MORPHOLOGY

What is Morphology?Morphology is a field of linguistics focused on the study of the forms and formation of

words in a language.

Words in a language consist of one element or elements of meaning which are

called morphemesmorphemes.

What is a morpheme?

• The smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function.

• A single word may be composed of one or more morphemes.

EX/She looked unhappier than the day before

un+ happy+er (can be analyzed into 3 morphemes)

MORPHEMES

free morphemes bound morphemes(basic word forms) (prefixes and

suffixes)

Free Morphemes:morphemes which can be used as a word on their own.They generally consist of separate English word forms such as nouns,verbs and adjectives.

EX/girl,system,happy,act,plane,etc.

Bound morphemes:

• morphemes which can not occur on their own as an independent word.They are generally prefixes and suffixes like re-,-ist,-ed,-s in the words reprint,typist,talked and boys,for example and are attached to other forms which are described as stems-basic word forms

EX/un + happy + er(unhappier)prefix stem suffix

bound free bound

EX/carelessness

Show the free and bound morphemes in the words below.Which one or ones have bound morphemes?

desire,shortened,bottle,previewerNOTE:be careful about these words

receive,reduce,repeat

Free Morphemes

Lexical morphemes functional morphemes

Lexical morphemes(lexical content words):set of ordinary nouns,verbs and adjectives that carry the content of messages we convey.Since we can add new lexical morphemes to the language,we call these morphemes open class words.Some examples are nice,book,walk,house,etc.

Functional morphemes(Grammatical words):

the class of words which consist largely of functional words in a language.We also call them closed class words because we can not add new lexical morphemes to a language.Determiners:the,a/an prep.:in,ofAuxiliary:can,could intensifier:very,tooConnectors:and,orPronouns:I,me,hesub.conj:while,because

EX/When he arrived,the old man had an umbrella and a large plastic bag full of books.

Bound Morphemes

Derivational morphemes Inflectional morphemes

Derivational Morphemes:these bound morphemes are used to produce new lexical words from the existing ones and they can be both prefixes and suffixes.There is the change of meaning because there is the change of lexical category.

EX/noun to adjective care + ful(adj.)noun suffix

EX/singer,exactly,moralizeNOTE:In some cases,there is no change of

category ,but there is still change of meaning.EX/re + print (verb)

pre. Verbsome others are friendship,unhappier,mislead.

Inflectional morphemes :used to signal grammatical function of a word,not to produce new words in a language.They are only found in suffixes and there is no change of meaning or lexical category.These morphemes always come after the derivational morphemes.

• -s(third person singular):She waits at home • -ed(past tense):She waited at home• -ing(progressive):She is eating the donuts• -en(past part.):Mary has eaten the donut

• -s(plural):She ate the donuts.• -’s(possessive):Disa’s hair is short• -er(comp.):Disa has shorter hair than Karin• -est(super.):Disa has the shortest hair

Find the inflectional and derivational morphemes in the sentences below1)Slowly,he ambled down the street.2)I could feel the warmth of the fire3)That is the biggest fish I have ever seen.

Morphological Description

MORPHEME

Free Morpheme Bound Morpheme

Lexical Morpheme

Functional(Grammatical)

Morpheme

Derivational Morpheme

Inflectional Morpheme

What is the difference between derivational and inflectional morpheme??

Derivational Morphemes

1. Derivational morphemes derive a new word by being

attached to root morphemes or stems.

2. They can be both suffixes and prefixes in English.

Examples: beautiful, exactly, unhappy, impossible, recover

3. Change of Meaning

Example: un+do

(the opposite meaning of ‘do’)

Inflectional Morphemes 1. Inflectional morphemes give

grammatical information such as number (plural), tense, possession and so on.

2. They are only found in suffixes in English. Examples: boys, Mary’s , walked

3. No change of Meaning Examples: walk vs. walks toy vs. toys

4.i)Change grammatical category of words.

Example:teach + er = teacherverb + suffix =noun

ii)No change of grammatical category.

Example: friend + ship =friendship noun + suffix =noun

4.Never change grammatical category of words.

Example: old + er = older adj.+suffix =adj.

DON’T FORGET

A derivational suffix always attached to a word before an inflectional suffix.ex: teach + er + s = teachers

verb + d.s + i.s öğret + men + ler

fiil +yapım eki + çekim eki

Read your sentences and

a)say how many morphemes they haveb)list all the elements of sentences

The child’s wildness shocked the teachers.

The child -’s wild -ness shock -ed Functional lexical inflectional lexical derivational lexical inflectional

the teach -er -sFunctional lexical derivational inflectional

1)The insurance policy covers all baggage and personal effects.

2)The lucky boys find a backpack in the park and they open it carefully.

3)The man was fishing with relaxation and enjoyment.

4)The singer’s new songs are more professional than the others.

Problems in morphological description

1)Car cars

boy boys

word words

man men these are

woman women irregular plurals so feet foot we can’t explain which

inflectional morpheme they take or do they take

any inflectional morpheme.

2) leg legal car carnivorepolite cosmopolitewin window

Examples from Turkish:bal balıkas aslankap kaplangaz gazetekep kepçekel kelepçe

3)Sometimes there may not be a derivational relationship between the noun,verb and adjective of a word.It has been pointed out that an extremely large number of English words owe their morphological patterning to languages like Latin and Greek.

ex: law(n.) comes from Old English ‘lagu’

legal(v.) comes from Latin ‘legalis’

mouth(n.) comes from Old English

oral(adj.) comes from Latin

Morphs and allomorphs

Morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function.

un+happy+(i)er

Morph:an actual form used as part of a word,representing one version of a morpheme.

Un+happy+(i)er

Cat + plural(-s)Bus + plural(-es)Baby + plural(-ies)Sheep + plural(0)

Man + plural(change of vowel)

+

Allamorph:one of a closely related set of morphs.

allomorph

In addition to –s and –ies, another allomorph ’plural’ in English seems to be a zero- morph because the plural form of sheep is actually ‘sheep +0=sheep’.When we look at ‘man+plural’, we have a wovel change in the word (æ e), as the morph that produces so called irregular plural for men.

The versions of the plural morpheme

Child

Deer

Bus

Car

Ox

Baby

man

Child+(r )en

Deer

Bus+es

Car+s

Ox+en

Babies

men

antidisestablishmentarianism

Anti+dis+establish+ment+ari+an+ism

Write the versions of the past tense morpheme with the words below

Walk

Find

Build

Is

Go

Cut

run

Kanuri(Nigeria)

IlocanoA language of Philippinnes

Has a quite different way of marking plurals

Reduplication:repeating all or part of a form

examples:Head heads Ulo ululo Life lifes biag bibiag

Tagalog

• Another language spoken in Philippinnes

sulat(write) sumulat(Write!) susulat(will write)

Infix:a morpheme that is inserted into a word