CHAPTER III

MORPHOLOGY

3.1. What is Morphology?

Morphology is the study of word formation. The word morphology itself derives
from the Greek word morphé, which means form. Morphology is to words what
syntax is to sentence. That is, morphology is concerned with the structure of words,
just as syntax is concerned with the structure of sentences.

3.2. How Does Morphology Work?

Let’s begin by considering some of the observations we can make about the
structure of words in English.

1. Boldest can be divided in two parts (i.e. bold + est), each of which has a
meaning; bold cannot.

2. The word boy has a meaning in and of itself, the word at does not. Rather, at
indicates a relationship between two meaningful expressions (e.g. the boy at
the door).

3. The form serve can stand alone as a word; the form pre- (as in preserve)
cannot.

4. Friendliest is a word; friendestly is not.

5. TV and telly are both formed from television.

Observation (1) illustrates the fact that words are made up of two meaningful unit
(morphemes). Observation (2) illustrates the fact that some morphemes, called
lexical morphemes, have meaning in and of themselves; others, called grammatical
morphemes, specify the relationship between one lexical morpheme and another.
Observation (3) illustrates the fact that some morphemes, called free morphemes,
can stand alone as words; others, called bound morphemes, cannot. Observation (4)
can be used to argue that bound morphemes can be divided into two types,
inflectional and derivational. Observation (5) illustrates the fact that languages
create new words systematically.

All of these phenomena are essentially morphological in nature. That is, they have to
do with the internal structure of words. Moreover, we will make our standard
assumption that the phenomena in (1-5) are governed by a system of rules. What we
will do now is attempt to construct a set of concepts and principles that will help us
account for the phenomena in (1-5). As usual, keep in mind that what follows is a
theory designed to account for the data in (1-5).

3.3. The Basic Concepts

3.3.1. Morphemes

A morpheme can be loosely defined as a minimal unit having more or less constant
meaning associated with more or less constant form. Consider a simple example: the
word buyers is made up of three morphemes {buy} + {er} + {s}. Braces are usually
used to indicate morphemes. Each of these morphemes has a unique meaning: {buy}
= verb ‘buy’ (however it might be represented semantically); {er} = ‘one who
performs an action’: {s} = more than one. Together they mean something like ‘more
than one erson who buys things.’ The strongest evidence that each of these word
parts is a morpheme is the fact that each one can occur with other morphemes
without changing its core meaning. For example, {buy} occurs in buy, buying, and
buys, as well as in buyers. {er} occurs in farmer, driver, and mover as well as in
buyers. The more combinations a morpheme can occur in, the more productive it is
said to be; the more productive a morpheme is, the stronger the evidence that it is a
separate morpheme.

There are four points to note about morphemes. First, they are distinct from
syllables. The word alligator, for example, consists of morpheme but has four
syllables; cats, on the other hand, consists of two morphemes but has only one
syllable.

Second, identical spellings do not necessarily indicate identical morphemes. For

example, consider buyer and shorter, each of which ends in –er. Note that the –er in
buyer means something like ‘one who’, while the-er in shorter means something like
‘to a greater degree than.’ Note, moreover, that the-er that means ‘one who’ always
attaches to a verb (e.g. buy) and the –er that means ‘to a greater degree than’ always
attaches to an adjective (e.g. short). Thus, even though the two –er’s have the same
form or spelling, they have different meanings, and we therefore have to treat them
as different morphemes. The former is sometimes called the agentive morpheme
(abbreviated AG). Since it indicates one who performs an action, and the latter is
termed the comparative morpheme ({COMP}), since it indicates the comparative
degree of an adjective.

Third, the definition of a morpheme as a minimal unit with more or less constant
meaning associated with more or less constant form should be taken as a general rule
rather than a hard and fast criterion. The words boys and girls conform to this
definition rather closely. That is, boys can be divided into {boy} + {s} and girls can be
divided into {girl} + {s}, where the –s in each word represents the same plural
morpheme.

3.3.2. Lexical and Grammatical Morphemes

3.3.3. Inflectional and Derivational Morphemes

3.3.4. Differences between Types of Affixes

3.3.5. Word-Formation Processes

3.4. Exercises

3.5. References