Lec. 2
Morphology & Morphemes
 Our morphological knowledge has two components:
knowledge of the individual morphemes,
knowledge of the rules that combine them.
and
 Morphology = morph + ology (science of word forms)
 Words consist of meaningful units
 E.g. writers, reading, unripe, overdose, kingdom
Morphology & Morphemes
Morphology is concerned with the structure of words
which is part of the implicit linguistic knowledge of all
native speakers, whether or not they know anything
about the history of the language they speak.
e.g.
help, helpful, helpfulness, helpless, helplessness  HELP
Examples
 One morpheme
 desire
 Two morphemes
 desirable
 Three morphemes
 desirability
 Four morphemes
 undesirability
I. Morphological Morphemes
Morphemes
FREE
BOUND
BASES
AFFIXES
pathology
Frog
prefixes
infixes
suffixes
3.1. Roots
 Root:
A morpheme which is the basic part of a word and
which may, in many languages, occur on its own. (man,
hold, book).
A root is the base form of a word which cannot be
further analyzed without total loss of identity. It is that
part of the word left when all the affixes are removed.
e.g.
Knowingly – brainlessness – rediscover –
insufferable – actions - breakage
3.1. Roots
Roots may be joined to other roots (house +hold =
household(, and/ or take affixes
ROOT
word-forms
walk
walks, walking, walked,
 (house + hold= household), and/ or take affixes
 (man + ly = manly)
 (cold +ness = coldness)
 (manly, coldness).
Exercise
 Identify the roots in each of the followings:
 knowingly
 brainlessness
 untainted
 Unrepeated
 Paranormality
 unrepeated
rediscover
insufferable
disinherited
undeveloped
McDonaldization
Free & bound
 Roots can be either free morphemes or bound
morphemes
3.1.1. Free morphemes
 Free morphemes are roots which can stand on their
own
Man – book – tea – sweet – cook – bet – very – aardvark –
pain - rose
1. Lexical morphemes
2. Function words
3.1.1.Free morphemes
*Content words
Lexical morphemes
Function words
 Nouns (frog– man-John)
 Articles (the – a – an)
 Adjectives (good – kind )
 Demonstratives (this – that )
 Verbs (walk- write)
 Pronouns (I– she – it – they)
 Adverbs (very – well)
 Conjunctions (and – but)
 Prepositions (with – to –in )
3.1.2.Bound morphemes
 Bound morphemes are roots which cannot stand on
their own. They always occur as being attached to
other morphemes.
 -mit
 -ceive
 -ology
permit – commit – admit
perceive – receive – conceive – deceive
biology – psychology - pathology
3.2. Affixes
 An affix is abound morpheme that can be added to a
word (root), and which changes the meaning or
function of the word. There are 3 types of affixes:
1. a prefix is attached before a root (re-, un-, dis-, im-)
2. a suffix is attached after a root (-ly, -er, -ist,-s)
3. an infix is attached within a root
Exercise
 Identify the affixes:
unemployment
untouchable
unsystematically
present (v)
misunderstand
friendship
abstraction
moralize
alcoholic
mistreatment
unbelievable
inaccurate
enlarge
darken
3.3. Base
 A base is any unit to which affixes of any kind can be
added:
1. inflectional affixes (syntactic reasons)
2. derivational affixes (meaning and/ or grammatical
category)
 All ROOTS are BASES
3.2. Stem
 That part of a word that occurs before an inflectional
affix is or can be added. For example, (book + s =
books).
 The stem of a word may be:
1. A simple stem consisting of only one morpheme (a
root), e.g. work
2. A root plus a derivational affix, e.g. work + er =worker
3. Two or more roots, e.g. work + shop = workshop.
3.2 Bound Morphemes
morphological
information
derivational
morphemes
AFFIXES
Inflectional
morphemes
3.2.1 Inflectional morphemes
 Inflectional morphemes are bound morphemes that






have a strictly grammatical function. Inflectional
morphemes never change the syntactic category of the
words or morphemes to which they are attached.
E.g.
I sail the ocean blue
He sails the ocean blue
John sailed the ocean blue
John has sailed the ocean blue
John is sailing the ocean blue
English Inflectional Morphemes
1. -s (third-person singular plural)
2. -ed
(past tense)
3. -ing (progressive)
4. -en (past participle)
5. -s
(plural)
6. -’s (possessive)
7. -er (comparative)
8. -est (superlative)
Inflectional morphemes
 Unlike derivational morphemes, inflectional
morphemes:
don’t change the part of speech
2. don’t pile up, only one ends a word
1.
Examples
 Cats
 Mother-in-laws
 Oxen
 Commitments
 Treated
 Sunburns
 Larger
 Morphemes
 Talking
 Shortest
 Asks
 John’s
3.2.2 Derivational Morphemes
 Derivational morphemes are bound morphemes that
are added to a root morpheme or stem to derive a new
word with a new meaning. Derivational morphemes
sometimes change the word-class that a base belongs
to, and/ or change the meaning of the base to which
they are attached. Derivational morphemes have clear
semantic content, and some DA can be treated as
independent words (e.g. full)
 E.g.
 Pure (n)  purify (v)
 Logic (n)  logical (adj)
Derivational Morphemes
 Derivational morphemes are of 3 types:
Prefixes
2. Infixes
3. Suffixes
4. Other bound morphemes (pathology)
1.
Derivational morphemes
 Unlike inflectional morphemes, derivational
morphemes:
 sometimes change the word-class
 the way they combine with base is mainly arbitrary
 more than one DA can be added to the base
 E.g.
 antidisestablishment
English Derivational Morphemes
class-changing
1. Nouns  Adjective
2. Verbs  Noun
 health + full = healthful
 propose + al = proposal
 boy + ish = boyish
 clear + ance = clearance
 Elizabeth + an = Elizabethan
 accuse + ation = accusation
 life + like = lifelike
 confer + ence = conference
 alcohol + ic = alcoholic
 free + dom = freedom
 picture + esque = picturesque
 sing + er = singer
 affection + ate = afectionate
 predict + ion = prediction
 virtue + ous = virtuous
 brand + ish = brandish

English Derivational Morphemes
class-changing
3. Adjective  adverb
Nouns  verbs
 exact + ly = exactly
 moral + ize = moralize
 quiet + ly = quietly
 vaccine + ate = vaccinate
 haste + n = hasten
English Derivational Morphemes
class-changing
Adjectives  Noun
Verb  Adjective
 tall + ness = tallness
 read + able = readable
 specific + ity = specificity
 create + ive = creative
 feudal + ism = feudalism
 run + y = runny
 abstract + ion = abstraction
 migrat + ory = migratory
 true + th = truth
English Derivational Morphemes
class-maintaining
Noun  Noun
Verb  Verb
 friend + ship = friendship
 un + do = undo
 human + ity = humanity
 re + cover = recover
 man + hood = manhood
 king + dom = kingdom
English Derivational Morphemes
class-maintaining
Adjective  Adjective
 pink + ish = pinkish
 in + flammable = inflammable
English Derivational Morphemes
class-changing
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
NV
VN
N  Adj.
Adj.  N
Adj. V
Adj.  Adv.
joy-enjoy
motivate - motivation
care - careful
true - truth
soft –soften / wide - widen
careful - carefully
English Derivational Morphemes
class-maintaining
 N N (concrete abstract)
Man  manhood
King kingdom
Friend friendship
Exercise
 Identify the inflectional affixes, derivational
affixes, roots, bases, & stems in the following:
 unbelievable - actors – renewed – faithfully
 mistreatment - pickpockets – window-cleaners
 insanity – psychology – shortest - unhappiness
 unspeakable – uncivilized – McDonaldization
Inflectional
affix
Derivational
affix
Root
-
mis- + -ment
treat
Stem
Base