English Morphology

Morphemes
In the previous session you have learned:
 the definition of morphology
 the objects of morphology: morphemes and words
 types of words: simple and complex
 the distinction between word tokens, types, and lexemes
 the reasons why languages have morphology

In this session, you are going to learn:

 morphemes
 types of morphemes: free and bound
 types of free morphemes: lexical and functional
 Bound morphemes : affixes
 Morphemes
 A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language
(cannot be further analyzed)
 The morpheme is not necessarily equivalent to a word, but
may be a smaller unit

reopened
re-
open
-ed
 Morphemes
Tourists Unsystematically

Tour Un-

-ist System

-s -atic

-al

-ly
 Morphemes
 Like the phoneme, the morpheme refers to either a class of
forms or an abstraction from the concrete forms of language

 Morphemes are represented within curly braces { } using

capital letters for lexemes and descriptive designations for
other types of morphemes
for examples:
writers {WRITE} + {-er} + {pl}

mice {MOUSE} + {pl}

men’s {MAN} + {pl} + {poss}

 Morphemes
 Morphemes combine and are realized by one of four
morphological realization rules:
 agglutinative rule: two morphemes are realized by
morphs which remain distinct and are simply “glued”
together, e.g. {WRITER} + {pl} > writers

 fusional rule: two morphemes are realized by

morphs which do not remain distinct but are fused
together, e.g. {TOOTH} + {pl} > teeth

 null realization rule: a morpheme is never realized

as a morph in any word of the relevant class,
e.g. {sg} on nouns, which never has concrete
realization in English.
 Morphemes
 zero rule: a morpheme is realized as a zero morph in
particular members of a word class
e.g. {SHEEP} + {pl} > sheep

Note that in most other members of the class noun, {pl}

has concrete realization as ‑s.
 Questions?
https://padlet.com/miaperlina/wh0v82auxyry
 Please do exercise no. 1

1. How many morphemes are there in the

following sentences?
a. In our society we are often paid according to
the number of hours or days worked.
b. Technology is becoming important in both
our personal and professional lives.
 Please do exercise no. 2

2. Divide the following words into morphs (use slashes) and

then list the morphemes. Note that some words may require
more than one analysis into morphemes. List the
morphological realization rule(s) responsible for each
formation.
Example:
mice's
Answer: {MOUSE} + fusional and
mice/s {pl} + {poss} agglutinative

a) Least e) Spoken
b) Drawing f) Those
c) Hoped g) Deer
d) Put h) Rings
 Free and Bound Morphemes

• Free morphemes are morphemes that

can stand by themselves as single words

• Bound Morphemes are morphemes

that cannot normally stand alone and are
typically attached to the free morpheme
 reopened

re- = bound morpheme

open = free morpheme
-ed = bound morpheme
 tourists

tour = free morpheme

-ist = bound morpheme
-s = bound morpheme
 unsystematically

un- = bound morpheme

system = free morpheme
-atic = bound morpheme
-al = bound morpheme
-ly = bound morpheme
 Please do exercise no. 3

3. Identify the bound and free morphemes that

the sentence below has.

a. The only way to develop a good command of the

English language is to master the rules and apply
them accordingly in your speech and writing.

b. This superficial difference in form disguises the fact

that the two sentences are very closely related,
even identical, at some less superficial level.
 Two Types of Free Morphemes:
Lexical and Functional/Grammatical

- Lexical morphemes are morphemes that carry the

'content' of the messages we convey (nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs)

- Functional/grammatical morphemes are

morphemes that carry the grammatical meaning
(conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns, etc.)
 • Lexical morphemes (nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs) = open class

• Functional morphemes (conjunctions,

prepositions, articles, pronouns, etc.) =
closed class
girl = lexical morpheme
in = functional morpheme
come = lexical morpheme
when = functional morpheme
red = lexical morpheme
 Questions?
https://padlet.com/miaperlina/wh0v82auxyry
 Please do exercise no. 4

4. Classify the free morphemes in the following

sentence into lexical and functional morphemes.

Travel is part of the lives of many young people of

university age, and of the majority of those living
in developed and wealthy countries.
 Bound Morphemes: Affixes

• A well-known type of bound

morphemes is known as affixes

• Affixes in English generally consist of

two types: prefixes and suffixes
Prefixes Suffixes

unhappy singer
retype climbing
disqualify friendly
enable fulfillment
preregister colorful
To be continued……..