Morphology: Key Concepts

Materials Prepared by
Dr. Abdel Rahman M. Altakhaineh and Dr.
Manar Al Hassi
Agenda
🠶 What is M o rpho lo gy?
🠶 Goals of Morphology
🠶 Roots vs. Stems
🠶 Morphemes
🠶 Derivation vs. Inflection
🠶 Compounding
🠶 Other minor morphological processes
 What is morphology?
🠶 Morphology: literally means “the study of forms”.

🠶 Morphology: linguistically speaking, is the study of the inner

structure of words a n d the operations to form them
(Rodford et al, 1999).

🠶 Morphology: is The branch of linguistics that deals with

words, their internal structure or how they are formed”,
(Arranoff a n d Funderman, 2005).

🠶 Morphology: describes an investigation that analyzes all

the basic elements used in a language.
Goals of morphology
🠶 Description and analysis of the languages of the world

🠶 Development of a typology of languages:

 What dimensions d o languages differ?
 Do all languages have morphology?

🠶 Morphology in second-language learning

 What does the adult second-language learner h ave
to learn in terms of morphology?
Roots
🠶 Root: The nucleolus of the word that affixes
attach to.
🠶 “A root is a form that has at least one paradigm
or partial paradigm, a n d itself morphologically
simple” (Mathews,1991).For example seas, adds
[z] to the root [si].
🠶 In English roots are free morphemes, in other
language s this is less c o m m o n.
🠶 Compound words contain more than one
root.
🠶Ex: C o n -crete and Home -work
Stems (Base)
🠶 Stems: or a (base), is a word without its inflectional affixes
= root + a ll d eriva tion al a ffixes.
🠶 “ A form that underlies at least one paradigm of partial
[paradigm, but itself morphologically complex”,
(Mathews, 1991).
The Main Difference between roots a n d morphemes is
that a root is morphologically simple where as a stem is
complex.
E.g. ( Agree (root) Agreement (stem))
 Morphemes
🠶 Morphemes are the smallest unit in a word that has a
lexical or grammatical meaning .
🠶 Words are compos e d of one or more morphemes.
🠶 Morphemes are the minimal meaningful unit that cannot
b e divided into smaller meaningful parts.
🠶 The term morpheme is used both to refer to an abstract
entity a n d its concrete realization(s) in speech or writing.
When it is n e e d e d to maintain the signified a n d signifier
distinction, the term morph is used to refer to the concrete
entity, while the term morpheme is reserved for the
abstract entity only.
Allomorphs

🠶 Allomorphs are variants of the same morpheme, i.e.,

morphs corresponding to the same morpheme; they
have the same function but different forms. Unlike the
synonyms they usually cannot b e replaced one by the
other.
🠶 A morpheme may not have the same shape in every
environment. It may have different allomorphs.
🠶 An allomorph is a form of a morpheme in a particular
environment.
🠶 {plural} -z is realized as /z/ in dog-s, as /s/ in cat-s, as 0
in fish, a n d as /iz/ in dish-es (slides)
 Morphs
🠶 Morpheme is use d b o th to refer to a n abstrac t entity a nd its
concrete realization(s) in speech or writing.
🠶 When it is n e e d e d to maintain the signified a n d signifier
distinction, the term morph is used to refer to the concrete
entity, while the term morpheme is reserved for the abstract
entity only.
🠶 Just as phones are actual phonetic realization of phonemes
🠶 Morphs c a n b e seen as the actual forms used to realize
morphemes
🠶 Ex: Cats consists of two morphs , cat+(s) a lexical a n d
inflectional morpheme
🠶 Ex: Busses consists of two morphs (bus+ -es) A lexical
a n d inflectional morpheme (Yule, 2010)
Practice: How many morphemes in
these words?
🠶 State

🠶 Agreements

🠶 Undo

🠶 Students

🠶 Formalization

🠶 sing-er-s, home-work, un-kind-ly, auto-service

 Lexemes
🠶 Booij (2006: 654) points out that a ‘lexeme’ is a word that has its own
lexical entry in a dictionary.
🠶 Lexeme: An abstract entity; the set of all forms related by inflection (but
not derivation).
🠶 Ex: In English dictionaries, any separate lexical entry is considered as a
lexeme
🠶 Thus, the verbal lexeme WRITE c a n b e found as a separate entry in
the dictionary.
🠶 O n the other hand, the noun WRITER is not considered as a form of
the lexeme WRITE.
🠶 The noun is treated as a different lexeme, with a different meaning
a n d a different lexical category.
🠶 The lexeme WRITER is considered to b e the pro d u ct of d e riva tion
🠶 Lemma: A form from a lexeme chosen by convention (e.g., nominative
singular for nouns, infinitive for verbs) to represent that set.
🠶 Also calle d the c a nonical/b a se /dictionary/cita tion form. For e very
form, there is a correspo nding lemma .
🠶 lemma a n d lexeme are often used interchangeably
Words
🠶 Lieber (2010:3) defines ‘word’ as “ o ne or
more morphemes that c a n stand alone in a
language.”
🠶 Lieber (ibid) divides words into two categories:
🠶Firstly, tho se wo rds that c o nsist o f o ne
morpheme, like the words tiger, despite a n d
humor, c a n b e called simple words.
🠶 Secondly, those words which consist of more
than one morpheme, like rewrite, greenhouse,
information a n d slowly, are termed complex
words.
 Words
🠶 A more accu rate definition c a n b e a ‘word’ c a n b e
defined as a single sound as in “I” or a mixture of sounds,
or its representation in spoken or written, which
symbolizes a n d communicates a meaning a n d may
consist of a single morpheme as in agree, play, fix an d
text or of a combination of morphemes as in
agreement, agrees, agreeable, agreed, greenhouse,
brother- in-law a n d constitutionalizing.

🠶 A ‘word’ includes a root, a stem, a lexeme, free

morphemes, c o m pou nd a n d any inflected forms of a
word suc h as visit, visits, visiting.
Free and Bound Morphemes
🠶 Free Morphemes: Morphemes that c a n stand by themselves as
single words.
🠶 Generally c a n b e identified as the set of sperate English word
forms such as basic nouns, adjectives, verbs, ect.
🠶 E.g.( open, tour , sleep)
🠶 When Free morphemes are used with a bound morpheme
a tta che d they are usually known as stems.
🠶 Bound Morphemes: Morphemes that ca nnot usually stand alone.
🠶 Typically a tta che d to another form.
🠶 All affixes, (prefixes a n d suffixes) are bound morphemes.
🠶 E.g.( -er, -ness, re-, -ment) (Yule, 2010)
Lexical and Functional Morphemes
(Free Morphemes)
🠶 Free morphemes fall into two categories:
🠶 Lexical Morphemes: ordinary nouns, adjectives a n d verbs that w e
think of as words that carry the “content” of the messages w e
convey.
🠶 Functional morphemes: consist of the functional words in the
la ngua ge such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles a n d pronouns
🠶 Lexical morphemes c a n b e a d d e d to the la ngua ge rather easily
so they
are treated as a n open class of words, e.g. girl, man, house, tiger,
etc.
›››Functional morphemes are almost never a d d e d to the la ngua ge
they are treated as a “closed” class of words, e.g. and, but,
when because , on, near, above, in ,the , that, it , them, etc.
(Yule, 2010)
Derivational and Inflectional
Morphemes
🠶 Bound morphemes c a n b e divided into two types( derivational
a n d inflectional morphemes)
🠶 Derivational morphemes : These bound morphemes are used to
m ake new words or to make words of a different grammatical
category from the stem
🠶 Ex: derivational morpheme –ness changes the adjective
good to the noun goodness. Care c a n b e c o m e careful or
careless. By the addition of derivational morphemes -ful or -
ness
🠶 List of derivational morphemes will include suffixes like: -ish, -
ly, a n d -ment. Derivational morphemes also consist of prefixes
suc h as; re-, pre-, ex-, mis-, a n d co-.
(Yule, 2010)
 Inflectional morphemes
🠶 Inflectional morphemes are no t used to p roduc e ne w w o rds in the
la nguage
🠶 Are used to indicate aspects of the grammatical function of a word.
🠶 Inflectional morphemes a re used to show w e a ther a w ord is p lural or
singular, if it is past tense, a n d if it is a comparative or possessive form
🠶 There are eight inflectional morphemes or (inflections)
🠶 ‘s, s, -ing, -e d ,-en, est,- er.
🠶 Exam ple :
Jim’s two sisters are really different.
O n e likes to have fun a n d is always laughing.
The other liked to read as a child a n d has always taken things seriously.
O n e is the loudest person in the house a n d the other is the quieter than a
mouse. (Yule, 2010)
 Morphemes
Lexical
(child/teach, etc.)

Fre e
functional
(and/the, etc.)
Morphemes
Derivational
(re/ness, etc.)
Bound
Inflectional
(s’/-ed, etc.)
 Affixes
🠶 An affix is a morpheme that is a tta ched to a word root to form a new
word or lexeme (Jensen, 1990: 2).
🠶 An affix is a m orphe m e tha t is no t a roo t.
🠶 An affix therefore is a bound morpheme beca use it ca nnot stand
alone.
🠶 ) By attaching affixes at different points on the root.
🠶 Affix Ordering: Inflectional prefixes – derivational prefixes –root –
derivatio nal suffixes – infle c tio nal suffixes
🠶 consider [root] > re-consider > [he] reconsider-s [inflectional
suffix]
🠶 In general, there a re several typ es of a ffixes:
🠶 ( prefix affixation is, a linguistic process used to form neologisms
(new words, suffix, infix, circumfix, interfix, disfix, transfix, a n d
duplifix) (Altakhaineh, 2014)
 Main types of affixes

🠶 1) Prefix: A bound morpheme that occurs at the beginning of a root

to adjust or qualify its meaning such as re- in rewrite, tri- in triangle a n d
mis- in misunderstand (Spencer 1991: 5).
🠶 2) Suffix : A bound morpheme that is p l a c e d at the e nd of a root to
form a derivative or inflected word such as -a n ce in a c c e p t a n c e , -ly
in quickly, -ed in c o o ke d -ing in waiting. It frequently converts the root
into another part of speech (Spencer 1991: 5).
🠶 3) Infix: A bound morpheme that is p l a c e d within a word. It tends to
occur in the middle of the word. In English, infixes are very unique
such as -o- in biology (Jensen 1990: 64). In Arabic, the diminutive infix -
y- c a n b e found in words such as kulayb ‘small dog’, rujayl ‘small
man’, a n d mukaytib ‘small office’ (Watson 2006: 3).
🠶 Not usually used in English
 Other Affixes
🠶 4) circumfix: A prefix a n d suffix that a c t together to surround
a root. These affixes, neither of which c a n b e used in isolation.
In German, ge- ... -t is a circumfix that denotes the past tense
as in the example below (Bauer 2003: 29-30).
lob-en ‘to praise’ ge-lob-t ‘praised’
frag-en ‘to ask’ ge-frag-t ‘asked’
🠶 5) Interfix: A special kind of affix in which a linking portion is
used to link two elements of a compound. It is c o m m o n in
German, such as :
Liebe brief Liebe-s-brief ‘love letter’
Arbeit anzug Arbeit-s-anzug ‘work clothes’
All the a b o ve examples a re c ited in Bauer (ibid ) a nd
Collins German dictionary (2007).
 Other Affixes
🠶 6) Disfix: The elision of a n element of a root, as cited from
http://www.answers.com/topic/affix. In English, the removal of the segment n, to
form the plural form, could b e a n example of disfix,
🠶 such as phe nome non > phenomena, criterion > criteria. It is clear that there is
a c h a n g e of the letter o into a in the previous examples. Other examples of this
type of affixes are e va c u a t e > e va c u e e a n d datum > data. The author
proposes that this term should b e used after providing several examples from
different languages.
🠶 7) Transfix: Also a special kind of affix that involves both discontinuous affixes a nd
discontinuous bases (Bauer 2003: 30-31). These affixes are ca lled transfixes as they
occur throughout the root. They are commonly used in Arabic as in the examples
below.
A) q-t-l ‘ kill’ b) qatal ‘ he killed’ c) ya-qtul ‘ he kills’
d) qaatil ‘killer’ e) qutil ‘ he was killed’ (Altakhaineh, 2014)
 Other Affixes

🠶 8) Duplifix (partial duplication): is a rare type of affix in which a n element p l a c e d

to the stem that consists of both c o p i e d segments a n d fixed segments. Examples
from Somali plurals are:
b uug ‘ book’ buug-ag ‘books’
koob ‘cup’ koob -a b ‘ cu p s’

Suffixing is more frequent than prefixing and far more frequent than
infixing/circumfixing (Sapir 1921, Greenberg 1957 Hawkins & Gilligan:1988).
 Morphological processes (Inflection)
🠶 The three m a in m orpho lo gic a l p rocesses are Inflectio n, derivatio n, a n d
compounding.
🠶 Inflection a n d derivation are the two most productive morphological processes.
🠶 Inflection:
🠶 Inflection : The process by which a word is modified to indicate grammatical
function such as ca se number, person, gender, mood, tense or aspect.
🠶 Inflection ca nnot cause a word to c h a n g e its syntactic category since it
creates variation of the same word. (visiting, visits, visited)
🠶 Inflection never changes the word class or the meaning, but provides the
form of a word required by the syntax:
(He walk v = he walks V) (They sell v the house yesterday = they sold V the
house yesterday )( The boy is friendly ADJ than the girl = the boy is Friendlier
ADJ than the girl)( n the ma n N house = the man’s N house)( the ma n N g o =
the men N go.)
 Inflection
🠶 Word forms that inflect typically belong to open-class words

🠶 Verbs, nouns, adjectives, (some) adverbs (e.g. soon –soon-er)

🠶 But m a y a lso includ e d e m o nstra tives, rela tive pronouns a nd

articles
🠶 E.g. German: der, die, das; dieser, diese, dieses
🠶 Arabic: alladhi ‘which m.s.’, allati ‘which f.s.’ alladhiina ‘which
m.pl.’
(Yule, 2010)
 Inflectional categories
🠶 Number a n d type are language 🠶 English only has 8 inflectional
specific
morphemes, namely ‘s, s, ing, ed,
🠶 Number: singular, plural, dual (some
languages) en, est, er.

🠶 Gender: masculine, feminine, neuter, 🠶 2 are a tt a c h ed to nouns (‘s a n d s)

inanimate
(some languages) 🠶 4 are a tt a c h ed to verbs (-s, -ing, -
🠶 Definiteness: d e finite , ind e finite ed)
🠶 Case: nominative, accusative, dative, 🠶 2 are attached to adjectives (-er,-
genitive
est)
🠶 Person: first, sec ond, third
🠶 Tense: p a st, pre sent, future 🠶 All are suffixes
 Derivation
🠶 Derivation is the most c o m m o n used word formation process to
b e found in the production of new English words.
🠶 Derivation c a n c h a n g e the grammatical category of the base
🠶 Derivation is the process by which a new word is created from
an existing word, sometimes by simply changing the
grammatical category such as changing a verb to a noun in
words like :
🠶 Move (V) to movement (N) create (v) to creation (N)
🠶 Derivation also changes meanings of words like hard to hardly.
🠶 Suffixes such as –ish, -ly,-ment,-and prefixes such as re-,pre-, ex-,
a n d mis-
(Yule, 2010)
 Inflection vs. Derivation
🠶 Inflection depends entirely on syntactic context –derivation does not

🠶 Inflection does not c h a n g e core lexical meaning or lexical category

🠶 Inflection tends to b e more productive than derivation

🠶 Virtually any noun in English c a n b e pluralized with –z

🠶 Inflection varies from one language to another more than any other
aspect of language
(Altakhaineh, 2014)
 Inflection vs Derivation
🠶 Words with derivational morphemes are ‘n e w words’ (which you
would expect to find in a comprehension dictionary).
🠶 Words with inflectional morphemes are ‘conjugated’ or ‘de cli n e d’
words (which you would not expect to find in a dictionary).
🠶 Inflectional words are closer than derivational words to the root
🠶 Criteria for distinguishing inflectional from derivational morphemes:
🠶 ch an ge of category
🠶 Productivity
🠶 consistency in meaning
🠶 position
(Altakhaineh, 2014)
 Change of Category

Root Word Change of category

To act Actor Nominalization

Action
Free Freedo
m
Hospital To hospitalize Verbalization
False To falsify
To count Countable Adjectivization
To hope Hopeful
Quick Quickly Adverbialization
Productivity of Inf and Der morphemes

🠶 Inflectional morphemes tend to b e more productive

than derivational morphemes. But the productivity of
d eriva tion al m orphem es is a c ontinuum :
Productive Derivational Unproductive Derivational
Morphemes: Morphemes:
Un- (e.g. unnecessary) en- (e.g. enslave)
Miss-(e.g. misinterpret) a-(e.g. atypical)
Non-(e.g. nonvegetarian)

-er (e.g. faster) -hood(e.g. motherhood)

-less (priceless) -dom (e.g. freedom)
-ation (evaporation) -fold (e.g. twofold)
 Productivity

What determines the productivity of a morpheme?

• Blocking go – went *goed
steal – thief *Stealer

• Phonological / morphological idiosyncrasies:

• Semantic: waiter wait-ress *road-ess

actor act-ress *police-ess

Lion lion-ess
 Semantic consistency
Derivational morphemes: Seem to b e less semantically consistent than
inflectional morphemes
1. cars ‘more than one car ’ ‘more than one ’
2. tables ‘more than one table’ ‘more than on e ’
3. shoes ‘more than one shoe’ ‘more than one ’
4. computerize ‘put into a computer’ ‘put into X’
5. modernise ‘make (more) modern’ ‘make more X’
6. regularise ‘make (more) regular’ ‘make more X’
7. brotherise ‘provide with a brother’ ‘provide with X’
8. shoes ‘more than one shoe’ ‘more than one ’
9. cottages ‘more than one cottage ’ ‘more than on e ’
 Position

Inflectional Derivational Suffixes: Derivational Prefix:

morphemes: -tion action Dis- disbelieve
-s cats -ness laziness Re- rearrange
‘s Peter’s -hood motherhood Un- undo
-ed walked -ize nationalize Non- non-smoker
-ing wa lking -en weaken Inter- intercha nge
-er hotter -ify falsify Mis- misinterpret
-est wa rmest -ive generative Co- coa ctive
-ish foolish De- derail
 Compound Morphemes
🠶 The joining of two separate words to produce single form.
🠶 Ma rc h and (1960: 11) indicates that compounds consist
of two words or more which are co mbi ne d to form a
morphological unit.
🠶 Similarly, Olsen (2000: 280) states that compounding is a
combination of two free forms or stems, forming a new
complex word.
🠶 Finally, Plag (2003: 135) proposes that “ a c o m p o un d is a
word that consists of two elements, the first of which is
either a root, a word or a phrase, the second of which is
either a root or a word.” for example, bookcase,
fingerprint, textbook, a n d wallpaper.
Compound Morphemes
🠶 A m ore recent d efinition is prop o sed by
“A c o m po u n d is a complex word that consists of at least two adjacent
elements, where the non-head is normally non-referential. Each of these
elements is either a word, combining form or a phrase, so that the whole
com-pound is a combination of these elements”. (Altakhaineh, 2018: 81).
Table 1. Possible internal elements of compounds in English
Compound The internal elements of the compound
windmill, egghead, truck driver, two words
blackbird
biology, sociology two combining forms
television, telephone combining form plus word
bureau-crat, magnet-metry word plus combining form
[water and wind] mill, [tea and coffee] the first element is a phrase, the final element is a word
cups, [pipe and slipper] husband,
[floor of a birdcage] taste, [slept all
day] look, [pleasant to read] book,
[connect the dots] puzzle.
[jack-[in-the-box]], [mother [in law]], the first element is a word, the final element is a phrase
[bikini girls [in trouble]], [good-[for-
nothing]]
 Types of compounds (endocentric)

🠶 Several types of compounds:

🠶Firstly, endocentric or semantically hea d e d
compounds, such as:
🠶bookshop ‘w hich is a typ e of shop’
🠶 board g a m e ‘which is a type of g a m e ’
🠶 high chair ‘which is a type of chair’
🠶 school bus ‘w hich is a typ e of bus’
(Altakhaineh, 2018)
 Types of compounds (exocentric)
🠶 Secondly, there are exocentric compounds, which are
not semantically headed:
🠶faintheart ‘w hic h is no t a typ e of heart’
🠶e g g h e a d ‘w hic h is not a type of h e a d ’
🠶redskin ‘w hic h is not a type of skin’
🠶sc a recrow ‘w hic h is no t a typ e of crow ’

🠶 Exocentric compound denotes something which is not a

sub-class of either of the elements in the compound . In
other words, it does not denote a hyponym of either of their
elements that is, the semantic h e a d is outside the
c o m p o u n d (Haspelmath, 2002: 88).
More examples: Endoc entric and
Exocentric compounds

🠶 Endocentric compounds 🠶 Exocentric compounds

🠶 armc hair, 🠶 skinhead
🠶 dinner table 🠶 pickpocket
🠶 seasick 🠶 handout
🠶 pain-free 🠶 afternoon
🠶 to fine-tune 🠶 Underground
 Types of compounds (Copulative)
🠶 Another type of compound is copulative/coordinative
compounds.
🠶 blue–green ‘is both blue and green’ In this type of compound, the
relationship between the elements involves coordination.
🠶 Also known as a appositional compound or ‘co-ordinate’ or
‘dvandva’ is an exocentric compound which denotes an entity that
fulfils several descriptions simultaneously:
🠶 washer–dryer ‘is both a washer and a dryer’
🠶 deaf–mute ‘is both deaf and mute’
🠶 bitter–sweet ‘is both bitter and sweet’
(Haspelmath, 2002: 89)
 Examples of Arabic Compounds
🠶 Endocentric
🠶 muʕallim l-fiizyaaʔ
teacher the -physic s
‘this physics teacher ’

🠶 Exocentric
🠶 ʕaruus l-bahr
bride the-sea
‘this mermaid’
lit. this sea b rid e

🠶 Copulative
🠶 layla nahaar
nig ht d a ytime
‘twenty four seven’ Altakhaineh (2016 & 2019)
 Coinage
🠶 Coinage:
🠶 One of the least c o m m o n processes of word
formation
🠶 Invention of a totally new word
🠶 Most typical sources are invented trade names for
commercial products that b e c o m e general terms
🠶 E.g.
🠶 aspirin, gronola, kleenex, teflon, a n d xerox.
🠶 Google, originally a misspelling for the word
googol(=the number 1 followed by 100 zeros)
(Yule, 2010: 53-54)
Shortenings
🠶 Clippings – longer 🠶 Blends – parts of two
words are shortened different words are
🠶 Shortenings combined
🠶Bic y c le > bike 🠶Smoke + fog >
smoke
🠶Gasoline > gas
🠶M o to r + ho tel >
🠶 Advertisement > motel
ad
🠶Breakfast + lunc h >
🠶Delic atessen > d eli brunch
🠶Fa csimile > fax 🠶C h an nel + tunnel >
chunnel
 Blending
🠶 The combination of two separate forms to produce a
single new term is present in the process called blending.
🠶 Typically accomplished by taking only the beginning of one
words a n d joining it to the e nd of the other word.
🠶 In some parts of the USA there's a product that is used like
gasoline but m a d e from alcohol the blended word is
gasohol In a few blends we combine the beginnings of both
words.
🠶 Examples:
🠶 telex (teleprinter/exchange)
🠶 modem (modulator/ demodulator)
(Yule, 2010)
 Clipping
🠶 When a word of more than one syllable is reduced to a
shorter form
🠶 English speakers like to clip names , Ali, Ed, Liz, Mike,
Sam, Sue, Tom
🠶 Australian a n d British English use Hypocorisms:
🠶 A longer word is reduced to a single syllable theyn–
y or –ie is a d d e d to end
🠶Ex m ovie (m oving pic ktures ), telly (televisio n),
Aussie (Australian)
(Yule, 2010)
Shortenings
🠶 Acronyms – like 🠶 Initialism
abbreviations, but acts
🠶 United States of America
as a normal word laser –
> USA
light amplification by
simulated emission of 🠶 Pretty d a m n quick > PDQ
radiation 🠶 J e a n Pierre > JP
🠶 Acquired immune
deficiency syndrome >
AID
🠶 North Atlantic Treaty
Orga niza tion > NATO
🠶 Radio detecting a n d
ranging >
 Initialisms vs. Alphabatesims
🠶 When the first letters of words that make a n a m e or phrase are used to create a new word,
the result is c a lle d initialism (Lie b er, 2010).
🠶 Initialisms are traditionally divided into two kinds: acronyms a n d alphabetisms (Rúa, 2002).
🠶 Acronymization c a n b e defined as a morphological process, in which a combination of initial
letters of a word sequence is pronounced as a word. Examples of acronymization in different
languages c a n b e found, such as English
🠶 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) a n d French
🠶 OTAN (Organization du Traité d e l’Atlantique Nord) (Booij, 2007).
🠶 Acronyms are a type of initialism
Initialism

Acronyms Alphabetisms
🠶 On the contrary, Alphabetisms c a n b e defined as a combination of the first letters of words,
pronounced with the phonetic value of these letters. An example from English is SMS (Short
Message Service) a n d from French is SVP (S’il vous plait; Booij, 2007). More example are
C D ( c o m p a c t disk) a n d VCR (video cassette recorder”) where the pronunciation consists of
saying e a c h separate letter .
 Initialisms vs. Alphabatesims
🠶 Unlike acronyms, alphabetisms are pronounced as a series of letters
such as FBI(Federal Bureau of Investigation) [ɛf b ɪ aɪ],
🠶 Whereas acronyms such as AIDS [eɪdz], are pronounced as one word.
🠶 As far as orthography is concerned, acronyms c a n b e spelled in upper
case, such as NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
or lower cas e such as laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of
radiation).
🠶 O n the contrary, alphabetisms are always spelled in upper case, such
as CIA(Central Intelligence Agency) [siː a ɪ eɪ] a n d USA (United States of
America) [juː es eɪ].
(Altakhaineh (2017: 5-6)
 Acronyms
🠶 Acronyms are new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words
🠶 More typically, Acronyms are pronounced as single words as in NATP, NASA, or
UNESCO. Examples from Arabic are:
 ħamaas
ħarakat l-muqaawamah l-ʔislaamiyyah
movement the-resistance the-Islamic
“Islamic Resistance Movement”
 ʔamal
ʔafwaadʒ l-muqaawamah l-lubnaaniyyah
Regiments the-resistance the-Lebanese
“Lebanese Resistance Regiments” Altakhaineh (2017: 5-6)
 Concentration
🠶 Concatenation (adding continuous affixes,
without splitting the stem) – the most c o m m o n
process:
🠶 hope+less, un+happy, anti+capital+ist+s
🠶 Often, there are phonological/graphemic
changes on morpheme boundaries:
🠶 book+s [s], shoe+s [z]
🠶 happy+er → happi+er
(Yule,2010)
 Reduplication
🠶 Reduplication – part of the word or the entire word is doubled:
🠶 Tagalog: basa ‘ re a d’ – ba-basa ‘will read’; sulat ‘write’ – su-sulat ‘will write’
🠶 Afrikaans: amper ‘nearly’ – amper-amper ‘very nearly’; dik ‘thick’ –dik-dik ‘very
thick’
🠶 Indonesian: oraN ‘ m a n ’ – oraN-oraN ‘all sorts of me n’ (Cf. orangutan)
🠶 Samoan:
🠶 alofa ‘loveSg ’ a-lo-lofa ‘lovePl’
🠶 galue ‘workSg ’ ga-lu-lue ‘workPl’
🠶 la:poPa ‘to b e largeSg ’ la:-po-poPa ‘to b e largePl’
🠶 tamoPe ‘runSg ’ ta-mo-moPe ‘runPl’
🠶 English: hum pty-dum pty
🠶 American English (borrowed from Yiddish): baby-schmaby, pizza-schmizza
(Yule, 2010
 Templates

🠶 Templates – both the roots a n d affixes are discontinuous. OnlySemitic

lgs (Arabic, Hebrew). Root (3 or 4 consonants, e.g., l-m-d – ‘learn’) is
interleaved with a (mostly) vocalic pattern
🠶 Hebrew :
🠶 lomed ‘learnmasc ’ shotek ‘be-quietpres.masc ’
🠶 lamad ‘learnedmasc.sg.3rd ’ shatak ‘was-quietmasc.sg.3rd ’
🠶 limed ‘taughtmasc.sg.3rd ’ shitek ‘made-sb-to-be-
quietmasc.sg.3rd ’
🠶 lumad ‘was-taughtmasc.sg.3rd ’ shutak ‘was-made-to-be-
quietmasc.sg.3 rd
 Suppletion
🠶 Suppletion – ‘irregular’ relation between the words.
Hopefully quite rare.
🠶 English:
🠶 b e – a m – is – wa s,
🠶 g o – went,
🠶 g o od – be tter
🠶 Czech:
🠶 b ́yt ‘ to b e ’ – jsem ‘ am ’,
🠶 j ́ıt ‘ to g o’ – ˇsla ‘ wentfem .sg ,
🠶 d o br ́y ‘ g o o d ’ – lepˇs ́ı ‘ be tter’
 Morpheme internal changes
🠶 Morpheme internal changes (a p oph ony, a bla ut) – the word
changes internally
🠶 English:
🠶 sing – sang – sung, m a n – m en, g oose – g eese
🠶 (not productive anymore)
🠶 German:
🠶 M a nn ‘ m a n’ – M ̈a nn-c hen ‘ sma ll m a n’, Hund ‘ d og ’ –
🠶 H ̈u nd-chen ‘small d o g ’
🠶 Czech: kr ́a va ‘ c ownom’ – kra v ‘ c owsgen’ ,
🠶 n es-t ‘to carry’ – nes-u ‘I a m carrying’ – nos- ́ım ‘I carry’
(Hana, 2011)
 Subtraction (Deletion):
🠶 Subtraction: some material is deleted to create another form
🠶 Papago (a native American language in Arizona)
🠶 imperfective → perfective
🠶 him ‘walkingimperf ’ → hi ‘walkingperf ’
🠶 hihim ‘walkingpl.imperf ’ → hihi ‘walkingpl.perf ’
🠶 French
🠶 feminine adjective → masculine adj. (much less clear)
🠶 grande [gr ̃ A d] ‘bigf ’ → grand [gr ̃ A ] ‘b ig m’
🠶 fausse [fos] ‘falsef’ → faux [fo] ‘falsem’
(Yule, 2010)
 (Backformation)
🠶 Very specialized type of reduction process
🠶 Typically a word of one type (usually a noun) is
reduced to a word of another type (usually a verb)
🠶 (Noun ) television was later turned into televise
(verb)
🠶 Donation Donate
🠶 Emotion Emote
🠶 Babysitter Babysit
🠶 Backformation Back formed
(Yule, 2010)
Conversion
🠶 A c h a n g e in the function of the word for example when a noun comes to
b e used as a verb without any reduction is known as conversion
🠶 Otherwise known as “ category c h a n g e or functional fix”
🠶 Particularly productive in Modern English new uses occurring frequently
Nouns to verbs Verbs to Nouns Verbs to Adjectives

Butter Buttered G ue ss A guess See through Se e - throug h

Vacation Vacationing Spy A spy Standup Sta nd -up

Imp a c t Imp a c t M ust A must

(Yule, 2010)
 Borrowing
🠶 Most c o m m o n sources of new words
🠶 Borrowing is the taking over of words from other languages.
🠶 English has a d o p t e d a vast number of words from other languages.
🠶 Croissant (French), d o p e (Dutch), lilac (Persian), piano (Italian),
pretzel (German), sofa (Arabic), tattoo (Tahitian), tycoon
(Japanese), yogurt (Turkish).
🠶 Other languages also borrow terms from English .
🠶 Sup p a or suu p a a ma a ketto a n d ta ipura itta (Japan ese ) is ”
supermarket” a n d “typewriter” in English.
🠶 Hungarians talking about sport, klub, a n d futbol, or the French
discussing problems of le stress over a glass of le whisky, during le
weekend. (Yule, 2010)
 Borrowing
🠶 Sometimes the borrowed words ma y b e used with quite different
meanings, as in the contemporary Germa n use of the English words
partner a n d look in the phrase im Partnerlook to describe two people
who are together a n d wearing similar clothing.
🠶 No equivalence of this expression in English.
🠶 A spec ia l typ e of b orrow ing is d e scrib e d as loa n-translation or
ca lque .
🠶 In this process there is a direct translation of the elements of a
word into the borrowing language.
🠶E.g: All of the following words are calques for the
English skyscraper
🠶 (French) grate-ciel Scrapesky
(Dutch) Wolkenkrabber Cloud scratcher
(German) Wolkenkratzer Cloud scraper
 References
🠶 Altakhaineh, A. R. M. (2014). The Interaction Between Inflection a n d Derivation in English
a n d MSA: An Insightful Glimpse Into the Boundaries. LAP Lambert A c a d e m i c Publishing.
🠶 Altakhaineh, A. R. M. (2019). Identifying N+ N compounding in modern standard Arabic
a n d Jordanian Arabic. Studia Linguistica, 73(1), 1-36.
🠶 Altakhaineh, A. R. M. (2017). The Linguistic Features of Acronyms in Arabic. SAGE Open,
7(4), 1-16.
🠶 Altakhaineh, A. R. M. (2016a). Identifying Arabic compounds other than the Synthetic
Genitive Construction. A c t a Linguistica Hungarica, 63(3), 277-298.
🠶 Altakhaineh, A. R. M. (2016b). What is a c o m po u n d? The main criteria for
c om p o undh o o d. ExELL, 4(1), 58-86.
🠶 Bauer, L. (2003). Introducing linguistic morphology.
🠶 Booij, G. (2010). Construction morphology. Language a n d linguistics compass, 4(7), 543-
555.
🠶 Booij, G. (2012). The grammar of words: An introduction to linguistic morphology. Oxford
University Press.
🠶 Carstairs-McCarthy, A. (2002). Current morphology. Routledge.
 References
🠶 Haspelmath, M., & Sims, A. (2013). Understanding morphology. Routledge.
🠶 Ha na , J. (2011). Intro to Linguistics – M o rpho lo g y. A vaila b le at
http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/~hana/teaching/ling1/05 -Morphology.pdf, a ccessed
on 10th Nov 2019.
🠶 Lieber, R. (2015). Introducing morphology. Cambridge: Ca mbridge University
Press.
🠶 Matthews, P. H. (1991). Morphology (cambridge textbooks in linguistics). New
York: Ca mbridge University.
🠶 Spencer, A. (1991). Morphological theory: An introduction to word structure in
generative grammar. Wiley-Blackwell.
🠶 Yule ,G. (2010). The Study of Language. Cambridge: Ca mbridge University
Press.

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