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Morphology

 

The study of the internal structure of words.

  The study and description of how words are formed in

language. The form and structure of words in a language, especiallythe consistent patterns of inection, combination, derivation andchange, etc., that may be observed and classied.

  Morphology is the study of the words and their structure. Morphologyfocuses on the various morphemes that make up a word

MOR!"M"#

 

$ meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word, such as man, or a word

element, such as #ed in walked, that cannot be divided into smaller meaningfulparts. $ morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of alanguage.

 

$ useful denition of morpheme%good enough for most purposes%is &a minimal

and indivisible morphological unit that cannot be analy'ed into smaller units.(

 

This broad denition is ade)uate for most general discussions, but it*s possible

to get more specic.

 

+s a set of allomorphs that have the same set of features.

 

+s the smallest unit of a word that has meaning, so basically it referring to

prees, su-ces, and root words which all have their own independent

denitions.

T"/

+n linguistics, we would further classify morphemes as either as !O0"M"/ 1thesmallest units of grammar recogni'able by sound2 or 3R$!"M"/ 1the smallestunits of written language2. 4or our purposes, we will focus on graphemes.

5. Root, stem, base, and stem etender.

  ROOT

Root is the irreducible core of a word, with absolutely nothing else attached to it.

Roots can be free morphemes and bound morphemes. Roots which are capable of

standing independently are free morphemes while bound morphemes are roots

which are incapable of occurring in isolation 16atamba, 57789 852.The free morphemes include leical morphemes and function words. 0ouns,

ad:ectives, verbs, prepositions and adverbs are parts of leical morphemes, and

articles, demonstratives, pronouns and con:unctions are parts of function words.

$lthough roots can be free morphemes, not all roots are free. Thus, the kinds of

roots incapable of occurring in isolation are called bound morphemes. +n "nglish,

the eample of the morphemes is latinate a-es like %mit 1as in permit, remit,

commit, admit2, #ceive 1as in perceive, receive, conceive2, pred# 1as in predator,

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predatory, predation, depredate2 and sed# 1as in sedan, sedate, sedentary,

sediment2.

 

$-es

$- is a morpheme which only occurs when attached to some other morpheme or

morphemes such as a root or stem or base. There are three kinds of a-es which

are eplained as follows9; re is an a- attached before a root or stem or base like re#, un#, and in#.

; /u- is an a- attached after a root or stem or base like %ly, #er, #ist, #s, #ing

and %ed.

; +n is an a- inserted into the root itself.

 

/tems

/tem is part of word that is in eistence before any inectional a-es.

"ample9

cats %< stem 9 cat, inectional a-9 #s

workers %< stem9 worker, inectional9 #s

  =ases

=ase is any unit whatsoever to which a-es of any kind, inectional a-es and

derivational a-es, can be added. $ll roots are bases. =ases are called stems only

in the contet of inectional morphology.

"ample9

=oys%< root9 boy, stem9 boy, base9boy, inectional a-9 #s

=oyish%<root9 boy, base9boy, derivational a-9 #ish

 

/tem "tenders

=esides those elements, there is another kind of the structure building elements

called stem etender.

MOR!

 

a distinctive collocation of phones 1as a portmanteau form2 that serves as

the reali'ation of more than one morpheme in a contet.

 

$ morph is a phonological string 1of phonemes2 that cannot be broken down

into smaller constituents that have a leicogrammatical function.

 

+s the phonetic reali'ation of that morpheme, or in plain "nglish, the way it

sounds.

$ >"?+@O0 is the knowledge that a native speaker has about a language. Thisincludes information about.

  the form and meanings of words and phrases

 

leical categori'ation

 

the appropriate usage of words and phrases

 

relationships between words and phrases, and

 

@ategories of words and phrases.

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 +n general, a leicon is a group of words that make up a language. 4or eample,each of the words in this sentence are :ust a few of the words that make up the"nglish leicon. $ leicon can also be a branch of knowledge that stores allknown words of a particular sub:ect.

$>>O!O0"/

 

+s a phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language

 

+s an alternative sound for a letter or group of letters in a word

 

any of the variant forms of a phoneme as conditioned by position or

ad:oining sounds9 the relatively short 1a2 of mat and the relatively long 1a2of mad are allophones

 

any of several speech sounds that are regarded as contetual or environmen

tal variants of the samephoneme.