Question 1. Which is the odd one out?
Question 2. Will our today’s lecture be about trees presented in A or B?
A.
B.
MORPHOLOGICAL TREES?
In morphology, we can use trees to represent a structure of a complex word.
When we analyse words which consist of two morphemes such as for instance unhappy,
comfortable the structure of this word is simple:
UNHAPPY (adjective)
COMFORTABLE (adjective)
LOVELY (adverb)
UN-
HAPPY (adjective) COMFORT
(noun)
-ABLE
LOVE (noun)
-LY
Table 1
I. ADJECTIVE
II.
NOUNS
name
use
penny
heart
brain
VERB
invent
inject
narrate
express
pollute
-less
VERBS: *eatless, *bringless
ADJECTIVES: *happyless, *goodless
NOUN
-ion
NOUNS: *woman-ion, *flower-ion
ADJECTIVES: *big-ion, *tall-ion
III.
NOUN
ADJECTIVE
rigid
stupid
hostile
intense
responsible
IV. ADJECTIVE
VERB
-able
-ity
NOUNS: *star-ity, *cat-ity
VERBS: *sleep-ity, *kiss-ity
break
adjust
copare
debate
NOUNS: *dog-able, *lamp-able
ADJECTIVES: *nice-able, *high-able
Table 2
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CONCLUSION 1: ………………………………………………………………………..
CONCLUSION 2: ………………………………………………………………………..
Let’s turn our attention to three-morpheme words such as for instance unreliable.
unhappy,
*unflower
unlucky,
*unlamp
unpopular,
*unchair
unfriendly,
*unread
untidy
*unlisten
Table 3
CONCLUSION 3: …………………………………………………………………………
Question 3: Which of the following trees represents the hierarchical structure of the word
unreliable?
ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE
un-
rely
VERB
-able
-able
UN-
ADJECTIVE
VERB
UN-
rely
VERB
rely
-able
Table 4
reset
*reflower
replay
*relamp
reinterpret
*rechair
reintroduce
*rebrown
reread
*rebeautiful
rewrite
*rebright
Table 5
CONCLUSION 4: ……………………………………………………………………………
ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE
re-
use
VERB
-able
-able
re-
ADJECTIVE
VERB
re-
use
VERB
use
-able
Table 6
Question 4:
1. Morphology is best described as comprising:
a) derivation, compounding
b) word-formation, affixation
c) inflection, word formation
d) inflection, compounding
2. Words formed by reduction and fusion such as brunch are called:
a) clippings
b) blendings
c) neologisms
d) acronyms
3. The difference between derivational and inflectional affixes is that:
a) the former change the syntactic category of the base word, whereas the latter never do
b) the former are more productive than the latter
c) the former can always attach to any syntactic category, whereas the latter are categorically
restricted
d) none of the above is true
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4. A well-known pattern of the English verb (go, went) is an example of
a) allomorphy
b) partial suppletion
c) total suppletion
d) internal change
5. The morphological relationship between to butle and butler is the following:
a) BUTLER is derived from BUTLE through the addition of the derivational suffix –er
b) BUTLE is derived from BUTLER through back formation
c) BUTLER is an inflected form of BUTLE
d) BUTLE is derived from BUTLER through clipping
6. Which of the following items does not fit the others?
a) hospitable
b) adjustable
c) readable
d) lockable
7. Which of the following is recognized as a syntactic rather than morphological process?
a) backformation
b) compounding
c) subject-to-verb agreement
d) reduplication
8) Which of the following sets of complex words contains only members whose internal hierarchical
structures are the same?
a) impersonal, manliness, un-American
b) inconclusive, dishonest, infertility
c) reconstruction, insincerity, restatement
d) unaffordable, unhappiness, un-American
9) When a single form realises more than one inflectional form (naczynia – a indicates nominative and
accusative plural) we say it is an example of:
a) inflectional allomorphy
b) cumulation
c) agglutination
d) syncretism
10) The word disagreeable is derived as follows:
a) dis- is added to agree and then –able is added to disagree
b) dis- and –able are added to agree simultaneously
c) agreeable is a monomorphemic root to which dis- is added
d) –able is added to agree, and then dis- is added to agreeable
Question 5: Draw tree diagrams for the following words:
a) meaningless
e) unlikely
b) uninterpretable
f) insufficient
c) inconsiderately
g) disorganisation
d) reauthorization
h) marvellously
Question 6: Identify word formation processes responsible for creating words:
a. obey  disobey ………………………………
b. demonstration  demo………………………………
c. Congress of Racial Equality  CORE ………………………………
d. coat, hanger  coat hanger………………………………
e. a telegraph  to telegraph………………………………
f. teleprinter, exchange  telex………………………………
g. influenza  flu………………………………
h. automatic  automate………………………………
i. heat  heater………………………………
j. animal  animals………………………………
Question 7: Are the following statements true or false?
1) Words are the minimal morphological units
2) The terms ‘part of speech’ and ‘grammatical category’ can be used interchangeably
3) Compound words consist of more than one root
4) Inflectional endings may change the category of the word they are attached to
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Question 8:
1) The process by which a new word is formed by the merging of initial and final parts of two other
words
2) The formation of a new word by the removal of affixes
3) ……………….compounds have a non-literal meaning that cannot be deduced from the literal
meaning of the separate parts (lazybones, busybody)
Question 9:
Determine whether the words within each of the following groups are related to one another by the
processes of inflection or derivation:
a) go, goes, going, gone
b) discover, discovery, discoverer, discoverable, discoverability
c) lovely, lovelier, loveliest
d) inventor, inventor’s, inventors, inventors’
e) democracy, democrat, democratic, democratise
Question 10:
Look at the following examples. Which morphological processes are at work in each case?
ride/rode
man/men
eat/ate
go/went
good/better
she/her
Question 11: What word-formation processes are responsible for creating the following words:
handbook, decompose, Spanglish, sculpt (V), exam, must (N), PIN
Question 12:
The general division of morphemes
1.
3.
7.
2.
4.
5
8
6
9.
11.
10.
12.
13.
Functional (2x), suffixes, free, inflectional, affixes, derivational (2x), bound, bases, prefixes, stem,
lexical
Question 13: Complete the following table:
AFFIX
CHANGE
EXAMPLE
reV1  V2
reorganise
-ation
-ly
-ish
-en
ir-ness
-wise
Table 7
A compound is a word that consists of more than one roots: steamboat – a type of boat powered by
steam, fire truck – a vehicle used to put out a fire, bath towel – a towel used after bathing
An endocentric compound consists of a head that contains the basic meaning of the whole
compound, and modifiers, which restrict this meaning: doghouse, where house is the head and dog is
the modifier, is understood as a house intended for a dog. Endocentric compounds tend to be of the
same (word class) as their head, as in the case of doghouse.
Exocentric compounds - in some cases, the meaning of the compound does not follow from the
meanings of its parts. A greenbottle is not a part of bottle. It is a fly. A sugar-daddy is not a type of
daddy covered in sugar but a woman’s lover – who tends to be too genereous and much too old for
her. Exocentric compounds do not have a head, and their meaning often cannot be transparently
guessed from its constituent parts. For example, the English compound white-collar is neither a kind
of collar nor a white thing.
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