Morphology

We have known Phonology as the study of  speech sounds and their patterns. In Phonology, we have discussed about the smallest units of speech, called “phonemes”.

Now it is time for us to pay attention to the other branch of Linguistics, Morphology, which is the study of the internal structure of words.

Before we can examine the structure of words, we must recognize the entity known as “morpheme”.

What is morpheme?

Morpheme can be defined as the smallest meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further divided or analyzed. In other words, morpheme can be described as the minimal units of meaning.

Note:

In Linguistics, morphemes are indicated by ‘brace marks’ ({ }).

As we know that in English, the case of plurality is indicated by adding “s” to the singular nouns.

  Singular:                                            Plural:

book                                                      books    

(consists of morpheme {book} and morpheme {s})

table                                                      tables       

(consists of morpheme {table} and morpheme {s})

bag                                                         bags          

(consists of morpheme {bag} and morpheme {s}) 

Thus, in the examples, each word has two morphemes.

In one of the patterns of  tense marker in English grammar is indicated by adding “ed” to the past tense regular verbs:

   Present:                               Past:

deliver                                   delivered    

(consists of morpheme {deliver} and morpheme {ed})

learn                                                      learned                   

(consists of morpheme {learn} and morpheme {ed})

pick                                                        picked      

(consists of morpheme {pick} and morpheme {ed})

In these examples, each word also has two morphemes.

Kinds of Morphemes:

There are two kinds of morphemes:

Free morpheme

Bound morpheme

FREE MORPHEMES:

A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning, such as the words that we saw earlier:

{book}

{table}

{bag}

{deliver}

{learn}

{pick}

All of these morphemes are free morphemes.

BOUND MORPHEMES:

A bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It always added to one or more morphemes to form a word. The following morphemes are taken from the previous examples:

{s}                                                           in                            plays    

{re}                                                        in                            replay

{ly}                                                         in                            cheaply

{er}                                                        in                            cheaper

{un}                                                       in                            unable

{en}                                                       in                            brighten

All of these underlined morphemes are bound morphemes.

Whereas “free morphemes” constitute words by themselves,

“bound morphemes” are never words but always

parts of words. 

Bound morphemes mostly refer to morphemes that can occur as affixes. The affixes which precede free morphemes (words) are called prefixes, and those which follow free morphemes (words) are called suffixes. 

Some Examples:              

                               

dis-                                    -ly

un-                                    -ness

pre-          prefixes             -ish           suffixes

trans-                               -ity

bi-                                     -er

Bound morphemes come in two varieties, “derivational” and “inflectional”.

The core difference between the two being that  the addition of the derivational morphemes creates new words or mostly changes the word classes; while the addition of inflectional morphemes merely changes word form.

DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES:

The basic concept of derivational morphemes is that they derive new words. In the following examples, derivational morphemes are added to produce new words which are derived from the ‘parent word’ (root).

happy – happiness

(adjective) (noun)

examine – examination

 (verb)          (noun)

beauty – beautiful – beautifully

 (noun)   (adjective)  (adverb)

danger – dangerous

 (noun)    (adjective)

In all cases, the derived word means something different than the root, and the word class may change with each derivation.

However, in some cases, derivation does not always cause the change of word class; but in such a case, the meaning of word will usually be significantly different from the root. 

Examples:  

visible – invisible

 (adjective)      (adjective)

 create – recreate

 (verb)              (verb)

 market – supermarket

 (noun)          (noun)

terminate – determinate

 (verb)                         (verb)

INFLECTIONAL MORPHEMES:

Inflection (the process by which inflectional morphemes are attached to words), allows speakers to morphologically encode grammatical information. See the following example:

The word “girls” consists of two morphemes:

The free morpheme “girl” that describes a young female human being; and

The bound morpheme “s” that denotes plural number.

Note that both “girl” (as singular) and “girls” (as plural) are in the same word class, that is NOUN.

Examples of morphological encoding of other grammatical categories that can be considered as the inflectional markers are:

Past Tense (regular verb –ed):

walk -  walked

(verb)    (verb)

Progressive (-ing form)

walk – walking

(verb)     (verb)

Person (the addition of “s” for 3^rd person singular)

walk – walks

(verb)  (verb)

Plurality (the “s” in plural form)

car   – cars

(noun)(noun)

Whether or not word class changes and how significantly meaning is affected, “derivation” always creates new words existing ones; while “inflection” is merely limited to change word form.

ALLOMORPHS:

Definition:

“An allomorph is one of two or more complementary morphs (the phonetic realization of morpheme), which manifest a morpheme in its different phonological or morphological environments”. (Source: Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) International)

This is How Morph & Morpheme deal with Allomorph:

A morpheme is indicated as one or more morphs (surface forms) in different environments. These morphs are called allomorphs.

Compare with:

A phoneme is indicated as one or more phones (phonetic sounds) in different environments. These phones are called allophones.

The allomorphs of a morpheme are derived from phonological rules and any morphophonemic rules that may apply to that morpheme.

Examples:

1. The plural morphemes in English, usually written as {s}, have at least three allomorphs:

 [s]          as in       ‘hats’                     [‘hæts]

[z]           as in       ‘dogs’                    [‘dɒgz]

[ɪz]        as in       ‘boxes’                [‘bɒksɪz]

2. The past form morpheme {ed} usually has also three allomorphs:

 [d]         as in       ‘slammed’           [‘slæmd]

 [t]          as in       ‘slipped’               [‘slɪpt]

 [ɪd]      as in       ‘stilted’                [‘stɪltɪd]

3. The negative morpheme changes “n” the prefix {in} to the consonant of the word it prefixes:

[ɪl]         as in       ‘illegal’                  [ɪ’li:gl]

[ɪm]      as in       ‘impatient’          [ɪm’ peɪʃnt]

[ɪr]        as in       ‘irregular’            [ɪ’regjələ(r)]

[ɪn]       as in       ‘inconsiderate’  [ɪnkən’sɪdərət]

  PREFIX:

A prefix is a letter or a group of letters attached to the beginning of word that partly indicates its meaning.

For example, the word prefix itself begins with a prefix –pre, which generally means “before”.

Understanding the meanings of the common prefixes can help us in deciding the meanings of new words that we encounter.

SUFFIX:

A suffix is a letter or a group of letters attached to the end of a word to form a new word or to alter the grammatical function of the original word.

For example, the verb “read” can be made into the noun “reader” by adding the suffix –er.