MORPHOLOG

Y
W H AT I S M O R P H O L O G Y ?

In linguistics, study of the internal construction of

words. Languages vary widely in the degree to which
words can be analyzed into word elements,
or morphemes. In English there are numerous examples,
such as “replacement,” which is composed
of re-, “place,” and -ment, and “walked,” from the
elements “walk” and -ed.
Cont.…

The definition of a morpheme is “a minimal unit of meaning or

grammatical function”. Units of grammatical function include forms
used to indicate past tense or plural, for example. In the sentence The
police reopened the investigation, the word reopened consists of three
morphemes. One minimal unit of meaning is open, another minimal
unit of meaning is re- (meaning ‘again’) and a minimal unit of
grammatical function is -ed (indicating past tense).
FREE AND BOUND MORPHEMES

• There are free morphemes, that is, morphemes that can stand by
themselves as single words, for example, open and tour.
• There are also bound morphemes, which are those forms that cannot
normally stand alone and are typically attached to another form,
exemplified as re-, -ist, -ed, -s.
LEXICAL AND FUNCTIONAL
MORPHEMES

• The free morphemes are called lexical morphemes and some

examples are: girl, man, house, tiger, sad, long, yellow, sincere,
open, look, follow, break.
• As we can add new lexical morphemes to the language rather easily,
so they are treated as an ‘open’ class of words.
• Other types of free morphemes are called functional morphemes.
Examples are: and, but, when, because, on, near, above, in, the, that,
it, them. This set consists largely of the functional words in the
language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles and pronouns.
D E R I VAT I O N A L A N D I N F L E C T I O N A L
MORPHEMES
• The set of affixes that make up the category of bound morphemes
can also be divided into two types:
Derivational morphemes are those bound morphemes that are used to
make new words or to make words of a different grammatical category
from the stem. For example, the addition of the derivational
morpheme -ness changes the adjective good to the noun goodness. The
noun care can become the adjectives careful or careless by the
addition of the derivational morphemes -ful or -less.
CONT…

The second set of bound morphemes contains what are called

inflectional morphemes. These are not used to produce new words in
the language, but rather to indicate aspects of the grammatical function
of a word. Inflectional morphemes are used to show if a word is plural
or singular, if it is past tense or not, and if it is a comparative or
possessive form.
MORPH AND ALLOMORPH
A morph is the phonetic realization of that morpheme, or in plain English, the way it is
formed. An allomorph is the way or ways a morph can potentially sound.

• For example, the form cars consists of two morphs, car + -s, realizing a lexical morpheme
and an inflectional morpheme (‘plural’). The form buses also consists of two morphs (bus
+ -es), realizing a lexical morpheme and an inflectional morpheme (‘plural’). So there are
at least two morphs (-s and -es) used to realize the inflectional morpheme ‘plural’.

• we can recognize the existence of allomorphs of a particular morpheme. That is, when we
find a group of different morphs, all versions of one morpheme. Here, -s and –es are
allomorphs of plural morpheme.
 A F F I X AT I O N

Affixes are of two types: Prefix and Suffix

• Some affixes have to be added to the beginning of the word. e.g. un- in
unfair. These affixes are called prefixes.
• Other affixes have to be added to the end of the word. For example –ish
in sluggish. These affixes are called suffixes.
R O O T, S T E M A N D B A S E
• Root: A root is a form which is not further analysable, either in terms of
derivational or inflectional morphology. It is that part of word-form that
remains when all inflectional and derivational affixes have been
removed… In the form ‘untouchables’ the root is ‘touch’.”
• Stem: A stem is of concern only when dealing with inflectional
morphology. In the form ‘untouchables’ the stem is ‘untouchable’. In
short, when we remove the inflectional suffixes, we have the stem.
• Base: A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added. This
means that any root or any stem can be termed a base… ‘touchable’ can
act as a base for prefixation to give ‘untouchable’.
W O R D F O R M AT I O N P R O C E SS

Word formation process is the creation of a new word by making

changes in existing words or by creating new words. In other words, it
refers to the ways in which new words are made on the basis of other
words.
Different Forms of Word Formation
Word Formation process is achieved by different ways to create a new word
that includes; coinage, compounding, borrowing, blending, acronym, clipping,
contraction, backformation, affixation and conversion.
 COINAGE

• One of the least common processes of word formation in English is

coinage, that is, the invention of totally new terms. The most typical
sources are invented trade names for commercial products that
become general terms.
Ex. vaseline, nylon, zipper, etc.
BORROWING

• In word formation process, borrowing is the process by which a word from one
language is adapted for use in another language. The word that is borrowed is
called a borrowing, a loanword, or a borrowed word. It is also known as lexical
borrowing. It is the most common source of new words in all languages.
• Common Examples of borrowed words in English language are:
· Dope (Dutch)
· Croissant (French)
· Zebra (Bantu)
· Lilac (Persian)
BLENDING

Blending is the combination of two separate words to form a single new

word. It is different from compounding where we add two words side
by side to make a new word but in blending we do not use both words
in complete sense but new/derived word has part of both words e.g.
word smog and fog are different words and when we blend them to
make a new word, we use a part of each word to make a new word that
is smog. We took first two letters from first word (sm) from smoke and
last two (og) from fog to derive a new word smog.
A B B R E V I AT I O N S

Abbreviation is a process where we create a new word by

making a change in lexical form of a word keeping same
meaning.
Example:
Dr. for Doctor
Capt. for Captain
Prof. for Professor
ACRONYMS

• Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of
other words. These can be forms such as CD (‘compact disk’) or VCR
(‘video cassette recorder’) where the pronunciation consists of saying
each separate letter. More typically, acronyms are pronounced as new
single words, as in NATO, NASA or UNESCO.
 CLIPPING

• The element of reduction that is noticeable in blending is even more

apparent in the process described as clipping. This occurs when a
word of more than one syllable (fanatic) is reduced to a shorter form
(fan), usually beginning in casual speech. The term gasoline is still
used, but most people talk about gas, using the clipped form. Other
common examples are ad (advertisement), flu (influenza), phone
(telephone).
COMPOUNDING

There is a joining of two separate words to produce a single form.

Thus, door and knob are combined to produce doorknob in English.
This combining process, technically known as compounding.
Common English compounds are bookcase, doorknob, fingerprint,
sunburn, textbook, wallpaper, wastebasket and waterbed.
CONVERSION
• Zero-derivation, or conversion, is a derivational process that forms new words
from existing words. Zero derivation, is a kind of word formation involving the
creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form, which is to
say, derivation using only zero. Zero-derivation or conversion changes the lexical
category of a word without changing its phonological shape. For example, the
word ship is a noun and we use it also as a verb. See below sentences to
understand it.
• 1. Beach hotel has a ship to enjoy honeymoon.
• 2. Beach hotel will ship your luggage in two days.

In first sentence, the word ship is a noun and in second sentence the word ship
(verb) is derived from the action of ship (noun) that transports luggage, so the word
ship (verb) has meaning of transportation.
 B A C K F O R M AT I O N

• Backformation is the word formation process where a new word is

derived by removing what appears to be an affix. When we remove last
part of word (that looks like suffix but not a suffix in real) from a word
it creates a new word.
• Some very familiar words are below:
• Peddle from peddler
• Edit from editor
• Babysit from babysitter
 A F F I X AT I O N

• Affixation is the word formation process where a new word is created

by adding suffix or prefix to a root word. The affixation may involve
prefixes or suffixes.
• In prefixes, we add extra letters before root word e.g. re+right to make a
new word rewrite.
• In suffix, we add some extra letters with a base/root word e.g.
read+able.
1. Prefixes: un+ plug = unplug
2. Suffixes: cut + ie = cutie