Morphology= study of word structure

Morpheme= minimal unit of meaning

We can begin with a rough conception of forms that a word can take on while still being the same word (lexeme)

One entry in the dictionary for sing, sang, sung, another for singer.

Alternate forms of the same lexeme are formed by inflectional morphology; if there is a common (fixed) form, it’s called the inflectional stem.

Forms new words (new lexemes) from other words. Typically, the meaning changes.

The change in meaning can be subtle, extralinguistic: telly for television, Aussie for Australian

the smallest unit of linguistic meaning. A single word may be composed of one or

more morphemes. Example:      un+system+atic+al+ly

( the word unsystematically can be analyzed into 5 separate morphemes)

A grammatical unit in which there is an arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning that cannot be further analyzed.

Every word in every language is composed of one or more morphemes.

Free morphemes can stand alone, bound morphemes appear only as parts of words

Bound morphemes may be „basic” , no longer used independently (freely)

Sometimes have little meaning (but always meaningful, like all morphemes)

Example free morpheme girl, system, bound morpheme un-, dis-, -ly

Morphemes Bound Free Affixes Closed Class Open Class (Function words) (Content words)

Derivational Inflectional (new meaning) (change grammatical Prepositions Nouns, function) Conjun. etc. Verbs, etc prefix suffix suffix

Derivational morphemes derive a new word by being attached to root morphemes or stems.

They can be both suffixes and prefixes in  English. Examples:    beautiful

Change of Meaning  Examples: un+do (the opposite meaning of ?do?)

Change of the syntactic category    (optionally) 

Inflectional morphemes signal grammatical information such as number (plural), tense, possession and so on. They are thus often called bound grammatical morphemes 

They are only found in suffixes in  English.  Examples:  boys

No change of meaning  Never change the syntactic category of the

words or morpheme to which they are   attached. Example: walk walked 

/z/ -s, the plural suffix of nouns /z/ -’s, the possessive suffix /z/ -s, the present tense 3rd person singular /d/ -ed, the past tense suffix of verbs // -ing, the present participle suffix // -er, the comparative suffix of adjectives //-est, the superlative suffix of adjectives /()/- (e)n, the past participle suffix of some

verbs(e.g. broken, eaten)

Repetition of the first part of the singular form

Example: Ilocano ulo (head) sg. ululo (heads) pl.

Infix – an affix placed inside the word Example: Tagalog

basa (‘read’) -----> bumasa (‘Read!’) Infix can be derivational: Kamhmu

hiip (‘to eat with a spoon’)hrniip (‘a spoon’)