II. MORPHOLOGY
1. Words and morphemes
Words can be simple (work, book, relation) or complex (books, worked, relationships)
Complex words can be divided into smaller meaningful units
work+ed, book+s
work+er+s, relation+ship+s
un+gentle+man+li+ness
dis+establish+ment+arian+ism+s
The smallest, further indivisible, meaningful units which combine with each other to form words are called morphemes
ment govern+ _, establish+ _, appease+ _, contain+ _, settle+ _
un - _ +happy, _ + fortunate, _ +likely, _ +tidy
Simple words consist each of a single morpheme.
Classification of morphemes
a) free morphemes - can stand alone as simple words
work, book, establish
or
- can combine with other morphemes as roots of
complex words
work + ed, book + s
work +er+s, un+ friend +ly
dis+ establish + ment+arian+ism+s
root - a free morpheme within a complex word
friend + li+ness, boy +hood
or
- a combination of free morphemes (in compounds)
girl+friend +s, play+boy +s
b) b ound morpheme cannot stand alonebutalways attaches to other elements as an affix
Each complex word consists of one root and one or more affixes.
one affix - book+ s
many affixes - dis +establish+ ment + arian + ism + s
Affixes divide into prefixes (precede roots)and suffixes (follow roots)
Affixes could be inflectional or derivational:
- Inflectional express a restricted set of meanings (e.g. number with nouns, tense with verbs, degree with adjectives and adverbs) or have purely grammatical functions (e.g. case ending with nouns, number ending with adjectives in Polish)
Inflectional affixes mark variants of the same word e.g.
boy, boy+ s,
work, work+ ed, work+ s, (is) work+ ing
- Derivational + change one word to another one e.g.
work - work+ er,
govern - govern+ ment,
capital - capital+ ist, capital+ ism
hard - hard+ ly,
suppose - pre +suppose,
sex - sex+ ists, sex +ism
Four rules of affixation:
- Prefixes are always derivational
- Suffixes may be derivational or inflectional
- Derivational suffixes always precede inflectional
- The rightmost derivational suffix determines the word class of the word
e.g. establish (V)
[establish + ment ] (N)
[ establish + ment + a l ] (Adj)
[ establish + ment + al + ism ](N)
Morphemes
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free bound
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roots simple words affixes
prefixes suffixes
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derivational derivational inflectional
Bound roots
re+ ceive, con + ceive, per + ceive, de+ ceive
re+ vert,con + vert, per + vert, di + vert (vertere ( latin )+turn)
Morphemes and morphs
Morphemes are abstract elements like phonemes.
In phonology - phoneme (a set of distinctive features) phone (speech sound, a physical realization of a phoneme) allophones (a set of phones which are variants (free or positional) of the same phoneme)
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Phoneme allophones
[T ] + voiceless alveolar stop t ry - retroflex
t ip - aspirated
bu tt on - glottalized
wa t er tapped
In morphology morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit) morph (specific phonemic realization of a morpheme) allomorphs (a set of morphs that are variants of the same morpheme)
Morpheme allomorphs
{Plural) dog + / z /
book + / s /
bus + / iz /
ox + / en /
{Negative} / un / + happy,
/ il / + logical,
/ ir / + responsible
/ im / + possible
/ in / + decent,
Sometimes a morpheme has no phonemic realization. In such cases we speak of zero morphs.
a) Zero morphs may be positional allomorphs (appering with some roots only) as in
| morphemes: | { SHEEP } + {Plural} | { PUT } + {Past} |
| morphs: | / sheep/ + Ø | /put/ + Ø |
b) It may also be that a morpheme has only a zero morph realization, e.g. {Singular} with nouns, boy + Ø
Allomorphy is not restricted to affixes. Some root morphemes may have more than one allomorph realization, e.g.
root allomorphy (suppletion)
| morphemes: | {MOUSE} + {Plural} | {MOUSE}+ {Singular} |
| morphs: | / mice / + Ø | /mouse/ + Ø |
| morphemes: | {GIVE} + {Past} | {GIVE}+ {Singular} |
| morphs: | / gave / + Ø | /give/ + Ø |
zero roots - indefinite article with plurals
| morphemes: | {INDEFINITE} {NOUN} +{Plural) | {DEFINITE} {NOUN} +{Singular) |
| morphs: | Ø | /the/ |
In some circumstances a free morpheme may have a bound allomorph (an affix)
Such allomorphs are called clitics
Suffix clitics are called enclitics
In English clitics are formed by: modals, auxiliary forms of have, all forms of be, the negative morpheme not
I+ m (I am), shoot+ em (shoot them) (copula)
I+ ll (I will), I+ d (I would) (modal)
I+ ve (I have), (Perfect auxiliary)
isn+ t (is not) (negation)
Prefix clitics are called proclitics
t +was (it was)
t +is (it is)
3. Morphological structure of complex words
If two or more morphemes combine to form a word, a morphological structure is created.
The structure reflects the way morphemes are related to each other (the order in which they have been combined). It can be represented by bracketing or by tree diagrams.
Examples:
untouchable destabilize
[ un [ [ touch ] able ] ] [ de [ [ stabil ] ize ] ] d ]
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touch root,base (V) stabil - root,base (Adj)
[touch + able] - base (Adj) stabil+ize - base (V)
[ de [stabil + ize]] - base,stem (V)
root a free morpheme (or free morpheme combination in compounds), the core of the word
base that part of a word to which an affix is added (derivational or inflectional)
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stem - that part of a word to which inflectional affix is added
inter+ nation +al+ism+s
[ [ [ inter + [ nation + al ] ] + ism ] + s ]
N
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1. nation root, base (N)
2. [nation+al.] - base (Adj)
3. [inter+ [nation+al]] - base (Adj)
4. [[inter+ [nation+al]] + ism] - stem, base
The structure given above is the correct structure. The structure is correct only if
each internal structure contained within a pair of brackets is a word in English.
Consider the alternative, incorrect analyses:
[[[[ inter+nation ]+al]+ism]+s] -- * internation is not an English word
[ [ de+stabil ]+ize] -- * destabil is not an English word
[[ un + touch ] able] -- *untouch is not an English word
The way complex words are analyzed may change in time. The word hamburger when it was introduced into English was understood as:
hamburg (root) + er (derivational affix) (from the German city of Hamburg)
It was later reanalyzed as:
ham + burger (compound root)
This gave rise to new wordssuch as cheese+burger, fish+burger etc
4. Inflection in English
English is an analytical language (signals grammatical meanings primarily by function words or word order) and has only few inflectional endings (non zero morphs of inflectional morphemes):
| nouns | Plural | books |
| nouns | Possessive | Johns |
| nouns (personal, interrogative and relative pronouns) | Accusative Case | him, her, them whom |
| verbs | Agreement | John sleeps |
| verbs | Past | worked |
| verbs | Progressive | is working |
| verbs | Perfect | has given/ worked |
| verbs | Passive | was beaten/killed |
| adjectives and adverbs | Comparative | taller, faster |
| adjectives and adverbs | Superlative | tallest, fastest |
Inflection with zero morphs of inflectional morphemes and root alternation (suppletion)
mouse/mice
teeth/tooth
men/man
go/went
take/took
good/better
5. Word formation in English
New words created new meaning and/or class membership
