Discussion Paper: MORPHOLOGY
Morphology is the branch of linguistics that deals with words' internal structure and formation,
impacting meaning and grammar. All words are composed of what we call morpheme. Words can
have one or more morphemes. Morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning. A morpheme can be a
whole word, a prefix, or a suffix that carries a meaning. For example, if we examine the word
‘boys’ it contains two units that are meaningful, one is the morpheme ‘boy’ which indicates a male
child or adolescent, and the morpheme ‘-s’ which indicates the notion of plurality.
Allomorphs are predictable variations in the pronunciation of morphemes. They are alternative
forms that carry the same meaning but have a different phonological shape, in other words,
allomorphs are different sound forms of the same morpheme. For instance, if we add the morpheme
‘-s’ in cat, dog, and horse. Cats /kaets/, Dogs /dogz/, and Horses /hɔrsəz/, the same morpheme ‘-s’
but vary in pronunciation. The process of adding affixes in words is called Affixation. It has two
types: prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes are affixes that are added at the beginning of a base word
(e,g, im+polite) while suffixes are added at the end (e.g. laugh+able).
We have two types of morphemes, Free morpheme and Bound morpheme. Free morphemes are
morphemes that can stand alone as an independent word (e.g., boy, walk, happy, the, but, and). It
is categorized into two types content or lexical words and function words. Content words are
nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. They denote concepts such as objects, actions, attributes,
and ideas that we can think about (e.g., children, red, big, run, quickly). Functions words are
conjunctions, prepositions, articles, and pronouns (e.g., in, on, the, but, it, a, an). Bound
morphemes, on the other hand, are morphemes that cannot stand alone as an independent word
and are always part of a word. These are affixes, they must be attached to a free morpheme. Bound
morpheme has two types: Derivational morphemes and Inflectional morphemes. Derivational
morphemes are bound morphemes that when added to a base word, create a new word with a new
meaning (e.g., friend+ship, re+cover) or change in grammatical category (or both). For example,
in the noun ‘boy’, when we add a derivational morpheme ‘-ish’ it changes the grammatical
category into an adjective, or the adjective ‘free’ when we add a derivational morpheme ‘-dom’ it
changes the grammatical category into a noun. This form that results from the addition of a
derivational morpheme is called a derived word. In English, prefixes and suffixes are derivational
morphemes. Inflectional morphemes on the other hand are bound morphemes that when added to
a base, create a new word of the same word with small or no change in essential meaning or change
in grammatical category (e.g., walk, walk-s, walk-ed, walk-ing). Inflectional morphemes are only
suffixes. There are 8 inflectional morphemes: 3rd person singular present ‘-s’, past tense ‘-ed’,
progressive ‘-ing’, past participle ‘-en’, plural ‘-s’, possessive ‘’s’, comparative ‘-er’, and
superlative ‘-est’.
We have different word formation processes which explains how new words are formed.
Derivation involves the addition of a derivational affix, changing the syntactic category of the item
to which it is attached (e.g., discern(v) – discernment(n)). Back formation which forms a word by
removing what is mistaken for an affix (e.g., edit from editor). Root creation which is a brand-new
word based on no pre-existing morphemes (e.g., coca-cola). Abbreviations and Acronyms are both
formed using the first letter(s) of a series of words. They differ in pronunciation (e.g., TV, AIDS).
Clipping is the cutting of the beginning or the end of a word or both leaving a part to stand for the
whole (e.g., exam for examination, plane for airplane). Compounding involves creating a new
word by combining two or more free morphemes (e.g., girl+friend, long+term). Blending results
from part of two words being combined to create a single word (e.g., breakfast + lunck = brunch).
Category extension is a process in which a word of one grammatical form becomes a word of
another grammatical form without any reduction (e.g., eye(noun), eyed (verb)). Folk etymology is
a process of forming a word by substituting a common native form for an exotic (e.g., ‘salary from
salarium’). Proper names are words formed based on the name of a person or a place (e.g., volt
(from the Italian, Alessandro Volta). There are also processes that produce a great deal of linguistic
variability, these are called Morphophonemic processes. Assimilation is the process by which a
speech sound becomes similar or identical to a neighboring sound (e.g. ‘handbag’/hænd‘bæg/ to
‘hambag’ /hæm‘bæg’/). Dissimilation is a process that results in two sounds becoming less alike
in articulatory or acoustic terms (e.g., ‘libary’ instead of ‘library’; ‘govner’ for ‘governor’).
Epenthesis is when we add extra sounds within words to make them easier to say and flow more
smoothly. It is a process in which a vowel sound, usually a schwa, is inserted either to the end or
between two consonant sounds for easier pronunciation (e.g., “film” - we add the schwa sound /ə/
between the /l/ and /m/ sounds). Metathesis is a linguistic phenomenon where the order of sounds
or letter gets mixed up accidentally or switched by mistake but are not considered wrong. It occurs
in speaking languages, it leads to changing pronunciation but can affect also the spelling of words.
(e.g., “ask” becoming “aks”).