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Morphology

Morphology. How to build words. What is a morpheme?. Morphology is the organization of morpheme s into words. The morpheme is the smallest meaningful (invested with meaning—or a definition) unit of language. Can be as small as one syllable. Can be one word.

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Morphology

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  1. Morphology How to build words

  2. What is a morpheme? • Morphology is the organization of morphemes into words. • The morpheme is the smallest meaningful (invested with meaning—or a definition) unit of language. • Can be as small as one syllable. • Can be one word. • Can be an affix (a syllable that comes before, within, or after a word that enhances or changes its meaning)

  3. Structure of Morphemes • The morpheme is just as abstract as the phoneme. • One morpheme can have numerous allomorphs (alternate phonetic realizations of a morpheme dependent upon the phonetic context of the morpheme). • {-s} plural can be an /s/, /z/, or /əz/ depending on the context: • /s/ after a voiceless consonant: [kæts] cats • /z/ after a voiced stop, liquid, or nasal: /dɔgz/ dogs • /əz/ after a fricative or affricate: /ʧərʧəz/ churches • Ø for words such as deer that form the plural w/ no change

  4. Derivation of Morphemes • Multi-morpheme words result from the combination of morphemes. • Derivation describes the “operations” on morphemes that result in words. • Derived word: boyish [bɔɪɪʃ] (adjective) • Stem: Boy (noun) [bɔɪ] (a “simple word”) • Affix: -ish(adjectival suffix) [ɪʃ] • Derived word: slowly [sloli] (adverb) • Stem: slow (adjective) [slo] (a “simple word”) • Affix: -ly (adverbial suffix) [li]

  5. Morphological Categories • Morphemes described based on their grammatical functions: • Content morphemes have a meaning understood in and of themselves: {boy}, {dog}, {cake}, {ice} • Derivational morphemes, which change the part of speech and/or the meaning of stem morphemes also belong to the “content” category {ness}, • Functional morphemes only reflect grammatical information or grammatical relationships: {and}, {-s plural}, {-ed past tense}, {-er comparative}

  6. Categories, cont’d. • Morphemes are also described by their distribution and their “rules of association” • Free morphemes can stand on their own or combine with other morphemes appropriate to their part of speech • {bird}, {bird}{s}, {black}{bird} • Bound morphemes can not stand on their own, but must combine with specific morphemes in order to make sense. • {-s plural, combines with nouns only}, {bird}{s}

  7. Categories, cont’d. • Functional Morphemes are also described according to their function: • Inflectional morphemes modify the grammatical function of a word (verbal tense, person, number, aspect, possessive, comparative, superlative) • {walk}{ed} (past tense) • {walk}{s} (3rd person verb) • {walk}{ing} (present participle) • {walk}{ed} (past participle) – more clearly seen {drive}{en} • {bird}{s} (plural) • {Lolly}{‘s} (possessive) • {tall}{er} (comparative) • {tallest}{est} (superlative}

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