MORPHOLOGY:

The Words of Language

 MORPHOLOGY
 Phonology: the study of speech sounds and their
patterns
Phonology

Phoneme
(the smallest significant unit of speech)

 Morphology: the study of meaningful units

Morphology

Morphemes
(the smallest significant units of meaning/grammar)
 MORPHemes
CASE:
a) cat /kæt/ : consists of three (3) combination of
phonemes  /k/, /æ/, & /t/. That is, /k/ is meaningless
and /æt/ is meaningless but /kæt/ is meaningful.

b) Singular Plural
cat /kæt/ cats  cat+s /kæts/
The combination of phonemes /kæt/ carry the meaning
of the word “cat”and the adding /s/ carries the
meaning of“plural”. The word cat contains one (1)
morpheme; but cats contains two (2) morphemes, that
is, the morpheme“cat” and the morpheme “s”
which marks the difference between singular and plural.
c) Present Past
cook cooked  cook+ed
look looked  look+ed
book booked  book+ed
Each of the examples contains two (2) morphemes,
that is, the morpheme “cook, look, book”and the
morpheme “ed” which indicates the past tense for
many English verbs.
 TYPEs OF MORPHEMEs
 There are two (2) classes of morphemes:
1) Free Morphemes (“stem” or “base”)
Morphemes which can occur freely on their own or
morphemes which can meaning-fully occur alone.
E.g.: book, pencil, elephant, love, give, happy, etc.

2) Bound Morphemes (affixes)

- Morphemes which can only occur as affixes are
described or morphemes that must always occur
with a base.
- Bound morphemes may be classified as affixes,
which are subdivided into prefixes, suffixes, and
infixes.
- Prefixes occur before the base.
E.g.: (un)tidy, (pre)school, (dis)like, etc.
- Suffixes occur after the base.
E.g.: kind(ness), judge(ment), teach(er), etc.
- Infixes occur in the middle of the base.
E.g.: - English has no infixes.
- Bontoc, a language spoken in the Philippnes:
Nouns/Adjectives Verbs
fikas “strong” fumikas “to be strong”
kilad “red” kumilad “to be red”
fusul “enemy” fumusul “to be an enemy”
- Bound morphemes or affixes may also be classified as
derivational or inflectional according to the effect
they produce on the base.
a) Derivational affixes: (can be prefixes and suffixes)
Bound morphemes which generally combine with
the base to change its “parts of speech” class.
- Derivational affix “-er” (V  N)
Verbs Nouns
teach teacher
build builder
sweep sweeper
- Derivational affix “ly”(Adj  Adv)
Adjectives Adverbs
happy happily
loud loudly
smooth smoothly
 - Derivational affix “-en” (N  V)
Nouns Verbs
danger endanger
slave enslave
throne enthrone
- However, the part of speech is sometimes not
changed by a derivational affix.
E.g.: “like” and “dislike” are both verbs.
“true” and “untrue” are both adjectives.

b) Inflectional affixes: (tend to be suffixes)

Bound morphemes which carry grammatical
meanings like “plural”, “tense agreement”,
or “possesive”and never involve a change of
parts of speech class.
- Inflectional affix “plural”morpheme to the nouns,
they are still nouns.
Singular Nouns Plural Nouns
bag bags Regular Nouns
tin tins formed by suffix
church churches “-s/-es”

foot feet Irregular Nouns

man men often form their
mouse mice plurals by
a vowel change

- Inflectional affix “possesive”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
- Inflectional affix “tense agreement”morpheme to
the verbs, they are still verbs.
E.g.:
Present Tense Agreement
I/you/we/they look/sing
She/he/it look+s/sing+s

Present Participle Agreement

look+ing/sing+ing

Regular verbs of past and past participle

I look+ed formed by the
I have look+ed suffix “-ed”

Irregular verbs of past and past participle

sing sang sung signalled by a vowel
take took taken change or a vowel
write wrote written change plus a suffix.
 ALLOMORPHs
 Allomorphs: variants of a morpheme.
CASE:
a) slammed /slæmd/ ; slipped /slIpt/ ; stilted /stIltId/
Allomorphs: /d/ in “slammed”; /t/ in “slipped” and
/Id/ in “stilted”

b) Some English adjectives form their opposites by prefixing

the bound morpheme “in-”:
capable incapable ; tolerant intolerant

c) often, however, the negative morpheme changes “n” to

the consonant of the word it prefixes:
legal illegal ; mobile immobile ; regular irregular
Allomorphs: “il-”, “im-”, “ir-”
 CLASSES of words
 There are nine (9) compulsary classes of words in English:
1) Nouns:
- the name of a person: Michael, etc.
- animal: tiger, etc.
- place: Jakarta, etc.
- concept or thing: grass, etc.
2) Determiners:
an adjective-like word which precedes both Adj. & N.
- articles: a, an, the.
- demonstratives: this, that, these, those.
- possessives: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.
- number when preceding nouns: one girl, first degree.
- indefinite: some, any, all, enough, no, both, each, every,
few, much, more, most, fewer, less, either, neither.
3) Pronouns:
can take the place of a noun or a noun phrase
E.g.: John met his future wife on a train.
He met her on it.
4) Adjectives:
a descriptive word that qualifies and describes nouns.
- before nouns: a cold day, a heavy shower.
- after verbs like BE, BECOME, GROW, SEEM.
E.g.: He is tall. He became angry.
He grew fiercer. He seems content.
5) Verbs:
a “doing” word.
- an action: John climbed a tree.
- a process: John turned green.
- a state: John resembles his mother.
6) Adverbs:
used to modify a verb, an adjective, a sentence or
another adverb.
E.g.: He is dangerously ill.
He was, however, the best person for the job.
He talked very strangely.
7) Prepositions:
a function word which are always followed by a noun,
a noun phrase or a pronoun.
E.g.: He talked to John
He arrived with another man.
He did it for me.
8) Conjunctions:
a “joining” word.
- co-ordinating: and, but, so. (equal)
E.g.: John and Mary ran upstairs.
 - subordinating: why, that. (subordinate to main clause).
E.g.: He would not tell me why he did it.
He said that he was tired.
9) Exclamations/Interjections:
an involuntary utterance expressing fear, pain, surprise.
E.g.: Good lord!
Heavens above!
Oh dear!
- the term interjection is often referred for
monosyllabic utterances: Oh! Wow! Ouch!
- in the written medium, both exclamations and
interjections are marked by exclamation marks.
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