1

Hassan II University, FLHS

Department of English Studies

Introduction to Linguistics (S4)

LING 4
Professor Dr. M. Afkir

Morphology: Part 1

1. Definition of Morphology
Morphology is a branch of linguistics that is concerned with the form of words in a
particular language. The term morphology is etymologically derived from the Greek word
„morphe‟, which means form. Morphologists describe the internal structure of words (that is,
the constituent parts of words) and the rules and principles that govern their formation.

2. The Morpheme
The basic unit of analysis in morphology is the morpheme. A morpheme is a
minimal meaningful unit that cannot be further divided into other units. Morphemes “are
the smallest units of language that combine both a form (the way they sound) and a meaning
(what they mean). Words are made up of morphemes. Simple words consist of a single
morpheme. Complex words consist of more than one morpheme” (Fasold and Connor-Linton,
2006:61). For example, „un+steadi+ness‟ is a complex word that consists of three morphemes:
un+, steady and +ness, which cannot be further analysed and each of which contributes to the
meaning of the whole word.

The word is not considered as the minimal unit within the field of morphology
because there are some words that can be further analysed into more than one minimal unit.
The word „wise‟, for instance, can be referred to as a minimal meaningful unit, but the
word „unwise‟ cannot because it consists of two elements: „un‟ and „wise‟.

2-1 Free and bound morphemes

Morphemes can be classified into bound and free morphemes. A morphologically-
complex or polymorphemic word contains a central morpheme, which contributes the basic
meaning, and a collection of other morphemes that serve to modify this meaning in various
 2

ways. For instance, the word „carelessness‟, consists of the basic free morpheme „care‟ and
two bound morphemes, „less‟ and „ness‟ that modify its meaning.

A free morpheme is one that can stand by itself and that does not need to attach to
another morpheme. A free morpheme is one that may constitute a word by itself (turtle,
home, help, woman). A bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot appear by itself in
isolation and that needs to be combined with another morpheme. For example, „+ity‟ in the
word „divinity‟ is a bound morpheme.

2-2 Derivational and inflectional morphemes

Bound morphemes can be classified according to their function in the word.

-Derivational morphemes
A bound morpheme is referred to as derivational because when attached to another
morpheme, a new word is created or derived. For example, the bound morpheme un+ in
„untrue‟ is a derivational morpheme because it creates a new word with the opposite
meaning of „true‟.

There are two types of derivational morphemes: those that change the syntactic
category of the word to which they are attached and those that do not. For example, un+ in
the verb „un+tie‟ creates a new word with the opposite meaning of „tie‟, but both „tie‟ and
„un+tie‟ are verbs. The suffix +ness in „swift+ness‟, however, changes the part of speech of
„swift‟; an adjective changes into a noun, „swiftness‟.

- Inflectional morphemes
The bound morphemes that serve a purely grammatical function, never creating a
new word but only a different form of the same word, are called inflectional morphemes.
Inflectional morphemes are those which are required by the syntax of the sentence and
which add no lexical meaning. Their appearance in a particular position is compulsory. For
example, the English progressive +ing appears obligatorily in a sentence such „The child is
swimming‟. Inflectional morphemes represent concepts such as tense, aspect, number, case,
and gender.
 3

Derivational morphemes occur closer to the root than inflectional morphemes. It is

also a common observation that a language has more derivational morphemes than
inflectional ones. Also, derivational morphemes may change the syntactic category of the
resulting word, while inflectional morphemes never do. Finally, some words such as
„hunters‟ involve both a derivational morpheme and an inflectional one; „er‟ is derivational
while „s‟, the plural morpheme, is inflectional.

3. Allomorphs
Morphemes may have different realizations (pronunciations) depending on their
phonological contexts. “The shapes of morphemes as they are actually pronounced in a
word are referred to as morphs, and where two morphs are variants of one morpheme, we
say they are allomorphs of that morpheme” (Radford et al., 2009:152).

The plural morpheme in English (which is a bound inflectional morpheme) is realized

by three different phonetic forms (allomorphs, or morpheme variants), namely {+s},

{+z} and {+ɪz}.

1. pet+s 4. hen+z 7. bʊʃ+ɪz

2. sæk+s 5. rɪb+z 8. rǝʊz+ɪz

3. hɪp+s 6. bi:+z 9. ʤʌʤ+ɪz

As the data above shows, the plural suffix for regular nouns in English has three different
forms (variants, allomorphs):
- Roots that end in a voiced consonant or in a vowel as in „hens‟, „pills‟, „bees‟, and
„seas‟ have for the plural {+z}.

- Roots that end in a voiceless consonant as in „pets‟, „books‟, „lips‟ have for the
plural {+s}.

- Roots that end in a sibilant as in „churches‟, „matches‟, „judges‟, „badges‟ have for

the plural {+ɪz} (A sibilant speech sound is a sound that is produced with a hissing
noise).
 4

Since these morphs all represent the same morpheme, they are referred to as allomorphs of
the same morpheme, and the plural morpheme is said to exhibit allomorphy.

4. Roots and Stems

A root is that part of a word that is left when all the affixes have been removed.
The difference between stems and roots is that a root is morphologically unanalysable
whereas a stem may include, in addition to the root, one or more affixes.

Roots can be either free of bound. In English, the majority of roots are free. Bound
roots also exist, but they are quite few. For example +ceive in the words „receive‟,
„perceive‟, „deceive‟, and „conceive‟, and +tain in „obtain‟, „retain‟, „detain‟, and „contain‟
are bound roots because they never occur as free morphemes in English.