Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
UNIT III
Morphology
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
MORPHOLOGY
Morphology is the branch of Linguistics that studies morphemes, their different forms, the
internal structure of words, and the rules by which words are formed.
The word morphology consists of two morphemes, morph + ology. The suffix –ology means
‘science of’ or ‘branch of knowledge concerning’ and morph is derived from the Greek word
morphe meaning ‘form’. Thus, the meaning of morphology is ‘the science of word forms’.
Morphologists describe the constituent parts of words, what they mean, and how they may
(and may not) be combined in the world’s languages.
DERIVATIONAL and INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
The two major branches of Morphology are Derivational or Lexical morphology and
Inflectional Morphology.
Derivational or Lexical morphology studies the principles governing the construction of new
words, without reference to the specific grammatical role a word might play in a sentence. In the
formation of drinkable from drink, or disinfect from infect, for example, we see the formation of
different words, with their own grammatical properties.
Inflectional morphology studies the way in which words vary (or inflect) in order to express
grammatical contrasts in sentences, such as singular/plural or past/present tense. Boy and boys,
for example, are two forms of the “same” word; the choice between them, singular versus plural, is
a matter of grammar, and thus the business of inflectional morphology. Inflectional morphemes do
not change the grammatical category of a word. They show grammatical function.
Lexical morphology is concerned with the formation and structure of the lexical bases of
lexemes. It is complementary with inflectional morphology: it deals with those aspects of the
formation and structure of words that are NOT a matter of inflection.
Morphemes
A morpheme is the smallest unit of language that has a meaning or a grammatical function.
The morpheme cannot be broken up into smaller parts without seriously injuring or destroying its
meaning.
A morpheme may be represented by a single sound, such as the morpheme a- meaning
‘without’ as in amoral, or by a single syllable such as child and -ish in child + ish. A morpheme may
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
UNIT III
Morphology
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
also consist of more than one syllable: by two syllables as in lady; or by three syllables, as in
crocodile: or by four or more syllables, as in hallucinate.
In writing, individual morphemes are usually represented by their graphic form, or spelling;
e.g., -es, -er, un-, re-; or by their graphic form between braces, e.g., {-es}, {-er}, {un-}, {re-}.
Allomorphs
The variant forms of a morpheme are called its allomorphs. For example, the morpheme
used to express indefiniteness in English has two allomorphs: ‘a’ and ‘an’. They are in
complementary distribution:
‘an’ occurs before a word that begins with a vowel sound: an apple, an onion
‘a’ occurs before a word that begins with a consonant sound: a peach, a tomato
‘a’ and ‘an’ are therefore not two different morphemes, but two different variants of one and
the same morpheme.
Such variants are known as allomorphs. An alternative definition of morpheme, then, would
be a group of allomorphs that are semantically similar and in complementary distribution.
Another example of allomorphic variation is found in the pronunciation of the plural
morpheme –s in the following words:
cats /s/
dogs /z/
boxes /iz/
Simple and complex words
Words are made up of morphemes. Every word in every language is composed of one or
more morphemes.
Simple words consist of a single morpheme, e.g. friend. The word friend cannot be divided
into smaller parts (say, fr and iend or f and riend). It is a monomorphemic word.
Complex words consist of more than one morpheme, for example, the word friends
contains two morphemes –the noun friend plus a plural marker –s. Similarly, in the word unfriendly,
there are three morphemes: un-, friend, and –ly, each of which contributes some meaning to the
overall word.
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
UNIT III
Morphology
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
Table 1
Words consisting of one or more morphemes
One morpheme
boy, desire, hunt, magnet
Two morphemes
boys, desirable, hunter, magnetize
Three morphemes
boyishness, desirability, hunters, demagnetize
Four morphemes
gentlemanliness, undesirability, demagnetization
More than four morphemes
ungentlemanliness, antidisestablishmentarism
Roots and Affixes
Complex words typically consist of a root morpheme (or stem) and one or more affixes.
The root constitutes the core of the word and carries the major component of its meaning. The root
is a lexical morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts. A root may or may not stand
alone as a word (drink does; ceive doesn’t).
Unlike roots, affixes do not belong to a lexical category and are always bound morphemes.
For example, the affix –er is a bound morpheme that combines with a verb such as teach, giving a
noun teacher with the meaning ‘one who teaches’.
Bases
A base is the form to which an affix is added. In many cases, the base is also the root. In
books, for example, book is the root to which the affix –s is added. In other cases, however, the
base can be larger than the root, which is always just a single morpheme. This happens in words
such as blackened, in which the past tense affix –ed is added to the verbal base blacken – a unit
consisting of the root morpheme black and the suffix –en. In this case, black is not only the root for
the entire word but also the base for -en. The unit blacken is the base for -ed.
Types of Morphemes
Morphemes are grouped into two broad types: free morphemes and bound morphemes.
1.
Free (or independent) morphemes are those morphemes which can stand alone as words.
They have a meaning or fulfill a grammatical function; e.g., boy, eat, he, and.
2.
Bound (or dependent) morphemes are those morphemes which cannot normally stand
alone but which are typically attached to another form e.g., -er in worker, -er in taller, -s in
walks, -ed in passed, re- as in reappear, un- in unhappy, undo, -ness in readiness, -able in
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
UNIT III
Morphology
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
adjustable; etc. These morphemes are also called affixes. So, all affixes in English are bound
morphemes, i.e. they are never words by themselves but are always parts of words.
Free morphemes
There are two types of free morphemes:
a)
Lexical or content morphemes (also called lexemes) are free morphemes that have
semantic content (or meaning) and usually refer to a thing, quality, state or action. Nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs are lexemes, e.g., cat, Daniel, book, happy, hungry, slowly, like,
read, live, dog. These morphemes are words which carry the ‘content’ of the messages we
convey.
Lexical morphemes belong to the ‘open’ class of words i.e., a class of words that can
increase because we can add new lexical morphemes to the language rather easily.
b)
Functional or grammatical morphemes are free morphemes which have little or no meaning
on their own, but which have a grammatical function. For example, the articles the and an
indicate whether a noun is definite or indefinite -the boy or a boy.
In a language, these morphemes are represented by pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions,
conjunctions, articles, e.g., we, can, with, because, and, the, a. Because we almost never add
new functional morphemes to the language, they are described as ‘closed’ class of words.
A morpheme performing a particular grammatical function may be free in one language and
bound in another. For example, the English infinitive marker to (as in the verb phrase to work) is a
free morpheme. It can be separated from its verb by one or more intervening words, as in to
always pay attention in class. In Spanish, however, the verb trabajar consists of the root trabajand the infinitive morpheme –ar, which are tightly bound together in a single word and cannot be
split up.
Bound morphemes
There are two types of bound morphemes: affixes and bound roots.
a)
An affix is a bound morpheme which is attached to a word and which changes the meaning or
function of that word; e.g., -ment in development, en- in enlarge; ’s in John’s; -s in dogs, -ing in
studying, etc.
b)
A bound root is a root which cannot occur as a separate word apart from any other
morpheme, e.g. –ceive in receive, perceive, conceive and deceive; -tain in retain, contain;
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
UNIT III
Morphology
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
huckle- in huckeberry, cran- in cranberry; -mit in remit, permit, commit, submit, transmit and
admit.
Other common words with bound roots include un-kempt, un-gainly, in-ept, dis-cern, and nonplussed, to name but a few. These words consist of a prefix plus a root that cannot be used by
itself.
Bound roots are root morphemes that cannot be used as words and therefore do not belong to
a conventional lexical category such as noun or verb.
Types of Affixes
Affixes can be classified into two different ways: according to their position in the word and
according to their function in the language.
1)
According to their position in the word they are attached to, affixes are classified into prefixes,
infixes, suffixes and circumfixes.

A prefix is an affix that is attached to the front of its base, e.g. un- in unnoticed, a- in amoral,
sub- in subway, etc. Notice that prefixes are represented by the morphemes followed by a
hyphen (-).

A suffix is an affix that is attached to the end of its base; e.g., -able in noticeable, -less in
careless, -s in seeks, -en in shorten, etc. Notice that suffixes are represented by the
morphemes preceded by a hyphen.

An infix is a type of affix inserted within another morpheme. There are no infixes in the
English language, but the Philippine language Tagalog has infixing. For example the infix
-um-, which is inserted after the first consonant of the root to mark past tense.
Table 2
Some Tagalog infixes
Base

Infixed form
bili
‘buy’
b-um-ili‘
‘bought’
basa
‘read’
b-um-asa
‘read’ (past)
sulat
‘write’
s-um-ulat
‘wrote’
A circumfix is a discontinuous morpheme that surrounds a root. Many past participles in
German and Dutch are formed through circumfixing.
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
UNIT III
Morphology
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
Table 3
2)
Some German circumfixes
ge-kann-t
‘known’
ge-zeig-t
‘shown’
ge-läute-t
‘rung’
According to the function that affixes fulfill in the language, they are classified into
derivational morphemes (or derivations) and inflectional morphemes (or inflections).

Derivational morphemes are bound morphemes that produce new words from existing ones.
They are often used to make words of a different grammatical category. Thus, the addition of
the derivational morpheme –ful changes the noun doubt to the adjective doubtful. In English,
derivational morphemes can be either prefixes or suffixes.
Table 4

Some English prefixes and suffixes
Prefixes
Suffixes
dis-appear
happi-ly
re-write
friend-ship
il-logical
neighbour-hood
un-comfortable
art-ist
Inflectional morphemes are bound morphemes that indicate aspects of the grammatical
function of a word. They are not used to produce new words in the English language.
Inflectional morphemes change the form of a word but not its lexical category or its central
meaning. They create variant forms of a word to conform different roles in a sentence or in
discourse.
On nouns and pronouns, inflectional morphemes serve to mark semantic notions such as
number and grammatical categories such as gender or case. On verbs they can mark tense or
number, while on adjectives they indicate degree.
English has only eight inflectional morphemes.
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
UNIT III
Morphology
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
Table 5
English inflectional affixes
Nouns
Plural –s
the books
Possessive (genitive) –'s
my brother’s books
Verbs
3rd person singular present tense-s
He works hard.
Present participle -ing
He is working.
Past tense -ed
He worked.
Past participle-en / -ed
He has eaten / worked.
Adjectives
Comparative –er
the smaller one
Superlative -est
the smallest one
Inflection versus Derivation
We can use three criteria to distinguish between derivational and inflectional morphemes:

Category change. An inflectional morpheme never changes the grammatical category of a
word. For example, in the verb helped the past tense suffix –ed indicates that the action took
place in the past, but the word remains a verb and it continues to denote an action.
In contrast, derivational suffixes can change the category and/or the type of meaning of the
form to which they apply. The adjective sweet becomes the verb sweeten if we add the suffix
–en.

Order. Inflection takes place after derivation. Whenever there is a derivational suffix and an
inflectional suffix attached to the same word, they always appear in this order: the derivational
suffix is followed by the inflectional suffix. In the word farmers, first the derivational –er
attaches to farm, then the inflectional –s is added to produce the plural noun farmers.

Productivity, i.e. the relative freedom with which morphemes can combine with bases of the
appropriate category. Inflectional affixes typically have relatively few exceptions. The suffix –s,
for example, can combine with virtually any noun that allows plural form. In contrast,
derivational affixes characteristically apply to restricted classes of bases. Thus, -ize can
combine with only certain adjectives to form a verb.
modern-ize
*new-ize
final-ize
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*permanent-ize
Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
UNIT III
Morphology
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY
Virtually all languages have contrasts such as singular versus plural, and past versus
present. These contrasts are often marked with the help of inflection, the modification of a word’s
form to indicate grammatical information of various sorts –information about tense, aspect,
number, person, case, and so on.
Some languages have large inventories of inflectional morphemes. Finnish, Russian, and
German maintain elaborate inflectional systems. In the Romance languages (languages
descended from Latin), the verb has different inflectional endings depending on the subject of the
sentence. The verb is inflected to agree in person and umber with the subject, as illustrated by the
Spanish verb ‘hablar’ meaning ‘to speak’.
Table 6
Spanish verb inflections
Yo hablo
I speak
Nosotros hablamos
We speak
Tu hablas
You (singular) speak
Vosotros hablais
You (plural) speak
El / Ella habla
He / She speaks
Ellos / Ellas hablan
They speak
By contrast, English has a ‘poor’ or ‘weak’ inflectional system. This means that English has
relatively little inflectional morphology compared to languages that have morphologically ‘rich’
systems, systems that morphologically express grammatical relationships in productive ways.
English is no longer a highly inflected language. Today it has only eight bound inflectional
affixes, two on nouns, four on verbs, and two on adjectives, as shown in Table 5
HOW INFLECTION IS MARKED
The most common inflection involves affixation (suffixation in the case of English).
However, inflection can be marked in a variety of other ways as well, including by internal change,
by suppletion, by reduplication and by tone placement.
Internal Change
Internal change or ablaut signals a grammatical change by substituting one vowel for
another in a lexical root. In English, some irregular verbs form their past tense by changing the
vowel. Some irregular plurals also undergo vowel alternation. Table 7 contains examples of
internal change in English.
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
UNIT III
Morphology
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
Table 7
Internal change in English
sing (present)
sang (past)
sink (present)
sank (past)
drive (present)
drove (past)
feed (present)
fed (past)
hold (present)
held (past)
foot (singular)
feet (plural)
goose (singular)
geese (plural)
tooth (singular)
teeth (singular)
man (singular)
men (plural)
woman (singular)
women (plural)
Suppletion
Suppletion replaces a morpheme with an entirely different morpheme in order to indicate a
grammatical contrast. Examples of this phenomenon in English include the use of went as the past
tense form of the verb go, and was and were as the past tense forms of be. Two common
adjectives good and bad have suppletive comparative and superlative forms: better, best and
worse, worst respectively. In these cases of total suppletion, the suppletive forms share nothing
at all with the original root.
In English there are also some examples of partial suppletion, in which nearly the entire root
is replaced by a completely different form, leaving only the original root onsets, e.g. caught,
bought, thought, taught and sought, which are the past forms of the verbs catch, buy, think, teach
and seek.
Reduplication
Reduplication is the process by which a morpheme or part of a morpheme is repeated to
create a new word with a different meaning or different category. Partial reduplication repeats
only part of the morpheme, while full reduplication reduplicates the entire morpheme.
English makes no systematic use of reduplication to show grammatical contrasts, but this
process is common in other languages such as Turkish, Indonesian and Tagalog. Turkish uses
total reduplication to form the plural of nouns. Tagalog, on the other hand, uses partial
reduplication to indicate future tense in verbs.
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
UNIT III
Morphology
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
Table 8
Some examples of full reduplication
Base
Reduplicated form
Indonesian
rumah
‘house’
rumahrumah
‘houses’
ibu
‘mother’
ibuibu
‘mothers’
Table 9
Some examples of partial reduplication
Base
Reduplicated form
Tagalog
lakad
‘walk’
lalakad
‘will run’
kain
‘eat’
kakain
‘will eat’
Tone placement
Another morphological process often used to signal a contrast in grammatical meaning is
the use of tone. In Somali, one way in which some nouns can be pluralized is by shifting the high
tone on the penultimate syllable in the singular form onto the final syllable in the plural.
Table 10
Some examples of tone placement
Somali
Singular
Plural
árday
‘student’
ardáy
‘students’
díbi
‘bull’
dibí
‘bulls’
mádax
‘head’
madáx
‘heads’
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Escuela Superior de Comercio Gral. José de San Martín
UNIT III
Morphology
Profesorado para Educación Secundaria en Inglés
Lingüística General
Profesora Norma Argota
Summary
The classification of morphemes may be represented diagrammatically as follows:
Figure 1
Classification of English morphemes
Content or lexical
words (Open class)
nouns, adjectives, lexical verbs, adverbs
Free
Functional or
grammatical words
(Closed class)
conjunctions, prepositions, articles,
pronouns, auxiliary verbs
Prefix un-, preMorphemes
Derivational
Affix
Suffix -ly, -tion
Inflectional
Bound
Suffix -ing, -s,
-ed, -en, -er, -est,
-s, -'s
Root
-ceive, -mit, -cran, tain
Bibliography

Denham, Kristin and Anne Lobeck. 2010. Linguistics for Everyone. Wadsworth. Cengage
Learning.

Fasold, Ralph W. and Jeffrey Connor–Linton (Eds). 2006. An Introduction to Language and
Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.

Finegan, Edward. 2004. Language: Its Structure and Use. 4th Edition. Thomson/Wadsworth.

O’ Grady William, Archibald J, M. Aronoff & J. Rees-Miller. 2005. Contemporary Linguistics.
An introduction. Fifth edition. Bedford / St. Martin’s.

Yule, George. 2006. The Study of Language. 3rd Edition. Cambridge University Press.
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