English Morphology

MODULE
English Morphology
Universidade Pedagógica © 2014

Departamento de Ciências de Linguagem - Curso de Inglês
Ensino à Distância
Copyright
This Module cannot be printed for commercial purposes. In case of photocopying, reference should be
made to Universidade Pedagógica and to the Authors of the module.
Universidade Pedagógica © 2014

Ensino à Distância
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Telephone: 21-320860 /2
Telephone: 21-306720
Maputo - Mozambique
Fax: +258 21 320860 /2

E-mail: f:linguas@yahoo.com.br
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Ou www.up.ac.mz/fclca
Acknowledgements
The Universidade Pedagógica, English Course, wishes to thank those below for their contribution to
this module:
The Universidade Pedagógica especially English The CEAD (Centro de Educação Aberta e à
Course for giving me this chance and all who Distância) for giving me opportunity to develop
direct and indirectly contributed to do this this module that allowed me to exercise and apply
and without their help I would not make it. the techniques learned to develop materials for
distance education.
Copyright
Author: Carlos Baptista Victorino
Instructional Designing: Victorino Guila
Language Review: Elias Sinodingue Peter
Graphic Designing: Valdinácio Florêncio Paulo
Edition: Valdinácio Florêncio Paulo

English Morphology
Contents
About this MODULE 1
How this Module is structured ....................................................................................... 1
Course overview 3
Welcome to English Morphology! ................................................................................. 3
English Morphology—is this course for you? ................................................................ 5
Course outcomes ........................................................................................................... 5
Timeframe ..................................................................................................................... 6
Study skills .................................................................................................................... 6
Need help? .................................................................................................................... 7
Assignments .................................................................................................................. 8
Assessments .................................................................................................................. 8
Getting around this module 9

Margin icons ................................................................................................................. 9
Unit 1 11
Introduction to Morphology......................................................................................... 11
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 11
There are two lessons in this unit. ....................................................................... 11
Lesson 1 12
What is Morphology.................................................................................................... 12
Object of study ................................................................................................... 12
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 12
Lesson 2 16
The place of morphology in the scope of linguistics; ................................................... 16
Importance to language teachers; ................................................................................. 16
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 16
Unit summary.............................................................................................................. 20
Assignment ................................................................................................................. 20
Assessment .................................................................................................................. 20
Unit 2 23
Introduction to word-structure ..................................................................................... 23
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 23
ii Contents
Lesson 1 24
What is a word?........................................................................................................... 24
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 24
Lesson 2 30
The grammatical word ................................................................................................. 30
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 30
Lesson 3 33
Morphemes: the smallest units of meaning .................................................................. 33
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 33
Lesson 4 39
Morphemes, morphs and allomorphs ........................................................................... 39
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 39
Lesson 5 47
Grammatical conditioning, Lexical conditioning and Suppletion ................................. 47
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 47
Lesson 6 52
Homophones in English;.............................................................................................. 52
The portmanteau morph;.............................................................................................. 52
Zero allomorph and empty morph. ............................................................................... 52
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 52
Homophones ............................................................................................. 53
The portmanteau morph ............................................................................ 53
Zero allomorph.......................................................................................... 55
Unit summary.............................................................................................................. 60
Assignment ................................................................................................................. 61
Assessment .................................................................................................................. 62
Unit 3 65
Types of Morphemes ................................................................................................... 65
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 65
Lesson 1 66
Roots, Affixes, Stems and Bases.................................................................................. 66
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 66
AFFIXES .................................................................................................. 67
STEMS AND BASES ............................................................................... 67
English Morphology
Lesson 2 71
Types of morphemes ................................................................................................... 71
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 71
Free morphemes ................................................................................ 72
Bound morphemes ............................................................................ 72
Lesson 3 76
Multiple affixation and Compounding ......................................................................... 76
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 76
Multiple affixation .................................................................................... 76
Compound words or compounding ............................................................ 79
Lesson 4 81
Conversion .................................................................................................................. 81
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 81
Lesson 5 85
Morphological Typology ............................................................................................. 85
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 85
Lesson 6 90
Incorporating and inflecting languages ........................................................................ 90
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 90
Unit summary.............................................................................................................. 94
Assignment ................................................................................................................. 94
Assessment .................................................................................................................. 94
Unit 4 97
Introducing Lexical Morphology ................................................................................. 97
The Lexical Phonology and Morphology Model .......................................................... 97
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 97
Lesson 1 99
Lexical strata ............................................................................................................... 99
Introduction ........................................................................................................ 99
Lesson 2 103
Distinction between Non-Neutral and Neutral affixes ................................................ 103
Introduction ...................................................................................................... 103
iv Contents
Lesson 3 106
Derivation in Lexical Morphology ............................................................................. 106
Introduction ...................................................................................................... 106
Lesson 4 110
Insights from Lexical Morphology ............................................................................ 110
Stratum Ordering Reflecting morpheme Sequencing ................................................. 110
Introduction ...................................................................................................... 110
Unit summary............................................................................................................ 114
Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 117
English Morphology
About this MODULE

English Morphology has been produced by Universidade
Pedagógica, Department of Language Sciences – English Course.
All Modules produced in this university are structured in the same
way, as outlined below.
How this Module is structured

The course overview
The course overview gives you a general introduction to the course.
Information contained in the course overview will help you
determine:
 If the course is suitable for you.
 What you will already need to know.
 What you can expect from the course.
 How much time you will need to invest to complete the course.
The overview also provides guidance on:
 Study skills.
 Where to get help.
 Course assignments and assessments.
 Activity icons.
 Units.
We strongly recommend that you read the overview carefully before

starting your study.
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English Morphology Module
The course content

The course is broken down into units. Each unit comprises:
 An introduction to the unit content.
 Unit outcomes.
 New terminology.
 Core content of the unit with a variety of learning activities.
 A unit summary.
 Assignments and/or assessments, as applicable.
Resources
For those interested in learning more on this subject, we provide
you with a list of additional resources at the end of this Module;
these may be books or articles. However, this module has been
produced taking as the main resource the book Morphology, by
Francis Katamba (1993).
Your comments
After completing English Morphology we would appreciate it if
you would take a few moments to give us your feedback on any
aspect of this course. Your feedback might include comments on:
 Course content and structure.
 Course reading materials and resources.
 Course assignments.
 Course assessments.
 Course duration.
 Course support (assigned tutors, technical help, etc.)
Your constructive feedback will help us to improve and enhance

this course.
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English Morphology
Course overview
Welcome to English Morphology!

―In many languages, what appear to be single forms actually turn
out to contain a large number of ‗word-like‘ elements. For
example, in Swahili (spoken throughout East Africa), the form
‗nitakupenda‘ coveys what, in English would have to be
represented as something like I will love you. Now, is the Swahili
form a single word? If it is a ‗word,‘ then it seems to consist of a
number of elements which, in English, turn up as separate ‗words‘.
A very rough correspondence can be presented in the following
way:
ni -ta -ku -penda
‗I will you love‘
It seems as if this Swahili ‗word‘ is rather different from what we

think of as an English ‗word‘. Yet, there clearly is some similarity
between the languages, in that similar elements of the whole
message can be found in both. Perhaps a better way of looking at
linguistic forms in different languages would be to use this notion
of ‗elements‘ in the message, rather than to depend on identifying
‗words‘.
Can you explain the paragraph above?
The paragraph above tells us that Swahili is different from English

in that: in English language we would identify different elements in
a word like teachers; it means that the word teachers can be
divided up into three different elements (teach – er – s), being
teach the verb which turns into a noun after receiving the noun-
forming element –er (teacher) and finally the noun teacher changes
its number after receiving the element which marks plurality –s. In
3
Swahili, the word can also be divided up into different elements but
the difference is that the word itself represents a sentence in other
languages, especially English language. For example, our
aforementioned Swahili word ‘nitakupenda’, can be divided up
into ni – ta – ku – penda, but the four elements represent a single
word in English language.
Now look at how the elements split and what they represent in each
language.
Teachers teach – er –s
Verb noun-forming element which
element marks plurality
Nitakupenda ni –ta – ku - penda
‘I’ will you love
(translated into English)
From the examples above, we can see that the different elements
found in Swahili word represent words that form a sentence in
English whereas the different elements from the English word
represent grammatical aspects.
Therefore, we can say that the type of exercise we have just

performed is an example of investigating forms in language,
generally known as Morphology. This term, which literally means
‗the study of forms‘, was originally used in biology, but, since the
middle of the nineteenth century, has also been used to describe
that type of investigation which analyzes all those basic ‗elements‘
which are used in a language (Yule, 1996:74 – 75)‖.
You may have, most likely, enrolled for this course because you
are already, in some way, involved in teaching English language,
and probably, you want to know more and improve your
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English Morphology
performance in teaching English as a foreign language – if that is

the case, we hope that this module will help you develop the
professionalism that your work requires you to have.
English Morphology—is this

course for you?
Morphology is a comprehensive course module which introduces
morphological theory and analysis to in service and distance
education English course students at the UP. It is designed to take
absolute beginners to a point where they can approach the current
literature in the subject.
However, your knowledge of English Phonetics and Phonology is

required for this course.
Course outcomes
Upon completion of English Morphology you will be able to:
 Distinguish word from lexeme.

 Differentiate roots, bases and stems
Outcomes  Identify and characterize morphemes, morphs and allomorphs

 Describe and distinguish word formation processes
 Identify and describe languages according to their morphological
typology.
 Differentiate grammatical from lexical and phonological
conditioning.
 Characterize an affix according to its lexical strata.
 Use morphology knowledge for the teaching of vocabulary.
5
Timeframe
This course will take an equivalent time of an academic semester.
Its five units will be divided into two parts ranging from unit 1 up
to ‗stem extenders‘ of unit 3 (part 1, tutorial no.1) and from unit 3
How long? ‗derivational and inflectional morphology‘ to unit 5 (part 2, tutorial
2).
We recommend 20 hours of formal study and 130 of self-study.
Study skills
As an adult learner your approach to learning will be different to
that from your school days: you will choose what you want to
study, you will have professional and/or personal motivation for
doing so and you will most likely be fitting your study activities
around other professional or domestic responsibilities.
Essentially you will be taking control of your learning

environment. As a consequence, you will need to consider
performance issues related to time management, goal setting, stress
management, etc. Perhaps you will also need to reacquaint yourself
in areas such as essay planning, coping with exams and using the
web as a learning resource.
Your most significant considerations will be time and space i.e. the
time you dedicate to your learning and the environment in which
you engage in that learning.
We recommend that you take time now—before starting your self-

study—to familiarize yourself with these issues. There are a
number of excellent resources on the web. A few suggested links
are:
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English Morphology
 http://www.how-to-study.com/
The ―How to study‖ web site is dedicated to study skills

resources. You will find links to study preparation (a list of nine
essentials for a good study place), taking notes, strategies for
reading text books, using reference sources, test anxiety.
 http://www.ucc.vt.edu/stdysk/stdyhlp.html
This is the web site of the Virginia Tech, Division of Student

Affairs. You will find links to time scheduling (including a
―where does time go?‖ link), a study skill checklist, basic
concentration techniques, control of the study environment, note
taking, how to read essays for analysis, memory skills
(―remembering‖).
 http://www.howtostudy.org/resources.php
Another ―How to study‖ web site with useful links to time

management, efficient reading, questioning/listening/observing
skills, getting the most out of doing (―hands-on‖ learning),
memory building, tips for staying motivated, developing a
learning plan.
The above links are our suggestions to start you on your way. At
the time of writing these web links were active. If you want to look
for more go to www.google.com and type ―self-study basics‖,
―self-study tips‖, ―self-study skills‖ or similar.
Need help?
If you need help, talk to your local tutor who will help you solve or
address the problem to the course designer or other language
Help
7
awareness lecturers.
The course instructor‘s name will be available during face to face

tutorials.
In each centre there will be a local tutor who will be available for
any kind of academic support.
For library study, trainees can use the resource centre which is also
available in each centre. In case there is no a resource centre, the
trainee can use the language centre located at UP headquarters.
Assignments
There will be an assignment about the ‗Emergency of Morphology‘
in the beginning of the course; the assignment is to be handed in by
the end of semester to the local tutors.
Assignments
Assessments
There will be a total of two (2) written tests, one after each tutorial.
Each assessment will take 90 minutes and will at least take two
Assessments weeks for the lecturer to mark.
Each lesson contains exercises for student‘s self assessment. We

recommend that the learner responds to the questions / activity
without immediately resorting to the answer key.
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English Morphology
Getting around this module
Margin icons
While working through this module, you will notice the frequent
use of margin icons. These icons serve to ―signpost‖ a particular
piece of text, a new task or change in activity; they have been
included to help you to find your way around this module.
A complete icon set is shown below. We suggest that you

familiarize yourself with the icons and their meaning before
starting your study.
Activity Assessment Assignment Case study
Discussion Group activity Help Note it!
Outcomes Reading Reflection Study skills
Summary Terminology Time Tip
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English Morphology
Unit 1
Introduction to Morphology
Introduction
For Richards et al (1992:237) ―morphology is the study of
morphemes and their different forms (allomorphs), and the way
they combine in word formation. For example, the English word
unfriendly is formed from friend, the adjective-forming suffix –ly
and the negative prefix un-.
In this unit, you will, apart from discussing the concept of

morphology, learn about the object of study of morphology, the
place of morphology in the scope of linguistics (refer to General
Linguistics module) and its importance for language teaching /
learning.
Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:
 Identify the object of study and the place of morphology in the

scope of linguistics.
 Explain the importance of morphology to the language teacher.
Outcomes
Lexicon: The Greek word for dictionary.

Scope: Boundary, limit.
Terminology
There are two lessons in this unit.
11
Lesson 1
What is Morphology
Object of study
By the end of this lesson you are expected to:

 Devise the word into its different elements;
 Give meaning to those elements.
Outcomes
You have 60 minutes to study this lesson.
How long?
Introduction
We are all speakers of one or more languages. What about you?
How many languages do you speak?
When you speak a language you know a large number of words of

that language. The words you know or recognise when you hear
them are part of your linguistic knowledge.
We can compare this linguistic knowledge with what Noam

Chomsky called ‗linguistic competence‘, the speaker‘s knowledge
of a language.
That‘s why, (Fromkin and Rodman, 1993: 35) said that, ―every
speaker of every language knows thousands, even tens of thousands
of words. The words we know are part of our linguistic knowledge,
a component of our mental grammars‖.
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English Morphology
Let‘s start this lesson with a question- What do you know when you
know a word? Think about this question bearing in mind the
language(s) that you know/speak. Write down your answer.
Meaning is the important part of a word!

What did you think?
Keep on studying and concentrate on the next paragraph for the
Tip
answer.
If you said ―When I know a word I know the meaning‖ as the tip
suggests; Congratulations!
What else is important when you know a word?
Think of another part of a word which is also important so that you can
say ‗I know this word‘.
According to Fromkin and Rodman (1993: 35) ―when you know

a word you know its pronunciation and its meaning. If you hear
Note it! someone uttering the sounds represented by the string of letters
morpheme and don‘t know what it means ―smallest unit of
linguistic meaning,‖ you don‘t know that word. Once you learn
that this particular sound sequence has such a meaning, if you
store that knowledge in your mental lexicon (the Greek word for
dictionary), you now know the word morpheme‖. So, when you
know a word you know how to pronounce it (the sounds
represented by such word) and its meaning.
Did you say any of this from the note it? Good! Now let‘s pose a
question for reflection:
From the introduction of the unit to the introduction of this

lesson you have had some clues that can lead you to the concept
Reflection of Morphology – how would you define Morphology? Have
13
some 5 minutes reflecting on the question and then write your

own definition.
Your reflection should bear in mind the fact that Morphology is the
study of…
Here are some definitions of morphology:
According to Fromkin and Rodman (1993:35) Morphology is the

study of the words of language;
The study of morphemes and the way they relate to each other
(Yule, 1996:75).
Morphology is the study of word structure (Katamba, 1993: 19).
Object of study
Fromkin and Rodman‘s definitions of morphology say that,
morphology ‗is the study of the words of a language‘; Yule says
Reflection that Morphology is ‗the study of morphemes and the way they
relate to each other‘.
Taking into account these two definitions of Morphology, what

do you think is the object of study of Morphology?
Did you think about word or words? Yes?! No?! Ok, if you thought
that the object is ‗word‘ because it is the investigation which
analyzes all basic elements of words (morphemes) which are used
in a language, that‘s right and congratulations! In other words we
can say that Morphology uses words as its raw material.
This is the end of this lesson. How did you find the lesson? Your
opinion is important for us so that we can improve this edition next
time.
Consolidation: What did you learn in this lesson?
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English Morphology
You learned: the concept and the object of study of morphology.
Morphology is ―the study of words of a language (Fromkin and

Rodman, 1993:35)‖ and the object of study is word(s) which are
Summary used as raw material of morphology. Remember that we can
either focus on the word or morpheme because when we talk
about word- structure, our main focus are the morphemes rather
than the word, and when we talk about lexical morphology, our
focus is the word, rather than the morpheme.
Do the activity below to check if you have understood the lesson.
Which elements are there in the word ‗unfriendly‘? Carry out a

morphological analysis.
Activity
Key to the activity
The word unfriendly is formed from friend, the adjective-forming

suffix –ly and the negative prefix un-. So, friend, -ly and un- are all
elements (morphemes that will be introduced in unit 3).
15
Lesson 2
The place of morphology in the
scope of linguistics;
Importance to language teachers;
Introduction
The scope of linguistics comprises a large number of related areas
of linguistics, from phonetics (the study of sounds of a language) to
other areas such as artificial languages, sociology, etc. The
important part of this lesson is to identify where morphology is
located in the scope of linguistics, and at what extent this
course/module is important for language teachers.
By the end of the lesson you are expected to:

 Identify the place of Morphology in the scope of
Linguistics;
 Explain the importance of morphology to language
Outcomes
teachers.
 You have 60 minutes to study this lesson.
Time
1. The place of morphology in the scope of linguistics

Morphology is a branch of linguistics; where is it located in the
vast scope of linguistics?
Let‘s make this easier for you.
Draw a circle and write phonetics in it. You must have seen from
General Linguistics that we study a language from its sound system
to its pronunciation, up to its words and word-formation processes;
so, we have three circles now displayed one inside another. Keep
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English Morphology
on drawing the circles until you complete the scope (the related
areas of linguistics).
To help you do this, open unit 1, lesson 3, page 24 of General

Linguistics module, where you will find the scope of Linguistics
Help by Atchison (1992:7).
Atchison (ibid) shows that, we start studying language from

phonetics to phonology (as we have already said), from
Reflection phonology to syntax, from syntax to semantics, from semantics
to pragmatics, etc. Have you found Morphology? What is its
place in the scope provided by Atchison? Think about these
questions carefully.
After your reflection, identify the place of Morphology in the scope

of linguistics.
We study language from Phonetics to Phonology, from

Phonology to Morphology; that is, from the study of human
Note it! speech sounds (Phonetics) to sound patterning (Phonology), from

sound patterning to the study of word-structure and word-
formation processes (Morphology), from Morphology to
sentence structure or arrangement of words to form sentences
(Syntax), from Syntax to the study of meaning (Semantics), etc.
Atchison‘s scope of Linguistics does not show the place of

Morphology, it should be in the third place, just after Phonology,
but it is not there because Morphology was not an independent area
or field of study as it is regarded today.
From your reflection and note it! above, we hope that, now, you
can identify the place of Morphology in the scope of Linguistics.
17
If you cannot do it, you may have noticed that Morphology is just
after Phonology in the scope of Linguistics, because it is the study
of words, after studying human speech sounds and sound
patterning. If you look at the scope of Linguistics, you will notice it
clearly.
2. Importance to the language teacher

Imagine yourself as an English teacher (take some time
thinking).
Now think about the advantages of having studied Morphology
during your training process (think and draw a table to show the
advantages and disadvantages).
If we want to analyze the meaning of the word unhappy, we

must, first of all, know the meaning of happy, which is glad,
Reading pleased or contented; then we analyze un-, which is a negative
prefix, meaning ‗not‘. Therefore, we come to the conclusion that
unhappy means not glad, not pleased or contented. This analysis
is only possible if we have the knowledge of Morphology. A
teacher without this knowledge will hardly carry out such
analysis and help his/her students in his/her teaching process.
Found this tip useful? Ok, try some other aspects that can help an
English teacher in the classroom, when using the knowledge of
Morphology.
Write down all the advantages you have discussed and show your
local tutor or lecturer for feedback.
This is the end of our lesson. If you have faced problems during
your study, contact your local tutor and refer to the problem(s).
Remember that your mates can also help you. Before you resort to
the tutor‘s help, ask your mates to see if they can help.
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English Morphology
Consolidation: What did you learn here?
You learned that Morphology is just after phonology in the scope

of Linguistics, and it is important for language teachers because,
Summary those who possess the knowledge of Morphology are more likely
to help their students to learn the language, by carrying out
comprehensive analysis.
In order to check understanding, the activity below has been

prepared for you. Do not resort to the answer key before you do it
yourself.
1. Why is Morphology just after phonology in the scope of

linguistics?
Activity 2. Pay attention to what a child said: ‗My mothers are not at
home‘.
a) Underline the mistake in the utterance.
b) What knowledge do you need to identify the mistake?
Key to the activity
1. Because it is the study of words. When studying a language, we

start from studying its sounds, and then we study the words which
are used to form sentences.
2. a) ‗My mothers are not at home‘.
b) Morphology because the mistake is in the word ‗mothers‘; in

English language, the word is wrong due to the plural suffix –s;
removing –s the word is correct ‗mother‘, not ‗mothers‘ as in the
utterance.
19
Unit summary
In this unit you learned the concept of Morphology and its object of
study which is a word or words. You also learned that Morphology
Summary is just after Phonology in the scope of Linguistics, as well as the
importance of this course to the language teachers – the teachers
can help their students learn, using the knowledge they have of
Morphology, in carrying out a logical and comprehensive analysis
of the phenomenon arising in the classroom.
Assignment
Write a 200 –word assignment about ―The emergency of
Morphology‖. This topic will show you why Morphology is an
independent subject from Phonetics and Phonology and why there
Assignment was a need of splitting it up. You can read Katamba (1993) or the
more updated edition. The assignment is to be handed in by the end
of the second face to face tutorial.
Assessment
There is no assessment for this unit. Students must concentrate on
the assignment.
Assessment
Bibliography:
1. FROMKIN, Victoria and RODMAN, Robert. An Introduction to
Language, 5th Ed. Sydney: Harcourt. Australia PTY, 1996
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English Morphology
2. KATAMBA, Francis. Morphology, NY, Palgrave, 1993
3. YULE, George. The Study of Language, 2nd Ed., Cambridge:

CUP, 1996
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English Morphology
Unit 2
Introduction to word-structure
Introduction
―The assumption that languages contain words is taken for granted
by most people. Even illiterate speakers know that there are words
in their language (Katamba, 1993:17)‖.
However, it is not always easy to agree on what units are to be
treated as words, especially in English. For instance, is alright
considered one unit or two as in all right? A discussion may arise
around this as to whether alright be the correct way of writing all
right. But, by and large, people can easily recognise a word of their
language when they see or hear one. And normally their
judgements as to what is or is not a word do coincide.
Furthermore, to say that languages contain words is simple. But
words reveal that they are not so easy to describe because what we
mean by words is not always clear as Katamba (ibid) says.
That‘s why this unit will begin with the concept of word, and
within it, the study of ‗lexeme‘; then will analyze ‗word-form; ‗the
grammatical word‘; ‗Morphemes‘; ‗analysing words‘; ‗morphemes,
morphs and allomorphs‘; ‗grammatical conditioning, lexical
conditioning and suppletion‘ and ‗the nature of morphemes‘.
 Distinguish between lexemes, word-forms and grammatical

words.
 Analyze words into morphemes.
Outcomes  Establish the relationship between morphological and
phonological representation of morphemes and morphs.
Lexeme: The abstract vocabulary item.

Vocabulary word: Lexeme (Word that can be found in dictionary).
Syntactic /word Different forms of a lexeme.
Terminology forms:
Morphosyntactic: This has partly syntactic, partly morphologic
properties.
There are 6 lessons in this unit.
23
Lesson 1
What is a word?
Introduction
As we have just said before, Morphology uses words as its raw
material. A sugar factory, for example, uses sugar cane as its raw
material to produce sugar. Morphology, here, would be the sugar
factory and words would be the sugar cane. Now, in order to
produce sugar, the sugar cane undergoes different processes and
mechanisms in the factory. Likewise, difficulties in classifying the
nature of the word are largely due to the fact the term ‗word‘ is
used in a variety of senses which usually are not clearly
distinguished. There is also a process through which words
undergo in order to be distinguished as such.

 Define word;
 Distinguish a lexeme from word-forms.
Outcomes
Time
Now let us start our lesson with the following reflection question:
What would you do if you were reading a novel and you found
the ‗word‘ pockled for the first time in this context?
Reflection
Anna went to the pub for a pint and then pockled off.
24
English Morphology
Think about what you normally do when you encounter a new

word for the first time either when you are reading or watching a
movie.
You would probably look up that unfamiliar word in a

dictionary.
Reflection
Now think about how you would look up that word in
dictionary? Would you look it up under pockled?
Take some time reading about this question.
Of course you would not look it up under pockled, but under

pockle. This is because you know that pockled is not going to be
Reading listed in the dictionary. You also know that the words pockling
and pockles will exist, though nobody has told you. Furthermore,
you know that pockling, and pockle, pockles and pockled are all
in a sense different manifestations of the ‗same‘ abstract
vocabulary item (Katamba, ibid).
In other words, the abstract vocabulary item is referred to as

lexeme. The forms pockling, pockle, pockles and pockled are
different realisations (or manifestations or representations) of the
lexeme POCKLE (lexeme will be written in capital letters). That is,
they are lexical items or syntactic words of the lexeme POCKLE.
According to Di Sciullo and Williams (1987), quoted by Katamba
(ibid), ―they all share a core meaning although they are spelled and
pronounced differently. Lexemes are the vocabulary items that are
listed in the dictionary‖.
Therefore, for most people ‘word’ is a single piece of meaning’.
Looking at that definition, we may conclude that in one sense it is

correct to say that ‗word‘ is a single piece of meaning. But, this
25
definition suffers when we analyse it in the scope of translation –

that is another sense which may lead us to ask what kind of ‗word‘
we refer to. That‘s because there is a lack of correspondence
between words from different languages. For instance, the words
cycle repair outfit correspond to one in German,
fahrradreparaturwerkzeuge. Or the six words he used to live in
Rome are translated by two in Latin, Romae habitat. Even in
English, a word such as walked includes at least two pieces of
meaning, ‘walk‘ and ‗past tense‘ (Poole, 1999).
Now, is it correct to say that ‗word‘ is a single piece of meaning?
Well, we should say yes with hesitation for the reasons presented
above.
Which definition would be satisfactory?
The best-known definition is proposed by the American linguist

Leonard Bloomfield who defines ‘word’ as a minimum free form,
that is, the smallest form that can occur by itself.
This definition is not satisfactory as well, because when we say a

minimum free form we mean that words occur themselves because
of the term ―free‖. However, we know that they do not occur
themselves in spoken speech. E.g. In questions ‗who did that?‘,
‗what‘s that?‘, often require more than one ‗word‘ – John did; a
book.
Can we, in the light of this analysis, say that ‗word‘ is a

minimum free form‘?
Reflection We would say yes with reservations. Why?

You may ask, which definition is likely to be satisfactory for the
concept of ‗word‘? Have you asked that question? Have you
come to any conclusion?
26
English Morphology
This problem can be solved only when we decide what kind of

‗word‘ we are talking about.
Note it!
As we said before, it is important to distinguish between lexical

items and syntactic words or word-forms.
For example, if by ‗word‘ we mean lexical item, then the sound

sequence /flaɪ/ ‗fly‘ represents two words, since most dictionaries
have separate entries for fly (noun) and fly (verb): that is,
fly (noun): an insect with two wings; fly (verb): to move through
the air in a controlled manner.
This is perhaps the most basic and most abstract use of the word
‗word‘. However, both of these lexical items have various
syntactic forms or word-forms associated with them. E.g. the
insect could occur as fly (singular) or flies (plural), and the verb
could occur as fly, flying, flies, flew, flown. Or, fly (N) is a lexical
item and its syntactic words or word-forms (its different
manifestations) are fly and flies; fly (V), lexical item with fly,
flying, flies, flew, flown as its syntactic words or word-forms.
On the other hand, ‗Word‘, according to Katamba (1993:18), is not

only the abstract vocabulary item with a common core of meaning,
the lexeme. Rather, the term ‗word‘ refers to a particular physical
realisation of that lexeme in speech or writing, i.e. a particular
word-form.
Thus, we can refer to see, sees, seeing, saw and seen as five
different words. In this sense, three different occurrences of any
one of these word-forms would count as three words. We can also
say that the word-form see has three letters and the word-form
seeing has six. If we continued counting the number of words in a
27
passage, we would perfectly count see, sees, seeing, saw and seen
as five different word-forms belonging to the same lexeme.
This is the end of this lesson.
What did you learn in this lesson?
You learned that all languages contain words and that the term
‗word‘ can be used in a variety of senses; therefore, it is
Summary important to decide what kind of ‗word‘ we are talking about if
we want to define it. That is, there is a lexical item, which can
have different entries such as noun or verb, etc, and in turn each
entry can have different syntactic forms or word-forms called
manifestations or realisations of the same lexeme (vocabulary
word).
Did you find the lesson interesting or difficult? Give your

opinion concerning this lesson so that we can improve it next
time we have opportunity to revise it.
Read the activity below this is going to help you check

understanding. It is recommended that you do the exercise without
resorting to the answer key before you try it yourself.
Which words, below, belong to the same lexeme?

see catches taller boy catching sees
sleeps woman catch saw tallest sleeping
Activity
boys sleep seen tall jumped caught
Seeing jump women slept jumps jumping
Answer key
If you said that:
28
English Morphology
The physical word-forms are realisations of the lexeme
See, sees, seeing, saw, seen SEE
Sleeps, sleeping, slept SLEEP
Catch, catches, catching, caught CATCH
And
The physical word-forms are realisations of the lexeme
Jump, jumps, jumped, jumping JUMP
Tall, taller, tallest TALL
Boy, boys BOY
Woman, women WOMAN

(taken from Katamba, 1993:18)
29
Lesson 2
The grammatical word
Introduction
In the previous lesson it was mentioned that the term ‗word‘ does
not only refer to the abstract vocabulary item with a common core
of meaning, the lexeme. Rather, the term ‗word‘ refers to a
particular physical realisation of a lexeme in speech or writing, i.e.
a particular word-form.
In this lesson, we are going to look at the ‗word‘ as a representation

of a lexeme that is associated with certain morpho-syntactic
properties (i.e. partly morphological and partly syntactic
properties) such as noun, adjective, verb, tense, gender, number,
etc. The word used in this sense is called the grammatical word.
Pay attention to the exercise below which can help you understand
this concept – read it carefully.

 Distinguish morphological from syntactic properties of
words.
Outcomes
Time
The word cut can be regarded as representing two distinct

grammatical words.
Reflection Now show why cut should be regarded as representing two
distinct grammatical words in the following example, despite
having the same physical form:
30
English Morphology
(a) Usually I cut the bread on the table.

(b) Yesterday I cut the bread in the sink.
Think of what the verbal lexeme CUT can represent.
Tip
In your answer you should have said that ―the same word-form
cut, belonging to the verbal lexeme CUT, can represent two
Reading different grammatical words. In sentence (a), cut represents the

grammatical word cut [verb, present, non 3rd person], i.e. the present
tense, non 3rd person form of the verb CUT. But in (b) it
represents the grammatical word cut [verb, past], which realises the
past tense of CUT‖.
Apart from the two grammatical words realised by the word-form

cut which we have mentioned above, there is a third one which you
can observe in Jane has a cut on her finger. This grammatical word
is cut [noun, singular]. It belongs to a separate lexeme CUT, the noun.
Obviously, CUT, the noun, is related in meaning to CUT, the verb.
However, CUT, the noun, is a separate lexeme from CUT, the verb,
because it belongs to a different word-class (Katamba, 1993:19).
Summing up, a grammatical word is a representation of a lexeme

that is associated with certain morphological and syntactic
Summary properties. For example, sees is a realisation of the verbal lexeme
SEE [verb, present, third person], i.e. the present tense, third person
form of the verb SEE.
When you have finished studying the lesson, do the activity below
as it is designed for practice. Refer to the explanation above if you
31
find it difficult to do. Remember that you should always work

within the time limit allocated for each lesson.
Show why hit should be regarded as representing two distinct

grammatical words in the following:
(a) Usually I hit the jackpot.
Activity (b) Last summer I hit the jackpot.
Key to the activity.
You were expected to have said that:
The same word-form hit, belonging to the verbal lexeme HIT, can
represent two different grammatical words. In (a), hit represents the
grammatical word hit [verb, present, non 3rd person], the present tense, non
3rd person form of the verb HIT. In (b), it represents the
grammatical word hit [verb, past] , which realises the past tense of
HIT.
32
English Morphology
Lesson 3
Morphemes: the smallest units of
meaning
Introduction
In lesson 1, unit 1, it was said that Morphology is the study of word
structure (Katamba, 1993). One may ask if words do have structure
because normally speakers think of words as indivisible units of
meaning (that cannot be divided up into smaller elements). In this
lesson we are going to look at the reasons why speakers think of
words as being indivisible and support the fact that they have
structure.
 Identify morphemes in a single sound or group of sounds;

Outcomes  Write down the meaning of each morpheme in a word;
 Identify the syntactic category (noun, verb, adjective, etc)

of the form of a morpheme.
Time
Why speakers think of words as indivisible units of meaning?

Reflection
You may probably have said that ―this is due to the fact that many
words are morphologically simple. For example, eat, the, in, free,
33
do, mosquito, etc. these words cannot be segmented or divided up

into smaller units that are themselves meaningful because if, for
example, we divide up the word eat [i:t] into its smallest units, the
resulting units would be [i:] and [t] which would be impossible to
say what each of the sounds [i:] and [t] means by itself since
sounds in themselves do not have meaning. Furthermore, it is
impossible to say what the –quito part of mosquito or the –erce part
of fierce means‖ (Katamba, 1993:20). That‘s probably the reason
why speakers think of words as indivisible – why should one call
structure where there are no elements (units) to be analysed?
However, many English words are morphologically complex. It

means that they can be divided up into smaller units that are
themselves meaningful. This is true of words like desks (desk – s)
and boots (boot – s), for instance, where desk refers to one piece of
furniture and boot refers to one item of footwear, while in both
cases the –s serves the grammatical function of indicating plurality
(Katamba, 1993: 20).
With reference to what has been said above, write your definition
of morpheme?
Your definition should include this: “morpheme is the smallest,

indivisible unit of semantic content or grammatical function
which words are made up of (Katamba, ibid). By definition, a
morpheme cannot be decomposed (divided up) into smaller units
which are either meaningful by themselves or mark a grammatical
function like singular or plural number in the noun (Katamba, ibid).
As we said before, if we divided up the word eat [i:t] (which
contains just one morpheme) into [i:] and [t], it would be
impossible to say what each of the sounds [i:] and [t] means.
34
English Morphology
Now, how do we know when to recognise a single sound or

group of sounds as representing a morpheme?
Reflection
Find the answer in the paragraph below. Read it very carefully, use
your dictionary to help you understand some of the words you do
not know the meaning.
According to Katamba (1993: 20) ―whether a particular sound or

string of sounds is to be regarded as a manifestation of a
Reading morpheme depends on the word in which it appears. So, while
un- represents a negative morpheme and has a meaning that can
roughly be glossed as ‗not‘ in words such as unjust (un – just)
and untidy (un – tidy), it has no claim to morpheme status when
it occurs in uncle or in under, since in these latter words it does
not have any identifiable grammatical or semantic value, because
–cle and –der on their own do not mean anything‖.
In the other words, the negative morpheme un- occurs in an

identifiable large number of words, besides un-just and un-tidy. We
find it in unwell, unsafe, unclean, unhappy, unfit, uneven, etc.
However, un- in the word under and uncle is not a morpheme since
it does not indicate any grammatical or semantic function. For
example, if we divided up the word uncle into un – cle, it would be
impossible to say what –cle means. Remember that we have been
using the criteria of meaning to identify morphemes; if a sound or
group of sounds is meaningless, then it cannot be recognised as a
morpheme. To reinforce what has been said, pay attention to the
following example: we would say that the word unfriendly in the
sentence the contesters sent unfriendly messages to the jury
consists of three morphemes. One minimal unit of meaning is
friend, another minimal unit of meaning is un- (meaning ‗not‘), and
a minimal unit of grammatical function is –ly (an adjective forming
suffix).
35
This is the end of this lesson. What have you learned here?
List the lesson‘s content (s) you learned in a separate piece of

paper.
When you finish, read the summary below which may help you
focus on the main points.
You should have learned that English words are morphologically

simple or complex. The claim that words have structure, might
Summary come as a surprise because, normally, speakers think of words as
indivisible units of meaning (e.g. the word the cannot be divided
up into its smallest units) that are themselves meaningful. But
complex words like player can be divided up into play (a
minimal unit of meaning) and –er (another minimal unit of
meaning indicating the action the verb play involves). Each unit
of meaning is called morpheme (the smallest, indivisible units of
semantic content or grammatical function which words are made
up of).
For practice, read and do the exercises below. Do not resort to the
answer key before trying the activity yourself; if you go straight to
the key, that may not help you. It‘s important that you follow our
instructions.
36
English Morphology
1. List the morphemes of the italicised word in the

following sentence:
Activity ―The police reopened the investigation.‖
2. List one more word which contains each morpheme

represented below:
-ness as in kind – ness
-ette as in kitchen – ette
a) Write down the meaning of each morpheme you identify.
b) What is the syntactic category (noun, adjective, verb, etc.)

of the form which this morpheme attaches to and what is
the category of the resulting word?
37
Feedback
1. The word reopened consists of three morphemes. One

minimal unit of meaning is open, another minimal unit of
meaning is re- (meaning ‗again‘), and a minimal unit of
grammatical function is –ed (realising or indicating past
tense).
2. First of all you should know that the elements recognised as

belonging to a given morpheme (like –ness and –ette)
contribute an identifiable meaning to the word of which
they are a part. Thus, sadness and cigarette are the resulting
words from attaching the morpheme –ness to the adjective
sad and –ette to the noun cigarette respectively.
a) When the form –ness is attached to an adjective such as

kind, it produces a noun meaning ‗having the state or
condition (e.g., of being kind)‘;
The addition of the diminutive morpheme –ette to a

noun derives a new noun which means ‗smaller in size‘
(e.g., a cigarette is a small cigar or a cigarette is smaller
than a cigar).
b) As you have already noted in a), the syntactic category

of the form which the morpheme –ness attaches is an
adjective (kind) and the category of the resulting word is
a noun (kindness);
The syntactic category of the word Kitchen to which the

morpheme –ette is attached to is a noun, and the
category of the resulting word is also a noun
(kitchenette).
38
English Morphology
Lesson 4
Morphemes, morphs and
allomorphs

 Identify morphs and allomorphs in a given word.
Outcomes
Time
Introduction
The principle of phonological contrast is the main used in the
analysis of words. In this contrast, we distinguish forms that differ
in phonological shape due to the sounds used and the meaning,
broadly defined to cover both lexical meaning and grammatical
function. Thus, the phonological difference between /bɔɪ/ and /ɡɜ:l/
correlates with a semantic difference.
This lesson will discuss such phonological and grammatical

differences with examples that will illustrate the concepts tied up to
each.
Let us start by clarifying what has been said in the introduction of

the lesson. It was said that the phonological difference between
/bɔɪ/ and /ɡɜ:l/ correlates with a semantic difference. Here you may
ask how these two words (boy and girl) correlate with a semantic
difference.
39
Pay attention to the following explanation by Katamba

(1993:24):
Reading ―The difference in meaning between the two sentences The girl
plays and The boy plays is attributable to the difference in lexical
meaning between /bɔɪ/ and /ɡɜ:l/. Likewise, the difference in
grammatical function between play-s (present tense) and play-ed
(past tense) is responsible for the difference in meaning between
The girl plays and The girl played”.
Bearing in mind the explanation above, we can say that: The

morpheme is the smallest difference in the shape of a word that
correlates with the smallest difference in word or sentence meaning
or grammatical structure.
It is worth noting that the analysis of words into morphemes begins

with the isolation of morphs.
What is a morph, then?
According to Katamba (ibid), a morph is a physical form

representing some morpheme in a language. It is a recurrent
distinctive sound (phoneme) or sequence of sounds (phonemes).
Look at the data below and the explanation on the note it!
Distinguish morphs from morphemes. In each of the case, you will
notice that morphs are used to represent morphemes. For example,
the regular past tense morpheme in English – ed can phonologically
be represented by /-s/, /-z/ or /-ɪz/ (see note it! below). Each one of
the variation in pronunciation is a morph being used to represent
the pronunciation of –ed in English.
40
English Morphology
Study the data below and identify the morphs:

a. I parked the car. e. She parked the car.
Reflection b. We parked the car. f. She parks the car.
c. I park the car. g. We park the car.
d. He parks the car. h. He parked the car.
We expected you to have said this:
The morphs are:
Morph Recurs in
/aɪ/ ‗I‘ sentences (a) and (c)
/ʃi:/ ‗she‘ sentences (e) and (f)
/hi:/ ‗he‘ sentences (d) and (h)
/ðǝ/ ‗the‘ in all the sentences
/pɑ:k/ ‗park‘ in all the sentences, sometimes with an
-ed suffix, sometimes with an –s suffix
and sometimes on its own
/t/ ‗-ed‘ suffixed to park in (b), (e), (h)
/s/ ‗-s‘ suffixed to park in (d), (f)
Sometimes different morphs may represent the same morpheme.

For instance, the past tense of regular verbs in English which is
Note it! spelled –ed is realised in speech by /ɪd/, /d/ or /t/. The
phonological properties of the last segment of the verb to which
it is attached determine the choice:
41
It is realised as:
a. /ɪd/ if the verb ends in /d/ or /t/
e.g. ‗mend‘ /mend/ ‗mended‘ /mendɪd/
‗paint‘ /peɪnt/ ‗painted‘ /peɪntɪd/
b. /d/ after a verb ending in any voiced sound except /d/
e.g. ‗clean‘ /kli:n/ ‗cleaned‘ /kli:nd/
‗weigh‘ /weɪ/ ‗weighed‘ /weɪd/
c. /t/ after a verb ending in any voiceless consonant other than

/t/
e.g. ‗park‘ /pɑ:k/ ‗parked‘ /pɑ:kt/
‗miss‘ /mɪs/ ‗missed‘ /mɪst/
―The central technique used in the identification of morphemes is

based on the notion of distribution. i.e. the total set of contexts
Reading in which a particular linguistic form occurs. We classify a set of
morphs as allomorphs of the same morpheme if they are in
complementary distribution. Morphs are said to be in
complementary distribution if (i) they represent the same
meaning or serve the same grammatical function and (ii) they are
never found in identical contexts. So, the three morphs /-ɪd/, /-d/
and /-t/ which represent the English regular past tense morpheme
are in complementary distribution. Each morph is restricted to
occurring in the contexts specified in (a), (b) and (c) above.
Hence, they are allomorphs of the same morpheme (Katamba,
1993: 27)‖.
42
English Morphology
Let us now examine some English words, focussing on the

pronunciation of the underlined part of each word, which
Reflection represents the negative morpheme in-. The morpheme can
roughly be glossed as ‗not‘:
a. impossible [ɪmpᴅsɪbǃ]
impatient [ɪmpeɪʃnt]
immovable [ɪmʊvǝbǃ]
b. intolerable [ɪntᴅlǝrǝbǃ]
indecent [ɪndi:sǝnt]
intangible [ɪntænʤɪbǃ]
inactive [ɪnæktɪv]
inelegance [ɪnelɪɡǝns]
c. incomplete [ɪηkǝmpli:t]
incompatible [ɪnkǝmpætɪbǃ]
ingratitude [ɪnɡrætɪtjʊd]
a. Identify the allomorphs of this negative morpheme.
b. Write a statement accounting for the distribution of each
allomorph.
First of all isolate the allomorphs of the negative morpheme.
We expected you to have isolated the following allomorphs of

Tip the morpheme in-: im- [ɪm-], in- [ɪn-] and in- [ɪɳ-].
And you should have said that the selection of the allomorph that is
used in a particular context is not random. In the data above, the
nasal consonant in the various allomorphs of the morpheme in- is
pronounced in a variety of ways, depending on the nature of the
sound that immediately follows. To predict the allomorph that is
selected in each case, the following rule is required:
43
a. [ɪm-] will be selected before a labial consonant (e.g. p, b,

m, and f) as in [ɪm]possible, [ɪm]patient, [ɪm]movable.
b. [ɪɳ-] will be selected before the velar consonants [k] and [ɡ]
as in [ɪɳ]complete, [ɪɳ]gratitude.
c. [ɪn-] will be selected before an alveolar consonant like [t, d,

s, z, n], as in [ɪn] tolerable, [ɪn]tangible, [ɪn]decent or before
a vowel as in [ɪn]active, [ɪn]elegance.
(Taken from Katamba,1993:28)
The three allomorphs [ɪm-], [ɪn-] and [ɪɳ-] of the morpheme in- are
in complementary distribution. This means that selecting one
precludes selecting the others. No two of them can occur in
identical environments. This example illustrates this:
―If a morpheme has several allomorphs, the choice of allomorph

used in a given context is normally phonologically conditioned.
This means that the allomorph selected to represent the morpheme
in a particular context is one whose phonological properties are
similar to those of sounds found in a neighbouring allomorph of
some other morpheme (Katamba, 1993)‖.
Let us return to the earlier example of the allomorphs of the

English regular past tense, spelled –ed and realised in speech by
/ɪd/, /d/ or /t/. Clearly, the distribution of allomorphs is
phonologically conditioned for /-ɪd/ is chosen after the alveolar
stops or plosives /t/, /d/; voiced /-d/ is chosen after voiced
segments other than /d/ and voiceless /t/ is chosen after voiceless
consonants other than /t/ (Katamba, 1993, ibid).
In this lesson you were supposed to:
 Identify morph, which is a physical form representing

Summary
some morpheme in a language (spoken or written form);
44
English Morphology
 Learn that the central technique used in the identification of

morphemes is based in the notion of distribution, and, we
classify a set of morphs as allomorphs of the same
morpheme if they are in complementary distribution;
 Learn that Morphs are said to be in complementary

distribution if-
a) they represent the same meaning or serve the same

grammatical function;
b) they are never found in identical contexts;
 Learn that, if a morpheme has several allomorphs, the

choice of allomorph used in a given context is normally
phonologically conditioned. That is, the allomorph selected
to represent the morpheme in a particular context is one
whose phonological properties are similar to those of
sounds found in a neighbouring allomorph of some other
morpheme (Katamba, 1993).
This is the end of this lesson, study it within the time frame
allocated. If you find it difficult to understand, please, contact
your local tutor who will somehow help you. However, it is
always good to share your difficulties with a partner doing the
same course. If you want to find out whether you have
understood the lesson or not, do the exercise below.
Why the choice of allomorph is phonologically conditioned in

the words below?
Activity Cups houses rooms
45
Feedback
That‘s because we select the allomorph –s in /kæps/ if a

noun ends in non-strident voiceless consonant /p/, /t/, /k/,
/f/, /θ/;
The allomorph /-ɪz/ in /haʊzɪz/ is selected if a noun ends in

an alveolar or alveo-palatal sibilant such as /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/,
/ʤ/.
The allomorph /-z/ in /ru:mz/ is selected if the noun ends in

a voiced non-strident segment. This includes all vowels and
the consonants /b/, /d/, /ɡ/, /m/, /n/, /ɳ/, /l/, /r/, /w/, /j/.
So each one of the plural morphemes –s realised by /-s/, /ɪz/

and /z/ are different morphs; as they are used to realise the
plural morpheme –s they are called allomorphs of the plural
morpheme –s. They are, in form, compared to phones and
allophones, in Phonology.
46
English Morphology
Lesson 5
Grammatical conditioning, Lexical
conditioning and Suppletion
 Identify the factors which influence the selection of

Outcomes allomorphs in a morpheme.
Time
Introduction
In the previous lesson we saw that the distribution of allomorphs is
usually subject to phonological conditioning. However, sometimes
phonological factors play no role in the selection of allomorphs. In
this lesson, you are going to study other factors which can play a
role in the selection of allomorphs.
Let‘s start the lesson with the following data:
Present tense Past tense

a. walk /wɔ:k/ walk-ed /wɔ:kt/
kiss /kɪs/ kiss-ed /kɪst/
grasp /ɡrɑ:sp/ grasp-ed /ɡrɑ:spt/
b. weep /wi:p/ wep-t /wept/

sweep /swi:p/ swep-t /swept/
c. shake /ʃeɪk/ shook /ʃʊk/
47
take /teɪk/ took /tʊk/
On what factors will the choice of allomorphs in a), b) and c)

depend?
Reflection
In a) the choice of allomorph is phonologically conditioned; i.e.

the past tense morpheme –ed is realised by a phonologically
Reading conditioned allomorph /t/ because the final sound of the verbs
walk, kiss and grasp is voiceless.
In b), the choice of allomorph is grammatically conditioned.

This means, it is dependent on the presence of a particular
grammatical element -it is the presence of the past tense
morpheme which determines the choice of the /wep/ and /swep/
allomorphs in verbs that belong to this group .
For the verbs in c), the past tense dictates the choice of the
allomorphs took and shook of the verbs take and shake,
respectively.
In other cases, the choice of the allomorph may be lexically

conditioned for the use of a particular allomorph being obligatory
if a certain word is present. A good example of this is the
realisation of plural in English. Normally the plural morpheme is
realised by a phonologically conditioned allomorph whose
distribution is shown below:
a. the allomorph /-ɪz/ is selected if a noun ends in an alveolar

or alveo-palatal sibilant (/s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /ʤ/).
Examples: asses /æsɪz/; mazes /meɪzɪz/ fishes /fɪʃɪz/
48
English Morphology
b. the allomorph /-s/ is selected if a noun ends in a non-

strident voiceless consonant (/p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /θ/).
Examples: cups /kʌps/; leeks /li:ks/; pets /pets/
c. the allomorph /-z/ is selected if the noun ends in a voiced

non-strident segment; this includes all vowels and the
consonants /b/, /d/, /ɡ/, /b/, /m/, /n/, /ɳ/, /l/, /r/, /w/, /j/.
Example: bags /bæɡz/; rooms /ru:mz/; shoes /ʃu:z/
Find other words from which the plural morpheme –s can

be represented by the allomorphs /-ɪz/, /z/ and /-s/. write
them down and show why they allomorphs of –s.
In the reading section above you learned that the plural

morpheme –s can be represented by three different morphs /-ɪz/,
Reflection /-s/ and /-z/. However, the plural of the word ox is not oxes, but
oxen.
Now we want you to explain why the rule used in a, b and c

above fails to account for the realisation of the plural morpheme
in the word oxen?
It is not easy to explain the reasons for the failure to account for the
realisation of the plural morpheme in the word oxen.
But we can say that the plural of ox is not *oxes but oxen, although
words that rhyme with ox take the expected /ɪz/ plural allomorph
(fᴅksɪz/ foxes and /bᴅksɪz/ boxes). So the choice of the allomorph –
en is lexically conditioned, because it is depended on the presence
of the specific noun ox.
Finally, there are morphemes whose allomorphs show no phonetic

similarity. For example, the forms good / better both represent the
lexeme GOOD despite the fact that they do not have even a single
49
sound in common. Where allomorphs of a morpheme are

phonologically unrelated it is said to be a case of Suppletion
(Katamba, 1993: 30).
In this lesson you were taught that:
 The distribution of allomorphs is not usually subject to

Summary
phonological conditioning because sometimes
phonological factors play no role in the selection of
allomorphs. Instead, the choice of allomorph may be
grammatically conditioned, i.e. it may be dependent on
the presence of a particular grammatical element. That is,
a special allomorph may be required in a given
grammatical context although there might not be any
good phonological reason for its selection.
 In other cases, the choice of the allomorph may be

lexically conditioned, that is, it is dependent on the
presence of the specific noun (for example ox ¬ oxen).
 There exist a few morphemes whose allomorphs show no

phonetic similarity. That‘s the case of bad ¬ worse where
the allomorph of the morpheme showing comparative
form is phonetically unrelated – in this case we speak of
Suppletion.
This is the end of the lesson. To help you understand it

we prepared the exercises below.
1. Which rules account for the realisation of the plural

morpheme in the following words?
Activity Beaches men
2. The pair good and better is not unique in English. Find
50
English Morphology
one other example of suppletion.
Answer key
1. Beaches /bi:tʃɪz/ the choice of the allomorph /-ɪz/ is
phonologically conditioned because the noun beach ends
in an alveo-palatal sibilant /tʃ/.
Men /men/ the choice of the allomorph /-e-/ is lexically
conditioned because it depends on the presence of the
specific noun man.
2. Another example can be go ~ went (not *goed)
51
Lesson 6
Homophones in English;
The portmanteau morph;
Zero allomorph and empty morph.

 Identify cases of homophones in English;
 Identify the portmanteau morph in a phrase or sentence ;
Outcomes
 Distinguish a zero allomorph from an empty morph.
Time
Introduction
Words can be divided up into segments of sounds and syllables.
However, it is important to avoid confusing morphemes with
syllables. Syllables are groupings of sounds for the purposes of
articulation, while morphemes are the smallest units of meaning or
grammatical function.
In this lesson, we are going to clarify why a single phonological

form may lead to a misunderstanding of one or other word
(homophone); we are also going to talk about morphs that can
represent, by themselves, a bundle of different grammatical
elements in a phrase, utterance or a sentence (portmanteau morph);
finally, we are going to talk about zero allomorphs and empty
morphs.
52
English Morphology
Homophones
You must have heard this word (homophones) from your
Portuguese classes in the secondary school, but what your teacher
might probably, have not explained, is the fact that the homophones
can lead to a misunderstanding when the context in which they are
used is not clear.
Consider the phonological form /saɪt/ which happens to have three

orthographic representations, each one of which representing a
Reflection different morpheme. Also think about the phonological form /raɪt/
which has four spellings which represent four separate morphemes:
a. Sight site cite
b. Right write wright rite
What can you see or infer from the sets of words in (a) and (b)?
If you said that what we see are homophones, i.e. forms which
sound the same (they have the same pronunciation) but differ in
their meaning or grammatical functions you were right and
congratulations for your thoughtful answer!
From the point of view of the spoken language, there are only two
morphs, namely the forms /saɪt/ and /raɪt/. The two morphs
Note it! represent three (in a) and four (in b) morphemes respectively, but
written English uses a different form to represent each morpheme in
each case.
The portmanteau morph

Do you remember when we said that a single morpheme may be
represented by a variety of phonological representations?
53
Help
Refer to lesson 4 of this unit.
That‘s it! We have already seen this in the case of plural morpheme
-s, which has the three allomorphs [s], [z] and [ɪz] (in lesson 4
above). The same applies to the negative prefix in- (which has the
allomorphs [ɪm], [ɪn] and [ɪη] (lesson 4).
Likewise, the same string of sounds may cumulatively represent

several morphemes. The –s ending in English verbs (e.g. walk-s)
signals three morphemes simultaneously, namely, third person,
present tense and singular number. If morphemes consisted of
morphs this would not be possible. A separate morph would be
needed to represent each morpheme. This shows just how abstract
morphemes are, as opposed to morphs. Morphemes themselves are
not composed of sounds but they are represented by morphs which
are made up of sounds.
The term portmanteau morph is used to refer to cases like the

above where a single morph simultaneously represents a bundle of
several different grammatical elements (Katamba:1993: 36).
Morphemes are to morphs what lexemes are to word-forms. That is,

morphemes and lexemes are the abstract entities found in the
Note it! lexicon while morphs and word-forms are the physical entities
found in speech or writing (Katamba, ibid).
In addition to different morphemes being represented by the same

morphs, we can also have a situation where different grammatical
words are represented by the same word-forms. This is, according
54
English Morphology
to Francis Katamba, called syncretism. That is, the same form is

used to represent distinct morphological concepts. Thus, in regular
verbs, the same word-form represents two distinct grammatical
words; e.g. walk + [past] walked (as in I walked) vs walk [past
participle] walked (as in I have walked). Irregular verbs like see and
take exhibit no syncretism because they have distinct past tense
and past participle (saw and took – past tense; seen and taken – past
participle).
Zero allomorph
There is an approach that assumes a one-to-one correspondence
between morphemes and morphs. However, this correspondence
encounters difficulties when, simply, there is no match between
morpheme and morph. There are two circumstances in which this
may happen:
(i) The number of morphemes present may exceed the number

of morphs available to represent them. This happens when a
grammatical contrast which is marked overtly by a morph in
some words is not overtly marked in others. Thus, for
example, we know that in English, if the adverb yesterday
or a phrase like last week is found in a sentence, the verb in
that sentence must be in the past tense because that is the
form of the verb that is required whenever a verb designates
an event, action, state or process that happened prior to the
moment of speaking or writing. As a rule, such a verb will
end in –ed.
Last week the farmer sowed the corn.

Yesterday Jane painted the roof.
In the light of the last remark, explain how the past tense is marked
in the following.
Reflection
55
Last week I cut the grass.

I put those carnations in the vase yesterday.
Yesterday they shut the factory down.
The mob hit him last week.
In your reflection you should have considered the fact that we

know that cut, put, shut and hit are every bit as past as sowed and
painted because only verbs in the past tense can occur together
with yesterday or last week in a sentence.
The past tense morpheme, which is represented by –ed ‘sowed’ in

“Last week the farmer sowed the corn” and ‘painted’ in “Yesterday
Jane painted the roof”, is realised by a zero allomorph in “Last
week I cut the grass”, “I put those carnations in the vase yesterday”,
“Yesterday they shut the factory down” and “The mob hit him last
week”. In other words, we can infer from the structural patterns of
the language that the verb is in the past tense although nothing
about the shape of the word overtly shows this.
(ii) The converse also occurs: the number of morphs that can be
isolated may exceed the number of morphemes represented.
In other words, there may be a surplus word-building
element which does not realise any morpheme. Such an
element is usually called empty morph (Katamba,
1993:37).
Describe in detail how adjectives in a and b below are derived from

nouns.
Reflection
Noun Adjective
a. medicine /medɪsɪn/ medicin – al /medɪsɪnǝl/
person /pɜ:sǝn/ person – al /pɜ:sǝnǝl/
56
English Morphology
tribe /traɪb/ trib – al /traɪbǝl/
b. sense /sens/ sens – u – al /sensjʊǝl/
fact /fækt/ fact - u- al /fæktjʊǝl/
You were expected to have said that in a the adjectives are formed
simply by adding the suffix – al to nouns. In b, however, there is an
empty morph, -u- (/jʊ/) that does not represent any morpheme
which is inserted immediately before – al.
This is the end of the lesson.
In this lesson you studied:
 homophones, words which sound alike but are written

Summary
differently and often have different meaning; example, site
and cite;
 portmanteau morph, a morph which represents a bundle of

several grammatical elements;
 zero allomorph, when a past tense morpheme is not realised

by –ed morph, but zero; this is the case of irregular past
tense; example, take – took.
 empty morph, when for example, an adjective is derived

from a noun, there is an empty morph that does not
represent any morpheme; for example, from the noun sense
we can form the adjective sens-u-al via a portmanteau
morph –u- which is inserted immediately before –al.
1. Comment on cases of homophone in the following words:

no and know.
Activity 2. Identify the portmanteau morph in the following phrase: The

kings‘ palace.
57
3. Explain how the past tense is marked in the following

sentences:
a. Yesterday I put the purse in the drawer.
b. The boy hit the jackpot last summer.
4. Describe how the plural in children is realised from the

singular child.
58
English Morphology
Feedback
1. The two words represent forms which sound the same but
differ in their written forms and meaning (they are
homophones). From the point of view of the spoken
language, there is one morph /nǝʊ/ and it represents two
morphemes (no /nǝʊ/ and know /nǝʊ/).
2. In kings’ we can see that a single morph (–s’) represents

two distinct grammatical elements:
a. –s’ represents the plurality of king, i.e. the palace

belongs to more than one king, not only one (king);
b. -s’ represents genitive of possessive. Thus, it is a

portmanteau morph because a single morph is
representing two different grammatical elements.
3. Put and hit in sentences a and b are in the past tense

because only verbs in the past tense can occur together with
yesterday or last summer in a sentence. Therefore, the past
tense morpheme is realised by a zero allomorph.
4. We know that the form –en is used for marking plurality in

nouns such as ox – en. So –en is a plural morpheme in
child-r-en. However, it is worth noting that the singular
form child should immediately be attached to the plural
morpheme – en, not to –r-, a surplus word-building element
that does not represent any morpheme. Such element (-r-) is
an empty morph for it does not realise any morpheme.
Were the exercises useful? Have you succeeded doing them? If

you have, congratulations! If you haven‘t, study the lesson
again and keep your attention on concepts like homophones,
portmanteau morph, zero allomorph and empty morph.
59
Unit summary
In this unit you learned that:
 if we want to define a word we must know which word we

Summary
are referring to (the lexeme, the word-forms, etc);
 The grammatical word, is the term used to refer to a lexeme

that is associated with certain morpho-syntactic properties
(partly morphological and partly syntactic) such as noun,
adjective, verb, tense, gender, number, etc;
 Morphemes are the smallest indivisible units of semantic

content or grammatical function which words are made up
of. That is, a morpheme cannot be decomposed into smaller
units which are either meaningful by themselves or mark a
grammatical function like singular or plural number in the
nouns;
 The choice of allomorphs for the realisation of plural and

past tense can be phonologically conditioned when the
allomorph selected to represent the morpheme in a
particular context is one whose phonological properties are
similar to those of sounds found in a neighbouring
allomorph of some other morpheme; also the choice of
allomorph used to realise the past tense in irregular verbs
like see – saw, weep - wept is grammatically conditioned
when the presence of the past tense morpheme determines
the choice of the /si:/ and /wep/ allomorphs in irregular
verbs that belong to the same group; the choice of the plural
morpheme can be lexically conditioned when it is
dependent on the presence of the specific noun, e.g. ox,
child (in which the plural is realised by the morpheme –en).
60
English Morphology
 In cases where allomorphs of a morpheme are phonetically

unrelated we speak of suppletion;
 Homophones are words which sound alike but are written

differently and often have different meaning; example, site
and cite;
 portmanteau morph, a morph which represents a bundle of

several grammatical elements;
 zero allomorph, when a past tense morpheme is not realised

by –ed morph, but zero; this is the case of irregular past
tense; example, take – took.
 empty morph, when for example, an adjective is derived

from a noun, there is an empty morph that does not
represent any morpheme; for example, from the noun sense
we can form the adjective sens-u-al via a portmanteau
morph –u- which is inserted immediately before –al.
Assignment
There is no assignment for this unit. However, if the local tutor

thinks of an extensive reading (recommended) do not hesitate.
Assignment
61
Assessment
1. Define and give an example of each of the following:
a. Lexeme; grammatical word; word-form.
Assessment b. Morpheme; morph; allomorph; portmanteau morph and
suppletion.
2. a. What is the allomorph of the plural morpheme that occurs

in each group of words below?
b. Explain whether the choice of allomorph is
phonologically, grammatically or lexically conditioned:
(i) data strata media
(ii) radii fungi stimuli
3. Study the following data and answer the questions that

follow.
Rain reign rein
a. Comment on case of homophony.
b. At what extent you can talk about a portmanteau morph
in the data provided above?
62
English Morphology
Feedback
1. a. A lexeme is an abstract vocabulary item like SEE; we can
find it in dictionary and has its word-forms see, sees, saw,
seen, seeing.
A grammatical word is a representation of a lexeme that is
associated with certain morpho-syntactic properties (i.e.
partly morphological and partly syntactic properties) such
as noun, adjective, verb, tense, gender, number, etc. For
example, the verb hurt can represent two distinct
grammatical words in ―I usually hurt my knee when I play
tennis‖ and in ―Yesterday I hurt my knee in the kitchen‖
because the same word-form hurt, belonging to the verbal
lexeme HURT, can represent in ―I usually hurt my knee…‖
the grammatical word hurt [verb, present, non-third person],
the present tense, non-third person form of the verb HURT.
But in ―Yesterday I hurt my knee in the kitchen‖ hurt
represents the grammatical word hurt [verb, past], which
realises the past tense of HURT.
Word-form is a particular physical realisation of a lexeme in
speech or writing. Thus, we can refer to see, sees, seeing
saw and seen as word-forms of the lexeme SEE.
b. A Morpheme is the smallest, indivisible unit of
Semantic content or grammatical function which words are
made up of. For example, the past tense of regular verbs in
English which is –ed is realised in speech by /ɪd/, /d/ or /t/.
The phonological properties of the last segment of the verb
to which it is attached determine the choice. Here we have a
case in which different morphs (/ɪd/, /d/ and /t/) are
representing the same morpheme (the past tense morpheme
– ed).
Allomorphs: if different morphs represent the same
morpheme, they are grouped together and they are called
allomorphs of that morpheme. Example, the past tense of
regular verbs in English which is spelled –ed is realised by
/ɪd/, /d/ or /t/ and we say that each one of the form
representing the past tense morpheme is a morph and
grouped together they are called allomorphs of the plural
morpheme – ed.
63
A morph is a physical form representing some morpheme in

a language.
A portmanteau morph refers to the same string of sounds
which may cumulatively represent several morphemes; that
is, when a single morph is simultaneously used to represent
a bundle of several different grammatical elements it is said
to be a portmanteau morph. For example, in ―The teachers‘
room is dirty‖, we can see that -s‘ in teachers‘ is
representing (i) plurality and (ii) genitive of possession. So,
the same morph is being used to represent two different
grammatical elements.
Suppletion occurs when allomorphs of a morpheme are
phonetically unrelated. We take as an example the adjective
bad – worse and the past tense form of go – went, where
there are no phonetic relations between them.
2. a. The allomorph of the plural morpheme that occurs in
group (i) is that in data (plural), datum (singular) – the
allomorph is –a; in strata (plural), stratum (singular) – the
allomorph is –a; in media (plural), medium (singular) – the
allomorph is –a. We can say that the allomorph of the plural
morpheme in (i) is –a.
In (ii) the allomorph of the plural morpheme is –i because
the singular of radii is radius, the singular of fungi is fungus
and the singular of stimuli is stimulus. So, - i is the
allomorph of the plural morpheme in (ii).
b. The choice of allomorph is lexically conditioned because
the use of –a in (i) and – i in (ii) is obligatory when the
singular noun ends in –um (i) and –us (ii).
3. a. rain /reɪn/, reign /reɪn/ and rein /reɪn/ are forms which
sound the same but differ in their meaning. The morph
represents three morphemes.
b. In (a) we said that the morph /reɪn/ represents three
different morphemes; i.e., a single morph representing more
than one morpheme (in this case, we have three words with
the same sound or pronunciation, but differ in their
meaning); that‘s why the morph /reɪn/ is a portmanteau
(morph).
64
English Morphology
Unit 3
Types of Morphemes
Introduction
In the last unit we saw that words have internal structure. This unit
introduces you to a wide range of word-building elements used to
create the structure.
 Identify and list all morphemes that can occur in a word, phrase
or sentence.
 Distinguish between roots, bases and stems.
Outcomes
 State whether the affix morphemes are prefixes or suffixes and
inflectional or derivational.
 Classify a language as an isolating, agglutinating, synthetic or
incorporating.
Root: the irreducible core of the word, with

absolutely nothing else attached to it.
Affix: Is a morpheme which occurs when attached to

Terminology some other morpheme or morphemes such
as a root, or stem or base.
Stem: is that part of a word that is in existence before

any inflectional affixes have been added.
Base: is any unit whatsoever to which affixes of any

kind can be added.
Prefix: an affix attached before a root or stem or base

like re-, -un, and in-.
Suffix: An affix attached after a root (or stem or base)

like –ly, -er, -ist, -s, -ing and –ed.
Infix: An affix inserted into the root itself.
65
Lesson 1
Roots, Affixes, Stems and Bases

 Identify roots, bases, stems, affixes (prefixes, suffixes and

Outcomes infixes) and stem extenders in a word.
Time
Introduction
This lesson is about general concepts used in morphological
analysis. That‘s why we are going to talk about each concept and
provide clear examples so that you can understand this unit.
We will start by considering roots and affixes.
ROOTS
According to Katamba and Yule a root is the irreducible core of a

word, with absolutely nothing else attached to it. It is the part that
is always present, possibly with some modification, in the various
manifestations of a lexeme. For example, walk is a root and it
appears in the set of word-forms that instantiate (ground) the
lexeme WALK such as walk, walks, walking and walked (Katamba:
1993:41).
The only situation where this is not possible is when suppletion

takes place, because in that case, word-forms that represent the
same morpheme do not share a common root morpheme. Thus,
66
English Morphology
although both the word-forms good and better realise the lexeme
GOOD, only good is phonetically similar to GOOD.
AFFIXES
An affix is a morpheme which only occurs when attached to some
other morpheme or morphemes such as a root or stem or base.
There are three types of affixes:
(i) Prefixes
A prefix is an affix attached before a root or stem or

base like re-, un-, and in-:
re-make un-kind in-decent
re-read un-tidy in-accurate
(ii) Suffixes
A suffix is an affix attached after a root (or stem or

base) like –ly, -er, -ist, -s, -ing and –ed.
Examples:
kind-ly wait-er book-s walk-ed
quick-ly teach-er mat-s jump-ed
(iii) Infixes
An infix is an affix inserted into the root itself. Infixes

are rare in English, that‘s why there are a few of them,
such as hallebloodylujah.
STEMS AND BASES

Stems
The stem is that part of a word that is in existence before any

inflectional affixes have been added.
67
Example:
Noun stem Plural
cat -s
worker -s
In the word-form cats, the plural inflectional suffix –s is attached to

the simple stem cat, which is a root, i.e. the irreducible core of the
word. In workers the same inflectional –s suffix comes after a
slightly more complex stem consisting of the root work plus the
suffix –er which is used to form nouns from verbs (with the
meaning ‗someone who does the action designated by the verb (e.g.
worker)‘). Here work is the root, but worker is the stem to which
–s is attached.
Bases
A base is any unit whatsoever to which affixes of any kind can be

added. A root like boy can be a base since it can have attached to it
affixes like –s to form the plural boys or to form the adjective
boyish from the noun boy. In other words, all roots are bases.
Bases are called stems only in the context of inflectional
morphology (see lesson 2 of this unit).
Stem extenders
In unit 2 we saw that in languages sometimes there may be a

surplus word-building element which does not realise any
morpheme. Such an element is usually called an empty morph. In
English language, empty formatives are interposed between the
root, base or stem and an affix. For example, while the irregular
plural allomorph - en is attached directly to the stem ox to form
ox-en, in the formation of child-r-en it can only be added after the

stem has been extended by attaching - r- to child. Hence, the name
stem extender.
68
English Morphology
This is the end of this lesson.
What did you learn in this lesson?
What do you know about roots, affixes, stems, bases and stem
Reflection
extenders?
Write and exemplify the differences between a root, a base and a

stem.
In this lesson you learned that:
 All roots are bases for roots being the core of the word with
absolutely nothing else attached to them; when a root is
attached to any kind of affix, it becomes a base and bases
are called stems only in the context of inflectional
morphology that we are going to talk about in lesson 2 of
this unit;
 The term stem extender is used in the context in which an

allomorph is only added after the stem has been extended
by attaching a surplus word-building element which does
not realise any morpheme like - r – in child-r-en.
After summarising what you have probably learned from this

lesson, do the activity below to check understanding.
Identify the roots, bases, affixes (prefixes, suffixes), and stems in

the following data:
Activity
faiths frogmarched
faithfully bookshop
unfaithful window-cleaner
faithfulness hardships
69
key
We hope your solution is like this:
prefixes suffixes Roots Stems Bases

un- faith faith faith
-ful frog frogmarch faithful
- ly march bookshop frogmarch
- er clean window-cleaner bookshop
- ness hard hardship window-clean
- ship window window-cleaner
hardship
-ed
-s
Let‘s see if you can understand the key with the explanation below.
The key tells us that it is possible to form a complex word by

adding affixes to a form containing more than one root. For
instance, the independent words frog and march can be joined
together to form the base (a stem, to be precise) frog-march to
which the suffix – ed may be added to yield frog-march-ed.
Similarly, window and clean can be joined to form the base
window-clean to which the suffix –er can be added to produce
window-clean-er. And window-cleaner can serve as a stem to
which the plural ending – s is attached to give window-cleaner-s. It
is a compound word because it contains more than one root. We
will explain this concept in detail in lesson 3.
70
English Morphology
Lesson 2
Types of morphemes
 Identify and distinguish different types of morphemes;

Outcomes  Divide words into morphemes;
 Classify morphemes in words, phrases, utterances and

sentences.
Time
Introduction
Morphemes are the minimal indivisible units of meaning or
grammatical function. In unit 2 we said that a word such as
reopened in the sentence the police reopened the investigation
consists of three morphemes. One minimal unit of meaning is open,
another minimal unit of meaning is re- (meaning ‗again‘), and a
minimal unit of grammatical function is –ed (indicating paste
tense). But we did not make a distinction between the morphemes.
In this lesson we are going to make a broad distinction between two
types of morphemes.
According to Yule (1996:75) there are free morphemes, that is,

morphemes which can stand by themselves as single words, e.g.
Reading open, friend. There are also bound morphemes, that is, those which
cannot normally stand alone, but which are typically attached to
71
another form, e.g. re-, -ed, -s.
How can you recognise this set (re-, -ed, -s) of morphemes?
You can recognise them as affixes. So, all affixes in English are
bound morphemes. The free morphemes can be generally
considered as a set of separate English word-forms (discussed in
lesson 2 of unit 3).
Free morphemes
Free morphemes fall into two categories. The first category is that
set of ordinary nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs which we think
of as the words which carry the ‗content‘ of messages people
convey. These free morphemes are called lexical morphemes
because they can be found in a dictionary, they are lexemes.
Do you remember? Revise lesson 1of unit 2 if you do not

remember. Some examples of these free morphemes are: boy, man,
house, open, break, green, short, happy, follow, very, etc.
We can add new lexical morphemes to the language rather easily,

so they are treated as an ‗open‘ class of words.
There is another group of free morphemes which is called

functional morphemes. This group consists largely of the
functional words in the language such as conjunctions,
prepositions, articles and pronouns. Examples are: and, but, when,
because, on, near, above, in, the, that, it. Because we almost never
add new functional morphemes to the language, they are described
as a ‗closed‘ class of words.
Bound morphemes
The set of affixes which fall into the ‗bound‘ category can also be
divided into two types. One type is the derivational morphemes.
These are used to make new words in the language and are often
used to make words of a different grammatical category from a
72
English Morphology
lexical morpheme. Thus, the addition of the derivational morpheme

–ness changes the adjective good to the noun goodness. The noun
care can become the adjective careful or careless via the
derivational morphemes –ful or –less.
The second set of bound morphemes contains what are called

inflectional morphemes. These are not used to produce new words
in the English language, but rather to indicate aspects of the
grammatical function of a word. Inflectional morphemes are used
to show if a word is plural or singular, if it is past tense or not, and
if it is comparative or possessive form. English has only eight
inflectional morphemes.
It‘s worth noting that some affixes have to be added to the

beginning of a word (e.g. un-, in the word unfair). These are called
prefixes. The other affix forms are added to the end of the word
(e.g. –less in careless, -s in dogs). These are called suffixes.
There is a third type of affix, not normally to be found in English,

but fairly common in some other languages. This is called an infix
and, as the term suggests, it is an affix which is incorporated inside
another word. It is possible to see the general principle at word in
certain expressions of aggravating circumstances by emotionally
aroused English speaker: hallebloodylujah!, Absogoddamlutely!
This is the end of the lesson. What did we do in this lesson?
Summarising, morphemes are of two main types, free and bound

morphemes. Free morphemes, in turn, are of two sorts – lexical
(they are content words like nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs)
and functional morphemes (function words like articles,
prepositions, conjunctions and pronouns). Bound morphemes are
also of two types, derivational (used to form new words) and
inflectional (they are not used to form new words but rather to
indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word – plurality,
possessive, past tense, comparative, superlative, etc.).
73
We can show all morphemes in the diagram below.
With the purpose of checking understanding, do the exercise

below. Remember that you should not resort to the answer before
you try it yourself. Good luck!
Divide the following sentence into its different morphemes and then
classify each as bound…, free…, derivational, etc.
Activity The boy’s wildness shocked the teachers.
74
English Morphology
Key
Dividing the sentence into its different morphemes, we have:
The boy – ‗s wild - ness shock - ed the teach - er -s
Classification of morphemes:
The free functional morpheme
boy free lexical morpheme
-‗s bound inflectional morpheme because it shows

possessive
wild free lexical morpheme
-ness bound derivational morpheme because it produces a

new word from the adjective wild to the noun wildness.
shock free lexical morpheme
-ed bound inflectional (shows possessive)
the free functional
teach free lexical morpheme
-er bound derivational
-s bound inflectional
75
Lesson 3
Multiple affixation and
Compounding
 add to a specific free morpheme as many prefixes and

Outcomes suffixes as you can;
 Analyse a compound word into its constituent elements.
Time
Introduction
In this lesson we are going to explore some of the ways in which
complex words are formed by creating bases which contain several
derivational morphemes. On the other hand, we are also going to
analyse words that contain at least two bases which are both words,
or root morphemes called compound words.
Multiple affixation
As we have said in the introduction to this lesson, complex words
are formed by creating bases which contain several derivational
morphemes.
Let us take the Latinate (from Latin) root –dict-meaning ‗speak‘.
76
English Morphology
In which words can you find the root –dict-? Think of at least four
words.
Reflection
We hope you have come up with words such as diction, dictate,
dictatorial, contradict, benediction, etc.
We are saying that ―Starting with –dict-, we can form complex

words such as contradictory and contradictoriness by attaching
several affixes to the root, i.e. we can have multiple affixations.
This process can take place in a number of rounds, with the output
created by one round of affixation serving as the input to a later
round‖. See the example below:
Root -dict- (v) output

base: -dict(v) (round one: prefixation: → contradict (v)
add contra – preposition)
base: contradict (v) (round two: first → contradict-ory(Adj)
suffixation: add –ory(Adj)
base: contradictory (Adj) (round three: →contradictoriness
second suffixation:
add –ness (n) (Katamba, 1993:53)
This example shows that words may have multiple affixes with
different suffixes appearing in sequence.
However, they may also have multiple affixes with the same prefix
recurring as the example below illustrates:
a. The latest re-re-re make of Beau Geste.
b. The great-great-great-great grandson of the last Tsar of

Russia.
The example above shows that ―with a limited number of

morphemes, morphological prefixation rules can apply recursively
in English. However, performance difficulties in working out what
77
exactly great-great-great-great grandson or re-re-re make means

do severely restrict the chances of such words being used. But the
point is that the grammar cannot exclude them as ill-formed.
Recursive rules are one of the devices that make morphology open-
ended. They make possible the creation of new words with the
same morphemes being used again and again‖ (Katamba: 1993:53).
Furthermore, ‗re-attaching the same morpheme again and again is

permitted, but unusual. What is common is multiple affixations.
Summarising, multiple affixation is a process through which

complex words such as contradictory are formed by attaching
several affixes to the root and it (the process) can take place in a
number of rounds.
To make sure whether you have or not understood this content of

the lesson, take any root and try to attach as many affixes as you
can. Then examine whether the output words are ill or not ill-
formed. Refer to the examples above. Show your output words to a
partner or your local supervisor.
Do the activity below to practise multiple affixations from a root.
From the root Nat, attach possible affixes that you can find.
We expected your answer to be like this:

Activity Nation nat-ion
National nat-ion-al
Nationalise nat-ion-al-ise
Nationalisation nat-ion-al-is-at-ion
Nationalisations nat-ion-al-ise-at-ion-s
Denationalisations de-nat-ion-al-is-at-ion-s
Anti-denationalisations anti-de-nat-ion-al-is-at-ion-s
Now you are ready for the next part of this lesson.
78
English Morphology
Compound words or compounding

As mentioned in the introduction to the lesson, ‗a compound word
contains at least two bases which are both words, or at any rate,
root morphemes‘ (Katamba, 1993:54).
Bearing in mind the explanation above, provide at least one

example of a compound word.
Reflection
We hope you have come up with several examples of compound
words. If you suggested sunflower, armchair, classroom, left-
handed that‘s right! and congratulations!
Sometimes it is bare roots that are combined in compounds as in

sunflower, so we have the root sun and the root flower combined to
form sunflower. Sometimes an input base contains an affixed form
as in left-handed, open-ended, etc. Here we can notice that the
terms handed (hand-ed) and ended (end-ed) are suffixed by
attaching the –ed morpheme to the base.
Summarising, compound words contain at least two bases which

are both words. It‘s worth noting that when the two bases
composing the compound are attached, the resulting word has a
different meaning. For example, sunflower is a resulting word of
joining sun (a form of planet) and flower (plant); the resulting word
sunflower has another meaning (a plant going round the sun).
This is the end of this lesson, we strongly recommend you to study

it within the time limit allocated.
1. Take the free morpheme nation and add to it as many prefix

and suffixes as you can. Attempt to go at least four rounds of
affixation.
Activity
2. Analyse the following compounds into their constituent
elements: teapot, week-end, hairdresser, kind-hearted.
79
Key to the activity
1. We hope you have come up with this answer:
nation de-nationalise
national denationalis-at-ion
national-ise anti-denationalisation
2. We expect you to have worked out an answer close to this:
[tea]N [pot] N → [teapot] N
[week]N [end] N → [week-end] N
[hair] N [[dress]V –er]N → [hairdresser] N
[kind]N [[heart]N -ed] A → [open-ended] A
80
English Morphology
Lesson 4
Conversion
 Identify whether it is the morphological structure or the

Outcomes syntactic position that the word occupies that tells us
whether it is a noun or a verb in the process of conversion.
Time
Introduction
In the previous lesson we saw that complex words may be formed
either by compounding or by affixation, or by a combination of the
two. In this lesson, however, we are going to see that there is an
alternative word-formation strategy which is commonly used in
English – conversion.
What is conversion for you? Take some time thinking about it.
As a matter of fact, words may be formed without modifying the

Reflection
form of the input word that serves as the base. That‘s why the word
head can be a noun or a verb. This is called conversion.
81
Now pay attention to the following data:
1. The head of department has resigned.
The heads of departments have resigned.
2. She will head the department.
She headed that department.
How do you know whether head is a noun or a verb?
Katamba (1993:55), ―it is partly morphological structure, and partly

the syntactic position that the word occupies that tells you whether
Reading it is a noun or a verb. From a syntactic point of view, we know that
in (1) the head is a noun phrase. The key word in a noun phrase
must be a noun. As head occurs following the and is the key word
in this construction, head must be a noun. But from a morphological
point of view, we cannot tell whether head, is a noun or verb when
it occurs with no affixes. However, in the case of heads, the
presence of the - s morph which here realises the plural in nouns
gives us a useful clue.
By contrast, in (2) head must be a verb. It comes after the auxiliary

verb will in a slot that is typically filled by verbs. In the second
example, head has attached to it the – ed morph representing the
past tense morpheme which is only found in verbs. Furthermore,
from a syntactic point of view, we know that she is the subject and
the department is the object. The sentence must also have a verb.
The verb occurs between the subject and the object. (Remember
that the order of sentence constituents in English is Subject Verb
Object.) So, headed must be the verb, since it occurs between the
subject and the object.‖
Are you enjoying the lesson? If yes, make up your own example to
illustrate what you have discussed and read about conversion. Then
82
English Morphology
keep on studying. If you are not, do something interesting that can

motivate you. Rather, start from the beginning and relax, do not go
faster, use your own pace and speed and enjoy it.
Now, coming back to our lesson, draw back your attention to the
lesson about derivational morphology. What do you remember
about derivation? Take a few minutes.
You must have reminded yourself that derivation is a very reach

word-formation process in which new words are formed through
attaching affixes to the base.
Conversion is also referred to as zero derivation in the literature. It

refers to the fact that a word like head (verb) is derived from head
(noun) without an overt suffix. This is the reason why ―the use of
zero derivation is controversial since neither the original noun
head, nor the derived verb head, have an overt suffix. If we assume
that zero suffixation takes place here, we end up with a somewhat
absurd situation where a zero suffix on the noun is said to contrast
with a zero suffix on the derived verb. It is more prudent to
recognise conversion as a distinct word-forming mechanism and to
restrict zero morphs to inflectional morphology where it is
supported by the evidence (Katamba, 1993:55).
Summing up, conversion is operated within the morphological

structure and syntactic position that the word occupies in a
sentence. Having analysed this, we can say whether it is a noun or
verb by conversion; there is no affixation of the word, that‘s why it
is conversion.
This is the end of our lesson on conversion. Revise it if you haven‘t

understood it in full or part of it. Do not forget to provide your own
examples and situations in which we can say there is conversion.
If you have understood it, congratulations and do the exercise that

follow.
83
How do you know whether knife is a noun or verb in the following?
(1) The knife was used to cut vegetables.

Activity (2) She could knife herself during the cutting of vegetables.
Key to exercise
From the syntactic point of view, the knife is a noun phrase in (1).
The key word is knife, also called the head of the noun phrase.
In (2) knife must be a verb because it comes after a modal could in

a slot that is typically filled by verbs.
To reinforce this activity, write two sentences (1 and 2) similar to

the one in the activity above. Then carry out a morphological
analysis.
Have you understood the explanation? If not, ask for help. It‘s
important that you talk to your fellows first before you call your
tutors.
84
English Morphology
Lesson 5
Morphological Typology
 Identify the morphological types of languages (similarities

Outcomes and differences between languages in the ways in which
they form words).
Note that this lesson will be split into 2 parts, being the second
part a continuation of the first.
Time
Introduction
Although languages vary a lot in their structure, they nonetheless
show surprising similarities. The study of the significant shared
structural properties which languages have in common is the
domain of language universals. Many of the universals are abstract
principles of Universal Grammar which determine the properties of
rules that grammars of individual languages may have (Katamba,
1993: 56).
Our concern in this lesson is with both the similarities and

differences between languages in the ways in which they form
words.
Think of two similarities and differences between languages. It

would be interesting if you took into account your own mother
85
tongue and the official language in Mozambique, Portuguese and,

if you feel comfortable, English too.
______________________________________________________
You should think about the fact that languages are capable of
asking and answering; nominating, changing (they are dynamic),
etc.
So, on the basis of typical patterns of word-formation, linguists

recognise five broad morphological types:
1. Analytic (also called isolating) languages;
2. Agglutinating (also called agglutinative) languages;
3. Inflecting (also called syntactic or fusional) languages;
4. Incorporating (also called polysynthetic) languages;
5. Infixing languages.
Let us start with
A. analytic or isolating languages.
To illustrate this, pay attention to an example of analytic

morphology from Chinese:
Tã bã shũ mãi le
he OM book buy Asp
‗He bought the book.‘
Note that Asp. is short for ‗perfective aspect‘. It indicates that an

action is completed. OM is short for ‗object marker‘, i.e. the
morpheme that indicates the object of the verb.
(data from Li and Thompson, 1978, taken from Katamba, 1993)
86
English Morphology
Now say how does the analytic morphology from Chinese

function?
As you can see from morpheme by morpheme translation, in

Chinese bound morphemes are infrequent. Usually the words are
bare, unaffixed root morphemes. That is, looking at the example
given, we can notice that there are no bound morphemes (those
morphemes attached to the base word, such as un-plug) in Chinese
language; the words are not affixed. So, we can say that Chinese is
an analytic or isolating language, i.e. a language where each
morpheme tends to occur as a word in isolation. Words virtually
never have inflectional affixes. Thus, the object marker bã is an
independent word. By contrast, in other language types normally
object markers are inflectional affixes that are part of a noun or
pronoun. In English, for example, the subject pronoun he contrasts
with the object pronoun him in He saw Mike vs Mike saw him. The
change from he to him in the pronoun marks the change in
grammatical function. Similarly, in English markers of aspect (Asp)
and tense are usually inflectional affixes of the verb such as -ed, as
in cook –cook -ed. By contrast, in Chinese example, the aspectual
morpheme is realised, not by an affix, but by the independent word
le (see date above).
B. Agglutinating languages
This time let us turn to another language, Turkish.
a. Divide the following words into morphs and assign each

morph to a morpheme.
b. How do the morphs match up with morphemes?
el ‗the hands‘ elimde ‗in my hands‘
elim ‗my hand‘ ellerim ‗ my hands‘
87
eller ‗the hands‘ ellerimde ‗in my hands‘
Your answer to the first question (a) should be: el ‗hand‘, -im ‗my‘
(genitive), -ler ‗plural‘ and –de ‗in‘.
Turkish is a classic example of an agglutinating language. In this

kind of language there tends to be a more or less one-to-one
matching of morphemes with morphs.
Morpheme: el plural 1st person possessive ‗in‘
Morph: el ler im de
In other words, if each morpheme tends to be realised by a separate

morph, we are talking about a language which is predominantly
agglutinative.
Now explain why any attempt to treat Latin as we have treated

Turkish would fail. Show why it is impossible to isolate separate
morphs representing the morphemes in the following Latin words:
Singular Plural
Nominative mȇnsa mȇnæ
Genitive mȇnsæ mȇnsãrum
Ablative mȇnsa mȇnsȋs
Note that nominative is used if the noun is the subject; genitive

would mean ‗of the table‘ and ablative ‗from the table‘.
It would be a mistake to match morphs with morphemes here. How

could one say, for instance, which part of the suffix –æ represents
plural and which part represents nominative? How could one tell
which part of the suffix -is represents plural and which part
represents ablative (‗from‘) in the word mensis? And so on. Here
88
English Morphology
we see an unsegmentable morph representing simultaneously the

plural and nominative morphemes, the plural and ablative
morphemes, etc.
For this, Latin is in a good example of an inflecting language. It

means that words usually consist of several morphemes. But there
is seldom a one-to-one matching of morphemes with morphs.
Instead, a single morph is likely to represent several morphemes
simultaneously (Katamba, 1993:58).
On the basis of the phrase below, would you classify English as an

isolating or agglutinating language?
Activity unfaithful girls
Key
On the basis of the phrase unfaithful girls, English is an

agglutinating language because each of the words contains two
morphs representing two distinct morphemes, as un-faith-ful,
where faith is the root, -ful is an adjective forming suffix and un- is
a negative prefix meaning without (faith); in girl-s, girl is the root +
an inflectional morpheme -s marking plurality.
89
Lesson 6
Incorporating and inflecting

languages

 Identify the morphological properties of incorporating and
infixing languages.
Outcomes
Time
Introduction
In this lesson we will carry on with the previous lesson on
morphological typology and we will start with incorporating
languages.
You must have noticed that we have been discussing the previous
morphological typologies through data, and so we will be
incorporating languages. It‘s important that you pay attention to the
data before you read the explanation.
Now, look at the following analysis of the Greenlandic Eskimo

words illuminiippuq and tuttusivuq from Fortescue (1984), taken
from Katamba (ibid).
a. Illu- mi- niip- puq
house his be-in 3rd person-singular –

indicative
‗he is in his (own) house‘
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English Morphology
b. Tutu- si- vuq
caribou come-across 3rd person-singular –

indicative
‗he saw (a) caribou‘
After having seen the example above, we can say that Greenlandic
Eskimo is a typically incorporating language. You can express in
Eskimo in one word (e.g. tuttusivuq), that may include a verb and
its object, what is said using a whole sentence containing several
words in English (and even more words in Chinese). Eskimo is a
language with long words (e.g. illuminiippuq) that tend to have
very extensive agglutination and inflection. In other words, it
means that from only one word a speaker can express what he/she
would express in a sentence containing subject – verb and object.
Many Native American languages and aboriginal languages of
Australia are incorporating (Katamba, 1993).
As a matter of fact, recent studies have highlighted incorporating

languages because they raise interesting questions about the
relationship between morphology and syntax. In incorporating
languages the distinction between morphology (the study of word
structure) and syntax (the study of sentence structure), is blurred.
That is, some processes which elsewhere happen at the level of the
sentence take place within the word. Some processes which
elsewhere happen at the level of the sentence take place within the
word.
The next type is infixation which involves infixing vowels in a root

that consists entirely of consonants. For example, in Egyptian
Arabic the three-consonant root ktb means ‗write‘. It provides the
skeleton which is fleshed out with a variety of vowels in the
formation of word-forms which belong to the lexeme KTB, such
as:
kitab ‗book‘
91
katab ‗he wrote‘
katib ‗writer‘
As you can see, from the root KTB, consisting of consonants only,
vowels ‗i‘, in the first syllable and ‗a‘ in the second, have been
incorporated to form the word ‗kitab‘, meaning ‗book‘ in English.
The same happens with ‗katab‘ and ‗katib‘.
Are you getting the points so far? If yes, look at the activity below.
If you do not understand, please ask for help. Do not proceed if you
have difficulties understanding this. After you have understood,
keep on studying and look at the activity below.
Use the opening sentence of Moby Dick below to formulate a

tentative hypothesis about English. Is it an isolating, inflecting,
agglutinating or incorporating language?
Call me Ishmael, Some years ago – never mind how long precisely
– having little or no money in my purse, and nothing in particular
to interest me on shore. I thought I would sail about a little and see
the watery part of the world.
(Herman Melville, Moby Dick; taken from Katamba, 1993:59)
Were expected to have worked out an answer close to the

following:
‗English is predominantly isolating. The vast majority of the 45

words in Moby Dick sentence are simple because they contain just
one morpheme. But English is not only an isolating language
because five of the words, namely year -s, precise-ly, hav-ing, no-
thing, and water-y contain two morphs representing two distinct
morphemes. These words are examples of agglutination. In
addition, there are also several words containing one morph which
represents several morphemes concurrently, e.g. me (1st person,
singular, accusative pronoun); my (1st person, singular, possessive
92
English Morphology
pronoun), I (1st person, singular, nominative pronoun), thought

(THINK, past) and would (WILL, past). In words like this, trying
to designate a portion of the word as a morph representing one of
the morphemes would be futile. Such words show that, to a certain
extent, English is a synthetic language. Even infixation, which is
not in sentence above, is found occasionally in English as in
incumbent, succumb, and decumbent, where -m- is infixed in the
root –cub-.
Summing up, languages are classified on the basis of typical

patterns of word-formation. Thus, linguists recognise five broad
morphological types – analytic (usually the words are unaffixed),
agglutinating (there tends to be a more or less one-to-one matching
of morphemes with morphs), inflecting (words usually consist of
several morphemes. But there is seldom a one-to-one matching of
morphemes with morphs. A single morph is likely to represent
several morphemes simultaneously), incorporating (you can
express in one word what may include a subject, verb and its
object), infixation (a consonant root provides a skeleton which is
fleshed out with a variety of vowels in the formation of word-
forms) and isolating (consisting of simple words containing one
morpheme).
This is the end of the lesson. For consolidation, do the activity

below.
On the basis of the following data, would you classify Swahili as an

isolating, agglutinating, synthetic or incorporating language?
Activity niliwapiga ‗I hit them‘
93
Feedback
On the basis of the word ‗niliwapiga‘, which means in English ‗I

hit them‘, Swahili is an incorporating language because only one
word is being expressed as a sentence which includes a verb and its
object, that is, what is said in ‗niliwapiga‘ uses a whole sentence
containing three words in English.
Unit summary
In this unit you learned:
 How to identify and list all morphemes that can occur in a
Summary word, phrase or sentence.
 Distinguish between roots, bases and stems.
 How to classify whether the affix morphemes are prefixes
or suffixes and inflectional or derivational.
 How to classify a language according to its typical patterns
of word formation.
Assignment
A large number of words enter the language through a process
known as derivation. Think of other word-formation processes
through which new words enter the language.
Assignment
Assessment
1. Examine carefully the following sentence:
The fact that English is predominantly an isolating

Assessment
94
English Morphology
language reopened the discussion.
a) List all bound and free morphemes that occur in the

sentence.
b) List two functional morphemes in the sentence.
2. a) Identify the morphemes in the underlined words of the

sentence below, distinguishing between roots and affixes.
b) State whether the affix morphemes are prefixes or

suffixes.
c) On the basis of the underlined words, is English language

agglutinative or inflecting?
Having nothing to do the boys set off to the watery part of

the world.
95
Feedback
1. a) Bound morphemes: -ish from English
pre- ; –ant- and –ly from predominantly
is-; -at- and –ing from isolating
-age from language
re- and –ed from reopened
dis- and –ion from discussion
Free morphemes: Engl- (of England), domin (of domain), sol (of
isolate), langue, open and cuss.
b) The two functional morphemes are: the and an.
2. a) hav-ing, the root is have; no-thing, the root is thing; boy-s, the
root is boy and water-y, the root is water.
b) (i) -ing is a suffix; no- is a prefix; -s is a suffix; -y is a suffix.
c) In the basis of the underlined words we can say that English is

also an agglutinating language because each of the words contain
two morphs representing two distinct morphemes.
96
English Morphology
Unit 4
Introducing Lexical Morphology
The Lexical Phonology and
Morphology Model
Introduction
In this unit we are going to present the model of lexical phonology
and morphology in an introductory way and apply it to issues in
English derivational and inflectional morphology discussed in the
previous unit. An important feature of this model is that, it is the
word, rather than the morpheme, that is regarded as the key unit of
morphological analysis. In the previous unit we focused on the
morpheme. In this unit, however, we will focus on the word.
According to Katamba (1993:89) ―… there is a symbiotic

relationship between the rules that build the morphological
structure of a word and the phonological rules responsible for the
way a word is pronounced. All these rules are found in the lexicon
where they are organised in blocks called strata (or levels or
layers) which are arranged hierarchically, one below the other.
Normally the model is referred to simply as either lexical
phonology or lexical morphology”.
 Classify morphemes on the basis of their phonological and

morphological behaviour.
 Determine whether a suffix is neutral or non-neutral.
Outcomes  Add affixes at different strata in the lexicon (stratum 1 or
stratum 2).
 Describe the phonological effects of stratum 1 or 2 affixes on
the base to which they are attached.
97
98 Introducing Lexical Morphology
Neutral affixes: Affixes which have no phonological effect on

Non-neutral Affixes which affect in some way the consonant

Terminology affixes: or vowel segments, or the location of stress in
Strata: Organised in blocks (layers, levels).

98
English Morphology
Lesson 1
Lexical strata
By the end of the lesson you should:
 Classify and explain whether an affix is neutral or non-

Outcomes neutral.
Time
Introduction
―Central to lexical morphology is the principle that the
morphological component of a grammar is organised in a series of
hierarchical strata (Allen, 1978; Siegel, 1974; Kiparsky, 1982a,
1982b, 1983, 1985) quoted by (Katamba, 1993:83).
Let us begin this lesson with the following statement from Katamba
(1993:89):
―English affixes (both suffixes and prefixes) can be grouped in two

broad classes on the basis of their phonological behaviour.‖
What is regarded as ‗phonological behaviour‘ of an affix?
We hope your discussion would have mentioned the fact that, some
Discussion
affixes having no phonological effects on the base to which they are
attached (called neutral affixes), and others having effect on the
bases to which they are attached (called non-neutral).
Let us consider the neutral affixes first. But before we do that, look
at the data below.
a. abstract abstract – ness b. home home – less
99
serious serious – ness power power - less

a lert a lert – ness paper paper – less
Does the presence of the suffixes –ness and –less make any
difference on the base?
We expected your answer to be like this: ―the presence of the

neutral suffixes –ness and –less makes no difference. The same
syllable of the base receives stress regardless; and the base is left
unchanged‖ (taken from Katamba).
Now pay attention to the following data and answer the questions:
a. strategy strategic b. detain detainee

morpheme morphemic absent absentee
photograph photographic pay payee
democrat democratic employ employee
a. Say carefully the pairs of words.
b. Place the stress mark ( before the syllable that receives

main stress in each word. Consult a dictionary if you are not
sure.
c. Are – ic and / or –ee neutral or non-neutral suffixes? Why?
The answer is clear here. The suffixes –ic and –ee are non-neutral
because they affect the location of stress. The suffix –ic in (a) is a
pre-accenting suffix as stress is attached to the syllable
immediately preceding it. On the other hand, the suffix -ee in (b) is
an auto-stressed suffix. This means that the suffix takes the stress
from the base onto itself.
Apart from affecting stress placement, non-neutral suffixes also

tend to trigger changes in the shape of the vowels or consonants of
the base to which they are attached to. For example, the presence of
100
English Morphology
the non-neutral suffix –ic induces the replacement of the vowel [ eI]
of satan [ seItən] with [æ] in satanic [sə tænɪk].
Summarising, English affixes can be grouped in two broad classes

on the basis of their phonological behaviour. One type is neutral
and the other type is non-neutral. Neutral affixes have no
phonological effect on the base to which they are attached. Non-
neutral ones, however, affect in some way the consonant or vowel
segments, or the location of stress in the base to which they are
attached (Katamba, 1993: 89).
Found the lesson difficult? Study it again and pay attention to the
data you are provided with, then do the activity below. If it was
easy to get the main points of this lesson, congratulations! But do
the activity to ensure that you have understood it. Avoid resorting
to the key before you do it yourself.
1. Transcribe phonetically the adjectives wide, long and broad.
2. Transcribe phonetically the nouns width, length and breadth

Activity which are derived from the above adjectives by suffixing –
th.
3. Transcribe phonetically the adverbs widely and broadly

which are derived by adding the suffix –ly to the
corresponding adjectives.
4. Determine whether – th and – ly are neutral or non-neutral

suffixes.
101
Feedback
Your transcription should reveal the changes in the root vowel

triggered by –th. These changes show that the suffix –th is non-
neutral. In the examples column (b) below, the root vowel is either
shortened or changed in quality or, if it is a diphthong , it is turned
into a monophthong. By contrast, in column (c), where the neutral
suffix – ly is added, no change takes place in the location of stress
or in the realisation of the consonants and vowels in the base
(Katamba, 1993:91).
a. Adjective b. Noun c . Adverb
Wide [waɪd] wid-th [wɪdθ] wide-ly [waɪdlɪ]
( *[waɪdθ0 ) ( * [wɪdlɪ] )
long [lᴅƞ] leng-th [lenθ] ________
( *[ lᴅnθ ])
broad [brᴐ:d] bread-th [bredθ] broad-ly [brᴐ:dlɪ]
( *[brᴐ:dθ] ) ( *[bredlɪ] )
102
English Morphology
Lesson 2
Distinction between Non-Neutral
and Neutral affixes
By the end of the lesson you should be able to
 Distinguish neutral from non-neutral affixes in lexicon.

Outcomes
Time
Introduction
Neutral and Non-Neutral affixes are not only different for the fact
that they may, phonologically, influence or not the base which they
are attached to; they are also different for other reasons that we are
going to discuss in this lesson.
The difference between neutral and non-neutral affixes is a

dissimilarity in terms of behaviour. This is because the behaviour of
Reading neutral and non-neutral affixes was dealt with in terms of the
strength of boundaries in the book ―The Sound Pattern of English‖
(SPE) by Chomsky and Halle, 1968, quoted by Katamba (ibid).
That is, between the base and a neutral suffix like – ness or – ly,
there are said to intervene a weak boundary (symbolised by ‗#‘). In
contrast, a strong boundary (symbolised by ‗+‘) was assumed to
separate the base from a non-neutral suffix like – ic, - ee or – th.
That‘s why the distinction between non-neutral affixes (associated
103
with ‗+ boundary in SPE) and neutral affixes (associated with ‗#

boundary‘), corresponds to the more traditional difference between
primary and secondary affixes (Whitney 1989, Bloomfield 1933:
240), quoted by Katamba1991).
‗The idea that phonological rules may be paired with

morphological rules that introduce affixes is not new. About 2000
years ago, Panini, the ancient Indian grammarian, envisaged this
kind of pairing of word-structure rules and phonological rules
(Katamba, ibid)‘.
That‘s why being neutral or non-neutral in their phonological

effects, English primary and secondary affixes display contrasting
phonological behaviour. Whereas secondary affixation can produce
segment sequences that are disallowed within a single morpheme in
lexical representations, primary affixation cannot give segment
sequences that deviate from those allowed in single morphemes in
the lexicon. For instance, English does not allow geminate
consonants within roots. The orthographic doubling of letters in
addle [ædļ] or miss [mɪs] never corresponds to any germination
(i.e. ‗doubling‘) of the consonants in pronunciation. Likewise,
when we attach primary affixes like ad as in adduce [ədju:s], again
no germination occurs. However, there is germination when a
secondary affix like sub-, un-, or – ness is adjacent to an identical
consonant in the base. Secondary affixation can yield geminates as
in unnamed [Λnneɪmd], sub-base [sΛbbeɪs] and thinness [θɪnnəs].
The classification of affixes as primary or secondary is not

arbitrary.
Do you know why?
You are right if you said that primary affixes are Germanic in
origin while secondary affixes are mostly, though not exclusively,
Greek or Latinate, having entered the language with loanwords
from Greek, Latin or French. Naturally, many affixes from foreign
104
English Morphology
sources will only combine with bases borrowed from the same
foreign language.
Unlike SPE, which dealt with the difference in the behaviour of

affixes in terms of boundary strength, lexical phonology and
morphology approach it in terms of level ordering (i.e. the
ordering of strata). It is proposed that affixes are added at
different strata in the lexicon. Each stratum of the lexicon has
associated with it a set of morphological rules that do the word-
building. These morphological rules are linked to a particular set of
phonological rules that indicate how the structure built by the
morphology is to be pronounced.
Summing up, neutral and non-neutral affixes are associated with

the strength of boundaries; neutral affixes were said to intervene a
weak boundary, whereas a strong boundary was assumed to
separate the base from a non-neutral suffix like –ic, -ee, or –th.
This lesson was basically informative and concept-distinguishing.

You are requested to read it and draw a table showing the
differences between neutral and non-neutral suffixes. When you
Activity
have finished, compare your table to that of your mates to find out if
you have left something out.
105
Lesson 3
Derivation in Lexical Morphology
 Predict through the theory of level-ordered morphology, the

Outcomes ordering of suffixes if they co-occur in a word.
Time
Introduction
In the previous lesson we learned that ‗unlike SPE, which dealt
with the difference in the behaviour of affixes in terms of boundary
strength, lexical phonology and morphology approach it in terms of
level ordering or, the ordering of strata. In this lesson, we will
begin by observing that normally the ordering of strata in the
lexicon reflects the ordering of word-formation processes.
Let us start the lesson by saying that primary affixes (e.g. –ic in
phonemic), which are phonologically non-neutral, are attached first
at stratum 1. But the processes of compounding as well as the
attachment of secondary affixes (e.g. –ly as in widely), which are
phonologically neutral, happen at stratum 2.
According to Katamba, the underived root is like the kernel of the

word (as in the example below).
a. [root]
b. [stratum 1 affix – root – stratum 1 affix]
c. [stratum 2 affix – stratum 1 affix – root stratum 1 affix –

stratum 2 affix]
106
English Morphology
It means that stratum 1 takes the root as the base to which non-
neutral affixes are attached to. Then stratum 2 takes the root – plus
stratum 1 affixes as its input, see the example above. A neutral
consequence of assuming that the strata in the lexicon are ordered
in this way is that stratum 1 affixes are closer to the root of the
word, and neutral affixes are added on the outside as an outer layer.
Now look at the following concrete examples containing the

derivational suffixes –(i)an and –ism. Then answer the questions.
Discussion Notice that ‗r‘, ‗s1‘ and ‗s2‘ are being used for ‗root‘, ‗stratum 1
affix‘ and ‗stratum 2 affix‘ respectively.
a. [r] b. [[b]s1]
Mendel Mendel-ian
Mongol Mongol-ian
grammar grammar-ian
Shakespeare Shakespeare-an
(Shakespearian)
c. [[[r]s1]s2] d. [[[r]s2]s1]
Mendel-ian-ism *Mendel-ism-ian
Mongol-ian-ism *Mongol-ism-ian
grammar-ian-ism *grammar-ism-ian
Shakespeare-an-ism * Shakespeare-ism-ian
(Shakespearianism) *(Shakespeare-ism-(i)an
(Taken from Katamba, 1993:93)
107
______________________________________________________
a. The suffix (-ian) is on stratum 1 because it is
phonologically non-neutral. In what senses is it non-
neutral? Use the data in (a) and (b), from the example
above, as your evidence.
b. Is –ism a neutral or non-neutral suffix?
c. What prediction does the theory of level-ordered
morphology make about the ordering of these suffixes if
they co-occur in a word?
______________________________________________________
You will have made a number of interesting observations about –
(i)an:
(i) When they appear without any suffix in (a), these words are
stressed on the first syllable.
(ii) The suffix –ian is not neutral because:
(a) It is pre-accenting: when it is present, stress moves

to the syllable immediately before –ian.
(b) It affects the segmental phonology of the root to

which it is attached in all the examples except
Shakespeare where only stress shifts. contrast:
Mendel [mendļ] Mendelian [mendi:ljən]
Mongol [mᴅƞɡᴅl] Mongolian [mᴅƞɡəʊlɪən]
grammar [ɡræmə] grammarian [ɡrə meərɪən]
Shakespeare [ʃeɪkspɪə] Shakesperian [ʃeɪkspɪəriən]
(iii)By contrast, -ism is a neutral suffix. Stress stays on the

syllable it was on before -ism was added. Its presence
does not affect the segmental phonology of the root to
which it is attached.
108
English Morphology
As a conclusion, we can say that the theory predicts that stratum 1

affixes come closer to the root than stratum 2 affixes. In other
words, stratum 2 affixes appear on the outer layer and stratum 1
affixes are on the inner layer. This is the case in our data. In (c) the
stratum 1 non-neutral suffix –(i)on comes immediately after the
root and stratum 2 suffix –ism is attached on the outer layer. If
stratum 2 –ism precedes stratum 1 –ian (as in (d), the result is an
inadmissible word. This is an important point (Katamba, 1993:94).
After examining the data above, try the activity below to check
understanding.
For each of the affixes in the following explain why it is a stratum 1

affix.
Activity Suffix attach to Output
-ion Adj [[erodev] – ion N] → [erosion] N
-ive Adj [[compete (t) v] – ive Adj] → [competitive] Adj
-al Adj [[Pope N] – al Adj] → [papal] Adj
Feedback
As a rule, stratum 1 affixes modify in some way the base to which
they are attached. In our data we see the consonant [d] of erode
[ɪ rəʊd] change to [ʒ] before –ion in erosion [ɪ rəʊʒn]. In
competitive, the –ive suffix requires the introduction of the stem
extender –it. In addition, -ive triggers a vowel change in the root.
The stressed vowel changes quality and is shortened from [i:] to [e]
when –ive is attached.
Compare competitive [kəmpetɪtɪv] with compete [kəmpi:t].
Finally, the –al suffix also conditions a change of the root vowel
from [əʊ] in pope [pəʊp] to [eɪ] in papal [peɪpļ].
This is the end of lesson 3. Congratulations if you learned from it.
If not, please refer to the examples and explanations and try to do
the activity again.
109
Lesson 4
Insights from Lexical Morphology
Stratum Ordering Reflecting
morpheme Sequencing
 Explain how the hierarchical ordering of strata rules out

Outcomes words.
Time
Introduction
In the previous lessons we saw that the lexicon only lets in words
that do not violate the canonical shape of morphemes in the
language. However, having a permissible phonological
representation is not sufficient to ensure that a string of sounds is a
potential word. A further condition that has to be met is that the
morphs representing morphemes in words must be arranged in a
sequence that is allowed by the rules of word-formation in the
language. This is what we will be analysing in this lesson – the
ordering of strata in the lexicon.
As a way of starting this lesson, look at the following words:

grestifier and dispregmentation.
Would you consider them as potential English words? Why?

Reflection
110
English Morphology
The fact is that these two words are just potential English words.
―This is because first, they contain sounds of the English
phonological system arranged in ways that are phonologically
permitted. Second, they contain morphs representing morphemes
that are arranged in an order that is sanctioned by English grammar.
The only thing odd about these ‗words‘ is that while all the affix
morphemes are found in the English lexicon, their root morphemes,
-grest- and - preg- , are not. They are putative words.
As an evidence we can segment the putative words grestifier and

dispregmentation respectively as grest- ifi(y)-er and dis-preg-
ment-at-ion. If, however, we juggled the affixes and produced dis-
preg-ion-ment-at(e) or grest-er-ify(i), such ‗words‘, though still
phonologically well-formed, would not pass for potential English
words.
What is true of putative, nonsense words is true of established

words. They have a fixed order of morphemes. You will be able to
see this if you try to form words using the root and affix
morphemes given below (Katamba 1993:113):‖
Root morphemes: priv popul port
Affix morphemes: de- -at(e) -ion
With the root and affix morphemes above, form words arranged in
an order that are sanctioned by English grammar.
Activity
We hope your answer to have been that, with the morphemes above
the words deprivation, populate, population, depopulate,
depopulation, port, portion, deport and deportation can be formed.
However, morphology places restrictions on the order in which
111
morphemes can be strung together in a word. For instance, it is

imperative that –ion follows –ate. Putative words like *popul-ion-
ate or *deport-ion-ate are strictly forbidden (Katamba, ibid).
It means that our knowledge of word-structure includes knowledge

of the sequence in which affixes are combined. Generally, the order
of morphemes in a word is rigidly fixed.
As a student of morphology, one of the challenges you face lies in

providing an adequate account of the principles that determine the
sequence in which affixes are added to roots. However, the theory
of lexical morphology offers you insights into this problem.
So what does this theory predict?

Discussion
According to Katamba (1993:114) the theory of lexical

morphology predicts that, when both stratum 1 and stratum 2
derivational affixes are present in a word, stratum 1 affixes are
closer to the root than stratum 2 affixes. In other words, all affixes
at stratum 1 are attached before any stratum 2 affixes, is one of the
major considerations in recognising the distinction between strata
and layers of derivation in the lexicon.
As an example, consider the data below.
Observe that in column C, where one of the stratum 1 non-neutral

pre-accenting suffixes (-ic or –arian) occurs together with the
neutral, stratum 2 suffix –ism, the stratum 2 suffix –ism is at the
outer edge of the word, following –ic or –arian.
A B C
athlete ath letic ath let-ic-ism
attitude attitude (i) (n)-arian attitude(i)- (n)arian-ism
an tique anti qu-arian anti qu-arian-ism
112
English Morphology
human human-i t-arian human-i t-arian-ism
Note that stem extenders are in brackets; -ity has the form -it-
before the vowel of -arian (see humanity – humanitarian).
We can observe that the theory predicts that there are no words like
*athle-tism-ic or *antique-ism-arian where stratum 2 suffixes are
closer to the root than stratum 1 suffixes.
Summarising, we can say that an important consequence of what

we have seen is that the hierarchical ordering of strata means the
ordering of morphological processes. The set of lexical processes
taking place at stratum 1 precedes those taking place at stratum2.
This is the end of this lesson. To see if you have understood it, we
prepared an activity that we hope you to do it before resorting to
the answer.
1. At what strata are the suffixes -ity and -less found?
2. Explain how the hierarchical ordering of strata rules out

Activity words like *homelessity, powerlessity and mercilessity.
113
Feedback
1.–ity is a pre-accenting stratum 1 suffix while -less is a
neutral stratum 2 suffix. Thus, words like home and
homeless are stressed on the first syllable regardless of the
presence or absence of -less. But, if the non-neutral stratum
2. –ity is attached, stress must fall on the syllable
immediately before –ity as in ( necessary vs ne cessity).
Again, we see how constraints on morpheme sequencing
are reflected in the hierarchical ordering of strata. Since –ity
is attached earlier at stratum 1 and –less is suffixed later at
stratum 2, it is obvious that adjectives derived by suffixing
–less are unavailable to the rule that suffixes –ity. The
stratum 2 suffix –less must be more peripheral in a word
than the stratum 1 suffix –ity. Hence the ill-formedness of
*homelesity, *powerlessity and *mercilessity.
Unit summary
In this unit you learned that:
 Central to lexical morphology is the principle that the

Summary
morphological component of a grammar is organised in a
series of hierarchical strata (that is, morphemes are attached
to the base in a sequence that is allowed by word-
formation).
 English affixes can be grouped in two broad classes on the

basis of their phonological behaviour. One type is neutral
and the other type is non-neutral. Neutral affixes have no
phonological effect on the base to which they are attached.
But non-neutral affixes affect in some way the consonant or
114
English Morphology
vowel segments, or the location of stress in the base to

which they are attached.
 Normally the ordering of strata in the lexicon reflects the

ordering of word-formation process. Primary affixes like –
ic (in pandemic), which are phonologically non-neutral, are
attached first at stratum 1. But the process of compounding
as well as the attachment of secondary affixes like –ly as in
(widely), which are phonologically neutral, happen at
stratum 2
 The theory of lexical morphology predicts that, when both

stratum 1 and stratum 2 derivational affixes are present in a
word, stratum 1 affixes are closer to the root than stratum 2
affixes. In other words, all affixes at stratum 1 are attached
before any stratum 2 affixes, is one of the major
considerations in recognising the distinction between strata
and layers of derivation in the lexicon.
Was the unit difficult or easy? Did you enjoy the lessons? If
you found this unit difficult, organise all your questions
about it so that you can ask your tutor during tutorials. But
if you found the lessons friendly, congratulations and we
hope you can help others solve their problems.
115
1. Study the following data:

Suffix attach to output
Assessment -al /(i)al/(u)al [autumn]-al] → autumnal
[medicine]-al] → medicinal
[contract-(u)al] → contractual
[resident]-(i)al] → residential
-(ac)y [supreme]-acy] → supremacy
[democrat]-acy] → democracy
a) For each example determine the word-class of the bases

that form the input to the suffixation process and the
word-class to which the resulting word belongs.
b) At what stratum in the lexicon is each one of these
suffixes found? Justify your answer.
2. a) Which of the following suffixes are neutral: full; -

less; and –ness?
b) Can any of the neutral suffixes occur together in a
word?
c) If they can, are they ordered?
d) If they are ordered, account for the order.
Feedback
1. a) The suffix –all attaches to noun bases to form
adjectives while the suffix –acy is attached to adjectives
to form nouns.
b) suffix –al is found at stratum 1 because stress shifts
from its original place; the suffix –acy is also non-
neutral stratum 1 for it changes vowel quality as in (su
‗preme [sʊ ‗pri:m] – su ‗premacy [sʊ ‗preməsɪ]); we can
see
2. All the suffixes –full, -less, and –ness are neutral (they
are found at stratum 2). These neutral suffixes can occur
together in a word but their ordering is subject to certain
restrictions because the suffix –ness attaches to
adjective bases to form abstract nouns while –less and –
full attach to nouns to form adjectives. These
requirements dictate that –less or –full must be added
first to a noun, turning it into an adjective, before –ness
can be suffixed.
116
English Morphology
Bibliography
1. FROMKIN, Victoria and RODMAN, Robert. An Introduction to
Language, 5th Ed. Sydney: Harcourt. Australia PTY, 1996
2. KATAMBA, Francis. Morphology, NY, Palgrave, 1993
3. YULE, George. The Study of Language, 2nd Ed., Cambridge:

CUP, 1996
117

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MODULE

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made to Universidade Pedagógica and to the Authors of the module.

Universidade Pedagógica © 2014

Fax: +258 21 320860 /2

Instructional Designing: Victorino Guila

Language Review: Elias Sinodingue Peter

Graphic Designing: Valdinácio Florêncio Paulo

Edition: Valdinácio Florêncio Paulo

Getting around this module 9

About this MODULE

How this Module is structured

 If the course is suitable for you.

 What you will already need to know.

 What you can expect from the course.

The overview also provides guidance on:

 Where to get help.

 Course assignments and assessments.

We strongly recommend that you read the overview carefully before

The course content

 An introduction to the unit content.

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Your constructive feedback will help us to improve and enhance

Welcome to English Morphology!

ni -ta -ku -penda

‗I will you love‘

It seems as if this Swahili ‗word‘ is rather different from what we

Can you explain the paragraph above?

The paragraph above tells us that Swahili is different from English

Verb noun-forming element which

element marks plurality

Nitakupenda ni –ta – ku - penda

‘I’ will you love

(translated into English)

Therefore, we can say that the type of exercise we have just

performance in teaching English as a foreign language – if that is

English Morphology—is this

However, your knowledge of English Phonetics and Phonology is

 Distinguish word from lexeme.

Outcomes  Identify and characterize morphemes, morphs and allomorphs

Essentially you will be taking control of your learning

We recommend that you take time now—before starting your self-

The ―How to study‖ web site is dedicated to study skills

This is the web site of the Virginia Tech, Division of Student

Another ―How to study‖ web site with useful links to time

The course instructor‘s name will be available during face to face

Each lesson contains exercises for student‘s self assessment. We

Getting around this module

A complete icon set is shown below. We suggest that you

Activity Assessment Assignment Case study

Discussion Group activity Help Note it!

Outcomes Reading Reflection Study skills

Summary Terminology Time Tip

In this unit, you will, apart from discussing the concept of

Upon completion of this unit you will be able to:

 Identify the object of study and the place of morphology in the

Lexicon: The Greek word for dictionary.

There are two lessons in this unit.