LECTURE 1

1/Morpheme
• Free morpheme
• Bound morpheme
• Root, base, stem
• Inflectional morpheme, derivational morpheme
2/Simple word, complex word
3/Bracket diagram

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WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?

• The study of the structure of words and

the processes of building new words
• The study of word structure & word
formation
• Word structure: WHAT forms a word
• word formation: How a word is formed
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IS WORD THE SMALLEST MEANINGFUL
UNIT OF LANGUAGE?

• a. Nation
• b. National
• c. Nationalize
• d. Nationalization
• Are they all words?
• Can they be divided into smaller meaningful units?
YES .
- E.g. d → 4 units: Nation/ al/ ize/ (a)tion
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The Morpheme
• A. Definition
• - The minimal meaningful unit of language that is used to build
up the word.
• E.g. hunt
• er hunters
• s
• In spoken language, morphemes are composed of phonemes (the
smallest linguistically distinctive units of sound)
E.g. hunters: /h/, /ʌ/, /n/, /t/, /ə/ and /z/
• In written language, morphemes are composed of graphemes (the
smallest units of written language)
E.g. hunters: h, u, n, t, e, r, s

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A MINIMAL MEANINGFUL UNIT OF
LANGUAGE: MORPHEME
• Morpheme has: - sound form
- meaning
It is used to constitute a word
But it cannot be subdivided into smaller meaningful units
How many morphemes are there?
- Bookish
- Unlucky
- Unfortunately
- Welcome
- denationalization
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- Book/ish
- Un/luck/y
- Un/fortun(e)/ate/ly
- Welcome
- De/nation/al/iz(e)/ation

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Various

Disinfected

Industrialized

Postgraduation

Materialistic

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Vari/ous
Dis/infect/ed
Industri/al/ize/(e)d
Post/graduat(e)/ion
Material/ist/ic

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 HOW MANY MORPHEMES ARE THERE IN THE
FOLLOWING SENTENCES?
1. He writes both novels and non-fiction books.
2. She often says you are the cleverest guy in the class.
3. My teacher isn‘t satisfied with my homework, so I have to redo
it.

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B. Characteristics (features):
- A morpheme cannot be broken down further, i.e. it cannot be divided
without altering or destroying its meaning.
E.g. kind  * kin - d
- Many morphemes cannot stand as words on their own. A morpheme is
free if it can stand alone, or bound if it is used exclusively alongside a
free morpheme.
E.g. un-break-able

bound free bound

- - Most morphemes as linguistic signs are arbitrary

- E.g.
- De/forest
- Delay 10
- De/-ice
- delight
Classification of morphemes:
Morphemes can be classified according to a variety of ways:
1. Lexical vs Grammatical Morphemes (Open vs Closed Categories):
- Lexical morpheme (content morpheme) has a sense (or meaning) in and of
itself. It names a concept/ idea in our record of experience of the world.
- - Grammatical morpheme (function morpheme) expresses some sort of
relationship between lexical morphemes.
- E.g. WorkN, runV, longA, fastADV vs a/theART, he/shePRO,,andCONJ,
2. Free and Bound Morphemes:
• Free morphemes can stand alone as independent words; bound morphemes
cannot but must be attached to another morpheme/word.
• E.g.1 teach er nation al ity

bound free free bound

3. Root and Affixes
- Affixes are bound morphemes which attach to a base, root or stem.
E.g. 1 teach er

af root
(bound) (free)
desir(e) able ity

root af
(free) (bound)
E.g. 2 perceive
conceive bound root (productive
morphemes in Latin)
receive
• Root morphemes are (usually free) morphemes around which words
can be built up through the addition of affixes.
• E.g. kind – kindly, kindness, kinder, kindest
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* Types of affixes: 1. Derivational
a) Prefix: an affix that is attached to the front of its stem
E.g. disappear , replay , illegal , inaccurate
b) Suffix: an affix that is attached to the end of its stem
E.g. quickly, beautiful, management, organizatio
 2. inflectional
Grammatical morpheme
E.g worked, the fastest, students, anticipated

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4. Base, stem and root morphemes:
•Root morphemes are (usually free) morphemes
around which words can be built up through the
addition of affixes.
E.g. kind – kindly, kindness, kinder, kindest
* Base can be defined as an element (free or bound,
root morpheme or complex word) to which
additional morphemes are added. Base is also called
a stem.
E.g. Kind-nesses
root
base/stem
word
• 'Root', 'stem' and 'base' are all terms used in
the literature to designate that part of a word
that remains when all affixes have been
removed. A root is a form which is not further
analysable, either in terms of derivational or
inflectional morphology. ... A base is any form
to which affixes of any kind can be added.
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• 5. Inflectional and Derivational Morphemes:
• Derivational morphemes are those that can be added to a word to
create another word with new meaning and/ or new synntactic
category.
• Inflectional morphemes do not change the meaning or syntactic
category of a word. They can mark a word’s grammar category such
as tense, number, aspect and so on.
• E.g. 1 teach + er + s

• root (action-V) der. (doer) infl.

• noun

noun
• E.g. 2 ING
•
• work (v) ED infl.

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• S
 Division of morphemes into various types
Morphemes

 
Root morphemes Affixational morphemes
(mostly free) (all bound)

 
Free Bound Infl. Der.
N (jobless) (convert) (N)+S/’S un+happy
V(worker) (incur) (V)+ED/ ING happiness
Adj.(reddish) (exclude) (Adj)+ER/ EST luckily
The word
A minimal free form that can occur in isolation , e.g. house
Its position to neighboring elements is not entirely fixed.
E.g. hunters can occur in different positions within the sentence:
The hunters pursued the bear
The bear was pursued by the hunters
* What about the units –er and –s? Can it function independently?
Can it occur in different
positions?(*erhunt? *serhunt?)
-er and –s are not words
* What about the hunters? Can it function independently?
Can it occur in different positions?
Can it be divided into smaller free
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forms?
The hunters is not a word, but a phrase
 WORDS: 2 KINDS(1)

• 1. Simple word: 1 morpheme: chair, table, door, learn,

study
• can not be broken down into smaller meaningful units
• 2. Complex: 2 or more morphemes- can be analyzed
into constituent parts → the subject matter of
morphology.
- derived word: 1 root & 1 or more
derivational morphemes
teach/er, stud/ent, amus/ing
- compound word: at least 2 roots with or without
derivational morphemes
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school/bag, lady-kill/er
The words of any language can be divided into two
broad types of categories:
• - closed/ function words: pronouns (he, it…);
conjunctions (and, if, because…), determiners
(a, my, any…). Newly coined words or
borrowed words cannot be added to this
category.
• - open/major lexical category: nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs

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 6. The difference between Lexical and Grammatical Morphemes

Criterion morphemic word stress meaning class member funtio

status size size -ship n
Lexical free large stress complex large open knowl
morphe ed edge
me
Gram. Bound,free small Un- simple small closed gram
morphe stress mar
me ed

7. Morpheme problems:
- Not all words can be analysed into morphemes so easily
E.g. Foot - feet
child - children
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 WORD STRUCTURE
A. Types of words: simple word vs complex word
• Simple words are those that cannot be broken down into
smaller meaningful units
E.g. and, boy, hunt, hospital, gentle
• Complex words can be analysed into constituent parts
E.g. boys, hunters, hospitalize, hospitalization, gentleman,
gentlemanly

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• B. Word structure:
• * Morphology deals with the internal structure of complex words
only
• * What sort of structure do complex words have?
• - The morphemes of a complex word are put together in a
particular way, with a particular arrangement and order. A
morpheme must be bound in a particular position. Each affix
attaches only to a particular lexical category, called its base and
results in a word of another particular lexical category.
E.g. nation
national * izenational
nationalize * nationdeizational
denationalize * dego ; * nationize
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denationalization
FEATURES OF WORD STRUCTURE

1. The parts have to be put together in a particular

way, with a particular arrangement & order
2. The order is so strict b/c each of bound
morpheme is an affix, a morpheme which not
only bound but must be bound in a particular
order
3. Each affix attaches only to a particular lexical
category (either N or V or ADJ) and results in a
word of another particular lexical category.
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* The representation of the internal structure of the word
Tree & Bracket diagram: The diagram shows how a word begins at
the root and is built up one affix at a time.
Tree Diagram
N N

v Af V Af

 
Adj Af af V
real ize ation dis agree ment
BRACKET DIAGRAM
Disagreement
[agree]V
[dis [ agree]V] V
[[dis [agree]V] V ment]N

Realization
[real]A
[[real]A ize] V
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[[[real]Aize]V ation ] N
BRACKET DIAGRAM

• Unharmonious
• Nonmotivated
• Interrelation
• Interpretation
• Interruption
• Greediness
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* The internal structure of a complex word is not obvious
sometimes.
a) b)
N
N
Adj Af
Af N
Af Adj
Adj Af
un happy ness
un happy ness

- The diagram (b) is wrong because the prefix un- can combine
freely with adjectives, but not with nouns.
 Word formation
1. Derivation
A. Definition: Derivation is the morphological process by which a
new word is built from a base, usually through the addition of an
affix.
B. Inflectional and Derivational: 2 main fields in morphology.
•Inflectional morphology studies the way in which words
vary/inflect in order to express grammatical contrasts in sentences.
E.g. Singular/plural; past/present tense
•Derivational morphology studies the principles governing the
construction of new words.
 INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
A. Definition: Inflection is the process of modifying the
word’s form to mark the subgrammatical class to which
this word belongs.
e.g. 3rd-person singular: I work, he works;
past tense: I worked
B. Types: 3 types of inflection, realized in 8 inflectional
markers
1) Noun/ nominal inflectional markers:
a. Plural markers –s e.g. girl – girls
b. Possessive marker –’s e.g. Mary’s (book); boys’ (books)
2) Verb inflectional markers:
a. 3rd person present singular marker –s
e.g. I bake – He bakess
b. Past tense marker –ed
e.g. (they) wait – (they) waited
c. Progressive marker –ing
e.g. (they) sing – (they are) singing
d. Past participle marker -en or ed
e.g. (have) eaten; (have) baked
3. Adjective inflectional marker :
a. Superioritive marker –er fast – faster
b. Superlative marker: -est fast - fastest 31
DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
• A. Definition: Derivation is the process of creating new words by
adding affixes to other words or base morphemes
• E.g. work V + er  workerN
• B. Characteristics:
• 1. Category Change:
• - Creates a new word by changing the category and/or the
meaning of the base to which it applies.
• e.g. sing V + er  singer N
• X V + er  XN (one who does X)

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2. Derivational Rules
- Help predict how words may be formed in English.
E.g. from the rule: un + Adjective X  unX = not X
un + harmonious (A) means “…”
- Help analyse words, e.g. Trainer, trainee
train = X;
-erN = “one who does X”,
-eeN = “one who receives X person who is Xed
- Help determine the category of the base to which an affix is
added.
E.g. workV + -er = worker (one who works)
workN + -er = *worker
3. Multiple derivations:
- Create multiple levels of word structure consistent with
the word formation rules and in terms of the feeding rule.
E.g. organ + ize + ation + al  organizational
[organ]N
[[organ]Nize]V
[[[organ]Nize]V ation]N
[[[[organ]Nize]Vation]Nal]A

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4. Phonological constraint
Particular derivational affix is able to attach only to stems
with particular phonological properties.
E.g. Adj + –en  Verbs with a causative meaning
(Adjectives: monosyllabic stems that end in an obstruent
(non-sonorant))
E..g. white + en  whiten but abstracten (*) or
greenen (*)
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DERIVATION AND INFLECTION
1. Category Change
* Inflectional affixes: does not change either the grammatical
category or the type of meaning of the word it applies .
E.g.
Book N + s books N work V + ed workedV
Man - men Sink - sank
* Derivational affixes: change the category and / or the type of
meaning of form to which they apply , to create a new word
E.g.
Govern V + ment AF government N
2. Positioning within the word:
- Derivational affixes must be closer to the root than an inflectional
affixes. E.g. Denationalised ; workers
- Inflectional affixes must be the last member to be added to
the word. E.g. [[[organ]Nize]V]S
3. Productivity:
- Inflectional affixes typically have very few exceptions
E.g. the plural marker “-s” can combine with any count N
- Derivational affixes characteristically apply to restricted classes of
stems.
E.g. Terror + ize terrorize V hospitalize V
* Horror + ize
* Green + en
 2. Compounding - compounds

A. Definition:
The process of creating a new word by joining two or
more already existing words
e.g.
black + bird  blackbird; hand + wash  hand-wash

B. Characteristics:
1. Productivity:
Highly productive: found in all lexical categories
E.g. N: boyfriend; V: team-teach; Adj: easy-going,
Adv: anti-clockwise
(Nouns: the most common type)
dependent + head
• 2. Structural status of constituent members:
• - The constituent members of a compound
are not equal: the lexical category of the last
member is the same as that of the whole
compound.
• E.g. washing machine (N)
• Adj N
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3. Grammatical status
- The Head undergoes inflection, e.g. hand-washed
4. Number of structural members:
- The basic compounding operation is always binary (no more
than two constituents)
E.g. lady-killer
N N
N N N Prep

V af V af
lady kill er hang er on
- The entire compound always consists of two components, each
of which may be a compound.
E.g. 1 N

N N
N N N N
stone age cave dweller

E.g. 2 N
N N

N N
dog food box
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5. Inter-relationships between compounding and derivation:
compounding and derivation may feed each other
Derivation feeds Compounding Compounding feeds Derivation
(the members of a compound are (a compound may serve
as the base of
themselves derivationally complex) a derivational affix)

Adj. N

Adj. Adj. V af

N af V af N V

ease y go ing brain wash ing

• 6. Stress Distribution:
- - The first component is stressed (compounds):
‘GREEN-house, ‘BLACK-board. The second
component is stressed (non-compounds/ free
word groups): green ‘HOUSE, black BOARD.
- Compounds are sometimes written as single
words, sometimes with an intervening hyphen.
E.g. greenhouse or green-house

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C. Types: classified according to a variety of ways:
1. According to meaning:
a. Non-idiomatic compounds: salesgirl, goalkeeper
b. Idiomatic compounds: lip-service, blackleg, blackhand
2. According to componental relationship:
a. Coordinative compounds: actor-manager
b. Subordinative compounds: book-keeper
3. According to part of speech: compound nouns, compound
verbs, compound adjectives, compound adverbs, compound
prepositions.
4. According to compositional types: compounds formed by
juxtaposition, compounds formed by morphological means,
compounds formed by syntactic means, compounds formed
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by both morphological and syntactic means.
 3. Conversion (Zero derivation)
- A morphological process to create a new word
without the use of affixation by simply assigning an
already existing word to a new syntactic category.
- restricted to unsuffixed words
E.g. work V+ work N

E.g. help V+ help N

She needs more butter. She is buttering the bread for the children

A robot has a memory, however it has to be programmed by a human.

More examples of conversion:
- Look (v) → have a look (n)
- Call (v) → make a call (n)
- Hand (n) → hand (v) in your papers!
- Bottle (n) → Are you going to bottle (v) the fruit?
- Attempt (v) – make an attempt (n)
- Try (v) – have a try (n)

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4. Stress shift
• A morphological process to create a new word by
changing the position of the stress pattern of the
existing word.
• E.g. ‘record N  re’cord V ;
• ‘combine N  com’bine V
‘perfect  per’fect
‘content  con’tent
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 5. Abbreviation/ shortening

* Clipping
A morphological process to create a new word by
shortening a polysyllabic word. E.g. maths

Initial clipping: telephone  phone

Medial clipping: Hydrogen-bomb  H – bomb, V-Day

Final clipping: Examination  exam

Initial – final clipping: influenza  flu

 WHAT ARE THE WORDS ?
Initial clipping: telephone  phone
?  plane
?  burger

Medial clipping: Hydrogen-bomb  H – bomb

?  V-Day
Final clipping: Examination  exam
?  lab
?  doc
?  prep
?  prof
Initial – final clipping: influenza  flu
?  fridge
 • * Acronymy
• A morphological process to create a new
word by using the initial letters of a string
of words.
• E.g. IMF : International Monetary Fund
• S.O.S : Save Our Souls
• BBC : British Broadcasting Corporation
• UNO : United Nations Organizations
• MP : Member of Parliament

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 What are the words?
1. B.A
2. M.A
3. Ph.D
4. RAM
5. UNICEF
6. GMT
7 IELTS
8. TOEFL
9. TOEIC
10. TESL
11. TESOL

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• RAM = random access memory
• UNICEF= UN children‘s Fund
• GMT= Greenwich Mean Time
• TESL= Teaching English as a second language
• TESOL= teaching English to speakers of other
languages
• TOEFL= Test of English as a Foreign language
• IELTS= International English language Testing System

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* Blending
A morphological process to create a new word
by merging parts of two already existing
words.
E.g. breakfast and lunch  brunch,
stagnation and inflation  stagflation;
smoke and fog  smog
7. Back formation (Back Derivation)
•A morphological process to create a new word by
substracting a suggested affix from the existing
word.
•E.g. beggarN – garAF  beg V

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8. Onomatopoeia (Sound imitation)
• A morphological process to create a new
word by imitating the sounds produced by
animals or natural phenomena.
• E.g. moo, meow, roar, cuckoo, howl,
crackle, splash, crow

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9. Adoption of brand names as common words
A brand name becomes the name for the item or process associated
with the brand name. The name ceases to be capitalized and acts
as a normal verb/ noun and so on.
E.g. a Samsung, sandwich….
10. Borrowing
A word is taken from another language. It may be adapted to the
borrowing language’s phonological system to varying degrees.
E.g. Kimono, sushi, spaghetti

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 MORPHOLOGY & PHONOLOGY
Allomorphy or morphophonemic variation in English

1. Definition of allomorphy: the study of the process by which

morphemes change their pronunciation in certain situations
(the alternation of the allomorphs of a morpheme in a
particular context of pronunciation).
• * Allomorphic variation/ morphophonemic variation/
morphophonological process: variation in the pronunciation
of a morpheme
• * Allomorphs: different forms (pronunciations) of a single
morpheme
E.g. the plural morpheme in English {z} has such allomorphs
as /s/, /z/, /∂z/
the morpheme leaf has such allomorphs as /li:f/ (leafy)
and /li:v-/ (leaves)
• House /s/
• Houses /ziz/
• Electricity
• electrical

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2. The distribution of the allomorphs of the past tense form
of the English verb.
The English past tense morpheme has three allomorphs:
/∂d/, /t/ and /d/. /∂/ is being used to stand for schwa.
Morpheme Past tense of ‘-d’/ ‘-ed’
Allomorphs /∂d/, /t/ /d/
Distribution after /t/ and after other after other
/d/ voiceless voiced
consonants consonants
and vowels
faded, stated, kissed, buzzed,
petted leaped, played,
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stocked mooned
2.1. Motivation:
• Phonological form /d/ occurs after vowels and voiced
consonants other than /d/
• /t/ occurs after voiceless consonants other than /t/
• /∂d/ occurs after the alveolar stops /t/ and /d/
2.2. Unmotivated allomorphy: a change in the
pronunciation of a morpheme that is not based on the
phonological surroundings. Most of these simply must
be memorized.
E.g. see the textbook p.42

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