MORPHEMES

Morphology
Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words, use the term word loosely
in its familiar sense. how the words are formed and the relationship to other words in the
same language. Morphology analyzes the structure of the word such as prefixes, infixes, and
suffixes. It also looks at part of speech.

1. Word
Word is a smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stands on its own. A word
may consist of a single morpheme or several where as a morpheme may not be able to stand
on its own as a word.
Example:

Morpheme
1. A morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three criteria:
a. It is a word or part of word that has a meaning.
b. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts.
c. It recurs with a stable meaning in words.
Like: soften, draken, deepen,cheapen, etc.

Next, its some examples that showing how many morphemes

1. Play 1 morpheme
2. date 1 morpheme
3. weak 1 morpheme
4. man 1 morpheme
5. keep 1 morpheme
6. Keeper keep-er 2 morpheme
7. Unable un-able 2 morpheme
8. Manly man-ly 2 morpheme
9. Antedate ante-date 2 morpheme
10. Weekend week-end 2 morpheme
11. Unbelieveable un-believe-able 3 morpheme
 2. Free and Bound Morphemes
A free morpheme iis one that can be utterend alone with meaning.
Examples:
A bound morpheme, unlike the free, that cannot be utterend alone with meaning, its
always annexed to one or more morphemes to from a word, for onewould not utter in
isolation froms like ente-, re-, -ly, -er, and un-.
Example: preview, played, activity, supervise, inter, vane

3. Bases
The bases morpheme is the part of a word that has the principal meaning. The
italicized morphemes in these words are bases: denial, lovable, annoyanee, re-enter. Bases are
very numerous, and most of them in english are free morphemes, but some are bound. A
word may contain one base and several affixes.
A base is a linguistic from that meets one or more of these requirments:
a. It can occur as an immediate consituent of a word whose only other immediate
constituent is a prefix or suffix.
b. It is an allomorph of a morpheme which has another allomorph that is a free form.
c. It is a borrowing from another language in which it is a free form or a base.

4. Difficulties in Morphemic Analysis

a. Based on the individual limit vocabulary or understanding it
Example: which one free morpheme, bound morpheme and base
b. Difficult to differ degree of word
Example: writer (-er as person) and better (cooperative degree)
c. Difficult differ addictive meaning
Example: suppose (su- prefix)
5. Affixes
Affixes is a bound morpheme that occurs before or wihin or after a base. Prefixes are
those bound morphemes that occur before a base
1) Negative meaning: Impossible ,unlikely
2) Quantity/number: Bicycle (bi-2), monolingual (mono-1)
3) Distance: Interlanguages (inter-between 2 languages)
4) Time: midnight, ante-meditarian, pos-meditarian, free order
Infixes are bound morpheme that have been inserted within a word
1) Inside the word: house-hizouse, gembung-gelembung
2) Reduplication: zig-zag, hip-hop
3) Stressing: dhouse
4) Internal change: sing-sang-sung
5) Exception/Part of speech: go-went-gone
Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base
Example: passable, personal, played, golden, actor, banker, careful, dancing.

6. Inflectional Suffixes
They do not change part of speech, they differ from the derivational suffixes in the
following ways:
They do not change the part of speech
Examples: sled-sleds (both noun), play-payed (both verbs)
They came last in word
Example: shortened, villainies, and industrializine
They go with all stems of a given part of speech
Example: He eats, drinks, dreams.
They do not pile up, only ends a word
Example: higher, written, working

7. Derivational Suffixes (unstable meaning)

Change part of speech:
a. The words with which derivational suffixes combine is an arbitrary matter
Example: friendship (friend-noun, friendship-noun)
b. A derivational suffixes change the part of speech of the word to which it is added
Example: create (verb)- creater (noun)
c. Derivational suffixes usually do not close off a word; can add another derivational
suffixes and inflectional suffixes. Example: Reason-reasonableness

8. Suffixal Homophones
Some suffixes, both inflectional and derivational have homophonous forms. The inflectional
morpheme (-er cp) has two morphemes: derivational suffix (-er n) which is attached to verbs
to form nouns, derivational er morpheme appears at the end. This (-er rp).
 9. Noun Feminine Forms
English has a small clutch of noun with feminine derivational suffixes. All but one of these
feminizing suffixes are of foreign origin.
Example: -ess, patron (masculine), patroness (feminine)

10. Noun Deminutive Forms

In English six diminutive suffixes can be found. These are morphemes which convey
a meaning of smallness or endearment or both:
a. -ie, -i, -y as in auntie, Betty, sweetie
b. -ette as in dinette
c. -kin, -ikin, -kins as in lambkin, manikin
d. -ling as in duckling, darling
e. -et as in circle
f. -let as in booklet

11. Allomorphs
Allomorphs (different sounds, does not change meaning) are variant form of
morpheme that is when a unit of meaning varies in sound without changing meaning.
a) Additive allomorphs. English plural morpheme has 3 allomorphs:
/-ez/ eg. Busses, houses /-z/ eg. Twings, dishes /-s/ eg. Cats, books
English verb morpheme for past tense has some allomorphs:
/-t/ eg. Watched /-d/ eg. Played

b) Irregular form
Replacive allomorphs (internal change): it is just change infix. Examples: drink-
drank-drunk, tooth-teeth, foot-feet
Supplative allomorphs (word totally change): these can be illustrated by going back to
the past tense, it is a parallel formation with regular past-tense forms.
Examples: see-saw-seen, give-gave-given, take-took-taken
Zero allomorphs: there is no changing word. Examples: read-read-read, sheep
(singular)-sheep (plural)
 12. Homophones
You are acquainted with many pairs, trios, and even foursomes of words in English
which sound alike but differ a meaning. It is different morphemes.
Examples: meet-meat, sheep-ship
Verbal inflectional suffixes: it feels /-z/ good
Noun plural inflectional suffixes: those frogs /-z/
Noun possessive inflectional suffix: Johns /-z/ book

12. Phones themes

(sounds, word number of similar meaning) Same pronounciation , different meaning.
Words with similar meaning, Having same consonan cluster, Suggest the common meaning
/-gl/ Light: glow, glare
/-sp/ Point: spire, spark