Morphology

Morphology and Word Formation

 Definition
• In linguistics, morphology is the study of words and how they
are formed. The study of the internal structure of words
• It analyzes the structure of words and parts of words, such as
stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes.
• Complex words are easily broken into its smaller parts.

• Prefixes ‫بادئة تضاف الول الكلمة‬

• Suffixes ‫الحقة تضاف الخر الكلمة‬
 What is a morpheme?

A morpheme is the smallest speech unit which has meaning or limited

meaning depending on its type.

A morpheme is not identical to a word. The main difference between them is

that a morpheme sometimes does not stand alone, but a word can stands
alone.

This will be investigated soon.

• A meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further

divided (e.g. in, come, -ing, forming incoming ).
 Why useful to study morpholgy?
1. Increasing the wealth of vocabulary, enabling us to derive
as many words as possible from the same word and
helping us understand or guess the meaning of stange
words. For example (add, adding, addition, additional,
additive / act, actor, actress, action, activity, activate,
activation, deactivate, deactivation) : they all share the
meaning of the morpheme (add and act) which is "to increase
something and do something".
 Free and bound morphemes

• Free morpheme: It is the morpheme that

can occur as a single word with meaning as
act in (actor).
• Example: girl, system, desire, hope, act,
phone, happy…etc.
 Bound morpheme:
• It is the morpheme that cannot stand alone as a
single word as or in (actor).
• It has meaning only when connected to other
morphemes. un- (uncover, undo), dis- (displeased,
disconnect), pre- (predetermine, prejudge). -er
(singer, performer) -ist (typist, pianist) -ly (manly,
friendly) (un- kind –ness)
 Lexical and functional morphemes

• Free morphemes fall into two categories. The first

category is called lexical morphemes.

• It is set of ordinary nouns, adjectives and verbs.

• They carry the ‘content’ of the messages we convey.

 Functional morphemes

• Functional morphemes consist of functional words in

the language such as conjunctions, prepositions, articles
and pronouns.
• Examples:
• and, but, when, because, on, near, above, in, the, that, it,
them.
 Affixes:

• English words can be classified into simple or complex.

• A simple word consists of a free base morpheme; a complex

word consists of a base morpheme and other elements (bound

morphemes) that can be attached to the beginning or end of

the bases.
• The word (unhappily) is made up of a base morpheme 'happy'

and the bound morphemes are “un – ly”.

• These elements are called "Affixes".

Affixes: are bound morphemes that can be attached to the

beginning (prefixes) or the end of words (suffixes).

[ affix ……… simple form …….. affix].

un ………. happi ………… ly

Prefixes: are the parts we add to the beginning of a word.
dishonest indirect understate
Suffixes: are the parts we add to the end of a word.
unemployment helpless productive
Derivational and inflectional morphemes
 Derivational morphemes
 They can be suffixes or prefixes.
 They involve change in the word meaning
and class (part of speech).
 Un + happy = unhappy (change in meaning)
 En + rich = enrich (change in class, adjective into verb)
 Derivational affixes always precede inflectional ones if
they come in the same word.
 No other affixes
For example: "modern-ize-s".
can be added after inflectional ones.
 Inflectional Affixes (morphemes):

are suffixes "elements that are added to the end of a word.”

They do not come at the beginning of a word.
There are only 8 inflectional morphemes in English.

1- They do not change the meaning or part of speech of

the word. (boy/boys (n.) – read / reads (v.) – tall / taller /

tallest (adj.))
 inflectional suffixes (morphemes)
1. Noun inflectional suffixes: (2 morphemes)

To mark girl= girls

(s) plural
To mark Ali = Ali’s
possession Boys = boys’
 Verb Inflectional suffixes (4)
(s) Third person with verb He plays football.
(ed) Past tense marker He finished his work.
(ed) Past participle marker He has eaten fish.
(ing) Present participle He is writing now.
 Adjective Inflectional suffixes:

(er) Comparative Taller, bigger, faster

(est) Superlative Tallest, biggest, fastest

 Derivational and inflectional affixes can sometimes be
identical.
 Example: “ing” inflectional: he is writing.
 derivational: Writing is essential for academic works".
Derivational Inflectional
Prefixes and suffixes Only suffixes
Derive new words Only shows difference in number,
tense, possession
Change in meaning No change in meaning
Change in class No change in class (part of speech)
 Morphs and allomorphs
• Morph: A morph is simply the phonetic
representation of a morpheme, how the
morpheme is said.
Cats - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /s/
Dogs - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /z/
Houses - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /ɪz/
This /s/, /z/, /iz/ are the different sound of
same morpheme {-s}.

22
• Morpheme: Smallest meaningful unit, cannot be further
divided or analyzed
Ex: Unthinkable = 'un-' 'think' and '-able‘
Ex: Books = Book and s.
• Allomorph: Allomorphs are different forms of the same
morpheme, or basic unit of meaning.
These can be different pronunciations or different spellings.
 Positioning bound morphemes
1. Derivational morphemes can be prefixes or suffixes.
2. Inflectional morphemes are only suffixes.
3. At word can have at its end:
a) two (sometimes more) derivational morphemes as in
naturalize (nature + al +ize)
b) If a derivational morpheme and an inflectional
morpheme come at the end of the word, only the
inflectional morpheme ends the word.
Example:
1. naturalizes: (nature (free) + - al (derivational) + - ize
(derivational) + - s (inflectional))
Note: if a word ends in an inflectional morpheme, no other
morpheme can be added to it.
Examples:
- cars: ends in – s (inflectional morpheme marking plural). No
morpheme can be added to it.
- He is the tallest. No morpheme can be added after – est, the
superlative marker.
- The came applies to all inflectional morphemes.
 Introduction to linguistics

• Morphology
• Part 2 Word formation processes
in English
 Word formation processes
This refers to creating word out of ‘existing’ words.
The following are the word formation processes in detail.
 1. Compounding
is the process of creating compounds by stringing together
separate words in order to make new words.
There are varied combinations of (nouns – adjectives – verbs and
particles).
 Types of compounds
1. Compound nouns: involve different parts
a. Noun + noun: bath towel; boy-friend; death blow
policeman, boyfriend, water tank, dining-table,
bedroom, motorcycle, printer cartridge, bus stop,
egg rolls
b. Verb + noun: pickpocket; breakfast, drive inn, fire place,
guide book, handle bar, note book, pay day,
post man, search engine, show room,
watch man, taste buds, stop clock
c. Noun +verb: nosebleed; sunshine, sunrise, haircut,
hairdo, spoon-feed
d. Verb +verb: make-believe, sleepwalk
e. Adjective + noun: deep structure; fast-food, high school,
smallpox, bluebird, greenhouse.
f. Particle + noun: in-crowd; down-town, down stair, off
shore, out patient, on line, over weight,
underworld
g. Adverb + noun: now generation, onlooker, bystander,
afterthought, inside
h. Verb + particle: cop-out; drop-out
 2. Compound verbs
a. Noun + verb: sky-dive
b. Adjective + verb: fine-tune
c. Particle + verb: overbook
d. Adjective + noun: brown-bag
 3. Coining/coinage (invention)
• is the process where the new words are coined or invented
from existing material to represent a new invention or
development.
• Examples: wireless, hypermarket, Aspirin, nylon, zipper, Teflon
• Some other words are used as the generic name for different
brands (trademarks) of products, such as:
• Kleenex, Xerox,
KIA, TOYTA, MERCEDES.
 4. Borrowing
• Borrowing: Taking words from other languages From other
languages to English.
• Examples: Alcohol (Arabic), Boss (Dutch), Piano (Italian), Robot
(Czech), Yogurt (Turkish), Tycoon (Japanese), Karate (Chinese),
etc.
 5. Clipping
• Some words are used in shortened form by subtracting one or more syllables from a
word. This shortening sometimes occurs at the beginning of a word, at the end of a
word, or at both ends of a word.
• EXAMPLES
Shortened word............................Full word
 photo...............................................photograph
 plane...............................................aeroplane
 pram...............................................perambulator
 bus..................................................omnibus
 flu...................................................influenza
 phone.............................................telephone
 hanky.............................................handkerchief
 maths.............................................mathematics
 lab..................................................laboratory
 6. Blends/blending
• Two words are sometimes clipped and the clippings are
joined to form a new word.
EXAMPLES
• brunch.....from.........breakfast and lunch
• smog........from.........smoke and fog
• telecast.......from......... television and broadcast
• motel.........from........motorists and hotel
 7. Backformation
A word of one type (may be noun) is reduced to another word of
another type (may be verb) Television became televise, donation
became donate,
Other examples of BACKFORMATION
tase from Taser / televise from television / tongue-lash
from tongue-lashing / apple-polish from apple-polishing/
tweet from tweeters/ transcript (verb) from transcription /
peddle from peddler / baby-sit from babysitter/ tricep from
triceps /back-form backformation / bulldoze from bulldozer
/handwash from handwashing / trickle-irrigate from trickle-
irrigation / book-keep from bookkeeping / brainwash from
brainwashing , etc.
 8. Acronyms
• An acronym is formed by joining together the initial letters
(or sometimes a little larger parts) of other words and is
pronounced as a word.

Acronyms Full form Acronyms Full form

AIDS Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome

BASIC Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (A computer language)

B2C Business to Customer

LASER Light Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation

UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund

UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation

• The difference between an acronym and an
abbreviation is that the latter may be formed from the
initial letters in a phrase on name and is read letter by
letter, e.g. IBM, BA, M.Sc., AD, and so on, while the
former is formed from the first letter of each word and is
normally pronounced as a word e.g. LASER, BASIC.
 ROOT vs. STEM
Root
Roots are the cores 'hearts' of words or those parts of words that are not
analysable into further morphemes. For instance: 'nature' is the root in the word
'naturalization' – it is the heart of this word.
• Identify the word formation process involved in
creating the following words.
- NASA, televise, telecast, lab, boss, aspirin
End of Section