LANE 333 MORPHOLOGY 2012 Term 1

MORPHEMES
1
By: Dr. Shadia Y. Banjar
1

http://SBANJAR.kau.edu.sa/ http://wwwdrshadiabanjar.blogspot.com
Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

WHAT IS MORPHOLOGY?

The study of the internal structure of words is known as MORPHOLOGY.

(The area of grammar concerned with the structure of words and with relationships between words involving the morphemes that compose them is technically called morphology, from the Greek word morphe form, shape and morphemes can be thought of as the minimal units of morphology). Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy,2002
2 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

THE BASIC UNIT

form, shape, internal structure of words and processes of word formation. Morpheme smallest, undividable meaningful unit.
3 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

A. A morpheme is a short segment of language that meet three criteria: 1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning. 2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or without meaningless remainders. 3. It recurs in differing verbal environments with a relatively stable meaning.
4 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Examining the word straight/stret/

In the light of the three criteria , we find out that: 1. We recognize it as a word and can find it listed as such in any dictionary. 2. It cannot be divided without violation of meaning; straight /stret/ trait /tret/, rate/ret/, or ate/et/. The meaning of these of these parts violate the meaning of straight. Furthermore, if we divide it in these ways , we will get the meaningless remainders of /-s/, /st-/, or /str-/. 3. It recurs with relatively stable meaning in such environments as straightedge, straighten, and a straight line. Thus straight meets all the criteria of a morpheme.
5 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

B. A FREE MORPHEME is one that can be uttered alone with meaning. Examples: bird happy A BOUND MORPHEME, unlike the free, cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It is always annexed to one or more morpheme to form a word. Examples: -s , -er re-, -ness
6 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Classification of Morphemes

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

TYPES OF MORPHEMES

free morpheme

free root

bound root bound affixes inflectional affixes derivational affixes

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

C.
Another classification of morphemes puts them into two classes: Bases and affixes. A base morpheme is the part of a word that has the principal meaning : e.g. denial, lovable. Bases are very numerous and most of them are free morphemes; but some are bound , like - sent in consent. A word may contain one base and several affixes.
9 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

A base is a linguistic form that meets one or more of these requirements: 1. It can occur as an immediate constituent of a word whose only other immediate constituent is a prefix or suffix. EXAMPLES: react, active, fertilize 2. It is an allomorph of a morpheme which has another allomorph that is a free form. EXAMPLES: depth (deep), wolves (wolf) 3. It is a borrowing from another language in which it is a free form or a base. EXAMPLES: biometrics, microcosm, phraseology
10 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

1.

2.

3.

4.

The first difficulty is that you have your own individual stock of morphemes. For example, Tom may think of automobile as ,one morpheme meaning car", whereas Dick may know the morphemes auto(self)and mobile (moving), and recognize them in other words like autograph and mobilize. The second difficulty is that persons may know a given morpheme but differ in the degree to which they are aware of its presence in various words. For example, the agentive suffix (spelled er, -or, -ar) meaning one who, that which, and recognize it in words like singer and actor but what about in professor and sweater . Another problem results from the fact that metaphors die as language changes. For example, the morpheme prehend in apprehend used to mean to arrest or seize. Additive meaning is a problem in itself. For example: The morpheme pose (place) in : pose a question and interpose ( place between) suppose, repose compose, depose, impose, propose
11 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Roots and Affixes Morphemes are made up of two types: roots and affixes. Every word has at least one root and we can find them at the center of word- derivational processes. They carry basic meaning from which the rest of the sense of the word can be derived, e.g. morphemes such as green, and America are roots (these roots also happen to be free forms, independent words. Roots like seg in segment, gen in genetics, card in cardiac, cannot stand alone as words and we call them bound root morphemes, as a distinct from free root morphemes. All morphemes which are not roots are affixes.
12 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Cont.,
1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3.

Roots and Affixes

There are three rules that differ affixes from roots: They do not form words by themselves, they have to be added on to a stem. Their meaning, in many instances, is not a clear and specific as is the meaning of roots, and many of them are completely meaningless. Compared with the total number of roots the number of affixes is relatively small. In English, all the productive affixes are either attached at the end of the stem (also known as suffixes) or they are attached at the front of the stem (also known as prefixes). Examples of Common Prefixes: co + occur occur together, peri + meter measure around mid + night middle of the night, re + turn turn back mis + treat treat badly, un + filled not filled Examples of Common Suffixes: act + ion state of acting , child+ ish like a child act + or person who acts , child + hood sate of being a child act + ive pertaining to being in action, child+ less without a child

13

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

E.
An affix is a bound morpheme that occurs before or within or after a base. Affixes are of three types: 1. prefixes, 2. infixes, 3. suffixes.

14

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

1.

2.

3.

Prefixes are those bound morphemes that occur before a base, as in import, prefix, reconsider. Prefixes in English are a small class of morphemes, numbering about 75. Infixes are bound morphemes that have been inserted within a word. In English, infixes are rare. Occasionally they are additions within a word. Suffixes are bound morphemes that occur after a base, like shrinkage, failure. Suffixes may pile up to the number or three or four e.g. in formalizers: the base form + the formalizers: ize, er, four suffixes -al, -ize, -er, -s, whereas prefixes are commonly single, except for the negative un- before another prefix.
Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

15

Cont., Free vs. bound (affixes)

derivational

Bound morphemes

inflectional

Morphemes, morphs and allomorphs

morpheme past tense

allomorph morph /id/

16

allomorph morph /d/

allomorph morph /t/

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Cont., Roots: the irreducible core of a word Affixes: a morpheme that only occurs when attached to some other morpheme Stems: part of a word that exists before any inflectional affixes Bases: any unit to which affixes of any kind can be added (derivational, inflectional)

17

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Cont., Free morphemes = free root, i.e. morphemes that constitute words by themselves, e.g., girl, boy, A ROOT is the heart of a word, i.e. the morpheme that gives the word its central meaning: For example, un-happi-ness("happy" is the root). Roots are usually free: they can appear as independent words (like "happy") . But not always: e.g. ceive in conceive.

18

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Root: lexical content morpheme that cannot be analyzed into smaller parts, e.g., paint in paint-er, read in re-read, ceive in con-ceive. In English, a root may be a free root (e.g., paint, read) or a bound root (e,g., -ceive, huckle-). Thus it may or may not stand alone as a word. Stem: a root morpheme is combined with an affix, which may or may not be a word, e.g., painter, -ceive + er. Base: to mean any root or stem to which an affix is attached. V Base for -ed Root & Base for -en V Adj Af Af

bright
19

en

ed
Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

 Note: affixes are always bound morphemes. In English, roots tend to be free morphemes. However, this is not always the case- For instance: blueberry, blackberry but: cranberry, raspberry. What do [cran-], and [rasp-] mean? Bound roots in English are called cranberry morphemes (technical term).

20

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

 Cranberry morphemes are bound root morphemes. They have no independent meaning. They also have no parts of speech Some more examples: perceive, receive, deceive -ceive? infer, refer, defer -fer? commit, permit, submit -mit?
21 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

The inflectional affixes can be schematized as follows:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
22

Noun plural Noun singular possessive Noun plural possessive Present third-person singular Present participle Past tense Past participle Comparative Superlative
Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Cont.,
The words to which these affixes are attached are called stems . The stem includes the base or bases and all the derivational affixes. Thus the stem of cowboys is cowboy and that of beautified is beautify. The inflectional suffixes differ from the derivational suffixes in the following ways: 1-They do not change the part of speech. Example: cold , colder (both adjectives) 2-They come last in a word. Example: shortened. 3-They go with all stems of a given part of speech. Examples: He eats , drinks. 4-They do not pile up; only one ends a word. Example: working. An exception is {-s pl ps}, the plural possessive of the noun, as in the students worries.
23 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

The common characteristics of derivational suffixes are : 1.The words with which derivational suffixes combine is an arbitrary matter. For example, when the noun is derived from the verb adorn we must add ment-, no other will do. 2.In many cases, but not all, a derivational suffix changes the part of speech of the word to which it is added. For example, the noun act becomes an adjective by the addition of ive. 3.Derivational suffixes usually do not close off a word; that is, after a derivational suffix one can sometimes add another derivational suffix.
24 Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Derivation & Inflection In grammatical study, it is often necessary to examine families of related words. Such families are linguistically known as paradigms. A paradigm is a set of related forms having the same base but different affixes. There are two kinds of paradigms: 1. 2.

25

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Derivation & Inflection

The derivational paradigm is a set of related words composed of the same base morpheme and all the derivational affixes that can go with this base. Example: Some examples of noun-marking derivational suffixes are hood, -ship, -ness, and ment. Words having these endings are recognized, even in isolation, as nouns. (1999, Herndon) A class of words with similar inflection rules is called an inflectional paradigm. Typically the similar rules amount to a unique set of affixes. The inflectional paradigm is formed by words to which the inflectional suffixes are attached. 1. Inflectional suffixes do not change the part of speech. 2. Inflectional suffixes come last in a word when they are present. 3. They go with all stems of a given part of speech. 4. They do not pile up as one inflectional morpheme closes a word. Example: the inflectional paradigm for the class form (NOUNS) is made up as follows:
Base (singular) student Base Form + plural students Base Form + possessive Students Base Form +Possessive plural Students

26

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Derivation vs. Inflection (1)

Derivation changes the
the word category and/or the type of meaning of the word, so it is said to create a new word. e.g. suffix ment in government

Inflection does not

change either the word grammatical category or the type of meaning found in the word. e.g. suffix s in books

27

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Derivation vs. Inflection (2)

A derivational affix must combine with the base before an inflectional affix. e.g. neighbour (base) + hood (DA) + s (IA) = neighbourhoods The following combination is unacceptable: neighbour (base) + s (IA) + hood (DA) = *neighbourshood *neighbourshood

28

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Derivation vs. Inflection (3)

An inflectional affix is more productive than a derivational affix. e.g. the inflectional suffix s can combine with virtually any noun to form a plural noun. On the other hand, the derivational suffix ant can combine only with Latinate bases.

29

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Describe the italic affixes:

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
impossible terrorized terrorize desks dislike humanity fastest

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)

Derivational prefix Inflectional suffix Derivational suffix Inflectional suffix Derivational prefix Derivational suffix Inflectional suffix

30

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

Describe the italic affixes:

8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14)

premature untie darken fallen oxen faster lecturer

8) 9) 10) 11) 12) 13) 14)

Derivational prefix Derivational prefix Derivational suffix Inflectional suffix Inflectional suffix Inflectional suffix Derivational suffix

31

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar

32

Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar