MORPHOLOGY

BY

Ypsi Soeria Soemantri, Dra., M.Hum.

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UNIT 1

INTRODUCTION

The American linguists viewed that there are four levels of linguistics :

semantic level : deals with meaning

↓

syntactic level : deals with sentence-structure

↓

morphological level : deals with word-structure

↓

phonology : deals with sound systems

The levels were assumed to be ordered in hierarchy, with phonology at the bottom and

semantics at the top. In 1920-1945 American linguists who were many of them

structuralim worked hard to find the theory of how sounds are used to distinguish

meaning in language. They developed and refined the theory of phoneme (Sapir 1925

and other linguists). Their focus gradually shifted to morphology. In 1940-1960,

structuralism was in its high activities. Many linguists investigated the theory of words-

structure (Bloomfield, Nida) Later Chomsky and his contemporaries present many kinds

of research concerning of the word-structure theories

Some definitions of Morphology

- Morphology is the study of how words are structured (McManis)

-Morphology is the system of categories and rules involved in words

formation and interpretation (O’Grady)

- Morphology is the study of morphemes and their arrangements in forming

words (Nida)

WORD CLASS/SYNTACTIC CATEGORY/PARTS OF SPEECH:

One of the classes to which words allocated on the basis of grammar behavior

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There are two kinds of them:

A.OPEN CLASS items :

they are extendable

●NOUN is a word which can occur

- as a subject or an object of a verb or the object/complement of preposition

- can be modified by an adjective

- can be used with determiners

there are 4 kinds of nouns :

count nouns one ball, two balls

noncount nouns water, milk

concrete nouns :

something which you

can see and touch

chair,hair

abstract nouns :

something which no

physical form

management, bravery

common nouns :

are words for a kind

of person, thing

substsnce

Human, cat

proper nouns Ann, Texas

●a VERB is a word which occur as apart of a predicate of a sentence.

Verbs can be divided into auxiliary verbs and main verbs.

Two kinds of auxiliary verbs : primary auxiliary ( be,have, and do)

Modal auxiliary (will, can, must,etc)

Main verbs refer to state verbs (state verbs describe states which continue over a

period, eg : be, belive, consider, hope, know, etc) and action verbs (describe

something which happens in a limited time, and has a definite beginning and end,

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e.g: ask, come, get, say etc)

●ADJECTIVE is the word that describe the thing, quality, state, or action which a noun

refer to, eg : black a black hat.

●ADVERB is a word that describe or adds to the meaning of a verb, an adjective, another

adverb, or sentence.

B CLOSED–SYSTEM items :

they cannot be extended

●PRONOUN is a word which replace a noun, eg. she, we.

●CONJUNCTION is a word which joins, words, phrases, or clauses, eg. and, but

●DETERMINER is a word which is used with a noun, and which limits the meaning of

the

quantifiers: some, many.

numerals : the first, two chairs

●ARTICLE is a word like a, the

●PREPOSITION is word like to, for, in, at

●INTERJECTION a word such as ugh!, wow! Which indicate an emotional state

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UNIT 2

MORP AND MORPHEME

A MORP →

is a physical form representing some morpheme in a language. It is a recurrent

distinctive sound (phoneme) or sequence of sounds (phonemes).(Katamba:24)for

example : I parked the car.

The morphs in this sentence : I /aĬ /

parked /pa:kt/

the /δe/

car /ka:/

ALLOMORPS →

If different morphs represent the same morphemes, they are grouped together.

(Katamba;26)

Eg :

One car two carsone dog two dogs [z]one horse two horses [iz]

morpheme plural form

alomorph allomorph allomorph

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morph morph morph

/s/ /z/ /iz/

In the other hand,

A MORPHEME →

1. is a minimal linguistic unit which has a meaning or grammatical function.

2.is the smallest difference in the shape of a word that

correlates with the smallest difference in word or sentence

meaning or in grammatical structure. (Katamba : 24)

e.g : untidy consists of two morphemes

un – tidy

↓ ↓

1 2

widens consists of ? morphemes : wide -en –s

There are two kinds of morphemes

BOUND MORPHEME

The morphemes which always attach to other morpheme (-er,-ist,etc)

MORPHEME

FREE MORPHEM

The morphemes which can stand alone (cat. Chair,etc)

MONOMORPHEMIC consists of one morpheme

eg : dig, fast, a,

POLYMORPHEMES consists of more than one morphemes

e.g : un-educate-ion

mono-cycle-s

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EMPTY MORPH →

a surplus building-element which does not realize ANY MORPHEME

(Katamba:38)

e.g :

noun + al → adjective

medicine medicinal

person personal

sense sense –u-al

fact fact – u- al -u- → empty morph → it does not represent any

morpheme

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UNIT 3

AFFIX

When we find a morpheme that can be attached to the other morpheme, we called

it an affix.

AN AFFIX →

is a letter or sound, or a group of letters or sounds ( a morpheme) which is added

to a word.

There are 3 kinds of affixes:

1. A PREFFIX is an affix attached before a root or stem or base.

e.g : un- kind → un -: prefix kind : root

2. A SUFFIX is an affix attached after a root.

e.g: lazy –ness → lazy : root - ness : suffix

3.AN INFIX is an affix attached within a word

e.g : Indonesian language : jari → j -em - ari

In order to represent the internal structure of words, it is necessary not only to

identify each of the component morphemes but also to classify these element .

Affixes do not belong to a lexical category and are always bound morpheme and combine

with the root, eg. teach-er means ‘one who teaches’

The internal structure N

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V AF Teach er EXERCISES :

1.Write the tree diagram for : unkind, books, mo

2.BOUND MORPHEMES :

Find the words with

PREFIXES : SUFFIXES:

Aero- (air) → noun → verb - -- ize

Ant- (against) adjective → verb

Auto- (self) --ment

Bi- (two) verb→ noun --tion

Co- (together)

Dis- (not) noun→ noun ; … ism

Ex- (out) …. let

Il- (not) noun → adjective : --y

Mis- (wrong) .ful

Semi –(half) ..ed

3.FREE MORPHEMES :

Write other free morphemes

Man

Bet

THE ROOT is a base form or a free morphemes

Write othe roots

4.THE STEM a part of a word that is in existence before inflectional affixes

eg : work → root

work er → stem

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worker s

Write other stems.

5.Isolate them and decide free or bound morphemes

puppies catsup succotash entrust unhappy milder bicycle signpost

comfortable Massachusetts reconditioned unidirectional thickness

6. Write several monomorphemes words:

7. Write several polymorphemes words

8.Isolate these words

e,g, : babies → baby : free morpheme

- s bound morphemes

monstrous undeniable laziness

fatalities divisible fixation

9. In each group of words below, two words have a different morphological structure

than the others :

one has a different type of suffix, and one has no suffix at all. Identify the word that has

no suffix and the word whose suffix is different from the others. Isolate the suffix that

the remaining two words share and give its type and function.

a.rider b.tresses c.running d.tables

colder melodies foundling lens

silver Bess’s handling witches

actor guess fling calculates

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10. Divide them into morphemes :

a. tigers speakers

b. untimely uniquely

c. wholesome gruesome

d untimely uniquely

e consumed consumption

f. decorating decentralizing

g leucocyte erythrocyte

- divide them into morpheme.

- are there any morphemes which have two allomorphs?

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UNIT 4

AFFIX MORPHEMES

What is an affix morpheme?

DERIVATIONAL MORPHEME

A letter or sound, or group of letters or sounds (a morpheme) which is added to a word,

and which changes the meaning or function of the word.

Inflectional morphemes

morphemes change neither parts of speech nor meaning, but

Affix morphemes only refine and give extra grammatical information

Derivational morphemes

Morphemes derive (create) some words by either changing the

Meaning or parts of speech

The four characteristics

Inflectional morphemes Derivational morpheme

1 Do not change meaning or parts of speech Changing meaning or parts of speech

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2 Typically indicate syntactic or semantic

relations between different words

Typically indicate semantic relations

within the words

3 Typically occur with all members of some

large class of morphemes

Typically occur with only some

members of a class of morphemes

4 Typically occurs at the margins of words Typically occur before inflectional

suffixes.

Most morphemes have SEMANTIC CONTENT (MEANING)

▪ function morphemes (inflectional morphemes)

to provide information about grammatical function (prepositionsarticles,pronouns and

conjunction)

▪ content morphemes (derivational morphemes)

to have some kind of independent, identifiable meaning or indicatea change in meaning

when added to a word. ( roots and all derivational affixes)

EXERCISE

PERSIAN WORDS consists of more than one morphemes( xar means buy, -id→ past tense)a. xaridam I boughtb. xaridi you (sg) boughtc. xarid he boughtd..naxaridam I did not buye namixaridand they were not buyingf naxaridim we did not buyg mixarid he was buying

FIND THE PRONOUN :

I you (sg)(pl) we they not.

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KULIAH 4

INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES

It occurs in

1 -s → subject is singular noun/pronoun he,she it

verb → -s

(1) This pianist performs in the local hall every week.

The words (1) perform has an –s suffix. It tells us that thensentence (1) is

acceptable sentence because it follows the grammatical rule of English concerning

agreement between a verb and its subject. The suffix –s on the verb is obligatory when

the subject is a singular noun phrase. The –s on the verb does not make any independent

contribution to the meaning of the sentence.

2.- ed → past tense

(2) The pianist performed in the local hall yesterday,

The verb perform- is added with the suffix –ed, it tells us that the verb is written

in the past tense which is desribed that the event happens in the past. The –ed on the verb

does not make any independent contribution to the meaning of the sentence.

3. -ing → progressive

(3) The pianist is performing his ability in the hall now.

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The verb perform –is added with the suffix –ing. It tells us that the sentence is

written in the progressive sentence. The –ing on the verb does not make any independent

contribution to the meaning.

4 –en → past participle

(4) She has eaten all the biscuits.

The verb eat is added with the suffi –en. It tells us that the sentence is in the

present perfect tense have/has – past participle. The – en on the verb does not make any

independent contribution to the meaning.

5. –s → plural marker

(5) There were four rows of seats.

For the words that are having the irregular chnges in the plural form, as : man –men

child-children, tooth-teeth → called internal changes

6. – s → possesive

(6) The man’s bicycle is blue.

The noun man is added with the suffix ‘s, it shows that the noun is in the

possesive case.

7. –er → comparative adjective or adverb

(7) Bill is taller than Tom.

Tom walks faster than Bill.

The adjective/ adverb are added with the comparative form –er.

8 –est → superlative

(8) Valery is the fastest runner in this competition.

The adjective fast is added with the superlative form –est.

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EXERCISES:

1.In each of the following groups of words forms, identify of those that forms of the same

lexeme :

a.woman,women’s, women, womanly

b.greenish,greener,green,greens.

c.written,wrote, writer, rewrite, writing

2. What word form represents each of the following grammatical words?

a. the plural of the noun noose

b the plural of the noun goose

c the plural of the noun moose

d. the past tense of the verb play

e. the past tense of the verb lay

d the past tense of the verb lie (rest horizontally

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KULIAH 5

DERIVATIONAL MOPHEMES (1)

Look at these sentences:

1. The performance last week was particularly impressive.

2. The performances were great.

We notice that there is a plural form of the word performance → performances.

The word performance here is not the variant of the word perform. :

Perform → verb

Performance (s) → noun.

The plural form of the word performance, performances is the same as the word cat, cats

→ the two form of the lexeme cat, singular and plural.

It makes sense to regard the word performance and performances as the two forms of the

a lexeme performance. So the relationship between the word perform and performance is

not between words form but between lexeme. The relationship between lexemes is called

DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY.

●Adverbs derived from adjectives

There are two kinds of derivational process :

adjective adverb

1. + ly → deep deeply

lazy lazily

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2 + Ǿ→ conversion (zero derived) = a lexeme belongs to one class can be converted

to another class without any overt shape in shape

The car is fast. The car is driven fast Ǿ

The work is hard. They work hard Ǿ

● Nouns derived from nouns

English has derivational processes that yield nouns with meaning :

a.Small X → -let, -ette,-ie eg : booklet

b.Female X → -ss, -ine, eg : princess

c.Inhabitant of X → - er, -(i) an, eg : Londoners

d.State of being an X → -ship, -hood, eg : motherhood

e.Devotee of expert on X → -ist, -ian eg. : historian

GIVE SEVERAL OTHER EXAMPLES : ………….

Many of them have UNPREDICTABLES meaning, a cigarette is not merely a small

cigar, brotherhood means not ‘a state of being a brother’ but rather ‘secret or semi-secret

society.

● Nouns derives from adjectives

Al these three suffixes mean basically ‘property of being X’, where x is base adjectives.

adjective noun

a. – ity → pure purity

b. – ness → good goodness

c. - ism → radical radicalism

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But : high (adj.) ≠ highness (noun) = royal personage eg : Her Royal Highness

height = property of being high

● Nouns derived from verbs

Noun → abstract noun means activity or result of X-ing.

verb noun

a. - ance, -ence eg ignore ignorance

b. - ment, develop development

c. - ing paint painting

d. –((a)t) ion organize organizing

e -al refuse refusal

d. –er sing singer

The suffix –er is the one most generally used for forming nouns denoting a person

performing the action of corresponding verb.

e. coversion

- change the position of the stress

permìt pĕrmit

tranfĕr trǎnsfer

- change in the final consonant

believe belief

prove proof

defend defence

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- change in vowel sing song

Sit seat

EXERCISE :

1. What nouns can be formed from these words by suffixan.

define defer detain

refine refer retain

confine confer contain

2. The following words can be either nouns or verbs.

Record outline report

Journey convict outrage

exchange imprint answer

remark record import

surprise retreat cripple

a) for each of the word, determine whether stress placement can be used to make

the distinction between noun and verb.

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KULIAH 6

DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES

● Adjectives derived from adjectives

Preffixes : adjective adjective

un - means not sure unsure

in - means not

the allomorph im- , il-, ir-

correct incorrect

possible impossible

legal illegal

responsible irresponsible

Suffixes :

- ish means ‘some what X’ green greenish

small smallish

● Adjectives derived from verbs

verb adjective

- able, ible means able to be Xed break breakable

- ent, -ant tending to X repell repellent

- ive tending to X speculate speculative

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The forms of ‘inflection morphemes’ –ed, -en, and –ing are considered as adjectives

derived from verbs : a not very interesting book

The party-goers sounded very drunk

The car seemed more damaged than the lamp-post

(notice that very cannot modify verbs)

● Adjectives derived from nouns

Noun adjective

- full meaning meaningful

- less meaning meaningless

- al origin original

- ish boy boyish

● Verbs derived from verbs.

verb verb

Prefixes

Re- means reversive ente re-enter

Un- negative tie untie

De- negative compose decompose

Dis- negative believe disbelieve

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● Verbs derived from nouns

Noun verb

Prefixes

De- means remove X from bug debug

Forest deforest

Sufixes

-ise terror terrorise

-(i)fy beauty beautify

By replacing the final voiceless consonant of a noun with a voiced one

Bath bathe

Breath breathe

EXERCISE

1.What verb can be form from these adjectives

Full poor long active humble

Empty rich short national national

2–ism was discussed only as a suffix for deriving nouns from adjectives. Give examples

which to show that it can be used to derive nouns from nouns and from other adjectives.

3. –ly is a suffix for deriving adverbs from adjectives. Give exmples to show that it can

be used to derived adjective from nouns.

4.Consider the following words :

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untie desks triumphed preplan (V) optionality

invalid ageless fastest prettier invalid (A)

Draw a tree structure for each word

5. Tom is a good football player.

Tom is taller than John.

Tom is a New Yorker

Explain the affix –er in these threes words, isolate them

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KULIAH 7

ENGLISH WORD FORMATION PROCESS

A.THE DIFFERENT WAYS TO PUT MORPHEMES TOGETHER AND FORM NEW

WORDS :

1.Compunding

2 Conversion

3. Affixation

4. Reduplication

5. Morpheme internal changes

6.Suppletion

B.WITHOUT PUTTING ANY MORPHEMES

1. Acronyms

2. Back Formation

3. Blending

4. clipping

5. coinage

1.COMPOUNDING

is a word formed by the combination of two independent words. The parts of a

compound can be free morphemes, derived words, or other compound in nearly any

combination

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PHRASE COMPOUND

Green house

house that green

greenhouse

a glass structure when delicate plan

are rearranged

black board

board that is black

blackboard

board for writing

silk worm

worm made of silk (toy)

Silkworm

caterpillar that spin silk

hair net

net made of hair

hair net

net for covering hair

Apart from stress, for distinguishing compound from phrases is a semantic: a compound

has a meaning that is unpredictable.

a. compound verbs

◦ V-V → stir-fry, freeze-dry

◦ N-V hand-wash, air-condition, stem-clean

◦ A-V dry-clean, whitewash

◦ P- V underestimate, outrun, overcook

(V verb, N noun, A adjective, P preposition

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All this compounds have a verb as the rightmost element → right headed.

b. compound adjective

◦ N-A → sky-high, coal-black, oil-rich

◦ A-A grey-green, squeaky-clean, red-hot

◦ P-A underfull, overactive

The preposition over as its first element is the most productive morpheme

The meaning of over … is ‘too X.’ → right headed

c. compound nouns

◦ V-N → swearword, drophammer, playtime

◦ N-N hairnet. Mosquito net, butterfly net

◦ A-N blackboard, greenstone, faintheart

◦ P-N in-group, outpost,overcoat

HEADLESS COMPOUND

e.g : pickpocket, killjoy

Pickpocket is not a kind of pocket.

The word-class of these headless compounds is not determined by any element inside

them. It is called EXOCENTRIC → having a centre outside themselves.

Headed compounds → having an internal centre is called ENDOCENTIC

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UNIT 8

WORD FORMATION PROCESS (2)

THE TREE DIAGRAM OF THE COMPONDSNOUN COMPOUNDS

N N

N N N N

Fire engine green house

N

N

N

N N N Nbase ball bat rack

PLURALIZATION IN ENGLISH COMPOUNDS

ENDOCENTRIC EXOCENTRICOak leaves Maple leafs (a hockey club )Wisdom teeth Sabretooths ( species of tiger)Club feet Bigfoots ( species of tiger)Policemen Walkmans

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EXERCISE

1.Determine whether the compounds endocentric or exocentrica. hairdryer b.bigmouth c.skinheadd. armchair e.bath towel f pickpocket

2. Draw a tree diagram for the compound wordsa. football g.tree-trunkb. yardstick c.,sunbatherd. in-crowde.fastfoodf.sofware

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UNIT 9

WORD FORMATION (3)

AFFIXATION

An affix is a morpheme which only occurs when attached to some other morpheme or morphemes such as root or stem or base.3 types of affixes : prefixes suffixes infixes

derivational affixes

2 kinds of affixes

Inflectional affixes

In English it is common to distinguish between two sets of derivational affixes.

Class 1 affixesMost of which are Latinate-Trigger changes : in the vowel or consonant segments of the base Affect the assignment of stress

Affix Sample Change trigger by affix-ity San-ity,

Public-ityVowel in the base from /ei/ to /әe/ (sane)Final consonant of the base changesfrom /k/ to /s/

-y Democrac- y Final consonant of the base changes from /t/ to /s/

-ive Product-ive Stress shifts to 2nd syllable-(i)al Part-ial Final consonant of the base changes

from /t/ to /ζ/-ize Public-ize Final consonant of the base change from /k/

to /s/-ious Audac-ious Final consonant of the base change from /s/

to /ζ/ (audacity)-ion Nat-ion Final consonant of the base change from /t/

to /ζ/

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Some class 2 affixes

Affix Sample word Change trigger by affix-ness Prompt-ness None-less Hair-less None-ful Hope-ful None-ly Quiet-ly None-er Defend-er None-ish Self-ish None-able Commend-able None

The various possibility are :Domest-ic-ity spac-ious-ness fear-less-ness Root 1 1 root 1 2 root 2 2

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UNIT 10

WORD FORMATION PROCESS (4)

CONVERSION (ZERO DERIVATION)Conversion is a process that assigns an already existing word to a new syntactic

category. Even though it does not add an affix, conversion resembles derivation because of the change in the category and meaning that it brings about.Eg. He buys a comb. ( a comb → a noun) He combs his hair (comb → a verb)

REDUPLICATION

The morphological process that exists in several languages (but not English). Reduplication is repeating the entire word (full reduplicariction) or partial reduplication.e.g. It’s a big…big ..dog.

MORPHEME INTERNAL CHANGES

Although the usual pattern of plural formation is to add an inflectional morpheme, some English words make an internal modificationSing-plural → man –men tooth-teeth foot- feet geese-goosepast/past participle formation → break-broke-broken sing-sang-sungword class → live (V) – life (N) breath - breathe

SUPPLETION

A morphological process where a root morpheme is replacing by phonologically unrelated form. de. g : go – went – gne is-are-been

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EXERCISE :1.Each of the following columns illustrates a different morphological process.a.A what morphological process is at work in column A, B, C?b.Describe in your own words the difference between the process in column A and B. A B CMouse/mice go/went rdcord/recoreRide/rode is/was rtmport/impoiTake/took good/better nt(o)mprint/imprii

2.Analysis the following compounds :Week-end, hairdresser, kind-hearted. (k)

3 What verbs can be formed by prefixation, suffixation, or conversion.Full empty poor rich long short active national humble proud

4.-full was discussed only as a suffix for deriving nouns from adjective. Give examples to show that it can also be used to derive nouns from other nouns

5.- ism was discussed only as suffixes deriving nouns from adjectives. Give examples to show that it can also be used to derived nouns from other nouns.

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UNIT 11

WORD FORMATION PROCESS (5)

ACRONYMSFormed by taking the initial sounds (letters) of the words of a phrase and uniting them into a combination which is itself pronounceable as a separate word.e.g : NATO →.North Atlantic Treaty

BACK FORMATIONBack formation makes use of a process called analogy to derive new words, but in a rather backward manner (creates a new word by removing a real or supposed affix from another word in the language.)Eg. Television → televise (v) Donation → donate (v)

BLENDINGAre words that are created from non-morphemic parts of two already existing items.e.g : smog → smoke and fog brunch → breakfast and lunch

CLIPPINGis a process that shortens a polysyllabic word by deleting one or more syllables.e.g : prof - professor burger – hamburger

COINAGEWords is created without using any of the methods.e.g.: KODAK HONDA

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CLITIC

Some words are unable to stand alone as independent forms for phonological reasons, called clitics.Clitic must be attached to another word in the sentence

e.g I’m leaving ↓ clitic

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