Dr. Bassene & Dr.

MBOUP English Morphology cadu-b2s4 072823

Morphology

0. What is morphology?
 Morphology is a branch of linguistics which deals with the internal structure of words
and also the relationships among words.
 care → careful → careless

0.1 What are the goals of morphology?

 Identify the different components of words.
 antidenationalization → anti-de-nation-al-iz-ation

 Explain how those components are combined and the rules governing their
combination.
 Derivational rules as well as inflectional rules

 Describe the processes whereby new words are derived from the already existing ones.
 Word formation processes

0.2 What is a word?

 A single unit of a language that refers to a thing, a place, an action, or fulfils a
grammatical function. (operational definition)

0.3 What do you know when you know a word?

 When you know a word, you have the following information about the word.
o Phonetic/phonological information
o Lexical structure information
o Syntactic information
o Semantic information
o Pragmatic information

1. Types of words
1.1 Simple word
A simple word is a word that consists of just one meaningful part
 cat cow book teach clean fine nice well back
1.2 Complex word
A complex word is a word made up of two or more meaningful parts.
 cats talked teacher cleaning wellness independence

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2 Morphemes
2.1 What is a morpheme?
The morpheme is the minimal meaningful linguistic unit. Each of the word parts below has a
meaning and is, therefore, a morpheme.
 teach → teach-er → teach-er-s
 nation → nation-al → nation-al-ize

2.2 Types of morphemes

2.2.1 Free morpheme
A morpheme that can stand on its own as a word is called a free morpheme.

 boy house play sing big clear well hard

2.2.2 Bound morpheme

A morpheme that can only occur in the presence of another morpheme is called a bound
morpheme.

 boy-s play-ed bigg-er well-ness tak-en

2.2.2.1 Affix
An affix is a morpheme that attaches to another morpheme.

2.2.2.1.1 Prefix
A prefix is a morpheme that attaches before another morpheme.

 re-play un-fair dis-place up-hold

2.2.2.1.2 Suffix
A suffix is a morpheme that attaches after another morpheme.
 play-ed fair-ness place-ment hold-er

2.2.2.1.3 Stem
A stem is a morpheme to which an inflectional affix is (or can be) attached.

 play-ed fair-est place-ing (PRST PTP) hold-s

2.2.2.1.4 Root
It is the central, irreducible morpheme of a word. It provides the basic meaning of the word.
 play-ed fair-ness place-ment hold-er

2.2.2.1.4.1 Free root

A root that can stand alone as a word is referred to as a free root.

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 play fair place hold dog red

2.2.2.1.4.2 Bound root

A root that cannot stand alone as a word and always has to attach to another word part is
called a bound root.
 ident-ity trans-fer con-ceive sub-mit dis-cern un-gainly

2.2.2.1.4.3 Base
A base is a morpheme to which any affix can be attached.

3 Inflectional morphology
Inflectional morphemes are morphemes which serve a grammatical purpose such as tense (past,
present, future), aspect (progressive, perfective), and number (singular, plural).

4 Derivational morphology
It deals with how words are formed on the basis of the already existing ones.

4.1 Derivational process

4.1.1 Affixation
It is a derivation process whereby an affix is attached to a base to derive a new word.

4.1.1.1. Suffixation
It is a derivational process whereby a suffix is attached to a base to derive a new word.
 call → call-er
 protect → protect-or
 dance → danc-ing
 apply → appli-cation
 try → tri-al

4.1.1.2. Prefixation
It is a derivational process by which a prefix is attached to a base to derive a new word.

 able → un-able
 call → re-call
 joy → en-joy
 manage → micro-manage
 qualify → dis-qualify

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4.1.2 Conversation / zero affixation

It is a process whereby a word is used in a grammatical category that is different from that of
its base.

 dance (V) → dance (N)

 test (V) → test (N)
 clean (V) → clean (ADJ)
 fast (ADJ) → fast (ADV)
 record (V) → record (N)

4.1.3 Compounding
It involves combining two (or more) bases to form a word.
 any + body → anybody
 be + come → become
 cross + walk → crosswalk
 foot + print → footprint
 ice + cream → ice cream
 mother + in + law → mother- in-law

5. Other word formation processes

5.1. Blending
It consists in putting together parts of morphemes to form new words
 smoke + fog → smog
 breakfast + lunch → brunch
 motor + hotel → motel
 economy + mess → economess
 web + seminar → webinar
 British + Exit → Brexit

5.2. Clipping
This is a process by which a new word is created by shortening an already existing one.
 facsimile → fax
 influenza → flu
 gasoline → gas
 gymnasium → gym
 examination → exam

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5.3. Back formation

In this process, a part of a word which is assumed by native speakers to be an affix is removed
to create a new word.

 beggar → beg
 burglar → burgle
 editor → edit
 sculptor → sculpt

5.3.1. Acronymy
It consists in deriving news words from already existing words of a language by combining
the initial letters of some other words. The derived forms are pronounced as regular words.
 radio detecting and ranging → radar
 light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation → laser
 National Aeronautics and Space Administration → NASA
 Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome → AIDS

6. Morphological Structure
It shows, step by step, how a word is formed. At every linking node, the outcome must be
a well-formed word.

7. Allomorphy
Variants of the same morpheme are called allomorphs. For instance, in English the past tense
marker has the following three allomorphs.
[id] [d] [t]
 agreed rigged passed
 landed probed talked