Unit 6Morphology

Morphology

• Morphology deals with the structure, forms and formation of words

• Morpheme: the smallest unit of the linguistic structure with independent meaning and grammatical function; the basic unit on morphological level

• One word – one morpheme (blue, on, floor, peace)– more morphemes: (peaceful, onrush)

Morphology

• Classification of morphemes:• Free morphemes: independent (rad od

rad-nik; krov od pot-krov-lje)• Bound morphemes: could not stay

independently, only in the combination with another morphemes (-nik iz rad-nik; -lje iz pot-krov-lje)

Morphology

• Another classification of morphemes:• Lexical morphemes – lexical meaning

(rad-nik)• Grammatical morphemes – grammatical

function (-ti iz raz-mijen-i-ti; -a iz pjev-a)• Free morphemes usually lexical; bound

morphemes could be lexical or grammatical

Basic notions in morphological analysis

• Base form – the root part of the word• Affix – bound morpheme; added to base

form in the processes of derivation and inflection

Basic notions in morphological analysis

• Affixes are divided according to their position in a word:

• Prefixes – in front of the base form (pro- u pročitati)

• Suffixes – after the base form (-nje u čitanje)

• Infixes – part of the base form of the word (-ov- u gradovi)