MORPHOLOGY (LINGUISTICS)

WHAT'S MORPHOLOGY?

a) Morphology is the study of the structure of

words.
-Paradoxically, however, the concept of word itself
defies simple definition. In English, for example,
words tend to be smaller than the sentence, and we
combine words to form sentences. One tricky thing,
however, is that in many languages, a single word
can have "sentence" meaning

SUMMING UP THE TOPICS :

Morphology is the study of word structure and word

formation.
Words, though impossible to define in absolute terms,
can be thought of as the units that are combined to form
sentences in a language such as English.
Just as sentences can be broken down into smaller
units (words), we can break words down into smaller,
meaningful parts.
The smallest meaningful part of a word is called a
morpheme.
Note: not all words have more than one morpheme.
Words that have only one morpheme are also called
monomorphemic words (e.g. pig). Words with more than
one morpheme are called polymorphemic words, as in
foolishness (fool + ish + ness).

MORPHEMES:
minimal unit in which there is an arbitrary union of a
sound and a meaning (lexical meaning or grammatical
function).

A morpheme: may be represented by a single sound (

a in amoral )
: may be represented by a single
syllable ( child ish )
: may be represented by more than one
syllable
2 syllables: (camel ,lady , water)
3 syllables: (crocodile)
4 syllables: (elevator)

MORPHEMES
Homonyms (a.k.a
Homophones)

one of two or more words

pronounced alike but
differ in meaning or
spelling.
Example: to too two

Homograph

One of two or more words

spelled identically but
differ in meaning or
pronunciation
Example:
Bow and arrow
Bow of a violin
Bow of a ship
Bow a tie
Japanese bow

TYPES OF MORPHEMES
Free Morphemes :
is a morpheme that by itself can function as a word in
a language
Examples : Boy , desire , gentle , man.

CONTENT VERSUS FUNCTION WORDS

Content Words

Content Words: The

nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and
adverbs that constitute
the major part of the
vocabulary. Content
words are referred to
as OPEN CLASS
words because we can
add new words to
these classes

Function Words

Function Words: A word

that does not have clear
lexical meaning but has a
grammatical function.
Function words include:
conjunctions, prepositions,
articles, auxiliaries,
complementizers, and
pronouns. Function words
are referred to as CLOSED
CLASS words because we
can not add new words to
these classes.

Bound Morpheme:
is a morpheme that cannot stand by itself to form a
word; it must be joined to other morphemes It is
bound because although it has meaning, it cannot
stand alone. It must be attached to another
morpheme to produce a word.
Examples : -ish
-ness
-ly
dis- transFree morpheme : bad
Bound morpheme : ly
Word : badly

AFFIXES
Affix: is a bound morpheme that occurs before
(prefix), after (suffix), in the middle of (infix), and
around (circumfix) stems (root morphemes)
Prefix:
un-, pre-, biSuffix: -ing, -er, -ist, -ly
Infix:
un-freaking-believable
Morphemes that are inserted between other
morphemes
Circumfix:
Morphemes that are attached to another morpheme
both initially and finally. Also known as:
discontinuous morphemes

ROOTS & STEMS

Root : is a non-affix lexical morpheme that cannot
be analyzed into smaller parts. Roots may or may
not stand alone as a word
Examples : Paint (paint-er) Read (re-read)
Ceive (con-ceive)
Stem : is that part of a word to which grammatical/
inflectional affixes are added. It may consist
amongst others
a). Solely single root morpheme such as e.g.
(Simple stem such as dog)

b). Two root morphemes e.g. ( compound stem as in

blackbird)
c). A root morpheme plus a derivational suffix e.g.
(a complex stem as in unscrew)
a) cats: single root morpheme: cat + inflectional
suffix s
b) crowbar: two root morphemes (crow + bar) ) +
inflectional suffix s
c) inventions: : root morpheme invent + lexical suffix ion+ inflectional suffix -s

WORD FORMATION (WORD COINAGE)

In linguistics, the ways in which new words are made
on the basis of other words or morphemes.

COMMON TYPES OF WORD

FORMATION
Coinages
Nonce words
Borrowing
Calquing
Clipping

COINAGES
Coinage is the word formation process in which a new
word is created either deliberately or accidentally
without using the other word formation processes and
often from seemingly nothing .For example, the
following list of words provides some common coinages
found in everyday English:
Aspirin
Escalator
heroin
Band-aid
Factoid
Frisbee
Google
linoluem

NONCE WORDS
Nonce words are new words formed through any
number of word formation processes with the
resulting word meeting a lexical need that is not
expected to recur. Nonce words are created for a
single occasion. For example, the following list of
words provide some nonce words with definitions
as identified in the Oxford English Dictionary
Cotton-wool: to stuff or close ears with cotton wool.
Twi-thought: an indistinct or vague thought

BORROWING
ARE ALSO REFERRED TO AS LOANWORDS

Borrowing is the word formation process in which a word from one

language is borrowed directly into another language. For example, the
following common English words are borrowed from foreign languages:
algebra Arabic
bagel Yiddish
cherub Hebrew
chow mein Chinese
fjord Norwegian
galore Irish
haiku Japanese
kielbasa Polish
murder French
near Sanskrit
paprika Hungarian
pizza Italian
smorgasbord Swedish
tamale Spanish
yo-yo Tagalog

CALQUING

Calquing is the word formation process in which a borrowed

word or phrase is translated from one language to another.
For example, the following common English words are
calqued from foreign languages:
beer garden German Biergarten
blue-blood Spanish sangre azul
commonplace Latin locus commnis
flea market French march aux puces
free verse French vers libre
loanword German Lehnwort
long time no see Chinese ho ji bu jin
pineapple Dutch pijnappel
scapegoat Hebrew ez ozel
wisdom tooth Latin dns sapientiae
Calques are also referred to as root-for-root or word-for-word
translations

CLIPPING

Clipping is the word formation process in which a word

is reduced or shortened without changing the meaning
of the word. Clipping differs from back-formation in that
the new word retains the meaning of the original word.
For example:
advertisement ad
alligator gator
examination exam
gasoline gas
gymnasium gym
influenza flu
laboratory lab
mathematics math

memorandum memo
photograph photo
public house pub
raccoon coon
reputation rep
situation comedy sitcom
telephone phone
The four types of clipping are back clipping, foreclipping, middle clipping, and complex clipping.
Back clipping is removing the end of a word as in
gas from gasoline. Fore-clipping is removing the
beginning of a word as in gator from alligator.
Middle clipping is retaining only the middle of a
word as in flu from influenza. Complex clipping is
removing multiple parts from multiple words as in
sitcom from situation comedy

IDENTIFYING MORPHEMES
1. Segmentation of words into minimal soundmeaning constituents
basic strategy
comparing and contrasting forms that are
partially similar in sound and meaning
associating shared sound with shared meaning
continuing to do so until forms cannot be broken
into smaller sound-meaning units

 EXAMPLES
1. segmenting repayment into its constituent
morphemes:
comparing contrasting isolating
1. repayment : payment re- payment
2. payment : pay pay-ment
re- pay-ment

prefix+root+suffix
2. segmenting instructions into its constituent
morphemes:
comparing contrasting isolating

1. instructions : instruction instruction-s

2. instruction : instruct instruct-ion
3. instruct : construct in-struct
in-struct-ion-s


prefix+root+suffix+suffix
3. segmenting inconsistent into its constituent
morphemes:
comparing contrasting isolating
1. inconsistent : consistent in- consistent
2. consistent : consist in-consist-ent
3. consist : desist, insist, persist con-sist

in- con-sist ent

prefix+prefix+root+suffix
identifying the meaning of the various forms

the meaning of re-pay-ment =

the meaning of re- + the meaning of pay- + the
meaning of -ment
the meaning of in-struct-ion-s =
the meaning of in- + the meaning of -struct + the
meaning of -ion + the meaning of s
the meaning of in-con-sist-ent =
the meaning of in- + the meaning of con- + the
meaning of -sist + the meaning of -ent

2. Bound roots
in segmenting a word into its constituent
morphemes,
not all morphemes obvious
some of the segmentations, or breaks, are
less obvious
compare: -sist in consist
re- in rewrite
-er
in writer
some root morphemes never occur alone
in modern English, morphemes such as -ceive, mit, -fer have lost their independent meaning
their meaning depends on the entire word in
which they occur