Types of morphemes

1. Types of morphemes Lec. 2

2. Morphology & Morphemes • Our morphological knowledge has two components: knowledge of the individual morphemes, and knowledge of the rules that combine them. • Morphology = morph + ology (science of word forms) • Words consist of meaningful units • E.g. writers, reading, unripe, overdose, kingdom

3. Morphology & Morphemes Morphology is concerned with the structure of words which is part of the implicit linguistic knowledge of all native speakers, whether or not they know anything about the history of the language they speak. e.g. help, helpful, helpfulness, helpless, helplessness  HELP

4. Examples • One morpheme • Two morphemes • Three morphemes • Four morphemes • desire • desirable • desirability • undesirability

5. Roots • Root: A morpheme which is the basic part of a word and which may, in many languages, occur on its own. (man, hold, book). A root is the base form of a word which cannot be further analyzed without total loss of identity. It is that part of the word left when all the affixes are removed. e.g. Knowingly – brainlessness – rediscover – insufferable– actions - breakage

6. Roots Roots may be joined to other roots (house +hold = household(, and/ or take affixes ROOT word-forms walk walks, walking, walked, • (house + hold= household), and/ or take affixes • (man + ly = manly) • (cold +ness = coldness) • (manly, coldness).

7. Exercise • Identify the roots in each of the followings: • knowingly rediscover • brainlessness insufferable • untainted disinherited • Unrepeated undeveloped • Paranormal McDonaldization • unrepeated

8. Morphological Morphemes Morphemes FREE BOUND BASES AFFIXES pathology Frog prefixes infixes suffixes

9. Free & bound • Roots can be either free morphemes or bound morphemes

10. I. Free morphemes • Free morphemes are roots which can stand on their own Man – book – tea – sweet – cook – bet – very – aardvark – pain – rose -understand • Lexical morphemes • Function words

11. I. Free morphemes *Content words Lexical morphemes Function words • Nouns (frog– man-John) • Adjectives (good – kind ) • Verbs (walk- write) • Adverbs (very – well) • Prepositions (with – to –in ) • Articles (the – a – an) • Demonstratives (this – that ) • Pronouns (I– she – it – they) • Conjunctions (and – but)

12. II. Bound morphemes/ Affixes • Bound morphemes are roots which cannot stand on their own. They always occur as being attached to other morphemes. • -mitpermit – commit – admit • -ceiveperceive – receive – conceive – deceive • -ologybiology – psychology - pathology

13. II. Bound morphemes/ Affixes • An affix is abound morpheme that can be added to a word (root), and which changes the meaning or function of the word. There are 3 types of affixes: • a prefixis attached before a root (re-, un-, dis-, im-) • a suffixis attached after a root (-ly, -er, -ist,-s) • an infix is attached within a root

14. Exercise • Identify the affixes: unemployment moralize untouchable alcoholic unsystematically mistreatment present (v) unbelievable misunderstand inaccurate friendship enlarge abstraction darken

15. Base • A base is any unit to which affixes of any kind can be added: • inflectional affixes (syntactic reasons) • derivational affixes (meaning and/ or grammatical category) • All ROOTS are BASES

16. Stem • That part of a word that occurs before an inflectional affixis or can be added. For example, (book + s = books). • The stem of a word may be: • A simple stem consisting of only one morpheme (a root), e.g. work • A root plus a derivational affix, e.g. work + er =worker • Two or more roots, e.g. work + shop = workshop.

17. Bound Morphemes

18. Inflectional morphemes • Inflectional morphemes are bound morphemes that have a strictly grammatical function. Inflectional morphemes never change the syntactic category of the words or morphemes to which they are attached. • E.g. • I sail the ocean blue • He sails the ocean blue • John sailed the ocean blue • John has sailed the ocean blue • John is sailing the ocean blue

19. English Inflectional Morphemes • -s (third-person singular plural) • -ed(past tense) • -ing (progressive) • -en (past participle) • -s (plural) • -’s (possessive) • -er(comparative) • -est(superlative)

20. Inflectional morphemes • Unlike derivational morphemes, inflectional morphemes: • don’t change the part of speech • don’t pile up, only one ends a word

21. Examples • Cats • Oxen • Treated • Larger • Talking • Shortest • Asks • John’s • Mother-in-laws • Commitments • Sunburns • Morphemes

22. Derivational Morphemes • Derivational morphemes are bound morphemes that are added to a root morpheme or stem to derive a new word with a new meaning. Derivational morphemes sometimes change the word-class that a base belongs to, and/ or change the meaning of the base to which they are attached. Derivational morphemes have clear semantic content, and some DA can be treated as independent words (e.g. full) • E.g. • Pure (n)  purify (v) • Logic (n)  logical (adj)

23. Derivational Morphemes • Derivational morphemes are of 3 types: • Prefixes • Infixes • Suffixes • Other bound morphemes (pathology)

24. Derivational morphemes • Unlike inflectional morphemes, derivational morphemes: • sometimes change the word-class • the way they combine with base is mainly arbitrary • more than one DA can be added to the base • E.g. • antidisestablishment

25. English Derivational Morphemesclass-changing 1. Nouns  Adjective 2. Verbs  Noun • health + full = healthful • boy + ish = boyish • Elizabeth + an = Elizabethan • life + like = lifelike • alcohol + ic = alcoholic • picture + esque = picturesque • affection + ate = afectionate • virtue + ous = virtuous • brand + ish = brandish • propose + al = proposal • clear + ance = clearance • accuse + ation = accusation • confer + ence = conference • free + dom = freedom • sing + er = singer • predict + ion = prediction

26. English Derivational Morphemesclass-changing 3. Adjective  adverb Nouns  verbs • exact + ly = exactly • quiet + ly = quietly • moral + ize = moralize • vaccine + ate = vaccinate • haste + n = hasten

27. English Derivational Morphemesclass-changing Adjectives  Noun Verb  Adjective • tall + ness = tallness • specific + ity = specificity • feudal + ism = feudalism • abstract + ion = abstraction • true + th = truth • read + able = readable • create + ive = creative • run + y = runny • migrat + ory = migratory

28. English Derivational Morphemesclass-maintaining Noun  Noun Verb  Verb • friend + ship = friendship • human + ity = humanity • man + hood = manhood • king + dom = kingdom • un + do = undo • re + cover = recover

29. English Derivational Morphemesclass-maintaining Adjective  Adjective • pink + ish = pinkish • in + flammable = inflammable

30. English Derivational Morphemesclass-changing • N  V joy-enjoy • V  N motivate - motivation • N  Adj. care - careful • Adj.  N true - truth • Adj. V soft –soften / wide - widen • Adj.  Adv. careful - carefully

31. English Derivational Morphemesclass-maintaining • N N (concrete abstract) Man  manhood King kingdom Friend friendship

32. Exercise • Identify the inflectional affixes, derivational affixes, roots, bases, & stems in the following: • unbelievable - actors – renewed – faithfully • mistreatment - pickpockets – window-cleaners • insanity – psychology – shortest - unhappiness • unspeakable – uncivilized – McDonaldization - mistreatment