MORPHOLOGY

What is MORPHOLOGY?Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of words.

Study of internal structure of words.

MORPHEME- smallest linguistic unit which has a meaning or grammatical function. ALLOMORPHS- morphemes having the same function but different in form. Example:

SINCERE/SINCERITY , SEVERE/SEVERITY, CONFUSE/CONFUSION

CLASSIFICATION OF MORPHOLOGY •Root- nucleus of the word that affixes attach to.

shout-ed, act-ion, care-ful, love-ly•Affix- a bound morpheme which added to the root words.

Suffix- talk-ing, quick-ly, hope-ful, sad-ly, perform-ancePrefix- un-happy, pre-existing, de-code, il-legal,mis-placeInfix- s placed within a word; these are rare in English, though cupful can be made plural as cupsful by inserting the plural s as an infix.

MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESS

Morpheme-internal Changes: a type of word formation process wherein a word changes internally to indicate grammatical information.

ablaut: sing, sang, sung; swim, swam, swum other changes: man, men; mouse, mice, goose, geese

Suppletion: a relationship between forms of a word wherein on form cannot be phonologically or morphologically derived from the other, this process is rare.am - was; go –went good - better; bad – worse

Kinds of Words according to Morpheme Structure2. Complex words- root word + at least 1 affix.-example:worker, reread, retelling

Kinds of Words according to Morpheme Structure3. Compound words- with 2 root words- example:ashtray, mailbox, lazybones, backbone

FREE MORPHEMESContent words/ Lexical words

Function words/ Grammatical words

this group includes nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives

Examples: happy, run, man, pizza,

pretty, easy

this group includes conjunctions, articles, pronouns and prepositions

Examples: to, but, and, that, there, first, often, soon,

none, all

1. Affixation - which is forming new words by the combination of bound affixes and free morphemes.

There are three types of affixation:

A.Prefixation: where an affix is placed before the base of the word

In Tagalog, a language of the Philippines, for example, the infix ‘um’ is used for infinitive forms of verbs (to _______)

sulat ‘write’ sumulat ‘to write’

bili‘buy’ bumili ‘to buy’

kuha ‘take’ kumuha ‘to take’

2. Compounding - which is forming new words not from bound affixes but from two or more independent words: the words can be free morphemes, words derived by affixation, or even words formed by compounds themselves.

e.g. girlfriend air-conditioner blackbird looking-glass textbook watchmaker

4. Blending - where two words merge into each other, such as:

brunch from breakfast and lunch

smog from smoke and fog 

5. Ablaut - it is a change in a vowel that carries extra meaning

Example: sing-sang-sung

6. Abbreviations (several types)

Clipping : grad, math, prof, dorm

Acronym: radar, AIDS

The End!

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