Morphemes
Running head: MORPHEMES – ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
A Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Morphemes
Đinh Lý Vân Khanh
Class 4A06
University of Pedagogy
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Morphemes
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Abstract
As you all know, a language is formed by four constituent parts: the phonological
system, the morphological systems, the syntactic system, and the semantic system.
Morphology, which is based on the morphological system, is the study and description
of word-structure and word-formation of a language. In term of linguistics, according to
Eugene A Nida, morphology is known as “the study of morphemes and their
arrangements in forming words” (Nguyen, 2004, p. 6). Therefore, in order to understand
how words in different languages are formed, we must learn and understand about its
basic element: morphemes, first. It is the aim of this paper that will help readers to be
clear about this term as well as the similarities and differences in the way it is present in
English and Vietnamese.
Morphemes
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A Contrastive Analysis of English and Vietnamese Morphemes
Morphemes
Definition
Today we know that words are not the smallest units of meaning in language. If
we take a word and separate it into smaller parts, we may have morphemes (Từ tố). So
what are morphemes here? According to Eugene Nida, “morphemes are the minimal
meaningful units which may constitute word or parts of words” (Nguyen, 2004, p. 9). In
other words, morphemes are the smallest components of a word which contribute to its
meaning. A word, therefore, can contain one or more than one morphemes. For
examples, with the word “teach” in English, here we have one morpheme which is also
the word. However, with the word “teacher”, we can divide it into “teach” and “-er”
meaning “the person who does the action”, and get two morphemes here. Just bear in
mind that whenever we can separate a word into smaller meaningful parts, then we can
have morphemes.
Morphemes, Words, Syllables
Word, as for StateMaster-Encyclopedia, is a unit of language that carries
meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly
together, and has phonetic value. As we can see from this definition, morphemes are
the smaller parts of word which contribute to the meaning of that word.
Syllable (âm tiết) “is a unit of speech which is often longer than one sound and
smaller than a whole word” (Nguyen, 2004, p. 10).
Ex: In English: One –1 syllable
Morphemes
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Water – 2 syllables (wa-, -ter)
Information – 4 syllables (in-, -for, -ma, -tion)
A morpheme can be smaller, bigger or equal to a syllable, and a word can
contain one or more than one syllables.
Just like morphemes, syllables in different languages are very different.
Therefore, we must accept them and should not try to bring our native language’s
knowledge of syllables to produce words from other languages.
The table below will give you more clear examples about these three terms
Language Word
Morpheme
1. Dog
English
1
1
2. Dogs
English
1
2 (dog, -s)
3. Unproductive
English
1
3 (un-, product, -ive)
4. Xamalôt
Russian
1
3 (xam-, a-, lôt)
5. Nhà máy
Vietnamese
1
2 (nhà, máy)
6. Công nghiệp hóa Vietnamese
1
3 (Công, nghiệp, hóa)
Syllable
1
1
4 (un-, pro-, duc-, -tive)
3 (xa-, ma-, -lôt)
2 (nhà, máy)
3 (công, nghiệp, hóa)
Knowing how to distinguish words, morphemes, syllables can be very useful in
analyzing and contrasting languages in term of word-structure and word-formation.
Types of Morphemes
According to meanings, morphemes can be categorized into two types: free
morphemes and bound morphemes. Free morphemes are those that can stand alone
as a word. They usually occur in the central place of word-structure. In contrast, bound
morphemes are those that cannot stand alone but have to be attached to the beginning
and ending of other morphemes to form words.
Ex:
1. English
Interesting:
interest => free morpheme
Morphemes
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-ing => bound morpheme
Dislike:
like => free morpheme
dis- => bound morpheme
Weaken:
weak => free morpheme
-en => bound morpheme
2. Vietnamese
Nhà cửa:
nhà => free morpheme
cửa => free morpheme
Ca sĩ:
ca => free morpheme
sĩ => bound morpheme
Vui vẻ:
vui => free morpheme
vẻ => bound morpheme
Free morphemes mostly function as the roots in words which have principal
meaning while bound morphemes are the affixes which modify the basic meaning of the
roots.
According to functions, there are two types of morphemes: lexical morphemes
and grammatical morpheme. Lexical morphemes are morphemes that determine the
main meaning of words whereas grammatical morphemes are those that decide the
grammatical function of them. For example, in English, the morpheme “aqua” is a lexical
morpheme which means “water”. The morpheme “-ed” refers to the simple past tense in
English and it is a grammatical morpheme.
Most roots, prefixes, suffixes in words are lexical morphemes. As a result, we
can find numerous lexical morphemes but limited grammatical ones in a language.
Morphemes
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English Morphemes
Since English belongs to synthetic languages, it has a high morpheme-per-word
ratio. That means a single word in English can contain many morphemes, which are
mainly bound morphemes. As a result, bound morphemes in English are those that
cannot stand alone as separated words and must be attached to others to form words.
There are a large number of bound morphemes in English which are categorized into
two main types: prefixes, suffixes.
1. Prefixes
Prefixes are bound morphemes that are attached at the beginning of a root.
Ex: inaccurate, unkind, discontinue, rewrite, ex-major, impossible, malfunction …
All prefixes in English are lexical morphemes which carry lexical meanings. Thus,
there are many groups of English prefixes according to their own meanings, e.g.
negative prefixes (un-, non-, dis- …), prefixes of degree and size (super-, out-, over-,
sub-), prefixes of attitude (co-, anti-, counter-), prefixes of time and order (fore-, pre-,
post-), number prefixes (bi-, multi-, poly-, mono-) …
2. Suffixes
Suffixes are bound morphemes that follow the root.
Ex: childhood, kindness, refusal, friendly, singing, worked, toys, plays…
There are two kinds of suffixes in English which are derivational suffixes and
inflectional suffixes. Derivational suffixes are those that can influence the meaning and
change the word class of the word they are added in. Inflectional suffixes, in contrast,
are grammatical morphemes which carry only the grammatical information of the word.
Morphemes
Ex:
Derivational Suffixes
fail (v)
=>
failure (n)
refuse (v)
=>
refusal (n)
hope (n)
=>
hopeful (a)
act (n)
=>
active (a)
weak (a)
=>
weaken (v)
civil (a)
=>
civilize (v)
Inflectional Suffixes
There are eight types of inflectional suffixes in English (Nguyen, 2004, p. 22):
a) The noun possessive morpheme: {-s1}: Bill’s
b) The noun plural morpheme: {-s2}: cars
c) The verb present third person singular morpheme: {-s3}: flies
d) The verb present participle morpheme: {-ing1}: singing
e) The verb past tense morpheme: {-ed1}: ended
f) The verb past participle morpheme: {-ed2}: worked
g) Comparative morpheme: {-er}: nicer
h) Superlative morpheme: {-est}: nicest
Like prefixes, English suffixes can be categorized into four groups according to
the part of speech: noun suffixes, verb suffixes, adjective suffixes, and adverb suffixes.
Since its words consist of many morphemes and have the main structure: root +
affix morphemes, it is not always easy to identify morphemes in English. Therefore,
according to many linguists, it is easier for us to recognize English words than its
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Morphemes
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morphemes. Besides, since it is a synthetic languages, there are fewer free
morphemes occurring alone as a word in English than other languages, especially
isolating ones.
In English, morphemes can be bigger, smaller or equal to syllables.
Ex:
manager
=>
Morpheme: manage, -er
Syllable: ma- + -na + -ger
Superman
=>
Morpheme: super, man
Syllable: su- + -per+ -man
Eye
=>
Morpheme: eye
Syllable: eye
Vietnamese Morphemes
Unlike English, Vietnamese belongs to isolating language which has words
composed by single morpheme. That means a single word in Vietnamese often
contains only one morpheme which is also the word. From this, we can know that nearly
all morphemes in Vietnamese as well as in isolating languages are free morphemes and
they functions as single words (nhà, đất, nước, sự, cuộc, việc, đã, sẽ, đang …)
Vietnamese bound morphemes are still exist but in a very limited number and
very different from English. Firstly, they are separated words that cannot occur alone to
form words. Generally, they function as reduplicative elements (đo đỏ, xanh xanh, lưa
thưa, lạch bạch …). Secondly, they are nearly all suffixes and only carry lexical
information.
Morphemes
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Vietnamese words are not formed by root + affix morphemes like English.
Instead, it is the combination of separated words which have the relationship with each
other in meaning to form a new word. For example, “bố” + “mẹ” are the two separated
words which have their own meanings when standing alone. Spontaneously, these two
words have a relationship with each other since each of them refers to the person who
brings up a child. Therefore, when we put them together, we will have a new word “bố
mẹ”.
Since the boundary between words and morphemes in Vietnamese are unclear
and blurred, it is very easy for us to be mistaken about these two units. The easiest unit
that can be recognized in Vietnamese is syllables. All Vietnamese syllables are equal to
morphemes, and a large amount of them are even equal to words.
Let take a look at the table below and you will see the differences between
syllables and morphemes in English and Vietnamese:
Vietnamese
Syllable
Morpheme
English
Syllable
Morpheme
Tổ + quốc
Tổ + quốc
Na- + -tion
Nation
Sản + xuất
Sản + xuất
Pro- + -duct
product
Đọc + giả
Đọc + giả
Rea- + -der
Read + -er
Năng + xuất
Năng +xuất
Pro-+ -duc + -ti+ -vi+ -ty
Product + -iv(e)+ -ity
Morphemes
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Conclusion
For some Vietnamese people, learning English is definitely not an easy task.
They can encounter many difficulties that will keep them from mastering this language.
As people all know, one of those difficulties is its new vocabulary items. When meeting
a new vocabulary, some people usually lean on the dictionary for meaning. Others will
try to predict it through the context. These ways are actually good but can waste us a lot
of time for looking up or reading the whole sentences or paragraphs. Therefore, if we
know another effective way to understand difficult words in English, our learning must
be much easier. Through what I have mentioned about morphemes in this paper, I think
you can figure out what the method I want to say here is. Since you have already known
that English words are formed by smaller morphemes, which you probably know their
meanings before, it can help you predict and guess the meaning of the new words
effectively without wasting too much time. And once you can make a clear distinction
about English and Vietnamese word structure, you will feel more comfortable when
writing or translating both languages. Therefore, learning word structure in English as
well as other languages are very important and must be taught to students in order to
acquire the language easily.
Morphemes
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References
Elearning.khoaanh: Word Formation in English and Vietnamese. Retrieved November
23, 2009, from page 5 at
http://elearning.khoaanh.net/file.php/6/Topic_5_CA_Principles_and_Methodology
/4A05_Le_Truong_My_Loc_Word_Formation_in_English_and_Vietnamese.pdf
Le, Q. T. (2004). Nghiên cứu đối chiếu các ngôn ngữ. Ha Noi: Ha Noi National
University Press
Nguyen, H. L. (2004). An Outline of Morphology. Ho Chi Minh City: University of
Education Press
Nguyen, T. G., Doan, T. T., & Nguyen, M. T. Dẫn luận ngôn ngữ học. Ho Chi Minh City:
Educational Publisher
StateMaster – Encyclopedia. (n.d). Word. Retrieved December 28,2009, from
http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Word
Morphemes
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APPENDIX
Common English Prefixes
Prefix
Meaning
Example
a-, an-
without
amoral
ante-
before
antecedent
anti-
against
anticlimax
auto-
self
autopilot
circum-
around
circumvent
co-
with
copilot
com-, con-
with
companion, contact
contra-
against
contradict
de-
off, away from
devalue
dis-
not
disappear
en-
put into
enclose
ex-
out of, former
extract, ex-president
extra-
beyond, more than
extracurricular
hetero-
different
heterosexual
homo-
same
homonym
hyper-
over, more
hyperactive
il-, im-, in-, ir-
not, without
illegal, immoral,
inconsiderate, irresponsible
in-
into
insert
inter-
between
intersect
intra-
between
intravenous
macro-
large
macroeconomics
micro-
small
microscope
mono-
one
monocle
Morphemes
non-
not, without
nonentity
omni-
all, every
omniscient
post-
after
postmortem
pre-, pro-
before, forward
precede, project
sub-
under
submarine
syn-
same time
synchronize
trans-
across
transmit
tri-
three
tricycle
un-
not
unfinished
uni-
one
unicorn
Common English Suffixes
1. Noun Suffixes
Suffix
Meaning
Example
-acy
state or quality
privacy
-al
act or process of
refusal
-ance, -ence
state or quality of
maintenance, eminence
-dom
place or state of being
freedom, kingdom
-er, -or
one who
trainer, protector
-ism
doctrine, belief
communism
-ist
one who
chemist
-ity, -ty
quality of
veracity
-ment
condition of
argument
-ness
state of being
heaviness
-ship
position held
fellowship
-sion, -tion
state of being
concession, transition
2. Verb Suffixes
Suffix
Meaning
Example
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Morphemes
-ate
become
eradicate
-en
become
enlighten
-ify, -fy
make or become
terrify
-ize, -ise
become
civilize
3. Adjective Suffixes
Suffix
Meaning
Example
-able, -ible
capable of being
edible, presentable
-al
pertaining to
regional
-esque
reminiscent of
picturesque
-ful
notable for
fanciful
-ic, -ical
pertaining to
musical, mythic
-ious, -ous
characterized by
nutritious, portentous
-ish
having the quality of
fiendish
-ive
having the nature of
creative
-less
without
endless
-y
characterized by
sleazy
4. Adverb Suffixes
Suffix
Meaning
Example
-ly
like
boldly, wisely, freely
-way, -ways
In (such) a way, course,
Straightway, anyway,
direction, manner
always
-wise
Manner, mode
likewise, otherwise
-ward, -wards
turning to
homeward, backward,
upwards, towards
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