1.
Morphology is the study of internal structure of words and of the rules by which
word are formed.
- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language.
- Morpheme: lexical meaning and grammatical meaning.
- A morphem is a short segment of language that meets three criyeria:
1. It is a word or part of a words that has meaning.
2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning
or without meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in different verbal environments with a relatively stables meaning.
Morphemes have meaning
Phonemes have no meaning, have distinctive features that help to distinguish meaning.
A morphemes = only a single phoneme
Morphemes are generally short sequences of phonemes.
Most English morphemes are intermediate in size consist of about two to six phonemes
In English, a morpheme is not identical with a syllable.
The syllables is a phonological unit whereas the morpheme is the basic unit in
morphology
Words are made up of one ormore morphemes = morphemes are the constituents of
words
2. Bound morphemes and free morpheme.
Free morphemes:
- A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning.
- A free morpheme can be used on its own.
- Free morpheme may stand alone as words in their own right, as well as enter into
the structure of other words.
Bound morphemes:
- A bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It is always annexed to
one or more morphemes to form a word.
- A bound morpheme is never used alone but must be used with another morpheme.
- Bound morphemes may occur only if they combine with another morpheme.
3. Affixes:
- Position: prefixes and suffixes
- Function: inflectional affixes and derivational affixes.
8 inflectional suffixes:
- Always suffixes
- Perform a gramatical function
- Representatives of grammatical categories.
1. The noun plural morpheme
Ex: books, apples, boxes,
2. The noun possessive morpheme
Ex: man’s, student’s,..
3. The verb third person singular present tense morpheme
Ex: walks, mixes,..
4. The verb present participle morpheme
Ex: playing, typing, digging,…
5. The verb past simple morpheme
Ex: worked, drank,..
6. The verb past participle morpheme
Ex: workes, drunk,..
7. The adjective or adverb comparative morpheme
Ex: smaller, thinner,..
8. The adjective or adverb superlative morpheme
Ex: smallest, thinnest,…
Derivational affixes:
- Class-changing derivational affixes
- Class-maintaining derivational affixes.
The relative order of morpheme in the English word:
Derivational prefix – BASE – derivational suffix(es) – inflectional suffix.
Affixes ----almost/ always-- Bound morpheme
Bases: Free base (nearly always), bound base.
4. Morphemes – allomorphs:
Singular noun + the inflectional noun plural morpheme = plural noun.
Allomorphem:
- Phonologically conditioned allomorphs
- Morphhologically conditioned allomorphs
Types of allomorphs:
1. Additive allomorphs: something is added to a word.
2. Replacive allomorphs: a sound is used to replace another sound in a word.
3. Subtractive allomorphs: something is deleted from aword.
4. Suppletive allomorphs: there is a complete change in the shape of a word.
5. The zero allomorph: There is no change in the shape of a word
1. audi- :hear
2. –cide=killing
3. Ora- = mouth/speak
4. Aqua-/aque- =water
5. Mor(t)-=death/dead
6. Corp-=the whole physical body of human being or an animal or group of people
working or acting as a unit
7. Ten-= hold
8. Pend-=hang
9. Man-=hand
10. Ject-= throw/shoot
11. –vise=see
12. –dict=say
13. –gress= go
14. -ven: come
15. -cur: run
16. -spect: look
17. -pos(e); place/put
18. -rod: gnaw
19. -port : carry
20. -rupt : break
21. ann- : year
22. -gamy: marriage
23. -tain : hold
24. -ceive, -cept, -ceit: take
25. -fer: carry bear
26. -clude: shut, close
27. -port: carry
Prefixes:
Ad- (ac-, at-) : to, toward
Com- (con-): with, together, jointly, in
De- : from, down, away
Dis- (dif-) : aquart
Ex- : from, out from, out of
In- (im-) : in into, within, toward,on
Per- : through, thoroughly
Pre- : before, in advance
Inter- : between
Pro- : forward, before, forth, for
Re- : back, again
Sub- (sup-) : under
Trans- : across, beyond, through
