JURNAL BAHASA INNGGRIS

INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH MORPHOLOGY

Makalah Ini Diajukan Untuk Memenuhi Tugas Mata Kuliah

Englis Morfology
Dosen Pembimbing: Wahyudin, M.Pd

OLEH :
NAMA: RAUHUN
JURUSAN: MATEMATIKA

SEKOLAH TINGGI KEGURUAN DAN ILMU

PENDIDIKAN (STKIP)
AL-AMIN DOMPU-NTB
2022/2023

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 Contents
Preface iii
Contents ii
Chapter 1: Morphology as A Study of Language 1
1.1 What is Morphology 1
1.2 Morphology ans Its Scope 2
1.3 Why We Should Learn Morphology 3
1.4 Summary 4
1.5 Exercise 4
Chapter 2: Words and Related Terms 5
2.1 What is a Word? 5
2.2 Word-form, Word Token and Lexeme 6
2.3 Lexical Item 8
2.4 Summary 10
2.5 Exercise 10
Chapter 3: Morphemes as Parts of Words 11
3.1 What is Morpheme? 11
3.2 Morphemes and Allomorphs 13
3.3 Free Morphemes versus Bound Morphemes 14
3.4 Cranberry Morphemes 16
3.5 Root, Base, Affixes and Combining Forms 17
3.6 Summary 20
3.7 Exercise 20
3.8 Bibliography 21

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 PREFACE
This textbook grew out of various aspects of English
Morphology from experts in morphological studies. This
Introduction to English Morphology is intended as a companion for
students of English literature and linguistics throughout their
studies. This means that the book contains a discussion of both 1)
very basic introductory issues related to English morphology, and
2) an enrichment on how morphology is interrelated with other
studies (phonology, syntax, and semantics). Determining that this
book mostly discusses basic notions of English morphology, the
textbook thus is intended to be used by undergraduate students
levels.
The book consists of 10 chapters. Chapter 1 is an
introductory chapter that defines morphology as a branch of
linguistics. Chapter 2 dwells on the internal structure of English
words. Chapter 3 discusses the parts of a word so-called
morpheme. Chapter 4 discusses word classes. Chapter 5 concerns
inflectional morphology and Chapter 6 talks about its family,
derivational morphology. Chapter 7 are concerned with word-
formation processes. Chapter 8 and 9 discussed productivity and
word and its structure respectively. Finally, Chapter 10 is the
extended and enrichment of the previous basic knowledge about
morphology in which this book discuss more about the relationship
between morphology and other interrelated studies such as
phonology, syntax and semantic.
This textbook exists as help for English Literature students to
understand English morphology using more familiar words than
the ones native made. Considering the culture and the levels of
English of the students who probably read this textbook, the author
tried to simplify the topic of morphology and used simpler words to
introduce them to notions in morphology. It is expected to give
more understanding to students which usually find difficulties in
understanding linguistics from native experts.
In sum, this book is expected to be beneficial for English
students especially those majoring in English Literature and
Linguistic. Contributive critics and suggestions are welcomed for
the development of a better version of this book.

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 CHAPTER 1
MORPHOLOGY AS A STUDY OF LANGUAGE

Learning Objectives:
The students are expected to be able to define morphology,
its scope and the rationale in learning morphology.
Indicators:
1. To define morphology
2. To explain the scope of morphology
3. To explain the rationale of learning morphology

The word morphology has been used in the English language

since a long time ago especially in biology. It refers to “the branch
of biology that deals with the form of living organisms and their
parts, and the relationships between their structures”. The word
morphology itself is derived from the Greek word “morphē”
means “form”. From its name, we can infer that morphology will
talk about forms. In this introductory chapter, we will discuss what
morphology is, its scope and the rationale for learning it.

1.1 What is morphology?

The basic meaning of morphology which is taken from the
word “morphe” has been stated out in the previous part. However,
we cannot begin the discussion related to English morphology
using that term to simplify the definition. We need to find a

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definition of morphology that can cover the topic which is going to
be discussed in the next nine chapters.
As we already know that linguistic itself is a hierarchial study
of language which begins from the basic notion or we call it the
simple notion, that is sound. That is why we need to learn about
phonology first before going on to later studies. As the prerequisite
course before learning morphology, we already learned about
phonology and phonetics which deals with sounds in a language.
Not only talking about how it is produced but also how sound can
differentiate meaning and lead us to specific terms such as
homophone, homonym, and homograph.
In this state, then we go beyond by taking one more step in
the hierarchical study of language, from talking about sounds now
step up to discuss words. In a linguistic context, morphology is
usually defined as the study of the internal structure of words.
Experts defined morphology differently but still have a
similar of its big picture. Carstairs-McCarthy (2002) states that
morphology is the area of grammar concerned with the structure of
words and with relationships between words involving the
morphemes that compose them. While Yule (2010) mentions that
morphology is a study of basic forms in a language. Considering
definitions from the experts we can conclude that morphology is
the study of structures of words in a language.
1.2 Morphology and Its Scope
After defining what morphology is, it is important to define
the scope of the study. It is indeed talking about words but the

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scope may be larger than what we think. If you think that
morphology will only talk about nouns, verbs, adjectives and
adverbs like what we learn in grammar, this book may be thinner.
In morphology, we learn about the structure of words, which means
that we learn about parts of the words (later we will know it is
called morpheme), how to form the words from a single lexeme
through affixation (we will learn it through inflectional and
derivational morphology), how words are formed (productivity of
words) and how its parts can contribute to its meaning.
1.3 Why should we learn Morphology?
What motivates linguists to pursue morphology? The first
reason is that it is the responsibility of linguists to describe and
analyze the world's languages as correctly and insightfully as
possible. As a result, they must deal with morphological
phenomena of a language and, require a set of description tools.
Morphology provides such tools in the form of a set of analytic
ideas. Linguists' second purpose is to create a typology of
languages: what are the dimensions along which languages differ,
and how are these dimensions of variation related and restricted?
Do all languages have morphology, and if so, what sorts of
morphology do they have? Is it possible to explain the
morphological similarities and differences between languages?
Third, morphology is an investigation into the nature of
linguistic systems, and thus human, natural language. Morphology,
for example, clearly demonstrates that linguistic structure has two
axes, a syntagmatic axis and a paradigmatic axis. Morphology is
also used to gain a better grasp of the nature of linguistic rules and
the internal organization of natural language grammar. As a result,
we may learn more about the architecture of the human language
faculty as well as the nature of rule-governed innovation in the
domain of language.
Finally, morphology can help us understand how linguistic
rules work in language perception and production, as well as how
linguistic knowledge is mentally represented. This topic is
illuminated by both psychological and historical facts. Thus,
morphology contributes to the larger goals of cognitive science,
which investigates human cognitive abilities.

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1.4 Summary
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words. It
is concerned with the forms of lexemes (inflection) and the
processes by which lexemes are generated (word-formation).
Patterns of the form-meaning relationship between existing words
are used to create new words. Morphology cannot be thought of as
'the syntax of morphemes' or syntax below the word level' unless
there are paradigmatic links between words. Morphology
contributes to the expansion of a language's lexicon or the
collection of established words, but it is not the only source of
lexical units, nor is it the source of all complex words, which also
emerge through borrowing, univerbation, and word formation.
The lexicon, an abstract linguistic idea separated from the
notions 'dictionary' and mental lexicon,' lists the established

(simple and complex) words of a language. Morphological rules

serve two purposes: they outline the predictable qualities of the
complex words in the lexicon and show how new words and word
forms can be created.
Morphology, as a subdiscipline of linguistics, attempts to
provide sufficient language description, build a suitable language
typology, and contribute to debates on grammar organization and
mental representation of linguistic competence.
1.5 Exercise
1. If morphology is a study of the internal structure of words
and people around the globe speak different languages, does
it mean that every language has its language morphology?
Explain?
2. In your opinion, when we learn about the morphology of
English and Indonesian, will we find the same things to
learn or not? Explain?

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 CHAPTER 2
WORDS AND RELATED TERMS

Learning Objectives:
Students are expected to be able to distinguish word form,
word token, and lexeme.
Indicators:
1. Define word
2. Define word form, word token and lexeme
3. Differentiate word form, word token and lexeme.

2.1 What is a Word?

Studies estimated that average speakers of a language know
from 45,000 to 60,000 words. This means that the speakers must
store those words in a place in our head, so-called mental lexicon.
This mental lexicon is a part of our head that functions as a
warehouse to store those words. But what exactly is it that we have
stored? What do we mean when we speak of ‘words’?
Words are familiar terms we hear and say in everyday
language. We used the term sometimes without fully notice what is
the definition of words or because we never think that this could be
a problematic notion (Bauer, 2003). For some people, the basic
definition of words is a group of letters that is preceded by a blank
space and followed either by a blank space or a punctuation mark
(Bauer, 2003) and has a meaning. Some others may say that words
are parts of sentences or something which build a sentence. ‘Word’
is difficult to define in a clear cut manner which can differentiate
the definition of a word with other notions similar to it. Part of the
difficulty is that, as an element of the English language, the word
word can be used to denote things which are conceptually very
different from each other, and that we need a better classification
and more precise terminology is widely accepted, although there
are some terms which have varying usages in a different theoretical
framework. However, defining the “word” itself is not that simple,
we need to take into account every characteristics showed by a
“word”. These characteristics or ways to define the words are
different between morphologists.

5
 Bauer (2019) argued that the word could be defined in four
other ways: in terms of sound structure (i.e. phonologically), in
terms of its internal integrity, in terms of meaning (i.e.
semantically), or in terms of sentence structure (i.e. syntactically).
She summarized that there are four properties of words: (1) words
are entities having a part of speech specification, (2) words are
syntactic atoms or a “composer” syntactic in a sentence structure,
(3) words (usually) have one main stress, (4) words (usually are
invisible units (no intervening material possible). It should be
remembered that all these properties work in terms of English
words. In Indonesian words we may have problems when defining
the words using these properties since the characteristics of words
in Indonesian and English are slightly different especially in
properties (3) which required the main stress in a word and as we
all know Indonesian language doesn’t have any stress as English
does.
Another definitions coming from Carstairs-McCarthy (2002)
who said that words are units of language which are basic in two
senses, both: (1) they have unpredictable meaning so must be listed
in dictionaries. (2) They are building blocks out of which phrases
and sentences are formed. However, in the later chapter we will
figure out that these two characteristics will lead us to different
notions as in (1) we see words as a lexical item while in (2) words
as parts of a sentence.
From definitions mentioned by morphologists above we can
take a broader sense of what a word is where words are not simply
putting a string of letters together to make a unified meaning from
the word. It is, let say, more complex than it is.
2.2 Word-form, word token, and lexeme
The term ‘word’ is likely to be very familiar for us not only
for linguists. However, mainstream people define ‘word’ slightly
broader than what linguists define. For linguists themselves, there
are other terms related to word such word token, word form and
lexeme. To understand these notions better, pay attention to the
following example:

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 (1) Mary went to England last week and she is going to Japan
next week.
If we are required to count it, how many words are there in
the sentence? Some of you will say there are 13 words. It depends
on the assumption that all words that appeared in the sentence need
to be counted. But if we take a look carefully we can find that the
third word “to” is the same as the eleventh word. It also happens to
the sixth and fifteenth word, the word “week” appears two times.
When we neglect that the sixth and fifteenth words are the same
and focus on the frequency of parts of the sentence itself, we call it
word tokens.
Let us say that the third and the eleventh word of the sentence
at (1) are a distinct token of a single type and likewise the sixth and
fifteen words. To make you easier to understand the word token
here, imagine you are listening to “I Have a Dream” song on
Monday and Tuesday. Does the song the same? But you listen to it
twice at different times, do you? That is how tokens work, the same
entity but different occurrence.
However, when we concern that each word can only count
one regardless of how many frequencies it appears, it is called
word-type (Carstairs-McCarthy, 2002) or word-form (Bauer et al.,
2013) make it simple, for the rest of the book, we will use the term
introduced by Bauer et al. (2013) that is word form.
In addition, the differentiation doesn’t stop there, we can see
that the word go and went are somehow coming from the same
word go which has the same meaning but is different in
grammatical function. When we collect those words into one we
call it lexeme. Thus, lexeme is an abstraction over one or more
word types that conveys the same lexical meaning (Bauer et al.,
2013). While ‘word form’ refers to a phonological/orthographic

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shape irrespective of meaning. Word forms are generally marked
by the use of italics, while there is less agreement on a notation for
lexemes. The notation for lexeme we used in this book are from
Lyons (1968) and it is used by several linguists (Bauer et al., 2013;
Carstairs-McCarthy, 2002). They use small capitals to refer to a
lexeme. Notationally, therefore, we can say that go and went are
forms of GO.
It is important not to confuse the word form that is used as
the CITATION FORM of a lexeme with the lexeme itself. We name
the lexeme GO by using one of its word forms (We take the root to
name the lexeme, root will be learned further in Chapter 3). To
make it more visible and understandable, consider the figure below:
go

went green
GO gone GREEN
greener
going
greenest
goes

From the figure above we can clarify that lexeme GO has five
word forms: go, went, gone, going, and goes. While lexeme GREEN
has three word forms: green, greener and greenest.
2.3 Lexical Item
We have mentioned words as lexical items derived from Carstairs-
McCarthy's (2002) definition of words. In further detail, we need to
know what a lexical item is. Bauer et al. (2013) supported the

8
definition given by Carstairs-McCarthy's (2002) that any items
because of their lack of predictable semantics or form, must be
listed in the dictionary. So lexical items form a superset that
includes lexemes as a subset. Lexical items also include:
 Items formed by the lexicalization of syntactic structure or
simply make a sentence or clause structure into word-like
items (e.g. You-Know-Who, Australian Capital Territory)
 Idioms (e.g. make someone’s mind ‘decide’, red herrings
‘irrelevant arguments’)
 Phrasal verbs (e.g. take part ‘participate’, look forward
‘wait for’)
 Fixed figurative expressions (be between a rock and a hard
place ‘have only two option, each of which is unpalatable’
(In Indonesian, it is equivalent with eating Simalakama
fruit),
 Proverbs (When Rome, do like Romans do (In Indonesia it is
equivalent with “dimana bumi dipijak, disitu langit
dijunjung”)
Several lexical terms can be found in ordinary printed
dictionaries, not because their meaning is completely unknown, but
rather because they are the way the concept is expressed in the
English language. The objects in question could be dictionary
entries, and as such, they are likely to be represented in the
speaker's mental lexicon.
Opposite with the unpredictability of lexical items, so they
need to be listed in a dictionary, there are plenty of items which
have predictable meaning so they do not need to be listed in the
dictionary. Consider the word “dioecious”, as if it is your first time
knowing the word and you don’t know the meaning. You look up
your dictionary and find that diecious means ‘having male and
female flowers on a separate plants’ which contradicts with
monoecious which having female and male flowers in one plant.
After that, you read the following sentence:

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 (I) Cycas trees reproduce dioeciously.
After knowing the meaning of dioecious, you usually don’t need to
look up the dictionary to find the meaning dioeciously. Your
confidence is based on the fact that you are familiar with the
English language and understand that the suffix -ly has a consistent
meaning so that Xly implies "in an X fashion" for any adjective
ending in X. This is something that you may not have realized you
were aware of until now; nevertheless, this just reflects the fact that
most people have implicit knowledge of their native language,
rather than explicit knowledge – at least until some components of
it are made clear through training.
2.4 Summary
a. Word form is a form of word which is influenced by
grammatical function.
b. Word token is the occurrence of words in a sentence.
c. Lexeme is an abstraction over one or more word types that
convey the same lexical meaning.
d. Lexical Item is units of language which have unpredictable
meaning so must be listed in dictionaries.
2.5 Exercise
1. Pay attention to the group of words below. Circle a word (s) that
are predictable and do not need to be listed in a dictionary.
a. woman, womanly, women, woman’s
b. break, breakable, breaking, breakage
c. soft, soften, softer, softener
2. Count how many word forms, word tokens and lexemes in the
following sentences:
a. She wears her new gown at her friend’s birthday party.
b. Joe is having a conversation with a new friend.

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 CHAPTER 3
MORPHEMES AS PARTS OF WORDS
Learning Objectives:
Students are expected to be able to understand morphemes
and differentiate their type.
Indicators:
1. To explain the definition of morphemes, cranberry morphemes.
2. To differentiate between free morpheme versus
bound morpheme and root, affixes, base and combining forms.
3.1 What is Morpheme?
In the previous chapter, we have learnt that many words are
not considered lexical items since their meaning are predictable.
This predictability is somehow not coming out of the blue. Those
which make this predictability possible is that the words are
constructed by identifiable smaller parts (at least two), put together
systematically so that the meaning of the whole word can be
reliably determined. Let us take a look back on the example in
Chapter 2 when we first met with the word dioeciously. From this
word, we can take the word apart into dioecious and –ly. These two
components contribute to the meaning of the words. In this chapter,
we will focus on these smaller parts of words, so-called
morphemes.

The distinction between words that are lexical items and

those which are not is a key point to make before moving on to the
other topics discussed. As we have seen, words that are not lexical
items must be complex in the sense that they are made up of two or
more morphemes to be considered such. However, those are not the
only terms that can be considered difficult; lexical-item words can
also be considered complex — in fact, we met numerous examples
of this in the exercises for Chapter 2. It is possible to have
monomorphemic words that are lexical items, however, this is not
always the case (consisting of just one morpheme). This is hardly
surprising when one considers that we have already seen lexical
items that are so complicated that they require more than one word
to express themselves, namely idiomatic expressions. Recognizing
the existence of lexical items that are polymorphemic (i.e.,
composed of more than one morpheme) has crucial implications for
11
understanding the link between morphemes and meaning, as we
will show in the following section.
In light of how the concept of morphemes has been
introduced, let us examine two of its properties in further depth.
For the meanings of some complicated words to be predictable,
morphemes must meet the following requirements:
1. they must be distinguishable from one word to another.
2. In some sense, the meaning of the parts contributes to the
meaning of the whole term.
What is it, exactly, that allows the same morpheme to be
recognized in a range of distinct words? Despite what you may
have heard, a morpheme is not just any repeated word-part.
Consider the words attack, stack, tackle, and taxi to get an idea of
what I'm talking about.
It would be absurd to claim that the same morpheme -tack- is
identifiable in each of these words because the meaning of tack has
absolutely nothing to do with the meanings of the other words, and
each of them would have to be listed separately in any dictionary if
they were all pronounced similarly to the word tack. As a result, it
may appear logical to link characteristic 1. firmly to characteristic
2., thereby making the identification of morphemes dependent on
their semantic meaning.
According to some textbooks, for example, morphemes are
not only the smallest grammatical structure units, but they are also
the smallest meaningful units, and this is commonly stated in these
texts. Many complicated words, including totally new ones such as
un-Clintonish, as well as old ones such as helpfulness, which can
be broken down into the morphemes help, -ful (which can be found
in both joyful and doleful, for example), and -ness, are well-suited
to this perspective (identifiable also in happiness and sadness). That
the meaning of both un-Clintonish and helpfulness is wholly
defined by the meanings of the morphemes that are contained
inside them appears to be a valid assumption. Every meaning of a
word, even one that is distinctive enough to warrant inclusion in a
dictionary, is tied to the regular meanings or functions of the words
read and -able. While considering such examples, it is vital to
understand that there is no logical or required connection between

12
traits 1 and 2. Evidence that it is problematic to link the
identification of morphemes with their meaning will be shown
repeatedly in the subsequent parts, but especially in Section 3.5, as
we will see in the following sections.
Another general point to mention about morphemes is that,
although they are the constituent parts of words, they are not
required to be of a specific length. For example, certain rather large
words, such as catamaran and knickerbocker, may be made up of
only one morpheme; on the other hand, a single-syllable word, such
as tenths, may be made up of as many as three different morphemes
(ten, -th, -s).
That is, the morphological structure of words is mainly
distinct from the phonological structure of words, as evidenced by
this finding (their division into sounds, syllables and rhythmic
units). This reflects a significant distinction between human speech
and all other animal communication systems: only speech (as far as
we know) can be divided into units that contribute to meaning
(morphemes, words, phrases, and so on) and units that are
individually meaningless (phonemes, syllables, and so on) (sounds,
syllables etc.). Human language's dual patterning (also known as its
duality of patterning) has ramifications that are much too numerous
to discuss in this book. What is important here is that you do not
make the same mistake that many beginners do, which is to confuse
morphemes with phonological elements such as syllables.
3.2 Morphemes and Allomorphs
A morpheme is defined as the smallest meaningful unit of
morphological analysis (Bauer, Plag, Lieber, 2013). However, to be
more precise and to make clear the relationship of the term
‘morpheme’ to that of ‘morph’, we need first to introduce a third
term, ‘allomorph’. There are many occasions on which morphs,
though phonologically not identical, are functionally equivalent and
are in complementary distribution. Consider the example in (1).
(1) embark endanger
embed ensnare
embody entomb
emplane entrain

13
 Bark, bed, body, plane, danger, snare, tomb, and train are
potentially free morphs, and they are preceded by an obligatorily
bound morph that has the same meaning in every case, which we
may roughly translate as ‘cause to be in'. In the examples in (1),
this morph is sometimes em- and sometimes en-. The two forms
have complementary distributions, and we can predict which one
will occur in any given word-form: em- occurs before bilabial
consonants, whereas en-occurs before alveolar consonants. These
two morphs, em- and en-, are said to be allomorphs of the same
morpheme. Allomorphs, in general, are phonologically diverse
variants that exist in complementary phonological environments.
Morphemes are groupings of allomorphs.
Another example of allomorphs happens in the use of suffix
–s as an indication of plurality in nouns. Consider the example in
(2). cats /kæts/
dogs /dɒgz/
horses /hɔrsɪz/
In example (2) we can see that suffix –s are pronounced
differently in those three words. It is pronounced as /z/ in the word
cats s, /z/ in the word dog, and /iz/ in the word horses. It means that
a single suffix -s have more than one way in pronouncing it,
therefore we can say that /s/, /z/, and /iz/ are allomorphs of the
suffix –s. This different pronunciation of a single suffix –s is
strongly related to the phonological properties of the word to which
suffix –s attach to. Look at the example (2) carefully, then we can
find that suffix –s is pronounced as /s/ when it comes after a
voiceless sound like we can see in cat (sound /t/ is voiceless) while
it will be pronounced as /z/ when it comes after a voiced sound like
what we can see in dog (sound /d/ is voiced). In addition, suffix –s
will be pronounced as /iz/ when it comes after sibilant sounds like
in horse (sound /s/ in the end of the word horse is sibilant sound).
3.3 Free Morphemes versus Bound Morphemes?
The first distinction related to morphemes is free morphemes
and bound morphemes. To understand more about how we can

14
distinguish free morphemes and bound morphemes, let us concern
the word below.
helpfulness
It is not all of the morphemes in the term helpfulness we just
studies have the same status. There is no simple way to thread
together the words help, -ful, and -ness like beads on a string.
Instead, the word help serves as the foundation, or beginning point,
for the construction of this word; the morpheme -ful is then added
to form helpful, which in turn serves as the foundation for the
formation of the word helpfulness. When I use the word 'then' in
this context, I am not referring to the historical sequence in which
the words help, helpful, and helpfulness first appeared; rather, I am
referring to the structure of the word in contemporary English – a
structure that is part of the implicit linguistic knowledge of all
English speakers, regardless of whether or not they are familiar
with the history of the English language.
There are two arguments in favour of considering help to be
the essence of the word. To begin, one might say that aid is a word
that provides the most exact and definite aspect in its meaning,
which is shared by a family of similar words such as helper,
helpless and helplessness, as well as unhelpful, which differ from
one another in more abstract ways. (This is a component of word
structure that we shall examine in greater depth in Chapter 5.) In
addition, only assistance can stand on its own, as opposed to the
other two morphemes in the helpfulness category — in other
words, only help is capable of constituting an utterance by itself
when used in the appropriate context. The word -ness, as well as
the word -ful, are manifestly untrue in this context. When
comparing words like helpful and cheery with other words that
truly do contain full, such as half-full and chock-full, it is clear that
they have diverged in modern English. In self-explanatory terms,
morphemes that can stand on their own are referred to as free,
whereas those that cannot are referred to as bound.

15
 Compare the two columns of words listed at (3), all of which
consist uncontroversially of two morphemes, separated by a
hyphen:
(3) (a) read-able (b) Leg-ible
hear-ing audi-ence
en-large magn-ify
perform-ance rend-ition
happy-ness clar-ity
soft-en obfusc-ate
speak-er applic-ant
From the two divisions, we can see that column (a) contain a
free morpheme, respectively read, hear, large, perform, happy,
soft, and speak. Contradictorily, the words in column (b), although
they are similar to (a), both are bound morphemes. Historically
speaking, the free morphemes in (3a) are from the Germanic
branch of the Indo-European language family, to which English
belongs, but all of the morphemes in (3b) have been introduced or
acquired from Latin, either directly or indirectly through French.
With or without such historical information, it is possible to notice
that the terms in (3b) are on the whole less common or more
bookish than the words in (3a).
This reflects the fact that, among the most widely used
words, the Germanic element still predominates. Accordingly, it is
still reasonable to assert that complex English words have a high
tendency to contain a free morpheme at their heart, even in modern
times.
3.4 “Cranberry Morphemes”
Looking at (3b) which are relatively less common than (3a) make it has a limited
combination then make a thought pop up ‘is it possible for a bound morpheme to be
so limited in its distribution that it occurs in just one complex word? The answer is
yes. This is almost true, for example, of the morpheme leg- ‘read’ in legible at (3b):
at least in everyday vocabulary, it is found in only one other word, that is illegible,
the negative counterpart of legible. And it is absolutely true of the morphemes
cran-, huckle-, and gorm- in cranberry, huckleberry and gormless. Cranberry and
huckleberry are compounds whose second element is clearly free morpheme berry,
occurring in several other compounds such as strawberry,

16
 blueberry, and blackberry, however, cran- and huckle- are
nowhere found except in cranberry and huckleberry. A name
commonly given to such bound morphemes is cranberry
morpheme.
Cranberry morphemes are more than just a curiosity because
they highlight the difficulty of tightly tying morphemes to meaning.
What does the prefix cran- mean? Nothing, arguably; only the
entire word cranberry is meaningful, and it is certainly the entire
word, not cran- by itself, that is in any dictionary. (You may have
also noticed that, while blackberries are indeed blackish,
strawberries have nothing obvious to do with straw; thus, even if
straw- in strawberry is not a cranberry morpheme, it does not make
any predictable semantic contribution in this word by itself.)
3.1 Root, Base, Affixes and Combining Form.
Three terms which are indispensable in analysing words are
‘root’, ‘base’, and ‘affix’. According to Bauer et al. (2013) A ROOT
is a centre of a word, a lexically contentful morph, either free or
bound, which is not further analysable; it is what remains when all
affixes are removed. For example in (4) the roots are read, hear,
large, perform, happy, soft, and speak. AFFIXES are obligatory
bound items that attach to roots. In English, there are kinds of
affixes: prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes are obligatory bound
morphs attached before (to the left of) a root; suffixes are
obligatorily bound morphs attached after (to the right of) a root, as
illustrated in (4) and (5).

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 (4)Prefixes in English: de-compose, dis-qualify, fore-
word, inter-national, mis-align, non-smoker, pre-
requisite, re-watch, sub-marine, super-impose, un-
natural, en-able.
(5)Suffixes in English: America-n, happy-ness,
relation-ship, brother-hood, caramel-ize, woman-ly,
jugdment-al, read-s, beaut-ify, separate-d, usher-ette,
speak-er, fish-ing.
Because English enables affixation to forms that already
include affixes on a regular basis, we will occasionally have reason
to use the term BASE: a base is any morphological element to which
other morphological elements are added during the construction of
words. To summarize: A base may be made up of a single root, as
in the word friend-ly, of multiple roots, as in a compound word or
phrase like file cabinet, of a phrase or word like old maidish, or of a
root plus one or more affixes, as when the suffix -ness is attached
to the word friend-ly in the word friend-li-ness.
Although under normal circumstances affixes are obligatorily
bound and roots are potentially free, this is not always the case.
Consider the words in (6):
(6) micro-film, psyco-logy, derm-atitis, endo-derm
It is possible to find bound morphs in all of these words. It is
not uncommon for the morphs micro-, o(logy), derm-, and endo- to
occur together in a single word, and they do so in a number of
words, as affixes do. The same as with affixes, some of them are
more commonly found in the initial position (e.g. micro-, endo-),
while others are more commonly found in the final place (e.g. –
(o)logy). Yet, most morphologists would reluctant to classify them
as affixes in this context. For starters, if we were to refer to them as
affixes, we would be left with the potential of creating a word that
is wholly composed of affixes (e.g., endoderm), which would
violate the definition of affix provided above. Another advantage of
this category over English affixes is that some items in it can
appear either initially or at the end (e.g., derm in dermatitis and
endoderm), which is never the case with English affixes. As a
result, we will distinguish between BOUND ROOTS and affixes in
this section. Bound roots can serve as bases for affixes or other
bound roots.

18
 We have seen two types of complex words so far: those with
a single free root, such as (3a), and those with a single bound root,
such as (3b). Is it true, then, that a word can only have one root and
that it cannot have more than one root? Without a doubt – in fact,
such words are fairly common; they are COMPOUNDS, as
previously explained in conjunction with the cranberry morphemes.
Examples are bookcase, motorbike, penknife, and truck-driver. The
reason for bringing up compounds once more is because, if a
complex word can be built from two (or more) free roots, it is only
natural to wonder whether a word can have two (or more) bound
roots as well as free roots. Yes, they do exist – although, given the
English language's propensity for free roots, they are not nearly as
common as conventional compounds in the language. Electrolysis,
electroscopy, telescope, microcosm, psychology, and endoderm are
just a few examples of terms that have two bound roots. Among the
other words that, like cranberries, contain both a bound and a free
root are microfilm, electrometer, and the Sino-Japanese phrase
(assuming that Japanese contains the free root Japan). It will be
immediately apparent that the majority of these words are not often
used; in fact, I would anticipate just a small number of readers of
this book to be familiar with all of them. However, in contrast to
ordinary compounds, these words are nearly all technical terms of
scientific language, coined with the knowledge that they were made
up of non-English elements, usually from Latin and Greek. Since
there is such a significant difference between ordinary compounds
and these learned words, and because the bound morphemes that
compose them have a non-English character, many linguists and
dictionary-makers classify these bound morphemes as neither
affixes nor bound roots (such as the ones we encountered in (3b)),
but instead classify them as a special category of combining forms.
Given that free roots are prevalent in native English words,
one may assume that if a word composed of combining forms
is widely used, the morphemes contained within it would tend to
acquire the status of free morphemes as a result of their widespread
use. This expectation proves to be right in the end. For example,
the word photograph existed before the word picture as a taught
technical term formed of combining forms; nevertheless, the word
photo must now be categorized as a free morpheme because it is no
longer a learned technical term. Other combining forms that have
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more recently "gained their independence" are micro- and macro-
(as in, on a micro- or macro-scale) and retro- (as in, related to
music or fashion), all of which are more recent developments.
3.2 Summary
a. Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of a language.
b. Allomorph is phonologically diverse variants that exist in
complementary phonological environments.
c. Free morpheme is a morpheme that can stand alone as a
word.
d. Bound morpheme is a morpheme that can occur only
when attached to other morphemes.
e. Root is a centre of a word, which is not further
analysable; it is what remains when all affixes are
removed
f. Base is any morphological element to which other
morphological elements are added during the construction
of words.
g. Affix is obligatory bound items that attach to roots
h. Combining form is the combination of bound roots.
i. Cranberry morpheme is a bound morpheme whose
occurrence is so limited that it occurs nowhere but in just
one complex word.
3.3 Exercise
1. Decide how many morphemes composed the following
words:
a. Unbelievable d. Understand
b. Speakers e. Basketball
c. Environmentalists f. Tigers
2. From the words in (1) decide which one is free morphome
and which is bound morpheme!
3. What phonological factors determine the distribution of the
allomorphs [t], [d], an [d] or [əd] of the past tense suffix
-ed? (Two of the factors are the same as for the plural suffix
-s, but one is different.)

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