Morphology

Morphology and Morphemes

Morphology is the study of the structure of

words. Morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning
or grammatical function. For example, 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 (indicating past tense).
Different Categories of Morphemes:

lexical

free functional
Morphemes

derivational
bound
inflectional
1. Free Morphemes:

Free morphemes are the set of separate

English word-forms. They are independent
words which carry meaning. When they are
used with bound morphemes, the basic
word-form involved is known as the stem.
For example, in the word careless, the stem
(free) is care and the bound morpheme is –
less.
1. a. Lexical Morphemes:

As we have described, free morphemes fall into

two categories. The first category is lexical
morphemes which include nouns, adjectives,
and verbs which are thought to carry the
‘content’ of messages we convey. Lexical
morphemes are also described as ‘open’ class
of words because we can add new lexical
morphemes to the language rather easily.
1. b. Functional Morphemes:

The other group of free morphemes are

called functional morphemes. They include
articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and
pronouns. Because we almost never add
new functional morphemes to the language,
they are described as a ‘close’ class of
words.
2. Bound Morphems:

They are the elements of meaning which are

structurally dependent on the words they are
added to. The ‘bound’ category includes the set
of affixes (prefixes and suffixes). For example,
in the word undressed, un- and –ed are bound
morphemes. Bound morphemes can not stand
alone; they must be connected to free
morphemes.
2. a. Derivational Morphemes:

One type of bound morphemes is known as

derivational morphemes. They are the prefixes and
suffixes which are used to make new words of a
different grammatical category from the stem. For
example, 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.
2. b. Inflectional Morphemes:

The second type 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, e.g. plural, singular,
tense, comparative, or possessive form.
Continue

English has eight inflectional morphemes. They

are –’s (possessive), -s (plural), -s (3rd person
present singular), -ing (present participle), -ed
(past tense), -en (past participle), -est
(superlative), and –er (comparative).
Noun + -’s, -s
Verb + -s, -ing, -ed, -en
Adjective -est, -er