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EL 100: Introduction to Linguistics

Lesson: Words and Word-formation Processes,

and Morphology

By:
Angeles, Lyza Mae O.
Canlas, Laurice Althea Jeanne T.
Fajardo, Alyanna Joy F.
Punzalan, Patricia Joy M.
Sacay, Denver Matthew G.
Zarate, Daisyrine T.

BSED-ENG 1-1

Dr. Criselda Antonio Madriaga

November 2024
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Etymology
• Study of true meaning of a word.
• Came from Greek words etymon meaning ‘original form’ or ‘true sense’ and logia
meaning ‘study of’.
• Examples: Philosophy - philo meaning love + sophia meaning wisdom
• Language - lingua meaning tongue

Coinage
• One of the least common processes.
• Invention of totally new words often noticeable in creating commercial product
names.
• Examples: aspirin, vaseline, xerox, etc.
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Borrowing
• Adopting vast numbers of words from other languages
• Examples: croissant (French), tattoo (Tahitian), yogurt (Turkish), etc.

Compounding
• This is when two completely independent words are put together to form one word.
You can think of combining smaller blocks, words, for instance, into something
new.
• As it turns out, compounding occurs quite often in some languages: English and
German: these two languages usually use compounding to combine two entirely
independent words to coin a new word with different meaning.
• French and Spanish: Compounding is much less common in these languages. They
produce new forms of words not with a pair of words stuck together but with
phrases or different endings.
• Bookcase: This is an example of two nouns compounded book-case. A book is
something you read, and a case is something used to hold or store things. Therefore,
a bookcase is a case for holding books. This is a kind of compound noun in which
both the parts are nouns.
Types of Compounds
• Compounds can be nouns: When we join two nouns to form a new word, then that
new word is referred to as a compound noun.
• Example: Fingerprint (finger + print).
A finger is a part of your hand, and a print is a mark left by something. So, a
fingerprint is the mark left by a ridge on your finger.
• Compounds can also be adjectives: Here, two words are joined together to describe
something, and it forms a compound adjective.
• Example: Good-looking (good + looking).
Good refers to attractive or nice, and looking refers to appearance. So, good-
looking refers to someone or something that is attractive or nice to look at.
• Adjective + Noun Compounds: On many occasions, an adjective and a noun are
combined to create a new phrase. In this type of compound, the adjective describes
the noun.
• Example: Fast-food (fast + food).
Fast refers to something that happens quickly, whereas food is something that
we eat. Therefore, fast food is literally meant as food prepared and served
quickly, like when you visit a fast-food outlet.
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Blending
• Blending is when we take two different words, combine parts of them, and make a
new word.
• Usually, we take the beginning of one word and the end of the other.
• Examples: Gasohol = gasoline + alcohol
This is a word for fuel that's made from alcohol and works like gasoline.
• Smog = smoke + fog
We call it smog when smoke and haze mix in the air.
• Smaze = smoke + haze
It is similar to smog, but mixes smoke with haze.

Conversion
• Change in the function of a word (without any reduction)
• Conversion is a type of word formation process in which it is responsible for giving
new meaning to existing words.
• This process is called Zero Derivation or Null Derivation because it does not
acquire any reductions to its form basis.
• Moreover, Conversion is also sometimes called Functional Shift because the
change is in the function, not its form. As for example when a noun comes to be
used as a verb.
• Example: Plane (noun) - an aircraft
To plane (verb) - to smooth a wooden surface
• Another example (Host (noun) – a person who entertains; To host (verb) – the act
of entertaining). You are just converting a noun to a verb, resulting in an action to
change the word’s category. Let’s have an example from verb to a noun, (To hope
(verb) – the act of expecting something; Hope (noun) – the feeling of expecting
something.
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Clipping
• In morphology, clipping is the process of forming a new word by dropping one or
more syllables from a polysyllabic word, such as cellphone from cellular phone.
• In other words, clipping refers to part of a word that serves for the whole, such as
ad and phone from advertisement and telephone, respectively.
• The term is also known as a clipped form, clipped word, shortening, and truncation.
• Some of the most common products of clipping are names—Liz, Ron, Rob, and
Sue, which are shortened forms of Elizabeth, Ronald, Robert, and Susan. The
authors note that clipping is especially popular in the speech of students, where it
has yielded forms like prof for professor, Phys-ed for physical education, and
poli-sci for political science.

Backformation
• In linguistics, back-formation refers to the process of creating a new word by
removing affixes from an existing word.
• To put it plainly, it means removing part of a word to make a new word. (The new
word created by back-formation is also called a back-formation.)
• Most often, back-formation involves making a new verb from an existing noun: for
example, cohabitation gave rise to the verb cohabitate, and vaccination to vaccinate.
• An example of back-formation is the word "edit," which comes from the word
"editor," with the suffix "-or" being removed. This verb means to make changes or
corrections to a document or piece of writing.
Clipping vs Backformation
• The difference between clipping and backformation is that, when a word undergoes
the back-formation process, a new meaning is created.
• On the other hand, clipping is a process in which words are shortened but keep their
original meaning and word class.
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Acronym

• Formed from the initial letters of a set of other words

• Acronyms can be formed when the pronunciation consists of saying each letter,
for example, CD and BRB.
• Moreover, acronyms are also pronounced as a new word, like NATO and NASA.
As you can see, these examples are written in all capital letters, but some
acronyms are basically everyday terms that we use, for example, the word laser.
• Furthermore, some organizations use their acronyms as a representation of an
appropriate term, for example, the organization of PAW.

Acronym vs Abbreviation

• Acronym - formed through initials

• Abbreviation - shortened form of a word or phrase
• When we say abbreviation, it can be made by using the first few letters in a word.
For example, Ave. (Avenue), St. (Street), and Atty. (Attorney).
• On the other hand, acronyms are made from the first letters of the words that
make up the phrase.
For example, DIY (Do It Yourself) and YOLO (You Only Live Once)
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Derivation
It involves creating new words by adding prefixes or suffixes to a base or root word.
This process often changes the word class (like turning a verb into a noun) or alters the
word’s meaning.
Examples:
• Adding the suffix "-ness" to "happy" forms the word "happiness."
• Adding "-er" to” teach” creates a teacher (someone who teaches), changing both
the meaning and grammatical category.
Through this, it changes the meaning or grammatical category of a word (e.g., a
noun becomes an adjective or verb), expanding vocabulary.

Prefixes and Suffixes

Prefix, an affix added at the beginning of a root word. For instance, adding "un-"
to "happy" creates "unhappy."
Suffix, an affix added at the end of a root word, like adding "-able" to "comfort" to
form "comfortable."
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Infixes
• An infix is a word element (a type of affix) that can be inserted within a word.
• Infixes are inserted within the middle of the word stem. English grammar does not
use infixes in its standard form.
• Affixes which get added in the middle of a single root word are called infixes. In
Standard English grammar, infixes do not exist.
• Infix is the most rarely used suffix in English grammar. They appear in the middle
of the words, but you can find them in the plural forms of some words.

Multiple Processes
• Is a word creation process that occurs when more than one word formation process
is combined to make a single word.
• The creation of a particular word involves more than one process.
• There are some words that employ more than one process at work in the creation
of a particular word.
• Numerous word formation processes can be traced in the creation of a particular
word.
• Deli (AE) - delicatessen borrowed from German) and clipping of the borrowed
word.
• Examples: Problems with the project have snowballed
1. Snow + ball → compound Snowball → (V) conversion
2. "tent" /tent/ → det /det' (assimilation: /t/ picks up +voice of vowel or /n/) dent
→ dey (consonant cluster deletion)
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Morphology
• In Biology, morphology is the study of forms and structures of organisms (shape,
size, and arrangement of different parts).
• In Mathematics (MM), it is a technique used for analysis and processing structures.
• In Geology, it studies the external structures or features of the earth.
• In Linguistics, morphology is a branch or component that studies the structure and
formation of words in a language.
• As per definition in different fields that uses the term of morphology, it can be
concluded that morphology in general studies the structure or forms of things.
• This branch of Linguistics focuses on morphemes or the minimal unit of meaning
or grammatical function, as well as how they are combined to form into words.
• Morphology also includes the understanding in prefixes, suffixes, and root words.

Example: in Swahili (Language in East-Africa)

Ni -ta -ku -penda
I will you love
✓ Linguistics form in different languages do not depend solely on the ‘word’ itself,
but rather it will be better if it is perceived as the ‘notion (idea) of elements
(morphemes)’ in the message.
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Morphemes
• A minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function.
(Unit of grammatical function includes past tense or plural)
• These are the basic elements of words that cannot be further broken down into
smaller necessary elements.
• Central to the study of Morphology

Example: The police reopened the investigation

minimal unit of meaning – open, re (means again), ed (indicating past tense)
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Types of Morphemes
1. Free Morphemes – can exist independently as words (eg. open and tour).

Two Categories:
• Lexical Morphemes (Free Morphemes) – carries the content of the
message.
- this can be noun, adjective & verbs
• Functional Morphemes – conjunctions, prepositions, articles, and
pronouns
2. Bound Morphemes – cannot normally stand alone and are typically attached to
another form.

Examples:
Undressed
Un -dress -ed
Prefix stem suffix
(bound) (free) (bound)

Carelessness
Care -less -ness
Stem suffix suffix
(free) (bound) (boundz
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Derivational and inflectional Morphemes

Derivational Morphemes
• Create new words by changing the meaning or by changing the word class of the word
(make words or new words of a different grammatical category from the stem).
• Derivation of a new word is formed by adding an affix to the root or stem.
• Derivational morphemes are affixes which are added to a lexeme to change its meaning
or function.
• Some derivational morphemes do not change the grammatical category of a word.
Generally, do not change the category of the word to which they are attached.

Example:
• Teacher - Adding the suffix -er to teach changes the meaning to "someone who teaches."
• Hopeful - Adding the suffix -ful to hope changes the meaning to "full of hope."
• Friendless - Adding the suffix -less to friend changes the meaning to "no friends."
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Inflectional Morphemes
• Does not produce new words in the language it used to indicate aspects of grammatical
function of word and does not change category and does not create new lexemes.
• Inflectional Morphemes is a suffix that can be added to the end of word to convey
grammatical meaning.
• Inflectional endings are used to convey the meaning of term in a sentence. Change what
a word does in terms of grammar but does not create a new word.
• They do not change the part of speech or meaning of the word; they function to ensure
that the word is in the appropriate form so the sentence is grammatically correct.

Example:
Verb Inflection
ed in raced, -ing in racing, -s in races
Noun Inflection
plural -s in horses and possessive - 's in Norma's
Adjective inflection
comparative -er in faster and superlative -est in fastest
8 Types of Inflectional Morpheme
NOUN INFLECTION
• Number- A category of nouns; marks singular or plural
• Person- A category of nouns; often marked on verbs in agreement
• Gender- in some languages there are Masculine feminine nouns.
• Case- another grammatical category that may affect nouns or whole noun phrase
VERB INFLECTION
• Tense- A category of verbs; marking time (Present, Past, Future)
• Aspect- related to verbs, marking point of speaking
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• Voice- a category of inflection that allows different noun phrases to be focused in

sentences.
• Mood and modality- a category of verb, marking speech act type and possibility.

Morphological Description
• Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and forms a core part of
linguistic study today.
• Morphology is Greek and is a makeup of morph- meaning 'shape, form', and -ology which
means 'the study of something'.
• Looks at how morphemes can be combined or separated to make different words with
different meanings
• Studying morphology introduces you to new morphemes, which expands your vocabulary
and teaches you brand-new words.
• This, along with other techniques from our writing guide, can only improve your writing.
• Can improve your reading comprehension and improve your writing.

Example:
unhappiness un-happi-ness
horses horse-s. walking. walk-ing
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Problems in Morphological Description

Morphological description refers to the analysis and understanding of how morphemes
form words. However, this process can be complicated due to several factors or problems.

1. Challenges with Irregular Words: Irregular words do not follow standard grammatical
or morphological rules, making them difficult to analyze or predict. For example, English
has many irregular plural forms where the typical plural suffix "-s" is not applied.
Example:
• Singular: sheep → Plural: sheep (not sheeps)
• Singular: man → Plural: men (not mans)
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2. Derivational Morphemes Confusion: Derivational morphemes are used to create new

words or change the grammatical category of a word. However, they can cause confusion
because they often have unpredictable outcomes in terms of meaning or structure.
Derivational morphemes can sometimes overlap in function, adding to the confusion.
Example:
• Adding “-al” to “institutions → “institutional”
• But removing “-al” from “Legal” does not give “Leg”

3. Historical Influence of Other Languages: Languages often borrow words from other
languages, and these borrowed words sometimes retain their original morphological
patterns, which may not align with the rules of the borrowing language. This historical
influence complicates morphological description because it introduces foreign structures
and sounds.
Example:
• In some cases, other languages influenced English. For instance, "law" comes from
Old English, while "legal" came from Latin. So, "law" and "legal" are not connected
in English. The same is true for "mouth" (Old English) and "oral" (Latin).
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4. Borrowed Words and Their Impact: Borrowed words, or loanwords, add complexity
to morphological description because they bring in non-native elements that don't fit easily
into the borrowing language's grammatical structure. These words may follow irregular
patterns, creating exceptions to general rules.

Example:
• The word cactus comes from Latin, and its pluralization follows the Latin rule of
changing the "us" ending to "i" rather than simply adding "-es" as in regular English
nouns like cactuses.

Morphs and Allomorphs

Morph is the physical form or representation of a morpheme, which is the smallest
unit of meaning in language. While a morpheme represents a concept or function like
pluralization or tense, a morph is the actual spoken or written form that conveys this
meaning.
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Examples:
• In the word "cats" the root word is "cat" (singular noun), and the plural morph is "-
s." The morph "-s" indicates the plural form, meaning more than one cat.
• "buses" the root word is "bus" (one morph) and the plural, and second morph is "-
es."
In the examples, morphs "-s" and "-es" represent the inflectional morpheme
(morpheme that carries the core meaning of a word), but they appear differently depending
on the structure and sound of the base word. Thus, different morphs can express the same
morpheme depending on phonological rules. On the other hand, morphs “cat” and “bus”
represent lexical morpheme (morpheme added to a word to indicate grammatical features).
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Allomorphs refers to the variations of a single morpheme that differ in

pronunciation depending on the phonological context. In English, the plural morpheme,
represented in writing by "-s" or "-es," exhibits three different pronunciations of
allomorphs: [z], [s], and [Ø] (zero morpheme). These variations occur based on the sound
that comes at the end of a noun in its singular form.

1. The [z] Allomorph: The plural morpheme [z] is used when the base form of the noun
ends with a voiced sound. Voiced sounds are those in which the vocal cords vibrate during
pronunciation. Voiced sounds can be consonants or vowels.
In the case of "buses," the root word "bus" ends in a voiced [s] sound. Because this
ending is voiced, the plural suffix "-es" is pronounced as [z], making the plural form
/ˈbʌsɪz/.
Example:
• "Buses" → /ˈbʌsɪz/
2. The [s] Allomorph: The [s] allomorph is applied when a noun ends in a voiceless
consonant. Voiceless consonants include [t], [k], and [f], which do not produce vocal cord
vibration.
For example, in "cats," the final sound in the root word "cat" is the voiceless
consonant [t]. Therefore, the plural "-s" is pronounced as [s], resulting in /kæts/.
Example:
• "Cats" → /kæts/
3. The Zero Allomorph [Ø]: The zero allomorph [Ø] is used for irregular plural nouns,
which do not change form between the singular and plural versions. These nouns are
exceptions to the standard pluralization rules. In these cases, no phonetic or written addition
is made to mark the plural form.
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An example is the word "sheep." Whether singular or plural, "sheep" remains the same,
which is represented by the zero allomorph [Ø]. The pronunciation remains /ʃiːp/ in both
cases.
Example:
• "Sheep" → /ʃiːp/

In English, when we want to show that something happened in the past, we usually
add something called the past tense morpheme. But how this morpheme appears can
change depending on the word, and there are different patterns for forming the past tense.
For most verbs, we follow a common pattern to make them past tense. We just add "-ed"
to the base form of the verb.

Example:

• "walk" + past tense = "walked"

This is the regular way to form past tense in English, and it works for many verbs. However,
not all verbs follow this simple rule. Some verbs change in a different way when we put
them in the past tense and those are called irregular verbs, and they have their own special
patterns.

Example:

• "go" + past tense = "went" (not "goed")

These irregular forms don’t just add "-ed"; they completely change the word, making them
harder to predict.

Allomorphs of the Past Tense

Just like with plural the past tense morpheme has different allomorphs
(variations in how it looks and sounds). For regular verbs, adding "-ed" might sound
different depending on the last sound of the verb.

Examples:

• In "walked," the "-ed" is pronounced like [t].

• In "played," the "-ed" is pronounced like [d].

These variations happen naturally based on the sounds at the end of the word.
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Other Languages
When we look at the morphology of other languages, we can find other forms and patterns
realizing the basic types of morphemes we have identified.

In both cases, we attach a Derivational morpheme to a stem. Then add an inflectional in

the last. For example, if the stem is "dark" then add the derivational "en" and lastly add the
inflectional "ed" and the result is "darkened". Next, if the item is "mic" then add the
derivational "tia" and last is the inflectional "s" and the result is "Mictias". And that's how
the other languages work. Another example is if the stem is "light" then add the derivational
"en" After adding derivational add the inflectional "ed" and it will be "lightened". You will
just add the derivational and inflectional to a stem to make a new word.

Kanuri

The first set of examples is Kanuri. A language spoken in Nigeria. From this set, we can
propose that the prefix 'nem' is a Derivative morpheme. That can be used to derive nouns
from adjectives. As we can see in the examples below, the English word "excellent" in the
Kanuri adjective is called "karite" then the noun is called "nemkarite" The "nem" is
represented as a noun and it's called a prefix. After that, we can say that the word "karite"
will call "excellence" because it translates it into nouns. The second example is the English
word 'big' in kanuri adjective it is called 'kura' so since 'nem' is represented as a noun it is
called 'nemkura' then if we translate it to English it's called 'bigness'. The third example is,
that the word 'small' in Kanuri adjective is called 'gana' in the noun, 'nemgana' so possibly
the word 'Gana' will call 'smallness'. The last example is the word 'bad' in Kanuri's adjective
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is called 'Dibi' in the noun, it is called 'Nemdibi' so possibly the 'dibi' is 'badness'. Again,
the Kanuri language is used in Nigeria. Every example below has a prefix which is the
'nem' and because of that term, the adjective word will be a noun.
Ganda
• a language spoken in Uganda.
✓ It says that different languages produce inflectional markings on forms to
create a different meaning. When we say inflectional, this is the common
way that a language finishes this marking by adding a morpheme to the
beginning of the word, in which this morpheme is known as a prefix. A
prefix is an affix attached before the stem of a word. In the study of
languages, prefixes are also known as preformative. Here are some
examples from Ganda, a language used in Uganda.

Examples:
Singular Plural
('doctor') omusawo abasawo ('doctors')
('woman') omukazi abakazi ('women')
('girl') omuwala abawala ('girls')
('heir') omusika abasika ('heirs').
✓ As we observe these examples, we can conclude that there is an inflectional prefix
added. People from Uganda uses ‘omu’ with singular nouns, and for the plural form
of those nouns, they use a different inflectional prefix ‘aba’. Another example is
the word ‘abalenzi’, which means ‘boys’. If you are able to recognize the plural
form, then you can also identify the singular noun, which is ‘omulenzi’.

Ilocano
• a language of the Philippines.
✓ Ilocano is one of the languages in the Philippines. Unlike Ganda, Ilocano has a
different way of marking the plural form of a noun. Ganda uses inflectional prefix,
on the other hand, Ilocano uses repetition. Here are some examples from Ilocano.
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Examples
Singular Plural
('head') úlo ulúlo ('heads')
('road') dálan daldalán ('roads')
('life') biag bibiag ('lives')
('plant') múla mulmúla ('plants')
✓ Observing these given examples of Ilocano, we can see that there is a repetition of
the first part of the singular form of nouns. For example, when the singular form’s
first part is ‘bi’, in plural form, it will be ‘bibi’. This process is known as
reduplication, which means repeating all or part of a form. Having seen how plural
differs from the singular forms in Ilocano, you should be able to understand the
plural form tatalon (‘fields’) and identify its singular form (‘field’). If you follow
the pattern of our examples, your answer should be ‘talon’.

TAGALOG
Here are some other intriguing examples, provided by Lisa Miguel who speaks tagalog,
another language in the Philippines.

The following passage explains how some verbs in Tagalog change forms through
morphological processes such as infixation and reduplication-to shift the form. Examples
are the verbs basa ("read"), tawag ("call"), and sulat ("write"). The infix -um- is added after
the first consonant to produce the commands like bumasa ('Read!'), tumawag ('Call!'), and
sumulat ('Write!'). The first syllable reduplication gives future forms: babasa ('read'),
tatawag ('call'), susulat ('write'). Lapit ('come here') reduplicates into lumapit ('Come here!')
and lalapit ('will come here'). The author writes that infixation and reduplication share the
different tenses and functions for Tagalog verbs.

▪ DISCUSSION TOPICS/PROJECTS
In English, plural forms such as mice appear to be treated in a different way from plurals
such as rats. If you tell people that a place is infested with mice or rats, they will accept the
compounds mice-infested and rat-infested, but not •rats-infested. This would suggest that
the forms which have the regular plural amx (-s) follow a different rule in compounding
than irregular plural forms such as mice. Can you think of a way to state a rule (or sequence
of rules) that would accommodate all the examples given here? (The asterisk * designates
an unacceptable form.)
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Plural Forms Rule in Compounds

The regularly formed plurals add any of -s, as in “rats” or “dogs”-retain the form of the
singular when they are parts of compounding. Thus, we say “rat-infested,” not “rats
infested.” And we say, “dog mover,” not “dogs mover.” Plurals like “mice” or “teeth”
maintain their plural form when combined. We write “mice-infested,” not “mouse-
infested,” and “teethmarks,” not “toothmarks.” This rule explains why some nouns retain
their singular form in compounds and others remain plural.

The Study of Language

(v) While English usually marks location with preposition (in a house or at a place). Turkish
has postpositions (house-in or place-at). After looking at the following examples try to
identify the three versions of the ‘location’ suffix and the conditions for their use.

In Turkish, place suffixes are added to nouns to show where they are. Those depend on
vowel and consonant harmony. -da / -de: da / -de: With nouns having front vowels or soft
consonants: evde (in a house), kitapta (in a book), and odada (in a room). -ta / -te: With
nouns having loud consonants, for instance with koltukta (in a chair). -lerde / -lerde: For
plural nouns: yerlerde (in places), yollarda (in roads). This paper details the inflection
among Turks to indicate place.