1S WEEK 2
ORPHOLOGICAL
DISTINGUISSHING
ONE ANOTHER
EMP211S WEEK 2
DEFINING MORPHOLOGICAL
CONCEPTS AND DISTINGUISSHING
THEM FROM ONE ANOTHER
WHAT IS A MORPHEME?
 A MORPHEME CAN SIMPLY BE DEFINED AS THE
SMALLEST MEANINGFUL UNIT OF A LANGUAGE
 IT IS THE MOST ELEMENTAL UNIT OF GRAMMATICAL
FORMS AND MAINLY MADE UP OF SHORT SEQUENCES
OF PHONEMES
 GLEASON 1955, P, 52 DEFINES IT AS “THE SMALLEST
UNIT WHICH IS GRAMMATICALLY PERTINENT”
 LINGUISTS WILL DEFINE MORPHEME AS THE SMALLEST
FORM WHICH IS PAIRED WITH A PARTICULAR
MEANING. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FORM AND
MEANING IS WHAT MAKES LANGUAGE WORKS.
EXAMPLES
CAN YOU IDENTIFY THE MORPHEMES IN THE
FOLLOWING WORDS?
Mangoes
Bee
Mismanagement
Bending
Catwalk
Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Characteristics of morphemes
1. They are indivisible meaning that they cannot
be subdivided
2. They add meaning to words
3. They are recursive- meaning that they can
appear repeatedly in many different words
4. They can have any number of syllables
1 Indivisible
 As the smallest meaningful units of language, a
morpheme cannot be subdivided and still retains the
same meaning.
Try dividing the morpheme “mother” and see what you
get.
 That a morpheme cannot be divisible and still have the
same meaning is proof that individual sound of
language do not mean by itself. Meaning is only
ascribed to them by combining them to other sounds.
 Not only are sounds put together to be meaningful,
they have to be put together in the right order.
Example of the indivisible nature of
the morpheme
Consider the morpheme manage. This can be
broken down into the different sounds
/m/ᴂ/n/i/ʤ/ but none of the sound is
meaningful on its own except when put together
to convey the meaning “to be in charge of” or
“make decision in a business or an organization.”
Consider rearranging the sounds in some other
ways to convey other meanings. Do the meanings
you get from this rearrangement the same as the
meaning of the morpheme “manage”?
2. Adding meaning to a word
Each morpheme that is identifiable in a word
contributes to the overall meaning of the
word in varying degrees.
For instance the contribution of the morpheme
/s/ in boys to meaning is not as radically
different as when we combine the morpheme
boy with another morpheme head to form
head boy.
3. Recursive
 This has to do with the fact that some
morphemes occur over and over again in many
different words.
This is why it is important to learn the meaning of
different morphemes so that when you see them
occurring in words, you can deduce the meaning.
For instance, the Latin morpheme “duc” meaning
“lead, draw, pull” appears in several words.
Examples of the Recursive Nature of
Morphemes
Reduce
Conduct
Produce
Seduce
Deduce
Induce
‘to pull back’
‘to lead together’
‘to pull forward’
‘to lead apart’
‘to draw away from’
‘to lead into’
Recursive Examples
 Ped is another morpheme from Latin from which we can
examine its recursive nature.
 This means ‘foot’ as seen in the words:
Pedestrian one who uses his/her feet for transportation
Pedal
pertaining to the foot
Biped
A creature with two feet
Pedometer An instrument for measuring distance traveled
by foot
Pedigree
foot of a cane
Expedite
to free the feet as in speed up progress
Impede
to have something in the way of one’s
foot- to be
slowed down
Common examples of recursiveness
Other common examples of the recursive nature
of the morpheme can be found in the
morphemes that function as grammatical
markers for different concepts such as tense-ed,
en, ing; number – s, es,; possessive –’s; er, and est
for the comparative and superlative respectively
and also morphemes that are used to derive one
word from another with or without change in the
grammatical category of the word. For exampleer as in teacher, player, trader, ment in
management, development, or in actor etc.
4. Morpheme can have any number of
syllable
It is important in morphological study not to
confuse a morpheme with a syllable for the
purpose of word analysis.
A syllable is a unit of sound while a morpheme is
a unit of meaning. In other words, a syllable is the
smallest pronounceable unit of a word.
For instance a morpheme may be made up of
several syllables for example “examine” is a single
morpheme with three syllables ig/zᴂ/m.
Morpheme / Syllable
In other instances, a morpheme may contain less
than one syllable. For example, in boys there are
two units of meaning boy + s but only one
syllable. The same applies for the word cats. In
the possessive form, boys’- boy + s + possessive
has three units of meaning but still one syllable.
Here, the possessive that is reflected in writing is
not shown in pronunciation.
In the analysis of words, syllables may separate a
morpheme. It is therefore better to ignore
syllables when analysing a word.
Example of how syllables can divide a
morpheme in word analysis
In the word pregnant, there are two syllablesPreg + nant but there are three morphemesPre (before) gn (birth) and –ant (one who). In
this example, the morpheme /gn/ is split in
two by the syllable structure of the word.
ROOT/ BASE
Root and base are used interchangeably in
morphological analysis.
the root or base of a word is the core part of a
word. In other words, it is the morpheme that
most of the time also qualifies as a word and on
which affixes or other words can be added in
order to derive other words or to realise different
forms of the same word.
Root/base are longer than affixes,
They are many when compared to affixes
They are realised by one free morpheme
STEM
 This is another slightly different concept from
base/root in morphological analysis.
 A stem is related to the notion of root and base but in a
slightly different way
 A stem is any morpheme or combination of
morphemes to which an affix can be added.
 For instance, the word friends has two morphemes,
the base or root morpheme is friend and in this
instance also the stem to which the affix ‘s’ has been
added. However, the word friendships with three
morphemes consist of an affix [z], a stem friendship
and a root or base friend.
WEEK 3
TYPES OF MORPHEMES
There are two types of morphemes in English
1) Free and
2) Bound morphemes.
Free morphemes are also referred to as lexical
morphemes. They are morphemes that can
be used meaningfully and independently on
their own. For example, book, chair, table,
clap, mirror, run, jump etc
Bound Morphemes
These are morphemes which derive their
meaning by being joined or attached to other
free morphemes. This means that in isolation, a
bound morpheme is meaningless as can be seen
in the plural morpheme –s, the possessive
morpheme-’s, the comparative morpheme –er
and the past tense morpheme –ed.
Bound morphemes can also be referred to as
grammatical morphemes.
Bound morphemes perform two basic functions
in the English language
Function of Bound Morphemes
1. They signal relationship between words
2. They signal certain meanings that are important
in communication, such that they have to be
expressed over and over again.
Example of the first function can be seen in the
word “than”, which even though is a bound
morpheme is a word. What this morpheme
(word) does is simply relates the term of
comparison as in a sentence like :
Mike is taller than Joseph.
Second Function of Bound
Morphemes
 This is exemplified in the morphemes underlined in the
following words:
Teachers
Goes
Kicked
Organist
Fastest
Bound morphemes are less clearly articulated as they are
inconspicuous by their very nature. They are relatively
more stable in meaning than lexical morphemes.
HOW TO IDENTIFY MORPHEMES IN
WORDS
There are TWO RULES that are important to
follow when identifying the morpheme (s) in a
word.
The first is that a morpheme must be
identifiable in various words
The second is that a morpheme must
contribute to the meaning of the whole word
Both of these rules must apply in identifying
a morpheme.
Example of the rules in action
 In these words, clear, clearer, clearest, clearing and
clearance, the word clear is identifiable and also add
meaning to the different words and it is therefore a
morpheme.
 In the following words however, we cannot make the
same claim as we have made for clear:
 Conceive, receive, perceive, because the “ceive” is
identifiable in all three words but does not contribute
to the meaning, neither is the sequence of sounds that
make up conceive meaningful in itself as it is a bound
morpheme that cannot mean independently.
Problems with Morphemes
 There is not always a one-to-one correspondence
between form and meaning in language
 As a result of this disparity, it is sometimes difficult to
identify the morpheme in some words
 What is important to keep in mind in identifying a
morpheme in a word is that a morpheme is a FORM +
MEANING and that both parts of the unit must be
taking into consideration in making sense of
morphemes in words.
 Some of the problems associated with morpheme
identification are identified as follows:
One form, two or more meanings
This problem arises when the same sound
sequence expresses two or more meanings
that are unrelated. When this occurs, two
different morphemes are identified even
though with the same form. For instance, the
morpheme in- in words like “incapable and
inseparable and the same form in in into,
within as in invade and include.
Another Example
The morpheme ‘gon’ meaning birth, type, or
origin as in gonorrhea and the same form
‘gon’ meaning ‘knee, angle, as in diagonal, are
not related in meaning.
The similarity between these forms is an
accidental one and in most of the time, the
two morphemes are typically unrelated in
their origins.
Two (or more) forms, one meaning
In this case, you have two different forms but
the same meaning for the two forms even
though they are different.
This situation can result into two different
conclusion. First, the two forms could be
different morphemes or two, they might be a
single morpheme.
The First Situation
 This is the two forms, one meaning scenario which
results in two morphemes.
 There are two situations in which this scenario can take
place.
 In the first case, the forms are normally different from
one another as in:
Andr-meaning man, male as in android and
Vir meaning also man, male as in virile.
As we can see, both morphemes have the same meaning
but they are realised in different forms. They also have
different origins and so they are regarded as two
different morphemes
The second situation
Here the forms may be the same or quite similar,
but originated from different sources into English
as for example:
In-into, within as prefix originating from Latin and
in- into, within, as a native English preposition.
The histories of the two morphemes would
probably reveal that they come from a single
morpheme which existed in both Latin and
English and therefore ultimately from the same
source.
The second situation
that may explain their similarity in form but
both forms came into English from very
different historical paths thus one is part of
the native vocabulary and the other is
borrowed.
As a result of their antecedent, they are
considered as two separate morphemes.
Two or more forms, one meaning=one
morpheme
Here we have a situation where there are two or
more forms with one meaning and both forms
are considered as one morpheme. For
instance
a- and an both are different forms of Greek
meaning “not” “without” as with
Pan- and pant- which are also different forms of
a Greek morpheme meaning “all, overall”.
Two or more forms, one meaning=one
morpheme
 We have here two similar forms only differentiated by
one consonant or vowel and originating from the same
source but through adaptation of its beginning or
ending sounds to the sounds in other morphemes they
combine with, they have resulted in slightly different
forms. So the Greek “not” for example takes the form
a- before roots beginning with consonants, and anbefore roots beginning with vowels as with the English
indefinite article a and an.
 The alternate forms of a single morpheme is known
as allomorphs.
Other problem cases
 Some morpheme have no intrinsic meaning of their own
because like bound morphemes they only acquire meaning
by virtue of their connection with other morphemes in
words.
 There are also morphemes that occur in many words
combining with different morphemes but with no constant
meaning. Examples of such morphemes are –ceive in
receive, perceive, conceive; -mit in permit, submit, or
commit.
 Yet in other words, the stem morphemes are not
meaningful on their own. For example, in-cest, in-ept, in –
ane. Such words always have at least a prefix and a stem.
Other Problem Cases
In some other words like strawberry for
example, there is no connection between the
morpheme straw in this case and the lexical
morpheme straw and the same goes for
gooseberry in which the morpheme goose has
nothing in common with the animal-goose.
The same goes for blackberry which could be
blue, red or even pink.
Cranberry Morphemes
The morphemes that we have referred to
under the heading “Other Problem Cases” are
referred to as Cranberry Morphemes because
of two reasons:
First, they occur only as bound roots
Secondly, they have no constant meaning
attached to them
Morpheme /Word
There is an intrinsic relationship between a
morpheme and a word.
This is because free morphemes are basically
words and like words they can be subdivided
as either content or functional morphemes.
So what is a word and what are words and
what are their characteristics?
WORDS
The word is an essential and basic element of any
verbal language.
Universally, every language has a small finite
number or list of sounds, alphabets and symbols
or letters which are combined in various ways to
form word units.
The word as a linguistic unit projects meaning,
and facilitate the transmission of messages in an
infinite manner by virtue of the ways it
systematically pattern with other words.
SPOKEN / WRITTEN WORDS
A word that is spoken is a speech-stream
Phonologically therefore, speech units are
defined as words.
According to Tomori, 1997, p. 16) The word in
English is a segment of speech which can be
isolated for independence utterance in its own
right and in such a way that it can carry at least a
primary stress, and in such a form that it can
enter into syntagmatic relationships with other
such units within the syntactic framework of the
language.
Written Words
Written words are group of marks or symbols
made on a surface and is mostly common on
paper
Graphologically therefore, a word in English is
a letter or group of letters of the alphabet
written between two mandatory spaces on a
paper.
Other Definitions of Word
Bolinger, (1968) defines a word as the least
element between which other elements can be
inserted with relative freedom.
Afolayan & Newsum, (1983) refer to a word as
the smallest independent form in the English
language which represents a thought, an idea, a
concept or feeling
Fromkin & Rodman (1974) see the word as a
linguistic sign in which sound and meaning are
fused.
Mono/polymorphic words-Defining
words in terms of morphemes
 It is logically possible to say that words are composed
of morphemes. Defining words in terms of morphemes
allow us the opportunity to describe words as either
simple or complex depending on whether they are
made up of one or more morphemes.
 For example, the word boy is made up of one
morpheme, while the word school boy and boyishness
are made up of more than one morpheme.
 Words that are made up of one morpheme are called
monomorphic words and those made up of more than
one morpheme- two or more, are called polymorphic
words.
Types of Words
Words can be divided into two types:
1. Lexical or Content or
1. Functional or Grammatical
Content/ Lexical Words
These are words that we can described as
Free Morphemes.
They are words with dictionary meaning
They possess synonyms or near synonyms
They are described in terms borrowed from
traditional grammar and are classified into
four very large groups of Nouns, verbs,
Adjectives and Adverbs.
Content/ Lexical Words Continue
They are arranged in OPEN-CLASSES. That is
their constituent members are indefinitely
large and limitless. In other words new words
can be added to them all of the time. For
exmples: facebook, blog, twit and new words
that have come into the vocabulary from
technological development and new
experiences.
Functional/ Grammatical Words
Functional or grammatical Words are almost
generally empty of lexical meaning.
The best way of defining them is by illustrating
their function or usage in sentences
They function or are used to give grammaticality
or notion of grammaticalness to sentences
Examples of functional or grammatical words are:
coordinators, conjunctions, determiners,
particles, pronouns, prepositions, “the verb to
be”, the relatives, intensifiers, the conjunctive
adverbs and other auxiliary verbs.
Functional/ Grammatical Words
They are used more frequently than lexical words
to point to elements or the roles of speakers and
hearers and less often to point to things or events
in the real world
For example, in the sentence-”the book is on the
table”; the preposition on shows the exact place
that the book is
Functional words unlike content ones are
arranged in close classes. This means that they
are fewer in number and can therefore be listed
with relative ease
Functional/ Grammatical Words
They perform syntactic function by serving as
main carriers of meaning when they combine
or occur with lexical words
Inflectional morphemes which are bound
morphemes in English are grammatical or
functional words. They are used to mark
plural, possessive, present and past tenses,
present and past participles, the adjective
comparative and the superlative.