Chapter 4: Morphology: The Analysis of Word Structure

- Unlike sounds and syllables, words carry meanings, and they are stored in the speaker’s mental dictionary
or the lexicon.

- Regular native speakers can know around 60 thousand basic words in addition to the words we can form
by general rules (teach, teacher, teaching …etc.)

- Morphology refers to the part of grammar that is concerned with words and words formation.

4.1 Words and Word Structure

Word
- It is defined as the smallest free form found in language. It does not have to occur in a fixed position and
can appear in isolation.

- The sentence “books are valuable” has three words; books, are and valuable. You cannot say book are -s
valuable but you can say are books valuable?

4.1.1 Morphemes
- It is defined as the smallest unit in language that carries information about meaning or function. For
example, the word builder has two morphemes; build and –er. The word houses has two morphemes:
house and –s.

- Simple words have only one morpheme as the word train. Complex words contain two or more
morphemes as in hunters (hunt-er-s).

Free and Bound Morphemes

- Free morphemes can stand alone like the word itself (as boy) while bound morphemes must be attached
to another element (like plural –s).

- The division of morphemes into free and bound is different from a language to a language. In some
languages, body parts are bound morphemes whereas in English they are free. Also, the past tense is
expressed by free morphemes in some languages (like Thai) whereas in English, it is bound (work-ed).

Allomorphs are the variant pronunciation of morphemes. For example, the indefinite morpheme has two
allomorphs in English, a and an. Other examples are like the past tense –ed and plural –s (cats, dogs, judges).

4.1.2 Analyzing Word Structure

A single word can consist of different morphemes that have different contributions to meaning and functions.
We divide them to the following types.

Roots and Affixes

- Complex words consist of a root morpheme (the core of the words and carries most of the meaning, and
they belong to a lexical category N, V, A) and one or more affixes (not a lexical category, bound).

- Examples: teach-er, un-kind, book-s, black-en, destroy-ed.

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 - The internal structure of words is represented by tree diagrams.

Base
- It is the form to which an affix is added. Sometimes, it is the same as roots (as in books), but base could
be larger and more complex (as in blackened).

Types of affixes:
Prefix: it is attached to the front of its base as in replay and illegal.
Suffix: it is attached to the end of its base as in faithful and kindness.
Infixes: it occurs within another morpheme, and it is less typical as in Arabic (kataba, kutib, aktub) where
the roots consist of three consonants and then various combinations of vowels are inserted.

Problematic Cases
In English, roots are free morphemes (as in redo), so it is called word-based morphology. But, in Spanish,
verbal roots are always bound, so it is called morpheme-based morphology. So, the word camin-ar “to walk”
is the root and “I walk” is camin-o

4.2 Derivation

In this process, we use an affix to build a word that has a meaning and/or category that is different from its base.
As you will see, suffixes change meaning and category while prefixes only change meaning. For example, the
suffix -er combines with verbs (as teach) to form a noun (teacher). Other examples are like treatment where the
suffix combined with the verb treat to make the noun, and unkind where the prefix un- combines with the adjective
kind to make another adjective that is slightly different in meaning.

4.2.1 Some English derivational affixes

Suffixes Change Examples Prefixes Change Examples

-tion V→N protection, action, expectation anti- N→N anti-pollution
-al V→N proposal, arrival, refusal ex- N→N ex-husband, ex-president
-er V→N teacher, worker, singer de- V→V de-activate, de-freeze
-ful N→A hopeful, thankful, useful dis- V→V dis-respect, dis-continue
-ize N→V hospitalize, finalize (A→V), re- V→V re-think, re-do, re-consider
-en A→V blacken,harden,strengthen(N-V) in- A→A in-complete, in-considerate
-ness A→N happiness,kindness, gratefulness un2- A→A un-happy, un-fair, un-intelligent

Complex Derivations
Derivation can apply more than once, so it is possible to have words with multiple layers as in activation (act-
ive-ate-ion) where there is an affix attached to the right base in each layer. However, the internal structure of
some complex words is not obvious as in unhappiness (which affix is attached first?) → un- combines with
adjectives not nouns. So, we add the prefix un- first.
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 YES! NO!

Constraints on Derivation

- The suffix –ant combines with bases of Latin such as assist but not of native English origin as help.
- Derivation can be blocked by the existence of an alternative word. For example, the word cooker (the one
who cooks) is blocked by the word cook.
- Some derivational affixes attach only to bases of particular phonological properties. For example, -en
combines only with monosyllabic base that ends in consonants. So, we have whiten but not *bluen.

4.3 Compounding

- It refers to the combination of two already existing words as in in-laws, oil well and spoonfeed.
- In compounds, the morpheme on the right side determines the category of the word, and it is called the
head.
- Compounds can combine with other words (as in dog food box) and can also interact with derivation (as
in election date).

4.3.1 Properties of Compounds

- English orthography (writing system) is not consistent in representing compounds. Sometimes they are
written as a single word (blackboard), with a hyphen (in-law) or as separate words (dog food).
- In pronunciation, adjective-noun compounds have the primary stress on the first word (the white house =
the official residence of US president) while in non-compounds consisting of adjective and nouns, the
stress is on the second (the white house = a house that is white). Other examples are like greenhouse and
blackboard.
- Tense and plural markers cannot be attached to the first element (as in truck drivers and stir-fried).

4.3.2 Endocentric and Exocentric Compound

- Endocentric compound is where a compound denotes a subtype of the head, so dog food is a type of
food and cavemen and policemen are types of men.
- Exocentric compound is where the meaning of a compound does not follow from its parts as in redneck
which does not refer to type of neck but of people, and Walkman is not a type of men.

4.4 Inflection

- All languages have contrasts such as singular versus plural and present versus past. These contrasts are
marked with inflections.
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 - Inflections are the modifications of a word’s form to indicate grammatical information of various types
like plural or past tense.

4.4.1 Inflection in English

Inflection is expressed in English by suffixes. There are only eight inflectional suffixes, so English is not
highly inflected language.

(N) Plural -s Books, girls 3rd person -s He reads, she works

(N) Possessive ‘s Mary’s book -ing He is reading, she is working
(A) -er He’s older than you Past -ed She worked, he cooked
(A) -est He’s the oldest pp -ed/-en He has worked, she has eaten

4.4.2 Inflections versus Derivation

Because inflections (as in he helps) and derivation (as in helpful) are all marked by affixes, we may confuse
them. There are four criteria that help us distinguish between them.

1. Category change: inflections do not change category or meaning (hearts, worked) while derivational
suffixes change meaning and category (heartless, worker).

2. Order: derivational suffixes must be attached to the base first before inflectional suffixes (neighborhoods
not neighborshood)

3. Productivity: it means the freedom with which suffixes can combine with bases. Inflectional suffixes are
more productive (they combine more freely) than derivational suffixes (arrested but not arrestment).

4. Semantic transparency: inflectional suffixes are consistent in their meanings. But it is not easy to guess
the meaning of derivational suffixes. For example, although teacher is the one who teaches, professor is
not the one who professes.

4.4.3 Other inflectional phenomena

- Case indicates the grammatical role of the word in the sentence (subject, direct object, etc.) In some
languages, there are inflectional suffixes attached to nouns to show if they are subject or object. In
English, case only shows on pronouns, so we have ‘he’ versus ‘him’.
He met the new professor The boy/John met the new professor
The new professor met him The new professor met the boy/John

- Agreement is when one word is inflected to match another word. In English, verbs in present tense
are inflected to show agreement with nouns in third person singular (number and person) as in (the
boy helps others, the boys help others) but not gender.

4.5 Other Morphological Phenomena

we cannot discuss all the morphological processes of word formation, but we will include that main ones.
The processes are divided to two types. One that is related to inflections and the other involves other
phenomena.
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4.5.1 Processes Primarily Related to Inflection

Internal Change
It is the process that substitutes one segment for another to mark a grammatical contrast.
Example: sing/sang and foot/feet.

Suppletion
It is replacing a morpheme with an entirely different morpheme in order to indicate a grammatical contrast.
Example: go/ went and was/were.

Reduplication
Grammatical or semantic contrast is marked by repeating all or part of the base. Full reduplication is
repeating the entire base like orang ‘man’/orang orang ‘men’ in Indonesian. Partial reduplication copies
only part of the base like pili ‘choose’/ pipili ‘will choose’ in Tagalog.

Tone Placement
In some languages, tone is used to mark the distinction between past and future tense. For example, in a
language spoken in the Congo, zí with the high tone means ‘ate’ while zì with a low tone means ‘will eat’.

4.5.2 Other Processes

Cliticization
Clitics are morphemes that behave like words (in meaning and function), but they cannot stand alone.
Rather, they must be pronounced with a host (another word).
Examples in English: we have the reduced verb forms ‘m (am),‘s (is) and ‘re (are) as good examples for
cliticization.

Conversion
It is a process that assigns an already existing word to a new category (without adding affixes). Sometimes,
it is considered a type of derivation and called zero derivation.
Examples: butter the bread, ship the package (N→V) – a drink, a call (V→ N) – the poor (A → N).
New examples as in ‘friend’ and ‘unfriend’ on Facebook – a slowdown, dropout (V+Prep → N).

Clipping
It is a process that shortens long words (polysyllabic words) by deleting one or more syllables.
Examples: names as in Rob (Robert) – prof (professor) – doc (doctor) – app (application) – ad
(advertisement) – lab (laboratory) – blog (web log).

Blending
It is creating new words from parts of two already existing words, usually the first part of one and the final
part of the other.
Example: brunch (breakfast and lunch) – smog (smoke and fog). More recent blending is like wi-fi (wireless
and hi-fi) – froyo (frozen yogurt) – toonie (two and loonie).

Backformation
It is a process that creates new words by removing suffixes from already existing words.
Example: donate (donation) – administrate (administration) – self-destruct (self-destruction).
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Acronyms and Initialisms

Acronyms are formed by taking the initial letters of some or all words in a phrase and pronounce them as a
word.
Example: AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) – BOGO (buy one get one free)!!
More popular words: radar – scuba – laser

Initialism is different in that we do not pronounce them as one word but as a series of letters.
Example: USA (United Stated of America)

Combined Example: CD-ROM is a compound consisting of the initialism CD (Compact Disc) and the
acronym ROM (Read-Only Memory).

Onomatopoeia
Words that are created to sound like the
thing that they name.
These words differ from one language to
the other.
Example in English: buzz – splash – crash.

Coinage
Sometimes words are created from scratch.
Example: Product names as in Kodak – people names (boycott)
Some words are accepted as generic names (Kleenex and Xerox)

Borrowing
In addition to these processes, languages borrow words from each other.
Example: latte (Italian) – alcohol (Arabic).