MORPHOLOGY:THE ANALYSIS OF WORD STRUCTURE

Phonology has been described as:

The study of speech sounds and their patterns.

o It is a study based on the „phoneme‟ or smallest significant unit of speech.

o Morphology is one of the branches of linguistics in which we study about the structure of words.

© Dr. K. T. Khader

IUG

In order to understand the given definition of “morphology”. The first thing we should ask is:

What is the structure of a word?

What do we mean by the term structure of words?

Content Words

Function Words

-Nouns

-Verbs

-Adjectives

-Adverbs

-Conjunctions

-Prepositions

-Articles

-Pronouns

Structure of words could be roughly

explained as the internal arrangement

of different units/parts in a given word.

Words

Simple words:

boy, cat, rat,

flower

Complex words

Compound word:

Blackbird,

Whitehouse

Complex words:

cats, hospitalized,

decentralization

Word and morpheme

Word: the smallest free form.

Morpheme: the smallest meaningful unit.

Word simple and complex

e.g. write and writer

Morpheme Free and Bound

e.g. write and -er

After talking and defining a word and a morpheme.

Morphology is the science and study of the smallest grammatical units of language, and of their formation into words, including inflection, derivation and composition.

Broadly speaking, morphology is the study of the patterns of word-forms.

© Dr. K. T. Khader

IUG

It studies how the words are formed, where

they originate from, what their grammatical

forms are, what the functions of prefixes and

suffixes in the information of words are, on

what basis the parts of speech of a particular

language are formed, how the system of

gender, number, plural etc. function, how and

why the word-forms change?

Morpheme

Free (F) Bound (B)

(They can stand alone) (Never exist as words, they

are attached to some other

morphemes, e.g. un, _er, _ed

and _s etc.)

Bound morphemes Affixes

Prefix Infix Suffix

Morphemes

Free Bound

Derivational Inflectional

Prefix Suffix Suffixes

Don’t usually

involve

a change

of word class

Involve

a change

of word class

Don’t involve

a change

of word class

Derivational Morphemes ( D )

Change the meaning or part of speech

of a word they attach to.

e.g. {_ish} added to boy = boyish

{_ish} added to child = childish

boy = Noun Adj. = boyish

child = Noun Adj. = childish

Inflectional Morphemes ( I )

Serve a purely grammatical function,

never creating a new word but only

a different form of the same word

e.g. {_s} added to book = books

books

{_s} is inflectional

Derivation

It changes the category and/or the type of

meaning of the word, so it is said to create a new

word.

- e.g. suffix _ment in government

Inflection

It does not change either the grammatical

category or the type of meaning found in the

word.

- e.g. suffix _s in books

ENGLISH INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES

Nouns_s plural_’s possessiveVerbs_s third person singular present_ed past tense_en past participle_ing progressiveAdjectives_er comparative_est superlative

Consider the following English Inflictional

Affixes

FunctionSuffixStem

3rd pre.sg.present- sstudy

past tense- edstudy

progressive- ingwait

past participle- eneat

plural- schair

possessive- ’sboy

comparative- erfast

superlative- estfast

Affix Change Example

• able•(at)ion• er• ing1

• ing2

• ive• al• ment• ful• ian• ic• ly

Suffix

_______________________________________________________________

V AV NV NV NV AV AV NV AN AN AN Adv

fixable, understandable.

realiz-ation, assert-ion

teach + er, work – er

the danc-ing, the shoot-ing

a blaz-ing fire.

assert-ive, impress-ive.

refusal, disposal.

treat-ment, amaze-ment.

faithful, hope-ful.

Arab-ian, Singapore-an.

Cubic, optimist-ic.

quiet-ly, slow-ly.

Consider the following English Derivational Affixes

N N

V V

V V

N N

A A

V V

anti-

de-

dis-

ex-

un-

re-

anti-pollution.

de-mystify, deactivate.

dis-continue, dis-obey.

ex-president, ex-wife.

un-happy, un-fair.

re-think, re-do, re-state.

Prefix

Describe the italic affixes:

1) Premature

2) Untie

3) Darken

4) Fallen

5) Oxen

6) Faster

7) lecturer

The varient form of a morpheme.

consider the English plural morphemes.

1- e.g. cat{s} [s]

dog{s} [z] Allomorphs

rose{s} [iz]

2- e.g. English past tense morphemes.

- play + {ed} [-d]

- slipp + {ed} [-t] Allomorphs

- study + {ed} [id]