UNIT 1 Morphology

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UNIT 1 Morphology

Dr.Tawheeda Osman Hadra

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Morphology and Syntax

general introduction Traditionally grammar is divided into morphology

and syntax.

Morphology essentially the grammar of words: Itdeals with the forms of words e.g. (the relation

between take and took, dog and dogs)

Syntax is the grammar of sentences. It is

concerned with how words combine together to formsentences. So the order of the words in a sentence

is syntax and syntax is part of grammar.

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UNIT 1

Morphology

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Introduction

Morphology is the study of how words are formed.

The word morphology itself is formed up of two parts:

morph, which means form and

-ology, which means study.

The two elements (-morph) and (-ology) are called

morphemes.

This kind of word formation is true to many languages,

where what appears to be single word forms turn out to

contain a large number of elements which carry linguistic

messages.

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Introd. Cont.1

Knowing how words are formed can help

you in two ways:-

It enables you to derive many vocab.Items from the same word.

It helps you to understand or guess the

meanings of words which are unfamiliar toyou.

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Introd cont 2 For example, from the word (act) you can

derive ( actor), (actress),(acting), (action),

(active), (activate), (activity),(activation),by

adding some parts to the morpheme (act). Since all, of them share the morpheme

(act), they also share its meaning which is

(to do something) Therefore, knowing the central part which

recurs in all similar words enables you to

guess their meanings. 6


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1. Morphemes

Most English words are formed frommorphemes, either made up of one

morpheme e.g. (open), (book) or

more combined together e.g.(reinvestigated),which has 3

morphemes: one minimal unit of

meaning is (investigate), another is(re-)( meaning again) and a unit of

grammatical function (-ed) indicating

past tense. 7


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Morphemes contd.

Some words that consist of more than one

morpheme, do not carry the same

meaning, e.g. the word (action), thedifference between the two morphemes is

that act can be used as a single word

with meaning, but -ion cannot occur as asingle word with meaning.

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Morphemes contd.

The morpheme which can be used as

a single word is called free.

The morpheme that cannot standalone as a single word is called

bound

The morpheme which carries the

main meaning of the word is called

base.9


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SQ

What is morphology?

What is a morpheme?

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1.1 Free morphemes

Free morphemes can be described

under two categories:

Lexical morphemes and functional

morphemes

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1.1a) Lexical morphemes

Include sets of ordinary nouns, adjectivesand verbs, which carry the content of the

messages to be conveyed. E.g. man,woman, house, lion, happy, green, shut,look, break, etc.

Since we can easily add new lexicalmorphemes to the language, they aretreated as open sets/classes of words.

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1.1b) Functional morphemes

Consist largely of the

functional/grammatical words such as

conjunctions, prepositions, pronounsand articles.

Since we almost never add new

functional words to the language, theyare referred to as closed

sets/classes of words.13


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Ex 1.

Indicate the functional morpheme in

the following sentences:

1. The old man sat on a chair and told

his grandchildren a story.

2. There is a policeman at the gate.3. Have this or that book.

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1.2 Bound morphemes

Bound morphemes are also known as

affixes.

They can be divided into derivational

and inflectional morphemes

according to their function in words.

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1.2a) Derivational morphemes

These include prefixes and suffixes.

They are used to create newwords/forms in the language from thestem.

They are often words of differentgrammatical categories or parts ofspeech.

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1.2a) Derivational morphemes

contd. E.g. the addition of the derivational

morphemes (-ness) changes the adjectivekind into the noun kindness and (-full)changes the noun care to the adjectivecareful, etc.

Derivational affixes may also change word

meaning, e.g. (-un) in the word unhappygives the opposite meaning ofhappy,whereas both words are adjectives.

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1.2b) Inflectional morphemes

These are often suffixes.

They are used to indicate aspects of

the grammatical function of a word

rather than to change the meaning of

the word to which they are attached.

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contd.E.g. the only difference between

(chair) and (chairs) is that the former

is singular referring to one chair, while

the latter is plural referring to more

than one chair. However both words

are nouns.

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contd. Inflectional morphemes can be summed

up as follows:

a) Noun inflectional suffixes:1. The plural markers, e.g. girl-girls

2. The possessive singular markers, e.g.

The boys book.3. The possessive plural markers, e.g.

The boys books.

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contd.b) Verb Inflectional suffixes:

1. The third person singular (-s) with

present tense, e.g.; The boy reads a

book every day.

2. The present participle marker (-ing),e.g.; The boy is reading his book

now.

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contd.3. The past tense marker (-ed), e.g.; He

walked home yesterday.

4. The past participle marker (-ed) or (-

en), e.g.; Ali has started school.

He has eaten his lunch early.

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contd.c) Adjective inflectional suffixes

1. The comparative marker (-er), e.g.;

John is stronger thanPeter.

2. The superlative marker (-est), e.g.;

John is the strongest boy in theclass.

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Exercise 2

Indicate the inflectional morphemes inthese phrases/sentences:

1. The students books.2. Its raining.

3. My closest friend.

4. The dog jumped over the fence.5. The girls are reading.

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Exercise 3

Add the necessary inflectional affixes to theunderlined words. Write the new word in thespace provided.

1. Mary pretend to be asleep.2. Look. It is snow now.

3. Ali is tall .than his brother Ahmed.

4. The River Nile is the long . River in Africa.

5. I have invite .her to my party.

6. He took Ali book.

7. Ali has eat .lunch already.

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Exercise 4

Analyse the words below into theirconstituent morphemes and identify each

morpheme as free or bound. E.g. teacher= free, -er = bound.

The words are:

Sadness, strengthen, enlarge, misleads,cloud, quietly, preview, sweetness,windows, movement.

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1.3) Base morphemes

This is that part of the word which

carries the principal meaning of it.

E.g. in the word (tourist), (tour) whichcarries the principal meaning is the

base morpheme and (ist) is a bound

morpheme, which has meaning only

when connected to other morphemes.

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1.3) Base morphemes contd.

However, a base morpheme could be free

as in (tour) or bound as in (audience),

where the base (audi) is a boundmorpheme because it cannot be used as a

separate meaningful word. It can only

occur with other morphemes, such as(audible), (auditory), (audition), etc.

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SQ

Define with examples free, bound and

base morphemes.

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2. Morphological Description

According to their constituent morphemes,words can be classified into simple or complex.

A simple word consists of a free base

morpheme, e.g. book. A complex word consists of a base morpheme

and other additional bound morphemes attachedto the beginning of the base as prefixes or endas suffixes, e.g. unhappily, has the base (happy)

and the element (-un) functional morpheme as aprefix and (-ly) derivational morpheme as suffix.

Prefixes and suffixes are also known as affixes.

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2) Morphological Description contd.

Example of analysing a sentence into its

constituent morphemes:

(The boys cleverness amazed theteachers).

The (functional) boy (lexical)-s (inflectional),

clever (lexical), -ness (derivational), amaz(lexical), -ed (inflectional), the (functional),

teach (lexical), -er (derivational), -s

(inflectional).31


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2) Morphological Description contd.

Please note that it is not always the casethat English morphemes are easilyidentifiable as separate elements. For

example what is the inflectional morphemethat makes (women) the plural of(woman), (sheep) the plural of (sheep),

etc. These problematic issues which arise

during analysis have not been fullyresolved by linguists yet.

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Exercise

Underline the affixes in these words. Statewhether the affix is a prefix or a suffix.

1. Replay

2. Kingdom

3. Unfit

4. Irresponsible

5. Booklet

6. Listener

7. Illegal

8. Usually

9. Weaken

10. Manly

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ExerciseIndicate whether each word is

morphologically simple or complex

1. Speak

2. Unable3. Rewrite

4. Quickly

5. Rainy

6. Dogs7.Active

8. Friendly

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UNIT 1 - Summary

Words may be made up of only a basemorpheme e.g. (book) or a base and othermorphemes: free (bookcase) or bound(bookish).

A word may consist of a free and a boundmorpheme e.g. tourist

Two bound morphemes can combine to

create some words, e.g. audience,sentiment.

Some words can be created by combiningtwo free morphemes, e.g. course book,

student like. 35


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END UNIT1

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UNIT 1 Morphology

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