Morphology

Study elements

SINGLE FORMS word-like elements

MORPHEMES
ILLNESSES

minimal unit of meaning or

SUFIX
Grammatical function
(plural)
SUFIX
(noun)
ADJ
 technically referred to as STEM (the part of a word
can stand alone as a single unit: CRY that stays the same when different endings are
added to it: DRIVING

lexical
FREE *BOUND stems:
functional
rePEAT
Morpheme *FREE stems:
unDRESSed
derivational
BOUND
inflectional

cannot stand alone; they are attached

to another form (affix): CRYING
 Lexical (1)
FREE
Functional (2)

Morpheme
Derivational (3)
BOUND
Inflectional (4)

1) nouns, adjectives and verbs (carry content and are of an ‘open’ class of words).
2) conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns and determiners (‘closed’ class of words).
3) they make new words of a different grammatical category from the stem: BEAUTIFUL ----> noun to adj.
4) they don’t produce new words: they indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word and don’t
change the grammatical category of the word.
8 classes: 1) ‘s (possessive case) (s’ for plurals) 5) –ed (past simple)
2) –s (plural regular) 6) –ed/-en (past part.)
3) –s (3rd person sing. Pres. S.) 7) –est (superlative adj.)
4) –ing (pres. part.) 8) –er (comparative adj.)
 SOME MORPHEMES CAN BE DERIVATIONAL TALLER (inflectional)
AND
-ER
INFLECTIONAL TEACHER (derivational)

**one word (STEM) with an inflectional AND derivational suffix:

TEACHERS (INFLECTIONAL – 2nd)

(DERIVATIONAL – 1st )

PROBLEM!!
HISTORICAL
INFLUENCES -Irregular plurals (MAN -----> MANS ----------> MEN)
& -Irregular verbs (BUY ------> BUYED -------------> BOUGHT)
BORROWED -certain adjectives (LEGAL ---------> -LEG is no stem)
ELEMENTS