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Morphology •
Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of
words. •
In English and many other
languages, many words can be broken down into parts. For example: •
unhappiness un-happi-ness •
horses
horse-s •
walking
walk-ing Morphology •
un - carries a negative
meaning •
ness - expresses a state or quality •
s - expresses plurality •
ing - conveys a sense of duration •
A word like “yes”,
however, has no internal grammatical structure. We can analyze the sounds, but
none of them has any meaning in isolation. Morphology •
The smallest unit
which has a meaning or grammatical function that words can be broken down into are known as morphemes. •
So to be clear: “un” is
a morpheme. •
“yes” is also a
morpheme, but also happens to be a word. Morphology •
Consider the following
word. How many morphemes does it contain? •
Antidisestablishmentarianism •
The way that morphemes
operate in language provides the subject matter of morphology. Morphology •
Morphologists also study
the patterns which occur in the combination of morphemes in a given language. •
Take, for example, the
following words: •
rewrite retake
relive •
“re” is a bound
morpheme: it attaches only to verbs and only at the beginning of a word. We
can’t say “writere” or “takere” Morphology •
Therefore, part of a
speaker’s linguistic competence is knowing, in addition to the meaning
of the morphemes of a language, the ways in which the morphemes are allowed to
combine with other morphemes. Morphology •
There are several important
distinctions that must be made when it comes to morphemes: •
(1) – Free vs. Bound morphemes •
Free morphemes are morphemes which can stand alone. We have already seen the
example of “yes”. Morphology •
Bound morphemes: never exist as words themselves, but are always attached to some
other morpheme. We have already seen the example of “un”. •
When we identify the number
and types of morphemes that a given word consists of, we are looking at what is
referred to as the structure of a word. Morphology •
Every word has at least one
free morpheme, which is referred to as the root, or stem. •
We can further divide bound
morphemes into three categories: •
prefix
un-happy •
suffix
happi-ness •
infix
abso-blooming-lutely •
The general term for all
three is affix. Morphology •
(2) – Derivational vs. Inflectional morphemes •
Derivational
morphemes create or derive new words by changing the meaning or by
changing the word class of the word. •
For example: •
happy →
unhappy
•
Both words are adjectives,
but the meaning changes. Morphology •
quick
→
quickness •
The affix changes both
meaning and word class - adjective to a noun. •
In English: Derivational
morphemes can be either prefixes or suffixes. Morphology •
Inflectional
morphemes don’t alter words the meaning or word class of a word; instead
they only refine and give extra grammatical information about the word’s
already existing meaning. •
For example: •
Cat →
cats •
walk →
walking Morphology •
In English: Inflectional
morphemes are all suffixes (by chance, since in other languages this is not
true). •
There are only 8 inflectional
morphemes in English: Morphology •
-s
3rd person sg. present •
“He waits” •
-ed
past tense •
“He waited” •
-ing
progressive
•
“He is waiting” Morphology •
-en
past participle •
“I had eaten” •
-s
plural
•
“Both chairs are
broken” •
-’s
possessive
•
“The chair’s leg is
broken” Morphology •
-er
comparative
•
“He was faster” •
-est
superlative
•
“He was the fastest” Morphology •
Inflectional morphemes are required by syntax. (that is, they indicate syntactic
or semantic relations between different words in a sentence). •
For example: •
Nim loves bananas. •
but •
They love bananas. Morphology •
Derivational morphemes are different in that syntax does not require the
presence of derivational morphemes; they do, however, indicate sematic
relations within a word (that is, they change the meaning of the
word). •
For example: •
kind →
unkind •
He is unkind •
They are unkind Morphology •
A morpheme is not
equal to a syllable: •
"coats" has
1 syllable, but 2 morphemes.
•
"syllable" has 2
syllables, but only 1 morpheme |
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