Morphology I
Linguistics 101
Gareth Price
Duke University
Morphology
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Morph + ology
Morphe = shape/form
Ology = study, science of
Study of the formation (v, n) of words?
• How many words in the English language?
• Accidental gaps: words which follow the
phonological rules of a language, but which don’t
actually exist
• How many words do you know?
• Not easy to answer – linguists rarely agree.
• College educated: 10,000 to 60,000
• Why is it difficult to know?
• Mental lexicon
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plinkling
grimoulously
klints
twongier
pendy
thrustling
stangliness
centomer
splimly
centome
stribble
plinkleable
decentome
plinkler
stribbling
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klintish
liggeted
pendierr
pentful
glosselstrop
thrustle
stromp
grimulous
acturously
ponymous
brimney
stang
parples
stribbled
klint
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unplinkleableness
twength
parple
sloke
pendiest
fustered
twong
restribble
sloken
klintly
acturous
stangs
strissed
twongest
liggets
Word Classes
• Lexical Words
– Nouns / Adjectives / Verbs /
Adverbs
• ‘Open class’
• Semantic content
• Easily added to and modified
• Most words are lexical words
• Function Words
– Determiners (a, the, an)
– Pronouns (I, you, she, his,
theirs)
– Conjunctions (and, but)
– Prepositions (to, in, without,
for)
– Intensifiers (very, too)
– Auxiliary/Modal verbs (must,
may, will)
• ‘Closed class’
• Grammatical content
• Tend not to be easily changed or
added to
Morphemes
• Smallest unit of words which have:
• semantic content (meaning)
• grammaticality (function)
• un (semantic) + build (semantic)
• magic (semantic) + ician (grammaticality)
• cat (semantic) + s (grammaticality)
• cat = four legged, furry, feline
• s = plural
Morphemes
One
Two
Three
More than three
a
and
dog
dog-s
write
write-r
please
pleas-ing
red
red-der
do
un-do
un-do-able
un-do-able-ness
caliber
calibr-ate
re-calibr-ate
re-calibr-at-ion
Words with one morpheme: simple
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two or more morphemes: complex
Free vs. Bound Morphemes
• birds
•  bird / *-s
• undo  do / *un•
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Hare (Athapaskan)
*fi ‘head’  sefi ‘my head’
*be ‘belly’  nebe ‘your belly’
*dze ‘heart’  ?edze ‘someone’s heart
/ a heart’
Thai:
Boon thaan khaaw leew
Boon eat rice – past tense marker
‘Boon ate rice’
Allomorphs
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a / an
pots
pigs
bridges
Turkish:
lokanta ‘a restaurant’ – lokantada ‘in/at a restaurant’
kapi ‘a door’ – kapida ‘in/at a door’
kitap ‘a book’ – kitapta ‘in/at a book’
koltuk ‘a chair’ – koltukta ‘in/at a chair’
taraf ‘a side’ ?
randevu ‘an appointment’  ?
• Note: the morphology of a word is the study of its shape and meaning –
but shape can be writing or sound
Roots, Stems and Affixes
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Root + affix = complex word
Black + en = blacken (root + suffix)
adjective + suffix = verb
blacken + ed = blackened
verb + suffix = past tense verb
black = root and stem for blacken
black = root & blacken = stem for blackened
unblackened = prefix + root + suffix + suffix
but ... unhappiness?
un + happy + ness?
un + knowledge? / un + ability?
Infixes
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Tagalog:
takbuh ‘run’ – t-um-akbuh ‘ran’
lakad ‘walk’ – l-um-akad ‘walked’
Insertion of an affix within a base: in this case
before the first vowel.
• Arabic:
• katab ‘write’ kutib ‘have been written’ aktub ‘be
writing’ uktab ‘being written’
• Insertion of two vowels sounds among the three
consonants which comprise the root
Internal Change
• Internal Change
• Changes in an internal non-morphemic segment to illustrate
grammatical contrast.
• sing – sang – sung
• sink – sank – sunk
• foot – feet
• goose – geese
• In English, there is a vowel change (ablaut) to mark past tense.
• Umlaut: ‘fronting’ of vowel in response to front vowel in following
syllable
• go:s  go:iz  gi:iz  gi:s
• Not infixing, however, as not changing the base *gs or *sng or *ft
• no such morpheme as ‘oo’/‘ee’ or ‘i’/‘a’
Suppletion
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Can be completely different morph (sound):
French: avoir ‘to have’  eu ‘had’
Spanish: ir ‘to go’  fue ‘(he) went’
German: ist ‘is’  sind ‘are’
English: to be/is/are/we/were / to go/went
Suppletion or Internal Change?
• But ...
think / thought
seek / sought
catch / caught
• Probably extreme forms of internal change –
sometimes called partial suppletion
Summary ...
• How many words in a language? How many do
you know?