Morphology

Lecture 5
 Morphology
• Morphology is the study of morphemes, which are the
smallest significant units of Grammar.
Compare:
(a) cat cats
mat mats
bat bats
or:
(b) cook cooked
look looked
book booked
 Free and bound morphemes
Look at a number of other examples you can establish different categories of morpheme. The
words:
unmanly
meaningless
can be split up into:
un+man+ly
mean+ing+less
In both these examples, the words are composed of three morphemes, only one of which can
occur in isolation:
That man is very tired.
What do you mean!
Morphemes which can occur freely on their own are called ‘free’ morphemes. Morphemes
which can only occur as affixes are described as ‘bound’ morphemes. Bound morphemes (or
affixes) are divided into two types: those like ‘dis-’ and ‘un-’ which precede words (that is,
free morphemes) and which are called prefixes and those like ‘-lу’ and ‘-ness’ which follow
free morphemes and which are called suffixes.
 Allomorphs
Often, morphemes which fulfil the same function have slightly different forms. If
you look at the following three words:
• slammed
• slipped
• stilted
you will notice that, in the written form, they all have the ‘-ed’ morpheme
indicating the past tense. When you pronounce these words, however, you become
aware that the ‘-ed’ morpheme has three different forms:
• /slaemd/
• /slipt/
• /stiltid/
/d / in ‘slammed’, / t / in ‘slipped’ and /id / in ‘stilted’.
When a morpheme has alternative forms the various forms are known as
‘allomorphs’.
 Other examples
Some English adjectives form their opposites by prefixing
the bound morpheme ‘in-’:
• capable incapable
• tolerant intolerant
Often, however, the negative morpheme changes ‘n’ to the
consonant of the word it prefixes:
• legal illegal
• mobile immobile
• regular irregular
• ‘il-’, ‘im-’ ‘in-’ and ‘ir-’ can thus be called allomorphs.
 Derivational morphology
Morphology fulfils two main functions in
English. Morphemes can be used to form new
words:
• beauty + ful > beautiful
• danger + ous > dangerous
or to inflect verbs and nouns:
• look, look+s, look+ing, look+ed
• tree, tree+s
 Derivational morphology
Derivational morphology involves
a) prefixation:
re + turn > return
un + true > untrue
b) suffixation:
man + ly > manly
wicked + ness > wickedness
c) affixation involving both prefixation and suffixation:
un + speak + able > unspeakable
sub + conscious + ly > subconsciously
Commonly occurring prefixes are ‘be-’, ‘de-’ ‘en-’ ‘ex-’, ‘hyper-’, ‘pre-’
‘pro-’, ‘re-’, ‘sub-’, ‘super-’ and ‘trans-’.
 Examples
Prefixes alter meaning but do not always change the
function of the word to which they are prefixed:
Prefix Free morpheme (Class) Result (Class)
be witch (n.) bewitch (v.)
de limit (v.) delimit (v.)
en rich (adj.) enrich (v.)
ex terminate (v.) exterminate (v.)
hyper market (n.) hypermarket (n.)
 Examples
 Commonly occurring suffixes always change the class of the word to
which they are attached:
beauty (n.) + ful beautiful (adj.)
determine (v) + ation determination (n.)
 Words ending in the morphemes ‘-асу’, ‘-ation’, ‘-er’, ‘-or’, ‘-ess’, ‘-ty’,
‘-ment’, ‘-ness’ and ‘-ship’ tend to be nouns:
democracy actor bewilderment
adoration weakness
painter solemnity horsemanship
 Words ending in ‘-ise/ize’ tend to be verbs:
epitomise
hospitalise
 Examples
Words ending in ‘-able’, ‘-ed’, ‘-fill’, ‘-ical’, ‘-ive’, ‘-less’, ‘-like’, ‘-ous’, and ‘-y’ tend to be
adjectives:
an enjoyable film
a polished performance
a comical episode
a diminutive person
a helpless individual
a workmanlike effort
an industrious group
a pretty girl
 And words which end in ‘-ly’ tend to be adverbs:
He ran home quickly.
She locked the doors securely.
Although the above suffixes tend to be associated with particular word classes, it is always
worth remembering that, in English, it is only safe to judge the class of an item when it has
been seen in context. Thus, although ‘lovely’ and ‘friendly’ end in ‘-ly’ they function as
adjectives and not as adverbs:
a lovely girl a friendly welcome
 Inflectional morphology
 Inflectional morphology occurs with nouns, pronouns and verbs. In nouns,
inflection marks plurality in regular nouns:
book books
chair chairs
 and the possessive of all nouns:
John John’s book/books
the man the man’s book/books
the men the men’s book/books
the builders the builders’ material/materials
 Irregular nouns often form their plurals by a vowel change:
foot feet
man men
mouse /maus/ mice /mais/
 With regard to verbs in English, inflectional suffixes are used to indicate
present tense agreement: I, you, we, they ------look
he, she, it -----------------look+s
and the present participle:
look+ing/sing+ing
 For regular verbs the past tense and the past participle are formed by the
suffix ‘-ed’:
I look+ed/I have look+ed
whereas, with irregular verbs, the past tense and the past participle are often
signalled by a vowel change or a vowel change plus a suffix:
sing sang sung
take took taken
write wrote written
 Summary
MORPHEME
free bound
derivational inflectional
prefixes suffixes suffixes

(do not usually (involve a (do not involve

1. Identify the morphemes in the following words, indicating where a spelling change may be necessary when one
breaks the word down into its constituents.
(1) equalisers
(2) inclination
(3) befriending
(4) transportation
(5) endearment
(6) predetermination
(7) dangerously
(8) unbelievable
(9) protection
(10) dehumanise
2. Pick out the bound morphemes in the following words and say whether they are derivational morphemes (D) or
inflectional morphemes (I).
(1) inflectional
(2) terrifying
(3) hospitalised
(4) regularises
(5) reviewers
(6) respectably
(7) represents
(8) stifles
(9) previewed
(10) submariners
 Home assignment
3. What are the main allomorphs of each of the following morphemes?
Provide examples to illustrate each of the allomorphs.
(1) -s (as in the verb ‘looks’)
(2) -ed (as in the verb ‘looked’)
(3) in- (as in words where the morpheme means ‘not’, for example
‘in + eligible’)
4. Segment the following words into free and bound morphemes. Say in
each case whether the bound morpheme changes the word class of the
free morpheme.
(1) unbearable
(2) moralised
(3) tranquilisers
(4) imprudently
(5) width
 Home assignment
5. Identify the inflectional (I) and derivational (D) affixes in the following
words and assess their productivity (that is, say whether they can be
used in the modification of many, some or few morphemes in English).
(1) non-event
(2) Assamese
(3) examination
(4) happenings
(5) multivitamin
(6) interdenominational
(7) delighted
(8) John’s
(9) midsummer
(10) featureless