Morphological Analysis

Lim Kay YieKong Moon Moon

Rosaida bt ibrahim Nor hayati bt jamaludin

DEFINITION OF MORPHOLOGY

Morphology is the study of the structure and formation

of words.

Its most important unit is the morpheme, which is defined as the "minimal unit of meaning".

(Linguistics textbooks usually define it slightly differently as "the minimal unit of grammatical analysis".)

Consider a word like: "unhappiness". This has three parts:

There are three morphemes, each carrying a certain amount of meaning. un means "not", while ness means

"being in a state or condition". Happy is a free morpheme because it can appear on its own (as a "word" in its own

right).

Stem•A stem is a base morpheme to which another morphological piece is attached. •It can be simple, made up of only one part, or complex, itself made up of more than one piece.

Example:

Word reconsideration. We can break it into three morphemes: re-, consider, and -ation. - Consider is called the stem.

Root•A root is like a stem in constituting the core of the word to which other pieces attach, but the term refers only to morphologically simple units.

Example: Disagree is the stem of disagreement, because it is the base to which -ment attaches, but agree is the root. Taking disagree now, agree isboth the stem to which dis- attaches and the root of the entire word.

Affix• An additional element placed at the beginning or end of a root, stem, or word, or in the body of a word, to modify its meaning.

Example:Reconsideration

re- and -ation are both affixes 

Prefix• A letter or group of letters attached to the beginning of a word that partly indicates its meaning. •Common prefixes include anti-(against), co- (with), mis- (wrong, bad).  Example:

dis- = apart, away,  disappears.”

Suffix• A letter or group of letters attached to the end of a word that partly indicates its meaning. Example: -ful = have, beautiful

Bound morphemes have to be attached to a free morpheme, and so cannot be words in their own right. Thus you can't have sentences in

English such as

"Jason feels very un ness today".

Morphological processes

1. Inflection

•Process of changing the form of a word so that it expresses

information such as number, person, case, gender, tense, mood

and aspect, but the syntactic category of the word remains

unchanged.• As an example, the plural form of the noun in English is usually

formed from the singular form by adding an s. car / cars table / tables dog / dogs

• Other examples of Inflection:By adding

a) ’s (possessive)b) -ing (verb suffix meaning “in process” : is

reading)c) -er (comparative: smarter)d) -est (superlatve suffix: smartest)e) -ed (past tense or irregular variants, as in

bought and ate)f) “perfect” suffix on verbs ( -en, as in he has taken

the cake.)

2. Derivation

- Derivation does change the category. Linguists classify derivation in English according to whether or not it induces a change of pronunciation.

- For instance, adding the suffix ity changes the pronunciation of the root of active so the stress is on the second syllable: activity.

-The addition of the suffix al to approve doesn't change the pronunciation of the root: approval.

Derivational Affixes In Nouns

- age (appendage) - ity (personality)- al (arrival) - let (outlet)- ance (acceptance) -ment (government)-ness (kindness) -ful (handful)-tion (absorption) -ship (friendship)-ism (socialism) -ist (socialist)-er (babysitter) -ant (assistant)-icle (particle) -ure (departure)

In Verbs-ate (satiate) -re (rewrite)-ize (regularize) un- (undo)-en (harden) de- (deregulate)-ify (glorify)

Derivational Affixes In Adjectives

-able (readable) -like (childlike)-al (accidental) -ory (regulatory)anti- (anti-war) -ous (porous)-ary (visionary) -semi (semilogical)-ent (confident) -super (supermarket)-ful (beautiful) -trans (trans-Siberian)-ish (boyish) -ultra (ultrasensitive)-less (priceless)-ive (active)-in (intolerant)

In Adverbs-ly (slowly) -wise (timewise)

In Members of More Than One World Class-an (American [noun and adjective])-ly (friendly [adjective], eagerly [adverb])post- (postscript [noun], postdate [verb])pre- (preview [noun and verb])

Summary

Inflectional Derivational

Always follow any derivational suffixes.Eg: authorizing{author} + {-ize} + {-ing}

Always precede any inflectional suffixes.Eg:statements{state} + {ment} + {s}

SummaryInflectional Derivational

Never change part of speech of base.Eg: boy (noun singular)boys (noun plural)

Often change part of speech of base.Eg:boy (noun)Boyish (adjective)

SummaryInflectional Derivational

Combine with almost all members of single part of speech.

Eg: human>humanspencil>pencils

Usually can combine with only a few subgroups of bases belonging to one or two parts of speech.Eg:human> humanize *humanify *humanate

SummaryInflectional Derivational

-Has grammatical meaning.

Eg: {-s} > humansCreates plural of a word that retains its original meaning.

-Has some lexical meaning.

Eg:{-ize} > humanizeCreates verbs meaning “to cause to become”

Analysing morphemes

You can do this in 3 ways :-1. By dividing it up with hyphens

e.g. truth-ful-ness

2. By using a tree diagram OR hierarchical structure

truth - ful - ness

N

AN

Dividing with hyphens

Divide into base form + morphemestruth = one morphemetruthful = base form + bound morpheme

(truth-ful)truthfulness = base form + bound + bound

(truth-ful-ness)

Constructing tree diagrams (1)

i. Divide the word into its constuent morphemes e.g. greed-i-ness

ii. Decide the root and its grammatical category : greed = noun (N)

iii. Decide the grammatical category of all the new words created by the other morphemes

greedy = adjective (A)greediness = noun (N)

Constructing tree diagrams (2)

i. Write the divided word at the bottom of the pagegreed-i-ness

ii. Write the grammatical category of the root and join it to the word:

greediii. Write the grammatical category of all the new words created by the other morphemes and join them up

greed-i greed-i-ness

AN

N

Now write the word and connect up all the categories. Can you label the boxes?

Greed >

Greedy >

Greediness

Answers..

REFERENCESIngo Plag. (2003). Word-Formation in English. Cambridge University Press.

Jeffrey P. Kaplan. (1989). English Grammar Principles and Facts. Prentice- Hall International

Michael Newby. (1987). The Structure of English. Cambridge University Press.

Thomas P. Klammer. (1992). Analyzing English Grammar. Allyn and Bacon.