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Morphology
Morphology is the study of the building blocks of meaning in
language. How do languages build words and indicate
grammatical relationships between words? Very often, the
answer lies in their morphology.
a. What are words? →Strings of sounds with particular
meanings
b. What are the basic building blocks of words?
c. How are more complex words built up from their parts?
d. How is the meaning of a word related to its parts?
e. How are individual words related to other words?
words
Mental Lexicon (mental dictionary):
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Parts of speech
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Homonyms, synonyms, antonyms
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Content and function words
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1.
2.
Words are formed by putting together morphemes.
Languages with fairly simple morphological
structure
Languages with a very complex morphological
structure, e.g.
Turkish: Namixaridand ‘they were not buying’
Mohawk: Ni-mic-tomi-mak “I’ll give you the
money.”
Words
A. word: a minimal free form that can occur in isolation
and/or whose position with respect to neighboring
elements is not entirely fixed.
The hunters pursued the bear.
The bear pursued the hunters.
B. /-er/ and /-s/are not words. They cannot occur in
isolation and have relatively fixed positions.
*erhunts *serhunt
Words … cont’d
C. simple words: cannot be broken down . THE
*T+HE
D. complex words: can be broken down.
HIMSELF HIM+SELF ; UN+LUCK+Y
E. Closed class words: function words,
pronouns, conjunctions, determiners
F. Open class words: Major lexical items (nouns,
verbs, etc.)
Morpheme
A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has
a meaning or a grammatical function.
un happy
looks looked
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A free Morpheme: it is the smallest meaningful unit
that cannot be broken up into smaller meaningful
units and it can stand alone.
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A bound Morpheme are morphemes that
cannot stand alone as meaningful units. They are
attached to free morphemes such as prefixes or
suffixes.
Morphology
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Morphology is the study of how words are
structured and how they are put together from
smaller parts.
Morphologists not only identify the different
classes of morphemes but also study the
patterns that occur in the combination of
morphemes in a given language.
Consider
retake, rewrite , relive ,,,,,, but not
*takere , *re-choice, *re-pretty
Further morpheme classification
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Derivational Morphemes: are morphemes that change
the meaning of a word or the part of speech of the
word they are attached to. They are prefixes or
suffixes in English.
happy
quick
unhappy
quickness
Further morpheme classification
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Inflectional Morphemes: Morphemes that serve a
purely grammatical function, provide
grammatical information about a word, never
creating a new word but only a different form of
the same word. They do not change the meaning
or part of speech of the word.
Looks, bags, playing
Suffixes only occur at the margins of a word
and after derivational morphemes.
The inflectional suffixes of English
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Plural morpheme :
boys
Possessive morpheme: the man's car
Present tense third person singular morpheme: he
walks
Past tense morpheme: he played
present participle morpheme: going
past participle morpheme: eaten
adjective comparative morpheme: smaller
adjective superlative morpheme: smallest
Allomorphs
Allomorphs: non-distinctive realizations of a particular
morpheme that have the same function.
Cats /s/, bags /z/, wishes /Iz/,
Walked /t/, robbed / d/, stilted /Id/
Are all allomorphs of the same morpheme.
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In some adjectives we form the opposite by adding the
prefix /In/ , but this morpheme changes in some words
the last sound in it /n/ to the one that follows
in +legal
illegal
in + possible
impossible
in + responsible
irresponsible
in + mature
immature
Activity 1
A)- Break up each of the following words into its
morphemes:
excellent
walked
encourage
richest
biochemistry
realize
incorrect
universities
manliness
brighten
manliness
expectations
Activity 2
A)- Underline the base in each of the following
words:
teacher
kingdom
supermarket
rehabilitation
unidirectional
blacken
cheaply
misinterpret
reconstructions
lovelier
sufficiently
plays
remarked
thickeners
review
Derivation in English
Noun-making suffixes: acy, age, ance, dom, er, hood
conspiracy, coinage, hindrance, freedom, brotherhood,
leader
 Adjective-making suffixes: able, ish, less, ive, some
comfortable, devilish, careless, wholesome
 Verb-making suffixes: ise, ify, en
realise, falsify, shorten
 Adverb-making suffixes: -wise
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clockwise, valuewise
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Very productive prefixes:
in, im, il, ir, un, dis, mis, non
Derivation in Arabic: ‘awzan ‫األوزان‬
Root
Active
Passive
partici
participle
ple
‫خبز‬khabaza ‫خابز‬khabez ‫مخبوز‬makhbuuz
Intensive Noun of
active
instrum
partici
ent
ple
‫خباز‬khabbaz ‫مخبز‬
makhbaz
‫غفر‬ghafara
‫غافر‬ghafer ‫مغفور‬maghfuur
‫غفار‬ghaffar
‫كنس‬kanasa
‫كانس‬kanes
‫كناس‬kannas ‫مكنسة‬
meknasa
‫مكنوس‬maknuus
Inflection in English
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Plural morpheme : boys
Possessive morpheme: the man's car
Present tense third person singular morpheme:
he walks
Past tense morpheme: he played
present participle morpheme: going
past participle morpheme: eaten
adjective comparative morpheme: smaller
adjective superlative morpheme: smallest
Inflection in English … cont’d
Noun plural: -en as in ox – oxen
2.
Alternative suffixes plus a consonant or vowel
change:
child --- children
wife ---- wives
weep --- wept
bring --- brought
3. Vowel change only
goose --- geese
speak --- spoke
1.
4- no change at all
sheep --- sheep , put --- put
Inflection in Arabic
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Arabic is a highly inflected language
Arabic denotes most syntactic relationships
through inflectional affixes, i.e. most verbs,
nouns, pronouns, adjectives are inflected.
Nouns are inflected for number, gender and
case mudaresun, mudarresat, madares;
mudarres, mudarressah, waladun, waladan,
waladin
Verbs also inflect for number and gender and
tense
Learners’ Inflection-related errors
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Formation of the wrong plural (sheeps, wifes)
Wrong past tense of the verb (catchted,
choosed)
Wrong form the past participle (cutten, putten)
Dropping the /s/ from the third person
present singular verb (she eat , He go )
Adding /s/0 so modal verbs (He cans , She
mays)
Adding the noun plural ending to the verb as
well (The boys eats)
Word formation Processes in English
1.
Affixation: prefixes and suffixes.
2.
Coinage: Words coined from existing materials to
represent new inventions or development, e.g.
Kleenex, television, wireless, penicillin, Kodak.
3.
Backformation: involves the use of analogy to
create forms that are similar to ones already existent
in the language, e.g.
gatecrash
from
gatecrasher
pop
from
popular
Word formation Processes in English
4. Blends: involves joining two words by taking parts of the two
words and making a new word:
smoke + fog ----------------- smog
breakfast + lunch ----------- brunch
motor + hotel --------------- motel
5- Chipping: cutting the beginning or end of a word. For
example,
lab -------------------- laboratory
dorm------------------ dormitory
6- Acronyms: taking the initial letters of words. For example,
UNRWA
UNESCO
Word formation Processes in Arabic
1.
Carving relates to the shortening of phrases, or extracting
one word from two or more words. For example,
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Words carved from two other words: Ja`fala(‫ )جعفل‬from
Ja`alani fedaak(‫)جعلني فداك‬.
Words carved from three words: hay`la(‫ )حيعل‬from ( ‫حي على‬
‫)الفالح‬.
Words carved from four word :basmala(‫)بسمل‬from (‫) بسم هللا‬
/ ‫صلعم‬
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2- Borrowing: Arabic words borrowed from Greek:
Satan(‫)إبليس‬, octopus(‫)إخطبوط‬, peacock(‫)طاووس‬,
fountain(‫)نافورة‬, shirt(‫)قميص‬, pen (‫)قلم‬, olivine (‫) زبرجد‬,
ruby(‫) ياقوت‬, tower(‫(برج‬, and law(‫)قانون‬.
Compounding in English
1- The components of the compounding words.
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The first element of a compound can be:
a- a noun, e.g. armchair
b- an adjective, e.g. blackboard
c- a verb, e.g. drawback
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The second element of a compounding noun can be:
a- a noun, e.g. goldsmith
b- a pronoun, e.g. overall
c- a verb or verb stem, e.g. smash-and-grab,
chimney-sweep
d- an adverb, e.g. passer-by, fly-over
Compound Nouns
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Noun + Noun : manservant , woman
doctor
Subject + Verb = sunrise , daybreak
Verb + Object = pick-pocket
Verb + Verb = make-believe
Adjective + noun = fast-food , software
Phrase compound = son-in-law
Subject + object = car cable , chairperson
Subject + complement = blackboard ,
ashtray
Compound Verbs
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Noun + verb = sky-dive , carbon-copy
Verb + verb = freeze-dry
Particle + verb = overlook ,
Adjective + noun = badmouth
Noun + noun = breath-test
Adverb + verb = downsize , upgrade
Adjective + verb = white-wash , blacklist
Compound Adjectives
 Verb +object = life-giving , man-eating
 Verb + adverbial = airborne , far-fetched
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verbless = age-old
 Adjective + adjective = bitter-sweet, open-ended
Compound Adverbs: off-hand, over-night
Types of Compounds
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Endocentric: The rightmost element of
the compound identifies the class that the
meaning of the entire word is related to,
e.g. dog food , a fire man , fast food ,
blackboard
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Exocentric: the meaning of the compound
does not come from the meaning of its
parts, e.g. redhead, egghead, turncoat
Types of Compounds
1- Solid or closed Compounds: two usually
moderately short words appear together as one,
e.g. housewife, lawsuit, wallpaper, make up
2- Hyphenated Compounds: two or more words are
connected by a hyphen.
 Compounds containing affixes such as
house-build(er) and a single-mind(ed) (ness),
 adjective-adjective compounds: bitter-sweet
 verb-verb compounds: freeze-dry
 Compounds containing particles: mother-of-pearl
, salt-and-pepper
Types of Compounds
3- Open or spaced Compounds involves a
newer combination of usually longer
words, such as distance learning, lawn
tennis.
Arabic Compounds
1. Almurrakab Al-Idafi: ‫ المركب اإلضافي‬The
syntactic relation between the components is of
the possessive or genitive , e.g. earthworm ‫دودة‬
‫ يوم الحساب االرض‬doomsday
‫عجلة القيادة عبدهللا‬steering wheel
2. ‫ المركب المزجي‬fusional compound, e.g. two
or more words are fused and become as
one ‫ بيت لحم حضرموت‬،
3. ‫ المركب االسنادي‬predicative compound: The
syntactic structure is that of predication , e.g
‫(تأبط شرا‬he has taken evil under his arm)
Arabic Compounds
4. ‫ الحروف المركبة‬compound particles are
particles combined with ma which has
various meanings
‫( ربما‬rubba ‫ رب‬+ ma ‫ ) ما‬perhaps
‫( حيثما‬haythu ‫ حيث‬+ ma ‫ ) ما‬whenever
‫ ريثما‬، ‫ كيفما‬، ‫ لوال‬، ‫حالما‬
5. Defective verb compound : They are usually
construed with /ma ‫ما‬/ as their first element. This
particle may add the sense of duration or negation
to the second element.
‫ ما انفك‬، ‫ ما زال‬، ‫ ما برح‬، ‫ما دام‬
Activities
Divide these words into syllables:
Writer
blackboard
recorder
situation
distinguish
transformational
Modernization
‫اهتمام‬
‫استقرار جامعة‬
‫ُكتُب يستلهم معادلة‬
1.
Activities
1- Try to identify the allomorph of the past participle morpheme in the following
words:
1- seen
2- eaten
3- drunk
4- brought
5- studied
6- swum
7- bought
8- understood
9- put