morphology

Morphology: is the study of words structure and word formation; in another words is the study of
how words are build up from smaller pieces and how these pieces are combined

Morpheme: the smallest, indivisible units of semantic content or grammatical function which words
are made up of.

Morph: is the physical realization of a morpheme (broad transcription)

Structural formula: is the arrangement in which the components of words are confined to in word-
formation.

Allomorphs: represent different realizations of the same morpheme in different phonological

environments. For example, the regular past marker or morpheme in English can be realized as
follow:

morpheme

“past marker marker”ed

Allomorph

/id/ /d/ /t/ -

Free morphemes: single words capable of occurring in isolation, independently. they are commonly
classified to: content and functional words

Bound morphemes: are morphemes incapable of occurring in isolation they need to be attached to
other word-building elements. They are also called empty morphemes for the fact that they don’t
convey meaning they are just grammatical in nature.

Affixes: morphemes which only occur when attached to some other morphemes.so by definition they
are bound morphemes.

Suffix: an affix attached after the base.

Prefix: an affix attached before the base.

Derivational affixes: form new words either:

By changing the meaning of the base to which they are attached:

 Obey # disobey / Kind # unkind
By changing the grammatical category that the base belongs to:
 Bad: badly / Kind: kindly / teach: teacher

Inflectional affixes: they are all suffixes; they serve a variety of grammatical function when added to
the base like: indicate tense, number; comparison; superlative, s of gentivity.
Morphological processes/Word formation processes/word-building processes: processes through
which words are formed

1. Affixation: is a morphological process of creating new words by adding a prefix or suffix to the
base.
2. Clipping: or abbreviation is a morphological process, it involves some elements of reduction in
the length of a word with keeping the same semantic and syntactic features of the original
word. There are two types of clipping “Fore clipping” here elements are taken from the
beginning of a word while in “Back clipping” elements are taken from the end of a word .
3. Borrowing: is the process of taking words from one or more language to fit into the vocabulary
of another. Like piano, alcohol
4. Blending: is morphological process of creating a new word by combining two parts of two or
more already existing words in the same language. So we take the beginning of one word and
we joining it to the end of another word.
5. Compounding: is a morphological process of creating a new word by combining two free
morphemes already exist in the same language like bedroom, teapot

Morphology and syntax

Morphology and phonology

-the relevant connection between morphology and phonology pertains to the way in which certain
morphemes are pronounced.

-the major function of phonological rules in morphology is to provide the phonetic information
necessary for the pronunciation of words. Some of these phonological rules affect the plural marker
–end and the plural marker –s:

_morphophonemic rules:

 Voiceless consonants and morphemes

 Voiced consonants and morphemes
 Sibilants and morphemes, for example –s is realized as is when sibilant( s,z,ch,sh)
precedes it

Lexicology:

1. Lexis: is the lexical item of a language which a dictionary attempts to list giving its meaning in
an alphabetical order.
2. Characteristics of lexis:
 Usually has a way it is pronounced(phonetic)
 Carries a semantic meaning especially content one(semantic)
 Fulfill a grammatical role in the sentence or even isolation(syntax)
3. Lexicology and morphology: morphology deals with shape and structure of words while
lexicology is said to be the branch of linguistics that studies and analyzes the lexical items of
a language. It takes care of their meanings and origins.
i.
4. Vocabulary: is all the lexical items used by a particular person, or the vocabulary items that
exist in subject, it refers also to lexicon.
5. Lexeme: is the basic unit of a vocabulary as opposed to the grammatical unit morpheme and
the semantic unit semene.
6. Grammatical lexes: are lexes which have taken up some grammatical properties in discourse.
They will be considered different realization of the morpheme.