GENERAL LINGUISTICS

MORPHOLOGY

“Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the

structure of words and words formation.”
It is the study of forms of words and formation of
different meaningful words. Morphology deals with the
syntax of complex words and parts of words, also called
morphemes, as well as with the semantics of their lexical
meaning.
It deals with the set of morphemes and rules how
they are combined. It is the study of “word grammar”.
For example:
 Unhappiness un-happi-ness
 Horses horse-s
 Walking walk-ing

Morphemes
“It is the minimal of meaning and grammatical function.”
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Grammatical function include forms used to indicate past

tense or plural.

For example
Bat, bats, important

 Bat has 1 morpheme.

 Bat s has two morphemes.
 Im por tant has three morphemes.
Morpheme is not equal to a syllable.
For example

 Bats have 1 syllable and 2 morphemes.

 Syllable has 2 syllables, but only one morpheme.

Types of morphemes
1. Free morpheme
o lexical
o functional
2.Bound morpheme
o Derivational
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o Inflectional
Free morpheme:
These are unbound morphemes. They can stand by
themselves or alone as words of language.
These are independent morphemes.
E.g
 Girl
 Happy
 Sad
o Lexical morphemes
This group include noun, verbs, adverbs and
adjective.
They convey message in a sentence and consider as
main content in sentence.
For example:
Happy, man, girl, sad, break, yellow etc.
o Functional morpheme
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This group include conjunctions, prepositions,

article and pronoun.
They are described as a “close class” of words. They
show position of words and objects and combine
two words or sentences.
For example
To, but, and, that, because, on, the, a, an etc.
Bound morphemes
They cannot stand by themselves but are always
attached to some other morphemes.
They are dependent morphemes.
For example
Un, less, ness, re, -ist etc.
Every word has at least one free morpheme which
is called as root, stem or base. E.g. “unhappy” has
free morpheme which is “happy” and bound “un”.
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We can further divide bound morphemes into three

categories:
 Prefix unhappy
 Infix mother-in-law
 Suffix careless
Derivational
These morphemes create or drive new word by
changing the meaning or by changing the word class
of words.
They make words of different grammatical category
from the stem.
For example
Happy unhappy
Good goodness
Both are adjectives but their meanings are
different.so by adding affixes both meaning and
word class of words changes. As above adjective
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Inflectional
They do not alter the meaning or word class;
instead they only refine and give extra grammatical
information about the already existing meaning of a
word.
Inflectional morphemes are used to show if a word
is plural or singular, past tense or not, and if it is a
comparative or possessive form. There are eight
inflectional morphemes in English language.
For example
-ed past tense
 Creates created
-s singular present
 Boy boys
-ing progressive
 wait waiting
-est superlative
 Cleverer cleverest
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-en past participle

 Eat eaten
-s plural
 Chair chairs
-‘s possessive
 Chair chair’s
-er comparative
 Fast faster
8 inflectional morphemes
 3 for verbs: -ed, -s, -ing.
 3 for nouns: -s, ‘s, s’.
 2 for adjectives: -er, -est
Morphological description
What is the difference between inflectional and
derivational morphemes?
 Inflectional morpheme never change the
grammatical category of a word
Old (adj.) older (adj.)
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 Derivational morpheme can change the

grammatical category of a word.
Teach (verb) teacher (noun)
the teach -er -‘s
functional lexical derivational inflectional
wild -ness shock -ed
lexical derivational lexical inflectional
the girl -s’ parent s
functional lexical inflectional lexical inflectional
Problems in morphological description:
The inflectional morpheme -s is added to cat and we get
the plural cats. What is the inflectional morpheme that
makes sheep the plural of sheep, or men the plural of
man? These two words are clearly exceptions to the
Morphs
The actual shape or form of word used to realize
morphemes.
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For example
[cat + (-s) = cats] [bus + (-es) = buses]
[class +(-es) = classes]
Allomorphs
Any of different forms of morpheme.
For example
Dog dogs \z\
Cat cats \s\
Bus buses \iz\
Zero morphs
these words cannot be change.
e.g.
sheep= ø
Man= ø
deer= ø