Download Morphology Basics

What teachers need to know about
Morphology Basics
What is morphology? It is the shape of linguistic units
A morpheme
is the smallest
unit of
language that
has meaning
A morpheme
can be:
• ‘morphos’ from Ancient Greek means ‘shape’
or ‘change’
• ‘eme’ means the smallest element of
something
•
•
•
•
A whole word: (chair, dragon, chocolate)
A part of a word: (re, lect, est, er)
A single phoneme: (s, or y)
A word part that resembles a word: (able
alone or -able in a word like comfortable)
Morphological Awareness
Morphological
awareness is the
understanding that
words are made up of
meaningful units
such as
• Prefixes,
• root words,
• and suffixes.
Morphological awareness complements
and extends phonological awareness
Students learn that
some syllables are
meaningful word parts
Students learn that
common prefixes and
suffixes have meanings
Students are able to use
morphemes to spell and
read words
Understandings for Teachers
Component
skills of
morphological
awareness are:
• Knowing the parts of words
and how they make up the
structure of longer words
• Using knowledge of
morphemes to help with
spelling
• Using morphology to inform
understanding of base words
and derived forms of words
Morphology is taught like phonemic awareness
Activities for
teaching
morphological
awareness:
• Segmenting words into
morphemes
• Matching morphemes
to their meanings
• Using morphemes to
make words
Here’s Some Practice Segmenting Morphemes
projector
• pro
• ahead
ject
throw
or
thing that does
divide
separate
ed
past tense
undivided
•
•
un
not
autobiography
• auto
• self
bio
life
graph
written
y
noun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_and_Latin_roots_in_English
More Practice Segmenting Morphemes
misplaced
• mis
• wrong
place
put
ed
past tense
save
keep
er
one that does
lifesaver
•
•
life
living
transaction
• trans
• across
act
do
tion
noun
http://www.cognatarium.com/cognatarium/
Morphemes come in two types:
Free and Bound
Free Morphemes
● Can be used alone as words:
• salamander, boat, candle
● Do not depend on any other
word part to be words
● Can have one or more syllables
Types of Free Morphemes-Function words
• serve a grammatical function, but don’t have
specific meanings on their own: for example…
Function
words
Conjunctions
• words that compound subjects, predicates, series,
and sentences
• or, and, but, so
Prepositions
• indicate place, time, or sequence
• of, in, after, to
Types of Free Morphemes-Function words
Pronouns
• refer to nouns and substitute for them
• he, she, them
Auxiliary
verbs
• help main verbs to show tense, voice, or to
express implicit meaning using syntax
• is, has, may have
Definite
Articles
• are used with nouns to show degree of specificity
of the reference
• the, an, a
Free morphemes can be:
Content words – which are
the most meaningful in the
sentence
Compound words – which
are made of two free
morphemes that keep
their meanings, it is how
new words of Anglo-Saxon
origin are made
•
•
•
•
nouns – person, place, thing, or idea
verbs – action or state of being
adverbs – add description to verbs
adjectives - add description to nouns
• sailboat, armchair, input
Highlight the base word (free morpheme) from
which the longer word is constructed.
Activity: Identifying the free morpheme in
words
Activity: Identify and highlight the free
morpheme in these words
Masterful
Masterful
Unhappy
Unhappy
Activity: Identify and highlight the free
morpheme in these words
Adventurous
Adventurous
Refill
Refill
Activity: Identify and highlight the free
morpheme in these words
Hopefulness
Hopefulness
Childhood
Childhood
Activity: Identify and highlight the free
morpheme in these words
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Antidisestablishmentarianism
Misunderstand
Misunderstand
Bound
Morphemes
Must be combined with
other morphemes to be a
word:
Are not a word
by themselves
Can have one or
more syllables
• e lect
dis rupt
tele graph
Types of Bound Morphemes
Prefixes-are added at the beginnings of words and
add to or change the meaning of the base word or
word root
• pre
ad
mis
Word Roots- provide the main meaning of the word
• rupt
ject
tain
Suffixes- are added to the ends of words and can
indicate number, tense, or part of speech
• es
ing
tion
Identifyingcan
Morphemes
Identifying Morphemes
be tough
• You can start with the definition of the word part
• You can find another word where that word part is used
You need to think of the overall word and its
meaning to decide if it has one or more than
one morpheme
• Mistletoe, salamander
Sometimes the clues can mislead you
• It isn’t enough to find little words in the big ones: napkin is
not a compound word
• A letter combination may be a morpheme in one word, but
not in another: unhappy, under
• Power: -er is a suffix,
but not in this word
• Mistletoe: mis- is a
The structure
prefix, but not in this
of English
word
words is
complex and • Period: peri- is a
prefix, but not in this
meaning can
word
be variable for
example:
• Comic: com- means
with or together, but
not in this word.
Identify the number of syllables and then the
number of morphemes in these words
serious
ser i ous
lastly
last ly
crept
crept
sample
3 syllables
2 syllables
1 syllable
sam ple
2 syllables
serious
1 morpheme
last ly 2 morphemes
crept
1 morpheme
sample
1 morpheme
Identify the number of syllables and then the number
of morphemes in these words
heighten
dangerous
height en
2 syllables
dan ger ous
mixed
mixed
colder
cold
er
height en 2 morphemes
3
danger ous
1
mix ed
2
2
cold er
2
2
In English, the most powerful morphemes
are the suffixes which can be:
Inflectional or Derivational
Inflectional Suffixes: change
the tense or number, but not
the part of speech of the word
cat – cats
talk - talked
Derivational Suffixes change the part of speech
of the word
Neutral derivational
suffixes don’t change the
sound or accent of the
word
quarter (n) –quarterly (adv)
plenty (n)-plentiful (adj)
Non-Neutral derivational
suffixes can change the
vowel pattern of the word
When the accent pattern
is changed, you can have
an undifferentiated vowel
sound or schwa (ә)
in vite’– in vǝ ta’ tion
e volve’ – ev’ ǝ lu tion
Changes produced by derivational morphemes
These suffixes make
nouns:
er, or, cian,
ist
sion , tion,
These are
persons
These are
things
ment , ity
These
make
verbs:
This one
makes
adverbs:
These
make
adjectives:
ize, ify
ly
ar, ous,
ive, al, ful
Identify the Inflectional or Derivational Suffixes
-s, -es
-ful
-er, -est
inflectional –changes number
derivational- adjective or adverb
inflectional—comparative adjective
derivational—verb to noun sing/singer
-ed
inflectional—changes tense
-tion
derivational- makes nouns
Identify the part of speech of each word in these
pairs.
move verb
movement noun
nature
natural adjective
noun
ignite verb
ignition noun
liquid noun
liquify
verb
comment verb
commentator noun
Rule: The inflectional suffix is added on
after the derivational suffix when making
a word with a derivational ending plural,
past, comparative, or possessive
fun – funny – funniest
ring – ringer- ringers
name – nameless – namelessness
What do we teach and when? Morphology by grade level:
• As you teach suffixes,
1st & 2nd Grade teach their meanings
• Teach that longer words
are made of parts
• Teach the most common
3rd to 6th Grades prefixes, roots, and
suffixes
Middle School and • Teach those morphemes
essential for reading in
High School
your content area
K-12
• Teach about the language of
your subject when teaching
meanings of key terms
Here is a website that has morphology lesson plans and
activities.
http://www.freereading.net/index.php?title=Prefixes_and_Suffixes_Activities
A Resource for Teaching Morphology
Mini Lesson for Prefix pre-
pre- Words
prepay
preview
pretest
prejudge
preheat
preteen
pre
test
pretest
pre
view
preview
pre
pay
prepay
pre
judge
prejudge
pre
heat
preheat
pre
teen
preteen
How does morphemic awareness help our students?
• Understanding morphology develops language skills through:
Decoding
• Promotes quicker and more
accurate word reading
Vocabulary
• Expands from unknown
words to known words and
word parts
Comprehension
Spelling
• Provides grammatical
information that helps with
connected text reading
•
Helps with non-phonetic
English spellings
Thank you for your interest in
Morphology
Mary Beth
Calhoon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Lehigh University
[email protected]