Ahmad Ismail

3571-FLL/BSENG S23

Morphology and Syntax

Morphology
The preceding chapter approached word formation processes assuming a “word” is
a regular, easily identifiable unit, even when encountering unfamiliar forms like
“bambification.” This assumption seems reasonable when examining written English
texts, where words are clearly separated by spaces. However, relying on this
observation to describe language and linguistic forms is problematic, as it overlooks
complexities and nuances that arise when considering spoken language, linguistic
variations, and individual word peculiarities, ultimately revealing the insufficiency of
this simplistic approach to comprehensively understand language.

Morphology: The Study of Language Forms. Morphology is the study of how parts
of words, called morphemes, create different meanings by combining with each
other or standing alone. For example, if you take the morpheme cookie and add the
suffix –s, you create a new word—cookies, a plural form with a slightly different
meaning than the singular form.

Morphology is the investigation of basic forms in language, analyzing the

fundamental elements that convey meaning. Literally meaning “the study of forms,”
morphology originated in biology but has been applied to linguistics since the 19th
century.

Morphemes : In linguistics, morphemes are the basic building blocks of language,

carrying specific meanings. They can be combined to form words, phrases, or even
single forms that convey complex messages.

A Swahili Example : Consider the Swahili form “nitakupenda,” equivalent to

English’s “I will love you.” Breaking it down reveals:

Ni- (I) + ta- (will) + ku- (you) + penda (love)

This single Swahili “word” comprises multiple morphemes, each with its own
meaning.

The Swahili example shows that linguistic forms can differ significantly across
languages. Instead of focusing solely on “words,” examining morphemes provides a
deeper understanding of language structure and similarities between languages.

By exploring morphology and morphemes, we gain insight into the intricate

structure of language and its variations across cultures.

Morphemes : Morphemes are minimal units of meaning or grammatical function

within words. English examples illustrate this: “talks,” “talker,” “talked,” and
“talking” contain the morpheme “talk” combined with morphemes “-s,” “-er,” “-ed,”
and “-ing.” “Reopened” consists of three morphemes: “open” (meaning), “re-“
(meaning “again”), and “-ed” (past tense). “Tourists” comprises three morphemes:
“tour” (meaning), “-ist” (person who does something), and “-s” (plural).

Morphemes convey specific meanings or grammatical functions, such as: minimal

units of meaning (e.g., “open,” “tour”) and minimal units of grammatical function
(e.g., “-ed” for past tense, “-s” for plural). This analysis demonstrates that words
can be broken down into fundamental components, revealing the intricate structure
of language.

Free and Bound

Morphemes can be broadly classified into two types: free and bound. This distinction
is crucial in understanding the structure of words in English.

Free Morphemes : Free morphemes are words that can stand alone, functioning
independently. Examples include: open, tour, and basic nouns, adjectives, verbs
(e.g., girl, sad, look). These free morphemes can be attached to bound morphemes,
forming stems. For instance, “undressed” breaks down into un- (prefix) + dress
(stem) + -ed (suffix), and “carelessness” into care (stem) + -less (suffix) + -ness
(suffix).

Bound Morphemes : Bound morphemes, on the other hand, cannot stand alone
and are typically attached to other forms. Examples include re- (prefix), -ist (suffix),
-ed (suffix), and -s (suffix). All affixes (prefixes and suffixes) in English are bound
morphemes.

Exceptions: Bound Stems

Some English words have bound stems, which are not free morphemes. Examples
include receive, reduce, and repeat. In these cases, the element treated as the stem
(-ceive, -duce, -peat) is not a separate word form.

Lexical and Functional Morphemes

Free morphemes can be further categorized into lexical and functional morphemes.

Lexical Morphemes : Lexical morphemes carry the content of messages and

include ordinary nouns (e.g., girl, house), adjectives (e.g., sad, long), and verbs
(e.g., open, look). These form an “open” class, allowing new additions.

Functional Morphemes : Functional morphemes serve grammatical purposes and

include conjunctions (e.g., and, but), prepositions (e.g., on, near), articles (e.g., the),
and pronouns (e.g., it, them). These form a “closed” class, rarely accepting new
members.

Derivational and Inflectional Morpheme

Bound morphemes can be categorized into two types: derivational and inflectional
morphemes. This distinction is crucial for understanding word structure and
meaning in English.

Derivational Morphemes : Derivational morphemes modify words to create new

words or change their grammatical category. They derive new words from existing
stems. Examples include suffixes such as -ness (good → goodness), -ish (foolish), -ly
(quickly), and -ment (payment). Additionally, prefixes like re-, pre-, ex-, mis-, co-,
and un- can change words like “care” into “careful” or “careless”. These
morphemes change the meaning or grammatical function of words.

Inflectional Morphemes : Inflectional morphemes, on the other hand, indicate

grammatical functions. These include plurality (e.g., cat → cats), possession (e.g.,
Jim’s), tense (e.g., walk → walked), and comparison (e.g., big → bigger). English has
eight inflectional morphemes that serve these purposes.

Types of Inflectional Morphemes : English has eight inflectional morphemes

attached to nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Specifically, these include:

Nouns: -‘s (possessive), -s (plural)

Verbs: -s (3rd person singular), -ing (present participle), -ed (past tense), -en (past
participle)

Adjectives: -er (comparative), -est (superlative)

Notably, all inflectional morphemes in English are suffixes.

Variations in Inflectional Morphemes : Inflectional morphemes may vary in

form. For instance: Possessive: -‘s or -s’ (those boys’ bags). Past participle: -ed or -
en (they have finished).

Morphological description

The distinction between derivational and inflectional morphemes is crucial.

Inflectional morphemes don’t change a word’s grammatical category, but create
different versions. For example, “old” (adjective) becomes “older” (adjective) using
the inflectional morpheme -er.

Derivational morphemes, on the other hand, change a word’s grammatical category.

For instance, “teach” (verb) becomes “teacher” (noun) using the derivational
morpheme -er. Notably, the same suffix -er can be inflectional (comparative) or
derivational (changing category), demonstrating that identical suffixes can serve
different functions.

When both derivational and inflectional suffixes are attached to a word, they follow
a specific order. First, the derivational suffix is added, and then the inflectional
suffix. This is illustrated by the transformation of “teach” to “teacher” (derivational)
and subsequently to “teachers” (inflectional).
Using these concepts, we can analyze sentences to identify and categorize
morphemes. Consider the sentence: “The child’s wildness shocked the teachers.”

Problems in Morphological description

Challenges in English Morphology Analysis : English morphology analysis is

more complex than it seems, due to irregular plural forms like “sheep” and “men”
that don’t follow the typical -s pattern. Derivational suffixes can also be problematic,
as seen in “legal” where removing -al doesn’t yield “leg.”

Historical Influences : English morphology is significantly impacted by Latin,

Greek, and other languages. Words like “law” (Old English) and “legal” (Latin) have
distinct etymologies, and “mouth” (Old English) and “oral” (Latin) show no
derivational relationship. A comprehensive description of English morphology must
consider these historical influences_. Recognizing these complexities is crucial for
accurate analysis of English word structure.

Morphs and Allomorphs

In morphology, differences in inflectional morphemes can be addressed by

proposing variation in realization rules, similar to phonology. We can treat morphs
as the actual forms realizing morphemes, just like phones realize phonemes.

A morph is the actual form used to realize a morpheme. For example, “cats”
consists of “cat” and “-s”, representing a lexical morpheme and an inflectional
morpheme (“plural”), respectively. Similarly, “buses” comprises “bus” and “-es”,
also representing a lexical morpheme and an inflectional morpheme (“plural”).

Allomorphs are variations of a morpheme, similar to allophones in phonology.

Different morphs can realize the same morpheme. The morpheme “plural” has
allomorphs, including /s/ (cats), /əz/ (buses), Ø (sheep), and vowel change (man →
men). These allomorphs represent different ways to realize the “plural” morpheme.

The concept of allomorphs applies to various morphemes. For instance, the

morpheme “plural” is realized differently in “cats” (cat + -s), “buses” (bus + -es),
“sheep” (sheep + Ø), and “men” (man + vowel change). Similarly, the morpheme
“past tense” has allomorphs, such as “walked” (walk + -ed) and “went” (go +
irregular past form).

Other Language

Analyzing language morphology reveals diverse forms and patterns. English and
Aztec exhibit similar patterns, attaching derivational and inflectional morphemes to
stems, as seen in “dark + en + ed = darkened” and “mic + tia + s = mictias”.
However, other languages display distinct patterns, using varied morphological
processes and features, such as different forms and affixes, highlighting the
complexity and diversity of morphological structures across languages.

Kanuri

In Kanuri, a language spoken in Nigeria, a derivational morpheme prefix “nəm-“ is

used to form nouns from adjectives.

Examples of this process include:

karite (excellent) → nəmkarite (excellence)

kura (big) → nəmkura (bigness)

gana (small) → nəmgana (smallness)

dibi (bad) → nəmdibi (badness)

This regular morphological pattern allows predictions about other forms in the
language.

For instance, if “length” is nəmkurugu, we can infer that “long” is likely kurugu,
demonstrating the predictive power of identifying morphological features.

Ganda (Uganda)

In Ganda, singular and plural nouns are distinguished by prefixes:

Singular: omu- (e.g., omusawo, “doctor”)

Plural: aba- (e.g., abasawo, “doctors”)

This pattern allows predictions:

Singular “boy” is omulenzi, given plural abalenzi.

Ilocano

Ilocano, a language of the Philippines, employs a unique method for marking

plurals.

Reduplication Process : In Ilocano, plurals are formed through reduplication,

where all or part of the singular form is repeated.
Examples: The following illustrations demonstrate this process:

u´lo (head) → ulu´lo (heads)

da´lan (road) → dalda´lan (roads)

bı´ag (life) → bibı´ag (lives)

mu´la (plant) → mulmu´la (plants)

Pattern Observation : Notice that when the singular form starts with “bi-“, the
plural begins with the repeated form “bibi-“. This reduplication process is a common
inflectional marking device used in many languages.

Understanding Ilocano Plurals : By recognizing this pattern, we can now identify

and create plural forms in Ilocano, demonstrating an understanding of the
language’s morphological processes.

Tagalog

Tagalog, a language spoken in the Philippines, exhibits intriguing morphological

processes.

Infixation : In Tagalog, the imperative form is created by inserting the infix -um-
after the first consonant (syllable onset) of the stem. This process is demonstrated
in the following examples:

basa (read) → bumasa (Read!)

tawag (call) → tumawag (Call!)

sulat (write) → sumulat (Write!)

Reduplication : The future tense is marked by repeating the first syllable of the
stem. This pattern is illustrated in the following examples:

basa (read) → babasa (will read)

tawag (call) → tatawag (will call)

sulat (write)

Exercise

1 What are the functional morphemes in the following sentence?

When he arrived in the morning, the old man had an umbrella and a large plastic
bag full of books

Ans : The sentence: “When he arrived in the morning, the old man had an umbrella
and a large plastic bag full of books.”

Functional morphemes:
when (subordinating conjunction) / he (pronoun) / in (preposition) / the (article) /
and (conjunction) / a (indefinite article) / an (indefinite article)

2 (a) List the bound morphemes in these words: fearlessly, misleads,

previewer, shortened, unhappier

(b) Which of these words has a bound stem: construct, deceive,

introduce,repeat?

(c) Which of these words contains an allomorph of the morpheme “past

tense”: are, have, must, sitting, waits?

Ans : (a) Bound morphemes: fearlessly: -less (suffix), -ly (suffix) / misleads: mis-
(prefix), -s (suffix) / previewer: pre- (prefix), -er (suffix) / shortened: -en (suffix) /
unhappier: un- (prefix), -ier (suffix)

(b) Bound stem: construct (con- is a prefix, but the stem “struct” is bound). /
introduce (in- is a prefix, but the stem “duce” is bound)

(c) Allomorphs of “past tense” morpheme: are (no past tense marker) / have
(no past tense marker, but has a past participle form “had”) / must (no past tense
marker) / sitting (present participle, not past tense) / waits (third person singular
present tense, not past tense)

3) What are the inflectional morphemes in these expressions?

(a) Have you eaten yet?

(b) Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?
(c) She’s younger than me and always dresses in the latest style.
(d) We looked through my grandmother’s old photo albums.

Ans : Inflectional morphemes: (a) Have you eaten yet?

have (present perfect tense) / -en (past participle suffix)

(b)Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?

-ve (present perfect tense) / -ing (present participle suffix)

(c) She’s younger than me and always dresses in the latest style.

-s (third person singular present tense) / -er (comparative suffix)

(d)We looked through my grandmother’s old photo albums.

-ed (past tense suffix) / -s (possessive suffix)

4 What are the allomorphs of the morpheme “plural” in this set of English
words: Criteria, dogs, oxen, deer, judges, stimuli?
Ans : Allomorphs of “plural” morpheme: criteria: -ia (zero plural marker) / dogs: -s
/ oxen: -en / deer: (zero plural marker) / judges: -es / stimuli: -i (zero plural
marker)

5) What is reduplication?

Ans : Reduplication is a morphological process where all or part of a word is

repeated to form a new word or indicate grammatical function (e.g., plural,
intensification).

6) Provide equivalent forms, in the languages listed, for the English

translations.

Shown on the right below.

Ganda omuloŋgo (“twin”) – (“twins”) ____________

Ilocano tawta´wa (“windows”) – (“window”) ____________

Kanuri nəmkəji (“sweetness”) – (“sweet”) ____________

Tagalog bili (“buy”) – (“will buy”) ____________

Tagalog kain (“eat”) – (“Eat!”) ____________

Ans Equivalent forms:

(Ganda) omuloŋgo (“twin”) – (“twins”). _____abaloŋgo______

(Ilocano) tawta´wa (“windows”) – (“window”). ___bintana__

(Kanuri) nəmkəji (“sweetness”) – (“sweet”) . __nəm___

(Tagalog) bili (“buy”) – (“will buy”) _____bibili___

(Tagalog) kain (“eat”) _____kakain (will eat)____