Morphemes consist of bases and affixes. Each of it has its own meaning.

Morphemes are
divided into derivational morphemes and inflectional morphemes. Our primary focuses are
analysing inflectional and derivational affixes. Inflectional describes changes in the
grammatical function of nouns, and verbs as can be seen from the table below. An
inflectional morpheme is used to create a variety form of word in order to signal
grammatical information. Inflectional affixes are suffixes, have wide range of application for
example, verbs can be made into past tense (regular and irregular), past participle (regular
and irregular) and present participle.

There are eight classes of inflectional affixes in English. However, we choose to analyse four
classes only which were present in the text book article:-

Word Class Morpheme Grammatical Examples

function
Regular: changes,
days, problems,
relationships, youths,
drugs, exams,
Nouns Plural Marks as more periods, thoughts,
than one adolescents,
activities,
statements, parents,
signs, patterns
Irregular: children

Possessive Marks for Driver’s, person’s

ownership

Regular: Involved,
scolded,
discouraged,
enjoyed, showed,
Past Tense Marks (roughly) interested,
for past action expressed, treated,
marked, spared,

[Type text]
 Verbs masked, wanted

Irregular: woke,
went, slept

Going, getting,
seeking,
Present Participle Marks present devastating,
participle expressing, feeling,
sleeping, making,
engaging, happening

As can be seen from the table above, nouns take two inflectional morphemes which were plural
and possessive.

Regular: days,
problems,
relationships, youths,
drugs, exams,
Plural Marks as more periods, thoughts,
than one adolescents,
Nouns activities,
statements, parents,
signs, patterns
Irregular: children

Driver’s, person’s
Possessive Marks for
ownership

[Type text]
 Plural nouns mark as more than one. In the plural noun, it can be further divided into
regular plural and irregular plural. General Plural nouns are formed when plural is added to root,
(-s) is actually added to the root. For example the root word for relationship which signifies a
single relationship when it is been added to (-s) it changes its form to plural and form a new
word relationships.

The original statement: Otherwise, it can lead to devastating effects on family relationships,
friendships, and the ability to function properly in school or at work.

Possessive nouns are nouns that are used to mark for ownership or to show someone
owns something. The possessive of a plural noun ending in –s is pronounced just like the plural
form. It’s spelled with a simple apostrophe and no additional –s. For example: the word driver is
a noun, but when it is added to (‘s) it changes its form into driver’s to show the something
belongs to the driver.

Original statement: Youths get stressed over a number of things-exams, family problems, a
failed relationship or something as trivial as getting a driver’s licence.

Regular: Involved,
scolded,
discouraged,
enjoyed, showed,
Past Tense Marks (roughly) interested,
for past action expressed, treated,
marked, spared,
Verbs masked, wanted
Irregular: woke,
went, slept

Going, getting,
Present Participle seeking,
Marks present devastating,
participle expressing, feeling,
sleeping, making,
engaging, happening

[Type text]
 Past Tense is used to mark an action that take place in the past. It can further be
divided into regular and irregular tenses.

For example, the word ‘enjoy’ indicates pleasure and fun in doing something. When (-ed) it
attached to the root word enjoy, and form ‘enjoyed’, it marks that the action take place in the
past and is no longer fun and causes pleasure in the present.

Original statement: Other vital observable indicators of depression are marked changes in
mood and behaviour-ranging from sadness, uncontrollable crying, withdrawal, and sudden
disinterest in activities previously enjoyed, to feelings of hopelessness and suicidal
thoughts.

Present participles always occur with an –ing suffix. In a sentence, the present
participle always follows a form of the auxillary verb to be, as in what was happening
around me.

Original statement: Going to school was such an agony for me. I could not concentrate. I
was not interested in what was happening around me in class.

[Type text]
Derivation is a process whereby complex words are formed by combining a lexical root or
stem with one or more than one derivational affixes ( or without any affixes in the case of
zero derivation). These affixes can, but do not have to, change the syntactic category of
their respective heads. (Hansen 1982, 88) ; Cannon 1987, 164). Derivation is a process of
creating separate but morphologically related words.Derivational morphemes are added to
forms to create separate words.

The following table shows the derivational morphemes that can be found in the article from
text book.

Suffix -ness Examples:

Helplessness, illness,
sadness
-able Examples:
Observable
-al Examples:
Withdrawal
-ism Examples:
Gangsterism
-ly Example:
Openly
Prefix Un- Examples:
Unhealthy, Uncontrollable
Ir- Examples:
Irrespective
Examples:
Dis- Disinterest

[Type text]
1. The derivational prefix un- and dis- are a good example of something that changes the
core meaning of the stem.

When the prefix un- attaches to a stem, the meaning of the stem is negates; an
opposite meaning is created

For example:-

 Healthy-> unhealthy
 Controllable-> Uncontrollable

In addition, prefix Dis- also brings negative meaning

For example:-

 Interest-> Disinterest

However the usage of derivational affix, the use of prefix Un and Dis- is optional; it can
be replaced by not, with no change in meaning

For example:

 Unhealthy to not healthy

Meanwhile for

 `Disinterest’ we can choose to mention as `not interest’.

2. Derivational affixes do frequently change the category of the stem they attach to as
shown below:
 Observe ( verb) -> observable (adjective)
 Gangster (noun) -> gangsterism (noun)
 Sad (verb) -> sadness(adjective)

[Type text]
References

Delahunty & Garvey (2008). Morphology and Word Formation. [e-book] Available through: Google
http://wac.colostate.edu/books/sound/chapter5.pdf

Packer. (2001). Morphology. [e-book] pp. 4-6.

http://www.mathcs.duq.edu/~packer/Courses/Psy598/Ling-Morphology.pdf.

Sunderasan, S. (2009). Lecture 4: Root vs Stem, Inflectional vs Derivational. [e-book] pp. 4-6.
[Accessed: 11 Dec 2013].

[Type text]