MORPHOLOGY :

THE STRUCTURE OF

WORDS

Dr. Sabri Elkateb

sabrimail@gmail.com

• We all have an internal

mental dictionary called a

lexicon

• Morphology is the study of

words (the study of our

lexicon)

• To look at morphology, we

must consider both form and

meaning

Overview

The area of grammar concerned with the

structure of words and with relationships

between words involving the morphemes

that compose them

MORPHOLOGY

What is a word?

• An orthographic definition

• A phonological definition

• A semantic definition

• A syntactic definition

A phonological definition

• Words as phonological units: spoken in isolation

each word can only have one main stress

• E.g. Words as elements of the system The

underlined characters indicate the main stress

An orthographic definition

• Words as units in the writing system: words are

uninterrupted strings of letters

• For ex. writing is a word because there are blank

spaces surrounding it

A semantic definition

• Words as meaningful units:

• a. Words express unified concepts

• b. Words are the minimum meaningful

units of a language

Words as syntactic units: words are the smallest

syntactic elements in a sentence

A syntactic definition

MORPHOLOGY• Morphology deals with the

structure of complex words and

parts of words, also called

morphemes, as well as with the

semantics of their lexical

meanings.

• Understanding how words are

formed and what semantic

properties they convey through

their forms

Free and Bound Morpheme Analysis at a morphological level is

concerned with structural elements of meaning called morphemes. Morphemes are classified into two types:

– Free Morphemes

– Bound Morphemes

– Free Morphemes:

girl, boy, mother, etc. These are words with a complete meaning, so they can stand alone as an independent word in a sentence.

- Bound Morphemes:

These are lexical items incorporated into a word as a dependent part. They cannot stand alone, but must be connected to another morpheme.

• Bound morphemes operate in the connection processes by means of derivation, inflection, and compounding.

DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY

• Derivation is concerned with the way morphemes are connected to existing lexical forms as affixes.

• We distinguish affixes in two principal types:

• 1. Prefixes - attached at the beginning of a lexical item or base-morpheme – ex: un-, pre-, post-, dis, im-, etc.

• 2. Suffixes – attached at the end of a lexical item ex: -age, -ing, -ful, -able, -ness, -hood, -ly, etc.

EXAMPLES OF MORPHOLOGICAL

DERIVATION

• a. Lexical item (free morpheme): like (verb)

+ prefix (bound morpheme) dis- dislike (verb)

• b. Lexical item: like (verb)

+ suffix –able = likeable

+ prefix un- =unlikeable

+ suffix –ness = unlikeableness

• 3. Lexical item: like

+ prefix un- = unlike

+ suffix –ness = unlikeness

• 4. Lexical item: like

+ suffix –ly = likely

+ suffix –hood =likelihood

+ prefix un- =unlikelihood

Derivational affixes can cause

semantic change:

Prefix pre- means before; post- means after; un-means not, re- means again.

Prefix = fixed before; Unhappy = not happy = sad; Retell = tell again.

Prefix de- added to a verb conveys a sense of subtraction; dis- and un- have a sense of negativity.

To decompose; to defame; to uncover; to discover.

INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY

• Inflection is a morphological process that

adapts existing words so that they function

effectively in sentences without changing

the category of the base morpheme.

English has the following inflectional

suffixes:

VERB INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES

• 1. The suffix –s functions in the Present Simple as the third person marking of the verb :

to work – he work-s

• 2. The suffix –ed functions in the past simple as the past tense marker in regular verbs:

to love – lov-ed

3. The suffixes –ed (regular verbs) and –en (for some regular verbs) function in the marking of the past partciple and, in general, in the marking of the perfect aspect:

To study studied studied / To eat ate eaten

4. The suffix –ing functions in the marking of the present participle, the gerund and in the marking of the continuous aspect:

To eat – eating / To study - studying

NOUN INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES

• 5. The suffix –s functions in the marking of

the plural of nouns:

dog – dogs

• 6. The suffix –s functions as a possessive

marker (saxon genitive):

Laura – Laura’s book.

ADJECTIVE INFLECTIONAL

SUFFIXES

7. The suffix –er functions as comparative

marker:

quick – quicker

8. The suffix –est functions as superlative

marker:

quick - quickest

Derivational affixes can mark

category change

• The derivational suffix –able derives an adjective

from a verb, implying an ability with a passive

relation with its stem:

Eatable means able to be eaten

(commestibile), not able to eat.

• Suffix –er derives a noun from a verb, indicating a

human agent or an inanimate instrument:

Speaker ; Baker

• The suffixes –ful and –less derives an

adjective from a noun.

• -ful indicates addiction, abundance;

• -less indicates subtraction, reduction:

careful = full of care

careless = with no care

• The suffixes –ure and –age derive e noun from a verb:

To fail – failure

To marry – marriage

• The suffix –hood derives an abstract noun from a concrete noun, the suffix –nessderives an abstract nounfrom an adjective.

Child – childhood = bambino/infanzia

Good – goodness = buono/bontà

• The suffix –ly derives an adverb from an

adjective (but also adjs can end in –ly):

Quick – quickly

Easy – easily

but: lonely (adjective)

• The suffix –ing derives a noun from a

verb:

To write – writing.

The relationship between words and

meanings

Words with unpredictable meanings:

dog, door, desk, book, pen, …

Words with predictable meanings

Complex words: unhappy, helpful, madly, …

E.g. The relationship between the sequence of letters cat and its meaning [domestic feline] in English is the result of a convention. Whenever this association form-meaning is the result of a convention, the meaning of a word is unpredictable on the basis of its form.

Exception: onomatopoeic words

splash resembles the sound of a liquid hitting something;

beep resembles a short high sound, like the sound of a car horn.

Non-words and meanings

• entities that are larger than a word with

unpredictable meanings

– Idioms: pull someone’s leg; kick the bucket; …

– Collocations: hard work, white coffee, white-

collar worker …

– Proverbs: All work and no play makes Jack a

dull boy, beauty is in the eye of the beholder,

birds of a feather flock together, a bad

workman blames his tools, …

The difference between words and

lexical items

Words are the smallest syntactic units in a

sentence (i.e. words are grammatical

entities)

• Lexical items are semantic units whose

meanings are unpredictable; they may be

larger than words, but often they can

coincide with them (i.e. lexical items are

semantic entities)

Taking words apart

• Why is the meaning of the following words

predictable to a certain extent?

• unbelievable, capitalistic, mismatched,

disproportional, misunderstanding,

irregularity.

• lighthouse, shoplift, team manager,

apartment building, concentration camp,

low-flying, cupboard, sickness benefit.

Complex words: affixation• Words can be composed of identifiable smaller parts,

morphemes, put together in a systematic fashion, so that the meaning of the whole can reliably be determined on the basis of the meaning of the smaller parts.

• un-believe-able, anti-capital-ist-ic, de-colony-al-ize-ation, dis-proportion-al, mis-under-stand-ing, ir-regul-ar-ity.

• This group contains words which are divisible into:

• a component that carries most of the meaning (e.g. believe, capital, colony, proportion, etc.)

• other elements that are associated with it to add some other aspects of meaning (e.g. –able in believable = something or someone is capable of being believed; un-in unbelievable = something or someone is not capable of being believed).

• The process through which these words are formed is called affixation.

Word compounding

• B. lighthouse, shoplift, team manager, apartment building, concentration camp, low-flying, cupboard, sickness benefit.

• Group B contains words which are divisible into two other words.

• These component words can be found independently in an English dictionary, but when they associate they form a compound word

• The meaning of the union is not necessarily a function of the meaning of the two combining words. For ex. a lighthouse is neither a light nor a house. This process is called word compounding.

Word compounding: exercise

• How many compund words can you create with

the following words?

bag

car

box

case

Hand-, body-, air-, sick-,

punch-, sleeping

bag

Sports, estate, company,

courtesy,

car

Mail-, post-, letter-,

telephone, gear-

box

Book-, suit-, brief-,

display, lower

case

A morpheme must

– be identifiable from one word to another

– However, consider:

Attack

Stack

Tackle

Taxi (/tæksi/)

A morpheme must

– Also contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole word

Believ-able

Eat-able

Read-able

Work-able

N.b. this extra meaning is not necessarily equal in all cases, e.g. readable, does not mean ‘can be read’ in a literal sense, but rather ‘enjoyable to read’.

How can I recognise a

morpheme?

Morphemes must be identifiable from one

word to another: identifying affixes:

– un- : uncomplicated, unhappy, unclear, …

– -able: variable, changeable, solvable, …

– de- : deselect, dethrone, detoxify, …

– -al: cultural, federal, liberal, modal, …

– -ize: computerize, realize, …

Identifying the core element:

• Happy: un-happy, happi-ness, happi-ly;

• Change: change-able, chang-ing, un-

chang-ed;

• Select: de-select, select-ion, select-ive-ly;

• Liber-: liber-al, liber-al-ism, liber-ate, liber-

ty;

• Oper-: oper-ate, oper-at-ion, oper-at-ion-al

Distinguishing between

morphemes:

• Bound and free morphemes:

• Free morphemes can occur on their own:

– happy, change, select, green, house, …

• Bound morphemes can occur only if they are attached to other morphemes:

– Affixes (un-, -ness, -able, de-, -ive, -er, …)

– liber-, oper-, circul-, legitim-, materi-, …

• Eg. liber-ation, oper-ate, circul-ar, legitim-(a)cy, materi-al

Bound morphemes as core

elements: words derived from LatinCircul- Circular Liber- Liberty

Circulation Liberation

Circulator Liberalize

Circulatory Libertine

Problem case: Verbs of Latin origin

receive deceive conceive perceive

revert convert pervert

relate collate translate

reduce deduce conduce

Should these be considered to be composed of a single morpheme?

Or prefix + bound morpheme?

General tendency

• The core vocabulary of English is

generally composed of words of Anglo-

Saxon origin

• There is a general tendency for core

elements to be free morphemes

• E.g. Hand

• Hand-y, hand-le, hand-ful, mis-hand-le,

What is the difference between

these two sets of complex wordsFair-ly

Fast-er

Sing-ing

Open-ed

Car-s

Write-s

Big-gest

Treat-ment

Rude-ness

Un-kind

Fam-ous

Use-less

Help-ful

Ir-regular

Red-dish

Fast-er, Sing-ing, Open-ed,

Car-s, Write-s, Big-gest

• These affixes do not change the word

class, but rather contribute to meeting

grammatical constraints. These are called:

Inflectional morphemes

Treat-ment Rude-ness Un-kind Red-dish

Fam-ous Use-less Help-ful Ir-regular

These affixes do not necessarily change the class

of the word, but this is normally the case, e.g.

fame (n.)> famous (adj.)

• Furthermore, the semantic element is notably

higher. These morphemes are called:

Derivational morphemes

-ful/less Only -ful Only -less

Age, Bag, Care, Cease, Cheer, Child, Colour, Cup,

Defence, Delight, Effort, End, Fate, Friend, Help, Hope,

Penny, Play, Spoon, Tact , Taste , Use,

Derivation with –ful and –less

• Which words can be derived by adding the following suffixes

-ful/less Only -ful Only -less

Care

Use

Cheer

Colour

Help

Taste

Hope

Tact

Fate

Spoon

Delight

Bag

Play

Cup

Friend

Age

Cease

Child

Defence

End

Effort

Penny