Grammatical Aspect of

Language
Morphology
Chapter 1

Words

Range of regular vocab thousands

500,000 entries in the dictionary
at the age of 6 13,000 words acquired
Average high school graduate 60,000
One can learn thousands of words, but still
doesnt know the language

Thecatsatonthemat. (How many words?)

Babamerkengeldi.
Danassamposjetilatetku.

 Knowing a word a particular sequence od

sounds is associated with the meaning
Each word listed in the mental dictionary or
lexicon part of a speakers linguistic knowledge
arbitrary Meaning? Sound? Meaning?

 Still, there are words with the same sound and

different meaning:
e.g. bare / bear ?
- Same meaning and different sounds:
e.g. sofa / couch

MORPHOLOGY

morphology: a study of the structure or

form of something
Morphology is the study of word formation, of the
structure of words.

Basic concepts and terms

II. Derivational processes
III. Inflection
IV. Function words
V. Problems in morphological description
VI. Interaction between morphology and
phonology
VII. Collocations

Basic Concepts and

Terms (1)
Morphology:

The study of the structure of words & how

words are formed (from morphemes)
Morpheme:

The smallest unit of language that carries

meaning (maybe a word or not a word)

A sound-meaning unit

A minimal unit of meaning or grammatical

function

The level of language at which sound and

meaning combine
A. Free morpheme: lexical & functional
morpheme (boy, gentle)
B. Bound morpheme: derivational &
inflectional (-ish, -ness, -ly, -pre, trans-, -un)

Stem (root, base): the

morpheme to which other
morphemes are added
free / content
(e.g. teacher, dresses, unkind)
Stem
bound / functional
(e.g. worked)

MORPHEME
FREE

LEXICAL MORPHEME
(OPEN CLASS)

BOUND
DERIVATIONAL MORPHEME

FUNCTIONAL MORPHEME
(CLOSED CLASS)

INFLECTIONAL MORPHEME

Free Morpheme
I.

Definition: can occur by itself, not

attached to other morphemes

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs

Examples: girl, teach, book, class, etc.

Two kinds of Free Morpheme

A. LEXICAL MORPHEME (OPEN CLASS)
1. definition: has lexical meaning; new examples can be
freely added
examples: N, Verb, Adj, Adv (content words) /Bollywood/
B. FUNCTIONAL MORPHEME (CLOSED CLASS)
1. definition: new examples are rarely added (but not
impossible to add, with no lexical meaning)
examples: Pro, Prep, Conj, Art. (function words) /and,
in,./

Bound Morpheme
I.

Definition: must be attached to another

morpheme

-. Specify grammatical relations with little

semantic content.
-. The

boy
CLOSED CLASS

-. A

boy

. The book of yours prep. OF indicates

possessions

HOW MANY F ARE THERE?

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF
SCIENTIFIC
STUDY
COMBINED
WITH
THE
EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF

SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE
EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

Function words OF are mostly not recognized.

Slips of the tongue

The journal of the editor
The editor of the journal
Children omit function words:
e.g. doggie barking

Two kinds of Bound Morpheme

I. DERIVATIONAL MORPHEME
may change syntactic class
to form new words
examples: -able, un-, re-, etc.
II. INFLECTIONAL MORPHEME
Different forms of the same word
Not change syntactic class
Only 8 kinds in English: -s, -s (plural nouns), -ing, -ed/en, -est, -er, -s (S-V agreement)

MORPHEME
BOUND
DERIVATIONAL
MORPHEME
INFLECTIONAL
MORPHEME

FREE
LEXICAL MORPHEME
(OPEN CLASS)
FUNCTIONAL MORPHEME
(CLOSED CLASS)

Morphemes
lexical
free
Morphemes
bound
(affixes)

(open classes)
functional
(closed classes)
derivational
inflectiomal

Morphemes
The word - the most basic unit of meaning
Words - the basic meaningful elements of a language.
Morpheme the linguistic term for the most element unit of
grammatical form.
Morph ology the science of (word) forms concerning
knowledge
Morphology the study of the internal structure of words and
the rules by which words are formed,
And part of our grammatical knowledge of a language

A word
Can be composed of one or more morphemes
Boy + ish + ness
A morpheme can be recognized as a single sound:
a grammatical
(without)
A single morpheme monomorphemic word

So,
Sound units combine to form morphemes
a + grammatical

Morphemes combine to form words

singer + er

Words combine to form larger units phrases and

sentences
She is a singer.

Basic Concepts and

Terms (3)
Affix:
Prefix e.g. Unhappy
Infix
e.g. Fikas
fumikas

strong
to be strong

Suffix
e.g. Happiness
Circumfixes e. g. chokma
good
ik + chokm + o
not good

he is
he is

Roots and stems

A morpheme root and one or more affixes
Paint + er
Re + read
Ling + uist

A root may/may not stand

alone as a word.

BOUND ROOTS:
Appears in a combination with other morphemes:
E.g. receive / conceive / perceive / decesive

 Prefixes - occur before other morphemes

Suffixes occur after other morphemes
Infixes morphemes are inserted into other
morphemes.

Rules of word formation

Uglification (ambition, distraction, derision)
( from L.Carroll, Alices Wonderland)
- Ugly + ify + cation
- Knowledge of morphology includes knowledge of
individual morphemes, their pronunciation,
meaning and knowledge of the rules for
combining morphemes into complex words.

1. Derivation (1)

Derivation: derived by rules; it can also be

called derivational affixation or affixation.
A. different rules e.g. V + affix
N + affix
(criticize)
ADJ + affix
N + affix
(desirable)
B. multiple combination
e.g. organizational

(baker)
V

V (purify)
ADJ

1. Derivation (2)
Tree structure of organizational
ADJ
N
Af
V
Af
N Af
organ ize ation

al

Inflectional morphology
Function words to, it, be are free morphemes
English has bound morphemes strict gram.
function: tense, number, person, and etc.
These bound morphemes are called
INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY.
Cant change the grammatical category of the
stems to which they are attached.
e.g. He sails the ocean blue.

Modern English has only 8 bound inflectional

morphemes:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

S 3rd singular form

ED
past tense
ing
s plural
s possessives
er comparatives
est - superlatives

 Inflectional morphemes follow the derivational

morphemes in a word:
Commit + ment + s (V N
N)
derv.

Inflect.

* Inflectional morphemes are productive applicable to

nearly every appropriate base

Inflectional X Derivational
Morphemes
Inflectional morphemes

Derivational morphemes

Have gram. function

Have lexical structure

No word class change

May cause word class change

Small or no meaning change

Some meaning change

Often required by rules of grammar

Never required by rules of grammar

Follow derivational morphemes in a

word

Precede inflectional morphemes in a

word

Productive

Sometimes productive

ENGLISH MORPHEMES
BOUND

FREE

AFFIX ROOT
OPEN CLASS
CLOSE CLASS
(content w.)
(function/gram. w. )
DERIVAT.
INFLECTIONAL
- noun (girl) - prep.
- verb - articles
- pronouns
PREFIX SUFFIX SUFFIX - auxiliary
- un
- ly - ing, er, s
- re
- ist - s, est, s
- ment - er, ed

The hierarchical structure of words

Morphemes added in a fixed order
un+system+atic
(* root is system/ noun)
Adjective
UN
Noun
system

Adjective
ATIC

Rule 1
The derivational suffix atic is attached to the
noun system, forming an adjective systematic.

Rule 2
We attached the derivational prefix un to an
adjective formed by Rule 1:
Un+ systematic

Adjective + ly
Fantastic + al
Happy + ly

Rule productivity
Inflection is productive : used freely to form new
words from the list of free and bound morphemes.
* er + verbs - examine + er
* th + verbs heal + th
* ed + verbs claimbed

(chairer*)

Exceptions: plural / past simple tense /

comparative

Man men
Child children
Go went
Good better

*they must be learned separately

Other morphological processes

Human language capacity enormously creative

Misconception can also be creative
Bi kini
Mono kini?

Compounding (1)

Compounding (compounds): combine two

or more free morphemes to form new
words
- Face book, YouTube recently added

Noun + noun same category

Mail + man - mailman
Adjective + adjective adjective
Icy + cold - icycold

 Mailman the richest word is the

headword / final
Three-time loser

Meaning of compounds:
She had a red coat in her closet.
She had a Redcoat in her closet.*
Significant in America in 1776
a boat-house
a cathouse
*extending the meaning of individual parts

Morphological analysis: identifying

morphemes
Speakers have knowledge of internal structure of
a word
How a new language learner learn words?
E.g. ugly - *root morpheme

er - *bound morpheme

Summary
Knowing language knowing the morphemes
Moral + ize + er + s
Knowing a word you know its form (sound and
gesture) and its meaning

Morphemes can be free or bound

Free: girl, the
The come into two types: open (content) + closed
(continuing function)
Bound: ed, able
They come into two types: derivational (derive
new words) and inflectional (gram. change to a
word)

 Complex words contain a root around which stems are

built by affixation.
Rules of morphology dtermine what kind of affixation
produces actual words such as un /un+system+atic/
/un+system/
Hierarchical structure ambiguous words
Un +lockable
Unlock+able

 Some morphological rules are productive.

They apply freely to the appropriate stem.
E.g. re+do, re+use
Beside affixation, compounds may also be
formed.
The head of compound bears the basic meaning.
Back formations misinterpreting