8/9/2019 Morphology 01

1/6

Morphology

A morphemes a morpheme,

no matter how smallas long

as it still has meaning

8/9/2019 Morphology 01

2/6

What is Morphology?

Morphology is the study of the structureand form of words (Shedd, 2008)

Morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in alanguage (Gleason, 2005 p. 21) Free Morpheme: Morphemes that can stand alone

(cat, danger, etc.) (Gleason, 2005)

Bound Morphemes: Morphemes that cannot standalone and are always attached to free morphemes(Gleason, 2005)

8/9/2019 Morphology 01

3/6

What is Morphology? Contd Bound Morphemes Contd: Bound morphemes are found

affixed to free morphemes as prefixes (un in unclear) orsuffixes (ing in singing)

Bound Morphemes can be used to change one word intoanother that may be a different part of speech These morphemes are called derivational morphemes because

they can be used to derive new words (ness turning the adjectivehappy into the noun happiness for instance)

Morphemes can also provide grammatical information These morphemes are inflectional and include things like tense,

plurality, etc.

The following is an example of how morphemes can change aword in this way: He dogs my steps (verb), Its the dogs dish(possessive), or I have ten dogs (plural)

The information above is from Gleason, J.B. (2005). The Development

of Language (6th edition). Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

8/9/2019 Morphology 01

4/6

Why Morphology is Important Using morphemic analysis, we can analyze a words

structure to predict meaning When a child can break a word into its morphemes and can then

define what each morpheme means, he/she can then figure outwhat the word means

Using free morphemes and bound morphemes, childrencan build their vocabulary by using a root word likehappy and learning variations of the word (unhappy,hapless, happiness, etc.)

Some words have ten variations, some have 90 It takes a teacher to point out the harder ones and how they

relate back to the root word

The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008).More

Letter-Sound Knowledge, Vocabulary, andMorphology.

Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, MI

8/9/2019 Morphology 01

5/6

Activities and Assessments Create a word tree that starts with a single word

Day after day, branch a word off of the root word and give itsdefinition

Have the students discuss how the definition of the new wordrelates to the definition of the root word

This will build childrens vocabulary and help develop criticalthinking skills

Nonsense words

Give students a list of nonsense words and ask them to write theplural and past tense form of these words

This will test how well they understand general trends in theEnglish morphological system

The nonsense example is an adaptation fromThe Development of

Language, in which it discusses how adults can immediately tell the

plurality of new words into the English language (the example wasSwoosh)

8/9/2019 Morphology 01

6/6

References Shedd, Meagan (2008). More Letter-Sound Knowledge, Vocabulary,

andMorphology. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, MI

Gleason, J.B. (2005). The Development of Language (6th edition).

Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.