Morphology

Morphology: Study of Words

W.W.W.Word Wide Web

Section 1

What is a Word?

Thecatsatonthemat

What is a Word?

“A single group of letters that are used together with a particular meaning.” (LDOCE)

One or Many Words?Fly Noun

flyflies

Fly Verb

flyflyingfliesflewflown

What is a Word?Do you consider these as one or many different words?1. help2. helps 3. helped4. helping

What is a Word?

What about these?• helpful• helpline• help box• helping hand

What is a Word?happy unhappylikely unlikelydesirable undesirable

If we assume that the most basic unit of meaning is the word, what do we say about the parts of words like un-, which has a fixed meaning?

Word = A Single Piece of Meaning?

• ‘unfaithfulness’• ‘laptop’• ‘lap dog’• ‘seaside’• ‘sea shore’• ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’

Words – fixed meaning?

Does the word ‘book’ have the same meaning in these sentences?• Reading books helps develop

personality. • Please book a seat for me.• Is my booking confirmed?• My life is an open book.

HomophonesSound alike – Different Meanings

HomonymsSame Spelling – Different Meanings

• Why are movie stars so cool?• Because they have so many fans!

• Why did the teacher wear sunglasses?• Her students were too bright!

• Why did the king draw straight lines?• Because he was the ruler!

Words – fixed meaning?• Okay.• Okay?• Okay!

The meaning of a word may vary, depending on its immediate context.

Meaning is also dependent on the tone or stress.

So, What is a Word?Linguists define words as “Language chunks which recur as self-contained units and have distinct syntactic behaviour.”• I fly home tomorrow / I flew back yesterday

= same word• Birds fly / The fly buzzed = 2 different

words• I offered her a seat / She seated herself. =

same word

Knowing a Word• Knowing its sound (pronunciation)• Knowing its spelling (orthography)• Knowing its meaning

[bear/bare - same sound but different meanings so different words]

[sofa/couch - same meaning but different words]

Knowing a Word

• Knowing its grammatical form (noun, pronoun, verb etc.)

[I love you. / You are the love of my life.]• Knowing how to use a word.

[Respected Sir / Dear Sir]

Implications for Teaching

Work in groups of three and discuss the implication of these ideas in English language teaching.

Morphology

Section 2

What is Morphology?• Morphology is the level of linguistic

study concerned with the internal structure of words and rules of word formation.• It is concerned with the study of rules

governing the formation of words in human language.• A morpheme is the smallest meaningful

unit in the grammar of a language.

Cats

The word cats consists of two morphemes and one syllable:• cat, and -s, a plural marker for nouns.Note that a morpheme like "-s" can just be a single phoneme and does not have to be a whole syllable.

UnladylikeThe word unladylike consists of three morphemes and four syllables. Morpheme breaks:• un: 'not' • lady: '(well behaved) female adult human’ • like: 'having the characteristics of' None of these morphemes can be broken up any more without losing all sense of meaning. Lady cannot be broken up into "la" and "dy”, even though "la" and "dy" are separate syllables. Note that each syllable has no meaning on its own.

Technique

The word technique consists of only one morpheme with two syllables. Even though the word has two syllables, it is a single morpheme because it cannot be broken down into smaller meaningful parts.

What is a Morpheme?

Count the number of morphemes in the sentence:

Everyone enjoys teaching hard working students.

Morphemic Analysis of Words

Every one enjoy s teach ing eager and hard work ing student s

I would like to thank every one of you

Content Words and Function Words

Count the number of F’s in the following sentence.

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

One generally tends to note the ‘content’ words first.

Lexical MorphemesLexical morphemes (or ‘content words’) are free morphemes that have independent dictionary meaning of their own.These are all the words listed in dictionary entries.• race• red• reed

Grammatical MorphemesGrammatical/Functional/Syntactic morphemes are free morphemes.

Grammatical morphemes refers to words such as a/an, the, some, that, on, in ,at, or, but etc. which do not have an independent meaning of their own.

These morphemes acquire a meaning only when used with other free morphemes.

Grammatical Morphemes are also collocations, fixed expressions or ‘chunks’ like these which do not have independent meaning:

• However…• Nevertheless …• Despite…• In spite of…• In view of…• Instead of…• On the other hand…

Identify the Lexical and Function Words

1. reduced2. inside3. into4. beside5. besides6. an7. between8. trouble

9. together10.where11.how12.from 13.enjoy14.John15.mother

Free and Bound Morphemes

Free Morphemes

Free morphemes can stand on their own and have a meaning.

Free Morphemes

• The following words are free morphemes:school, student, boy, girl, child, teach, lecture

• Most free morphemes are content or lexical words as they usually carry meaning. However note the function words: is, has, on, does, been

Bound Morphemes

Bound morphemes cannot stand on their own, and make meaning. They attach to a free morpheme to add meaning.

Bound Morphemes• The following are examples of ‘bound morphemes’:

-ment, -en, -ing, -ed, -ness, -full, mis-, un-, -ly• Bound morphemes can also be called grammatical

indicators because they can indicate or change the grammatical behaviour of a word. The word form with the correct bound morpheme must be used depending on the context and the position of the word.

Example: *The lecturer glad praised God. ×The lecturer gladly

praised God. √

Inflectional Bound Morphemes

Inflectional affixes perform grammatical functions. They are added at the end of a word to create new words. Generally, they indicate:Number: boy/boysTense: work/ works/worked/workingComparison: hard/harder/hardest

Allomorphs• Just like phonemes, morphemes also have

variants [different versions].• Allomorphs are the variants of a morpheme.• Allomorphs are a set of ‘morphs’ which consist

of different versions of the same morpheme.boy/boys, bus/buses, copy/copies, man/men kill/killed, beg/begged, go/wentsing/singing, write/writing, run/running

Derivational Bound Morphemes

A derivational morpheme is a type of bound morpheme which generates new words by changing the class of the word or forming new words.

Derivational AffixesThese affixes can alter the meaning of the words to which they are attached. -hood (child / childhood)

Shahrukh is my childhood friend. He is not a child anymore.

-ex (wife / ex-wife)Shahrukh’s wife is Gauri. He does not have an ex-wife yet.

Derivational AffixesSome derivational affixes can change the function (or part of speech) of the word to which they are attached.entertain (V) entertainment (N)correct (V) correction (N)teach (V) teacher (N)sad (N) sadly (Adv)beauty (N) beautiful (Adj)

Use different forms of the word ‘entertain’ to complete the sentences.

1. My wife likes …………….. visitors at her house.2. She is a good ………….. .3. She …………. them to good food and ………….

music.4. Cyberjaya is not a place for good …………… .

Use different forms of the word ‘entertain’ to complete the sentences.

1. My wife likes to entertain visitors at her house.

2. She is a good entertainer.3. She entertains them to good food and

entertaining music.4. Cyberjaya is not a place for good

entertainment.


1. Deriving Nouns from VerbsVerb Nounbreak breakagerevive revivalexplore explorationgovern

governmentinform informant


2. Adjectives from nounsNoun

Adjectivecare

carefulfruit

fruitlesslove

lovablefriend

friendlyMalaysia

Malaysian


3. Nouns from adjectivesAdjective Nounkind kindnessrapid rapidityfragrant fragrancehostile hostility


4. Verbs from adjectivesAdjective Verbweak weaken

solid solidify

Derivational Bound Morphemes5. Adjectives from verbs

Verb Adjectivewash washabledigest digestivesatisfy satisfactory

6. Verbs from nounsNoun Verbspecial specialise

Derivational Bound Morphemes• They change the meaning or word class e.g.

govern + ment = government• They indicate semantic relations in words e.g.

the morpheme –ful in hopeful and the morpheme –less in waterless.

• The derivational bound morpheme operates in a closed circuit kind of relationship. For example, we cannot say *lookful or *milkless

• The derivational bound morpheme comes before the inflectional morpheme. For example, teach-er-s, hope-ful-s

Free and Bound Morphemes

• Identify the free and bound morphemes in these words:

laptop seaside unfortunately savesraining cats mismatch projector

• Think of at least ten words with the bound morphemes at the beginning or at the end of the words.

Word Formation

AffixationAffixation is a morphological process of attaching an affix to the root or base of a word.An affix is a type of ‘bound morpheme’ that is always attached to the root or base of a word.

PrefixA prefix is the type of affix that occurs before the root or base of a word.insensitive unkind impossible disable• In-• Un-• Semi-• Im-• Dis-

SuffixThis is the type of affix that occurs after the base or the root of a word.teacher helpful boyish fatherhood-er-ful-less-ish-hood

What are Root / Stem Words?‘Root’ or ‘Stem’ is another term used for describing free or bound morphemes. The root word cannot be sub-divided and is combined with ‘bound’ morphemes to form new words.improper (proper)uninterrupted (interrupt)permit/submit/admit (-mit)economy/economic/economics (econom-)Note: The ‘root’ does not always exist as a free morpheme. Example – receive, reduce, repeat

Compound Words

A compound word consists of two or more free morphemes: textbook carry box lecture hall wooden spoon talking bird

Types of Compound Words Closed compounds (Words written together)

textbookflowerpot

Hyphenated compoundsmerry-go-roundwell-being

Open compounds (Words written separately)school busdecision makingchocolate chip cookies

Compound- complex words

A compound-complex word is that which consists of two or more free morphemes and one or more bound morphemes.• textbooks• overtaken• brother-in-law

Compound Words

Explain the possible meaning of the compound words: • old-furniture salesman• old furniture salesman

BlendingBlending: similar to compounding, but parts of the free morpheme involved are lost (Usually, 1st part of the 1st word + end of the 2nd word)• brunch (breakfast + lunch)• motel (motor + hotel)• smog (smoke + fog)• newscast (news + broadcast)

Blending

Work in groups of three and think of some blends in English and Malay.

texting, camcorder, emoticon, globish, infotainment, mopad, sitcom, telegenic

cerpen, tadika ….

Clipping: Shortening of a longer free morpheme

• auto• lab• bike• sub• ad• porn

• Prof• Doc• Kathy• Liz• Ron• condo

Reduplication

Reduplication: Full or partial repetition of a free morpheme; sometimes with a variation• so-so• bye-bye• dilly-dally• zigzag• mishmash

Word CoinageCompletely New Words• aspirin, nylon, kleenex, teflon, zipper• google, pooch, facebookExtensions of existing words• hamburger: cheese burger, veggie burger, fish

burger, tofu burger• broadcast: telecast, webcast• marathon: walkathon, talkathon, danceathon• alcoholic: workaholic• seminar: webinar

Word Borrowing

A language may borrow from another language, words for which there are no equivalents in it. These may be words for objects, social, political, and cultural institutions and events or abstract concepts which are not found in the culture of that language.

Word BorrowingHistorically, English has borrowed tremendously from other languages.- alcohol (Arabic)- boss (Dutch)- croissant (French)- lilac (Persian)- piano (Italian)- pretzel (German)- robot (Czech)- tycoon (Japanese)- yogurt (Turkish)- zebra (Bantu)

Loan WordsDirect translation of the elements of a word into the borrowing language.• English – technology• Malay – teknologi• English – computer• Malay – komputer• English – boyfriend• Chinese – nan pengyu• Malay – teman lelaki

Acronyms

Acronyms abbreviate (shorten) a longer term by taking the initial letters.A. Follow pronunciation: NATO, TOFEL, AIDS,

MUET, UNESCOB. If unpronounceable, say each letter: ATM, IQ,

MRT, MTV, CD, UFO, SMSC. Sound out each letter to avoid confusion:

WHO, UNO (Note – PIN number)

Documents

Morphology