I. Introduction

A. Definition

1. The study of word formation and the internal

structure of words is called morphology.

2. The most elemental grammatical units in a

language are morphemes.

B. In the mental dictionary, each word must include information on

1. pronunciation: phonological representation

2. meaning: semantic properties

3. syntactic class: category specification

e.g. book

[ bk ]

noun

C. Ferdinand de Saussure:

The sounds and the meaning of a word are inseparable.

There is an arbitrary union between the sounds and

meaning of the linguistic sign.

II. Dictionaries

A. History of published dictionaries

B. Oxford English Dictionary (OED):

the greatest lexicographic work

C. All dictionaries provide

1. spelling

2. pronunciation

3. definition

4. parts of speech

III. Classes of Words

A. Lexical Content Words

1. Definition: Content words make up the major word

classes-nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in English.

2. Open class words

B. Function Words

1. Definition: Function Words include conjunctions,

prepositions, the articles, and pronouns.

2. Closed class words

IV. Word Sets

"Most wonderful of all are words, and how they make friends

one with each other."

--O. Henry

A. Definition: A morpheme is the smallest linguistic

sign in which there is an arbitrary union of a sound

and a meaning that cannot be further analyzed.

B. Properties

1. Every word in every language is composed of one or

more morphemes.

2. A morpheme may be represented by

a. a single sound, such as “a”

b. a single syllable, such as “child”

c. more than one syllable, such as “berry”

3. A morpheme must have a consistent meaning.

V. Morphemes

Words and Word Structure

Morpheme: The smallest unit of language that carries

information about meaning or function

(e.g., book, dog, -s, -ing).

Free morphemes: boy, girl, pen, tree

Bound morphemes: -s, -ed, -ing 

Simple words: and, boy, act, man, hunt

Complex words: boy-s, hunt-er, hunt-er-s, gentle-man-li-ness 

Allomorphs: Variants of a morpheme (e.g., [-s], [-z], and [-z] are

allomorphs of the English plural morpheme).

C. Classification

1. Bound morphemes: Morphemes that

cannot occur unattached are bound

morphemes.

a.    Prefixes: morphemes that occur only

before other morphemes,

such as, dis- in “dishonest”,

bi- in “bicycle”

b.   Suffixes: morphemes that occur only after

other morphemes,

such as, -er in “worker”,

-ist in “pianist”

c. Infixes: morphemes that are inserted

into other morphemes,

such as, -um- inserted into

“fikas”,which becomes “fumikas”

in the language, Bontoc

  

d.   Circumfixes: morphemes that are

attached to a stem morpheme

both initially and finally.

2.      Free morphemes:

Morphemes that can constitute words by themselves are called free morphemes,

such as “man”, “sick”.

D. Problems of classification and definition

1. huckles:

Some morphemes are not meaningful in isolation but acquire meaning by connection with other morphemes in words, such as huckle-, boysen-, in “huckleberry” and “boysenberry”

2.  ceives: Some morphemes may occur in many words, but for which it is very difficult to find constant meanings for them, such as -ceives in “receives”, “perceives”, and “conceives”.

E. Representing Word Structure

Root: The morpheme in a word that carries the major component of the word’s meaning and belongs to a lexical category (collect in

the word collections).

Affix: A morpheme that does not belong to a lexical category and is always bound (e.g., -ing, -un).

Base: The form to which an affix is added (e.g., book books,

modernize modernized).

 

Tree structures:

N A

 

V Af Af A

 

teach er un kind

V Root for -ed ---------------- V Root and base for –en----- A Af Af black en ed Problematic cases: A N Af B B Af in ept salv ation Figure 1 The internal structure of words built around a bound root

F. Some Common Morphological Phenomena

Affixation: re-play, il-legal, vivid-ly, kind-ness

Cliticization: I’m leaving now.

They’re here now.

Internal change: sing, sang; foot, feet; drive, drove.

Suppletion: go, went; be, was, were. Stress and tone placement: import (V), Import (N);

present (V), present (N).

Reduplication: tabuk ‘quickly’

tabuk tabuk ‘very quickly’ (in Turkish)

takbuh ‘run’

tatakbuh ‘will run’ (in Tagalog)

Compounding: streetlight, bluebird, washcloth, overload

VI. Rules of Word Formation

A. Morphological rules determine how

morphemes combine to form new words.

B. Derivational Morphology:

When derivational morphemes are conjoined

to other morphemes, a new word is formed or derived.

Derivational morphemes include prefixes and suffixes.

1 . Derivation

Derivation: A process that forms a word with a meaning and/or

category distinct from that of its base through the

addition of an affix (e.g., helphelper).

a. English Derivational Affixes

Suffixes: -able (fixable), -er (worker), -ive (assertive),

-ment (treatment), -ful (hopeful), -ize (hospitalize),

-ity (priority), -ness (sadness).

Prefixes: anti- (antipollution), de- (deactivate), in-

(incomplete)

un- (unhappy), re- (rethink), dis- (dislike)

Complex derivations: N V A V Af Af Af act ive ate ion Figure 2 A word with a multilayered internal structure

a. N b. N A N Af A Af Af A Af un happy ness un happy ness Figure 3 Two possible structures for the word unhappiness

Two classes of derivational affixes: Class 1: -ity, -y, -ive, -(i)al, -ize, -ious, -ion Class 2: -ness, -less, -ful, -ly, -er, -ish

 

2. The derivational word may have a different meaning

than the original word and possibly be in a different

grammatical class.

a. Noun to Adjective: boy＋ ish

health + ful

alcohol + ic

b. Verb to Noun: accus＋ ation

sing＋ er

confer + ence

c. Adjective to Adverb: exact＋ ly

quiet＋ ly

swift＋ ly

d. Noun to Verb: moral＋ ize

vaccin＋ ate

haste＋ n

3. Not all derivational morphemes cause

a change in the grammatical class.

a. Prefixes: re＋ print

a＋moral

semi + annual

ex + wife

b.Suffixes: music＋ ian

pun＋ ster

vicar＋ age

fadd＋ ist

C. Some morphological rules are quite productive.

1. VERB＋ able＝ able to be VERB-ed

ex: acceptable, adaptable

2. un＋ ADJECTIVE＝ not-ADJECTIVE ( antonyms )

ex: unbelievable , unacceptable, unchangeable,

unsimplified

3. VERB＋ er＝ one who performs an action

ex: lover, hunter

 VII. Lexical gaps

A.   There are gaps in the lexicon such as googol,

‘words’ which are not in the dictionary but

which can be added.

B.Two facts cause them:

1.     A permissible sound sequence has no

meaning attached to it ( like blick, slark).

2.     Possible combinations of morphemes have

not been made( like uglyify, unsad, unbrave).

D. The morphological rules can help us guess the

meaning of a word we don’t know, but sometimes

we guess wrong.

ex : gullible--to do with sea birds(×)

Longevity--being very tall(×)

NOTE:

When someone uses such words as coolth (li

ke warmth), fullen ( like weaken ), usually it i

s either an error or an attempt at humor.

3.      meaning:

a.      predictable ex. girlfriend

b.     partially predictable ex. blackboard

c.      completely unpredictable

ex. cathouse/jack-in-a- box

4. universality of compounding:

This process can be applied to many languages to

enlarge vocabulary.

 VIII. Word Coinage

A. Compounds: to string words together

1.      category combination

n+n:n mailman a+a:a icycold

n+a:a watertight v+n:n pickpocket

2.      number of words: no definite answer

5. Properties of Compounds

(1) A-N compounds are characterized by a more

prominent stress on their first component (e.g.,

greenhouse ‘an indoor garden’, green house ‘a

house painted green’)

(2) In English, tense and plural markers can

typically not be attached to the first element (e.g.,

*foxes hunter fox hunters).

6. Types of Compounds

Endocentric compound: A compound whose

rightmost component (in English) identifies the

general class to which the meaning of the entire word

belongs (e.g., dumptruck is a type of truck).

Exocentric compound: A compound whose meaning

does not follow from the meaning of its parts (e.g.,

redneck, since its referent is not a type of neck).

B. Acronyms: initials of several words

ex. TGIF: Thank God This Friday

ASAP: As Soon As Possible

IOU: I Owe You

AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency

Syndrome

C. Blends: words that are “less than” compounds

ex. smog: smoke + fog

motel: motor + hotel

brunch: breakfast + lunch

D. Back-formations: to subtract an fix

ex. peddle: peddler

edit: editor typewrite: typewriter

Extending word formation rule:

from existing words which appear to be

analyzable

ex. bikini bi (two) monokini mono(one)

act/action televise/television

E. Abbreviations: short forms by clipping

ex. ad: advertisement

doc: doctor

gym: gymnasium

F.     Words from Names:

ex. sandwich: the Earl of Sandwich

gargantuan: Gargantuan, the creature with

a huge appetite

jumbo: an elephant brought to the US

IX. Grammatical Morphemes

A. In the discussion of derivational

morphology, we see that certain

aspects of morphology have

syntactic implications in that nouns

can be derived from verbs,

verbs from adjectives,

adjectives from nouns, and so on.

 

B.   Some morphemes do not derive a meaning until

combined with others in a sentence. For example, what is

the meaning of it in the sentence “It takes me five hours

to finish my work.” or in “We found it too difficult to lie.”

What is the meaning of to in “He wanted her to go”?

To has a grammatical meaning as an infinitive marker,

and it is also a morpheme required by the syntactic,

sentence-formation rules of the language.  

Similarly for have in “I have lived here for ten

years”, which is a grammatical marker for the

“present perfect”; and for the different forms of be in

both “The dog is running.” and “ The screen of the

window was changed.”, which function, respectively,

as a “progressive” marker and a “ passive voice”

marker.

 C. Inflectional Morphemes 

1. Many languages, including English to some extent,

contain “bound” morphemes that, like to, are for

the most part purely grammatical markers,

representing such concepts as “tense”, “number”,

“gender”, “case”, etc.. Such “bound” grammatical

morphemes are called inflectional morphemes: they

never change the syntactic category of the words or

morphemes to which they are attached. They are

always attached to complete words.

 

2. English Inflectional Morphemes:

At the present stage of English history, there are a total of eight bound inflectional affixes: a. -s third person singular present: He plays basketball. b. -ed past tense: He played basketball. c. -ing progressive: He is playing mahjong d. -en past participle: He has played mahjong. e. -s plural: He has two students. f. -’s possessive: Georgia’s hair is long. g. -er comparative: Georgina has longer hair than Disa.

-est Superlative: Georgina has the longest hair.

3. Inflection Versus Derivation

(1) Category change

(2) Order

(3) Productivity

4. English Inflectional Affixes

(1) Plural –s

(2) Possessive –’s

(3) 3rd person sing. Non-past –s

(4) Progressive –ing

(5) Past tense –ed

(6) Past participle –en/-ed

(7) Comparative –er

(8) Superlative –est

6.Further Examples of Inflection Number Noun class Case Person and number agreement Tense