxiliaries (e.g., is, has, may)
Prepositions (e.g., in, before, of)
Conjunctions (e.g., and, if, however)
Particles (e.g., up, down, to)
Intensifiers (e.g., rather, very, so)

Views of Reading: Morphology

Sociopsycholinguistic View
Important to build background knowledge, not
just pre-teach vocabulary.
Important to involve students in activities that
help them build concepts.
Frontloading is a good strategy. It involves
learning about something, talking about it,
wondering about it, and then reading and writing
about it.