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Morphology

Morphology is the study of morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units in language. There are two types of morphemes: free morphemes, which can stand alone as words, and bound morphemes, which are affixes attached to other forms. A stem is the basic word form to which bound morphemes are added. Allomorphs are variations of a single morpheme that are in complementary distribution. Derivational morphemes form new words, while inflectional morphemes mark grammatical categories like number.

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265 views2 pages

Morphology

Morphology is the study of morphemes, which are the smallest meaningful units in language. There are two types of morphemes: free morphemes, which can stand alone as words, and bound morphemes, which are affixes attached to other forms. A stem is the basic word form to which bound morphemes are added. Allomorphs are variations of a single morpheme that are in complementary distribution. Derivational morphemes form new words, while inflectional morphemes mark grammatical categories like number.

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Nevena Lazić
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MORPHOLOGY

- the study of MORPHEMES building elements used to form composite words or grammatical units; Q: Which is the smallest meaningful unit in language? re-open-ed

meaning 'again'

meaning 'open'

grammatical function 'past tense'

free morphemes can stand by themselves as single words: ROOT vs. BASE

'a redheaded girl'

root

root

affix

base

Q: How do we call words consisting of two or more roots, e.g. 'blackbird'? Lexical morphemes : open class of words Free morphemes Functional morphemes (conjunctions, prepositions, articles, pronouns): closed class of words

bound morphemes are not independent; attached to other forms: AFFIXES (prefixes, suffixes, infixes)

STEM is the basic word-form (free morpheme) used with bound morphemes : unprefix -ed stem suffix dress care -less stem suffix -ness suffix

Q: What is the stem in Latin cor, cordis, n. ? And what is the base in Croatian udbenik? CLITICS are contracted forms dependent on a host root morpheme: I've...He's... ALLOMORPHS realisations of a morpheme that are in complementary distribution to each other: [s], [z], [iz] PLURAL MORPHEME or MORPH (a phonetic realization of a morpheme)

Q: What would we list as allomorphs of the morpheme PLURAL from this set of English words: dogs, oxen, deer, judges, curricula?

DERIVATIONAL morphemes are used in forming new lexemes or derived words; restricted in their application to a certain group of word stems LEXIS black en ('make someone black') serv er ('one who serves') *beautiless vs beatiful pur ify ('make sth. pure') serv ant ('one who serves')

INFLECTIONAL morphemes are used to form grammatical constructions; can be applied to all the members of a given category SYNTAX Let me tell you about Jim's two sisters. One likes to have fun and is always laughing. The other liked to study and has always taken things seriously. One is the loudest person in the house and the other is quieter than a mouse.

Q: Can you think of a way to state the rule that will accomodate all the examples given here? teethmarks clawmarks *clawsmarks lice-infested roach-infested *roaches-infested the feet-cruncher the finger-cruncher *the fingers-cruncher mice-infested rat-infested *rats-infested

Readings: Dirven, R., M. Verspoor (2004) 'Meaningful building blocks'. In: Dirven, R., M. Verspoor (2004). Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 4975. Poole, S.C. (1999) ' Morphology'. In: Poole, S.C. (1999) An Introduction to Linguistics.Hampshire/New York:Palgrave. 73-82. Yule, G. (1996). 'Morphology'. In: Yule, G. (1996). The Study of Language. CUP. 74-85.

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