Morphology

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Morphology

• The Structure of Words

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Morphemes

• Defined as, a minimal unit of meaning
• Not the same as a syllable, which is a unit of
  sound (e.g., tuxedo has one morpheme and three
  syllables, while sixths has three morphemes and
  one syllable)
• Not the same as a word, although a word can
  contain only one morpheme (e.g., tree, tuxedo)
• Some morphemes are bound, meaning they can only
  appear attached to some other morpheme (e.g., -s,
  -ly, -un). Free morphemes can appear by
  themselves as words

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Allomorphs

• Defined as a variant of morpheme variant can
  be in pronunciation and/or spelling
• Examples
• Hymn, hymnal
• -ible, -able, gullible/gullibility, usable
• Electric/electricity
• Condemn/condemnation

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Inflectional vs. Derivational Morphology

• Derivational Morphemes form new words, often
  changing the word class (part of speech) - E.g.,
  bake/baker, legal/legalize
• Inflectional Morphemes make a different form of
  the same word, such as plural or past tense. The
  eight inflectional morphemes in English will be
  shown on the next slide.

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English Inflectional Morphemes

• On Nouns
• Plural -s
• Possessive -s
• On Verbs
• 3rd person singular present tense -s
• Past tense -ed
• Part participle -en
• Present participle -ing
• On Adjectives
• Comparative -er
• Superlative -est

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Types of Morphology

• Affixation - adding an affix (prefix or suffix)
  to a root (e.g., en-list-ed)
• Compounding - combining two or more roots in a
  single word (e.g., eggplant, greenhouse)
• Internal Change - changing part of the root
  (e.g., sit/sat, foot/feet, mouse/mice)
• Suppletion - changing the root completely (e.g.,
  good/better, is/am)
• Zero-Change - changing nothing (e.g., fish/fish,
  hit/hit)

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Some Adjective Affixes
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Some Noun Affixes
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Some More Noun Affixes
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Still More Noun Affixes
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Some Verb and Negative Affixes
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Word Classes (Parts of Speech)

• Form Class Words
• Also known as Content Words and Open Class
  Words
• Have Semantic Content
• Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs
• Structure Class Words
• Also know as Function Words and Closed Class
  Words
• Have a Grammatical Function
• Pronouns, Articles, Prepositions, Auxiliaries