INTRODUCTION TO
MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX
(NGL 243)
Dr. Monira Al-Mohizea
Outline
What is morphology?
1.1 Introduction
1.2 What is a ‘word’?
1.3 Words and lexemes
1.4 Morphemes
Introducing Morphology
Definition:
Morphology is simply the study of how words are put
together.
 Morphology is the component of grammar that
study the internal structure of words.
 It is concerned with:
1.
2.
the speakers knowledge of words (e.g. goalkeeper).
The rules used to interpret and form new words.
Consider the following words!
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Earwitness
Televangelist
Imho
Wordrobe
McJob
Disorient Express
Aim of Morphology

The aim of morphology is to make the
subconscious knowledge of words
explicit.
What is a word
Morphology is the study of words internal
structure but what is a word??
Discuss this with your partner.
A definition of a ‘word’
Bloomfield (1935) “a word is a minimum free form”.
 It can occur on its own as an utterance,
E.g. Boys!
 It is the smallest unit in language that can be
manipulated by syntax (can be parsed).

Consider the following:
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The neighbour’s dog disturbed burglars.
Burglar's were disturbed by the neighbour’s dogs.
*s burglar weres disturb the ed by the neighbour’s
dog s.
*sdog the neighbour’s disturbed s burglar.
The neighbour’s *dog sdisturb burglar ed.
*dog ed the s neighbour’s disturb the s burglar.
Other definitions of a ‘word’ (1)
Word form: the shape that represent the word in
speech or writing.
In the written language word-forms are called
Orthographic words. vs. phonological words.
Consider this sentence above, how many words are
there??
Compare it to:
www.yahoo.com
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Other definitions of a ‘word’ (2)
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Lexeme or a ‘lexical item’ is used when by word we
mean vocabulary item, which requires a single
dictionary entry.
E.g. lexeme: write
Writing
Wrote
written
Other definitions of a ‘word’ (3)
Words viewed as syntactic units are called
grammatical words, whereby :
 a lexeme is considered together with its
morphological and syntactic (morpho-syntactic)
properties.
E.g.
speaking, spoke, spoken.

What is a morpheme?

Is word the smallest unit of morphological structure?
Discuss?
What is a morpheme?
E.g. Boys!
Boy (has meaning)+ -s(pl.) (grammatical function)


the minimal unit which has a meaning or a
grammatical function is called morpheme.
What is a morpheme?
Linguists define a morpheme as the smallest unit of
language that has its own meaning. Simple words
such as, giraffe, wiggle, or yellow are morphemes.
but so are prefixes like re- and pre- and suffixes like ize and -er.
 So, a word is one or more morphemes that can
stand alone in a language.

Exercise!
Consider the following
words, What do you
notice:
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opposition
intellectual
crystallize
prewash
repressive
Blackboard
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giraffe
fraud
murmur
oops
just
Pistachio
(1) Simplex words vs. complex
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Words that consist of only one morpheme, such
as the words in (1) giraffe, wiggle, or yellow are
morphemes, can be termed simple or simplex
words.
Words that are made up of more than one
morpheme, e.g. prewash, goalkeeper, and
classroom are called complex.
Discussion 

How many words do we know in our language?
Consider in reference to age groups:
How much do we know?
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Children entering school – 13000*
A highschool graduate – 60000*
A literate adult – 120000* + names of people, places...
The list of words for any language is called lexicon??
Existence of words in the native language is obvious, but in
a foreign language it is difficult to recognize words. When
you have mastered a language, you are able to recognize
individual words without effort.
* source: Akmajian, A. et al. 2001. Linguistics. Cambridge: MIT Press. p. 11
Thank you 