Morphology= study of word
structure
Morpheme= minimal unit of
meaning
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We can begin with a rough conception of
forms that a word can take on while still
being the same word (lexeme)
One entry in the dictionary for sing, sang,
sung, another for singer.
Alternate forms of the same lexeme are
formed by inflectional morphology; if there is
a common (fixed) form, it’s called the
inflectional stem.
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Forms new words (new lexemes) from other
words. Typically, the meaning changes.
The change in meaning can be subtle,
extralinguistic: telly for television, Aussie for
Australian
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the smallest unit of linguistic meaning.
A single word may be composed of one or
more morphemes.
Example:
un+system+atic+al+ly ( the
word unsystematically can be analyzed into
5 separate morphemes)
A grammatical unit in which there is an
arbitrary union of a sound and a meaning
that cannot be further analyzed.
Every word in every language is composed
of one or more morphemes.
Free morphemes can stand alone, bound
morphemes appear only as parts of words
 Bound morphemes may be „basic” , no longer
used independently (freely)
 Sometimes have little meaning (but always
meaningful, like all morphemes)
Example free morpheme
girl, system,
bound morpheme un-, dis-, -ly
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Morphemes
Bound
Affixes
Free
Closed Class
(Function words)
Open Class
(Content words)
Derivational
Inflectional
(new meaning) (change grammatical Prepositions
function)
Conjun. etc.
prefix
suffix
suffix
Nouns,
Verbs, etc
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Derivational morphemes derive a new word
by being attached to root morphemes or
stems.
They can be both suffixes and prefixes
in English.
Examples: beautiful
Change of Meaning
Examples: un+do (the opposite meaning of
?do?)
Change of the syntactic
category (optionally)
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Inflectional morphemes signal grammatical
information such as number (plural), tense,
possession and so on. They are thus often
called bound grammatical morphemes
They are only found in suffixes in English.
Examples: boys
No change of meaning
Never change the syntactic category of the
words or morpheme to which they
are attached. Example: walk
walked
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/z/ -s, the plural suffix of nouns
/z/ -’s, the possessive suffix
/z/ -s, the present tense 3rd person singular
/d/ -ed, the past tense suffix of verbs
// -ing, the present participle suffix
// -er, the comparative suffix of
adjectives
//-est, the superlative suffix of
adjectives
/()/- (e)n, the past participle suffix of
some
verbs(e.g. broken, eaten)
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Repetition of the first part of the
singular form
Example: Ilocano
ulo (head) sg.
ululo (heads) pl.
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Infix – an affix placed inside the word
Example: Tagalog
basa (‘read’) -----> bumasa (‘Read!’)
Infix can be derivational: Kamhmu
hiip (‘to eat with a spoon’)
hrniip (‘a spoon’)