ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX

MORPHOLOGY
 MORPHOLOGY
This lecture aims to explain the following issues:
1. Definition of Morphology and Morpheme
2. Kinds of Words according to Morpheme
Structure
3. Bound and Free Morphemes
4. Inflection and Derivation
6. Importance of studying Morphology
 MORPHOLOGY
1. Definition:
Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies
the internal structure of words.

We can break down words into smaller units by

analyzing their structure and identify systematic
processes that allow speakers to add new words to the
lexicon and indicate grammatical information such as
tense and number.
A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that
has a grammatical function or a meaning.
A morpheme has three criteria:

1. It is a word or a part of a word.

2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful
without violation of its meaning.
3. It recurs in differing verbal environments
with a relatively stable meaning
For Example:
Straight /streit/
1. It is a word listed in dictionaries and it has a
meaning ( moving in one direction)

2. It can`t be divided into smaller parts without

violation to its meaning. * /trait/ (a characteristic of
a person) /rate/ , /ate/ etc so the meanings of these
smaller units violate the overall meaning of /streit/

3. Straight /streit/ recurs with a relatively stable

meaning in such environment as straighten
Look at this Example
Bright (light) and Brighten ( make more light)
The only difference between these words is the
addition of –en to the second word.
Thus –en is a morpheme which is a part of the
word Brighten and it has a meaning. –en cannot
be divided into smaller units. In addition it
appears with a stable meaning in different
environments: cheapen, darken, deepen, soften,
Thus –en is a morpheme by itself.
Exercise:
Think about what information is contained in
the word girls.
Is it possible to break this word down into
smaller structural units?
girls = girl + -s
It seems that girls can be broken down into two
parts, the first of which refers to something in
the world (a young female human being) and
the second indicating a grammatical category –
in this case number – and specifying plural.
The same approach can easily be applied to
other kinds of words.
kicked = kick + -ed
While girls is a noun kicked is a verb, yet the
same rules apply.
Kicked can be segmented into the first part that
describes a kind of action (kick) and the second
part that adds the information past tense (-ed).
Tense is another grammatical category that can
be encoded morphologically in English.
Think about what kinds of words take which
endings for a moment.
Only verbs (talked, laughed, pushed, loved)
allow us to add information about tense,
whereas only nouns (girls, boys, zebras, chairs)
permit marking number.
Let‘s compare this with the another kind of example.
The word coolness consists of two parts, giving us the
same kind of formula as in the previous two examples.
coolness = cool + ness
However, things look different when we analyze the
segments.
Cool can have a whole range of meanings, but most
commonly it is an adjective that describes a person or
thing.
But what about -ness?
It does not indicate number or tense – in fact it
contains no information about any grammatical
category whatsoever.
-Ness also does not indicate a specific thing, action
or state.
So what is it good for?
Look at these example sentences:
• Mike is a cool guy
• Coolness is a good trait to have.
The -ness in words such as coolness, haapiness,
sadness or vagueness seems to mean ―having the
attribute X, and adding it to an adjective apparently
changes that adjective into a noun.
There are many more endings of this type that
affect word class (for example, by transforming an
adjective into a noun) and that may change a
word‘s meaning to different degrees.
teach – teacher
insane – insanity
happy – happily
A teacher (noun) is someone who teaches
(verb), insanity (noun) is the state of being
insane (adjective) and happily (adverb) is the
way in which you do something you are happy
(adjective) with or about.
We can also extend or even reverse the meaning
of a word by appending something like re- or un.
fill – refill
introduce – reintroduce
happy – unhappy
fair – unfair
Exercise:
 4. Bound and Free Morphemes

Morphemes are classified into two types:

• Free
• Bound
A free morpheme can be uttered alone by itself with
meaning.
For example:
What are you going to do now?
“Eat”
“eat” in this kind of answer is a free morpheme.
Bound Morphemes cannot be uttered alone
with meaning!
Bound morphemes must be attached to another
word / morpheme.
Antedate,
Manly
Keeper
Unable
 Exercises
2. In this list of English words, pick out the free and bound morphemes:
showcase flashy started outworker
boxfile resistance sisterly distaste
hurtful unbiased username engagement
Wrongdoing wizardry beaten insane
volleyball brightness mortality perfection
African upgrade commonest retrain
Unsafe hopelessly shown unbutton
Jonathan’s blockage
 Exercises
Answer:
• Bound: -y, -ed, -(e)r, -ance, -ly, dis-, -ful, un-,
-ment, -ing, -ry, -(e)n, in-, -ness, -al, -ity, -ion,
-(a)n, -est, re-, -less, -’s, -age. The rest are free