Sample Module
Sample Module
Sample Module
SpEng1
(Introduction to Linguistics)
Module for BSE English 1
I. INTRODUCTION:
Words are an important part of linguistic knowledge and constitute a component of our
mental grammars, but one can learn thousands of words
in a language and still not know the language. Anyone
who has tried to communicate in a foreign country by
merely using a dictionary knows this is true. On the other
hand, without words we would be unable to convey our
thoughts through language or understand the thoughts of
others (Fromkin, 2012).In this module, you will explore
various concepts related to the next discipline under linguistics which is morphology.
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III. DISCUSSION:
A. MORPHOLOGY:
✔ The word morphology itself comes from the Greek word morphe which means ‘form.’
● Observation 1 illustrates the fact that words are made up of meaningful units called morphemes.
2. The word boy has a meaning in and of itself, the word at does not.
● Observation 2 illustrates that some morphemes have meaning in and of themselves called lexical
morphemes; others do not have which are called grammatical morphemes.
3. The form serve can stand alone as a word; the form pre- as in preserve cannot.
● Observation 3 illustrates the fact that some morphemes can stand alone as words, which are
called as free morphemes. Others, such as, bound morphemes cannot.
● Observation 4 can be used to argue that morphemes can be divided into two types: inflectional
and derivational morphemes.
B. MORPHEMES:
✔ It can be loosely defined as a minimal unit having more or less constant meaning
✔ For example, the word buyers is made up of three morphemes and each of these
morphemes has a unique meaning. The word buyers means ‘more than one person
who buys things.’
● {buy} + {er} + {s} are morphemes because each one can occur with other morphemes without changing
its core meaning.
{buy} occurs in buying and buys
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● {er} in buyer means ‘someone who’ and is always attached to a noun. This is what
we call agentive morpheme since it indicates one who performs an action.
● {er} in shorter means to ‘a greater degree than’ and this morpheme is always
attached to an adjective. This is what we call comparative morpheme since it shows
the comparative degree of an adjective.
Point 3: The definition of a morpheme as a minimal unit with more or less constant
meaning associated with more or less constant form should be taken as a
general rule rather than a hard and fast criterion.
boys and girls
man and men
● The morpheme {s} is attached to boy and girl to indicate a plural form. But this
transformation can not be seen in man to men. Can we say that the second example
has nothing in common with the first example. Probably not. The meaning
relationship between boys and girls and man and men are identical even though the
form or spelling relationship between the two pairs are not the same. Thus went can
be represented morphologically as {go} + {PAST} just as walked into {walk} +
{PAST}.
Point 4: The goal of morphological analysis is to determine the rules that speakers
actually follow for forming words in a particular language.
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● The word is derived from {Hamburg} = ‘a city in Germany’ + {er} = ‘originating from’
Nowadays, speakers analyze hamburger as something like {ham}= ‘ham’ + {burger}
= ‘a hot patty served on a round bun.’{burger} can be combined with virtually any
substance that could conceivable be eaten.
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● Content words denote concepts such as objects, actions, attributes, and ideas that we can
think about like children, build, beautiful, and seldom. Content words are sometimes called
the open class words because we can and regularly do add new words to these classes.
2. Function words specify grammatical relations and have little or no semantic content.
● Function words do not have clear lexical meanings or obvious concepts associated with
them, including conjunctions such as and, or, and but; prepositions such as in and of; the
● articles the and a/an, and pronouns such as it. These words are also called closed class
words. This is because it is difficult to think of any conjunctions, prepositions, or pronouns
that have recently entered the language.
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● A great deal of psychological and neurological evidence supports this claim. Some brain-damaged
patients and people with specific language impairments have greater difficulty in using,
understanding, or reading function words than they do with content words. Some aphasics are
unable to read function words like in or which, but can read the lexical content words inn and witch.
✔ Affixes can be subdivided into prefixes and suffixes depending upon whether they are
a. English has inflectional affixes, along with a type of root (i.e., lexical morpheme)
that each one attaches to.
1. {PLU}: All plural nouns in English can be represented morphologically as a root +
{PLU}, regardless of how the plural morpheme is spelled or pronounced.
boys = {boy} + {PLU}
women = {woman} + {PLU}
sheep = {sheep} + {PLU}
2. {POSS}: All possessive nouns in English can be represented morphologically as a root
+ {POSS}. For example:
girl’s = {girl} + {POSS}
3. {COMP} and {SUP}: All comparative and superlative adjectives in English can be
represented morphologically as a root + {COMP} or {SUP}. For example:
happier = {happy} + {COMP}
happiest = {happy} + {SUP}
better = {good} + {COMP}
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● Note, however, that the only time this affix is spelled out is when there is a third person singular
subject (i.e., he, she, and it). For example:
● All past tense verbs in English can be represented morphologically as a root + {PAST}. For example:
● Note, moreover, that in English, the first and only the first verb form in a simple sentence is inflected
for tense. For example:
think = {think} + {PRES}
(as in I think….}
have = {have} + {PRES}
(as in I have thought….}
am = {be} + {PRES}
(as in I am thinking….}
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b. A derivational affix is an affix by means of which one word is formed (derived) from
another. The derived word is often of a different word class from the original.
❖ In English the plural morphemes {s} and {es} are suffixes (boys, girls, countries, etc.). In
❖ To express reciprocal action in English we use the phrase each other, as in understand
each other, love each other. In Turkish, the morpheme ____ is added to the verb:
anla ‘understand’ anlash ‘understand each other’
sev ‘love’ sevish ‘love each other’
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❖ In Karuk, a Native American language spoken in the Pacific Northwest, adding -______
INFIX:
❖ Some languages also have infixes, morphemes that are inserted into other
CIRCUMFIX:
Some languages have circumfixes, morphemes that are attached to a base morpheme both
initially and finally. These are sometimes called discontinuous morphemes.
are observed:
Affirmative Negative
chokma ‘he is good’ ik + chokm + o ‘he isn’t good’
lakna ‘it is yellow’ ik + lakn + o ‘it isn’t yellow’
palli ‘it is hot’ ik + pall + o ‘it isn’t hot’
tiwwi ‘he opens (it)’ ik + tiww + o ‘he doesn’t open (it)’
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❖ The negative is formed by surrounding the affirmative form with both a preceding _____
and a following _____ working together as a single negative morpheme. The final
vowel of the affirmative is dropped before the negative part {o} is added.
● For example, the word blackboard, heartfelt, brother-in-law are compound words; they are made
up of the roots (at the same time words themselves) black and board, heart and felt, brother, in
and law, respectively.
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● If the entire root or stem is repeated, the process is called complete (or total) reduplication,
and the new word is considered as a repetitive compound.
● Total reduplication is fairly frequent in Indonesian, Tojolabal (Mexico), Hausa (Sudan), and
Hawaiian.
● In Indonesian, total reduplication is used to form the plural of nouns, as in rumah ‘house’,
rumahrumah ‘houses’; ibu ‘mother’ ibuibu ‘mothers’; lalat ‘fly’, lalatlalat ‘flies’.
● In Hawaiian, holo means 'run', holoholo 'go for a walk or ride'; lau means 'leaf', laulau 'leaf food
package'.
● In English, partial reduplication is a little bit more common than total reduplication. As an
example of total reduplication, they give bye-bye, goodygoody (‘a self-consciously virtuous
person’).
● As to partial reduplication, they say that the constituents of the reduplicatives may differ in the
initial consonants, as in walkie-talkie, or in the medial vowels, e.g., criss-cross.
FUNCTIONS OF REDUPLICATION:
1. To imitate sounds, e.g., rat-a-tat (knocking on door), tick-tack (of a clock), ha-ha (of
laughter), bow-wow (of dog).
2. To suggest alternating movements, e.g., see saw, flip-flop, ping-pong.
3. To disparage by suggesting instability, nonsense, insincerity, vacillation, etc., e.g.,
higgledy-piggledy, hocus-pocus, wishy-washy, dilly-dally, shilly-shally, willy-nilly.
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REDUPLICATION IN ILOCANO:
Basic Form Reduplicated Form
bulong (leaf) bulbulong (leaves)
sao (word) sasao (words)
ubing, noun, meaning ‘child’ ub-ubing, noun, meaning ‘children’
ubing-ubing, adjective, meaning ‘childish’
● For example, phone from (tele)phone, plane from (air)plane, ad (advert (BrE)) from
ad(vertisement), exam from exam(ination), flu from (in)flu(enza), fridge (esp. BrE) from
refrigerator.
● Clipped forms generally show a certain tone of informality, which is often reflected in their
spellings; e.g., showbiz for showbusiness, 'cause ('cuz or cos) for because, praps for
perhaps.
● In some cases the spelling is adapted to suit the pronunciation of the original word, as in
mike for microphone, Mike for Michael, nark for narcotics, bike for bicycle.
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It is noticeably clear that the words taken from the discourse of Ilokano speakers on
Facebook are shortened but the class category of the word is not changed. Specifically, the
e. BLENDING: It is the process whereby new words are formed by combining parts of two
words, usually the beginning of one word and the end of another word. The following is a
partial list of other common blends:
breathalyz electrocute (electro + execute)
er (breath + multiversity (multiple + university)
analyzer) paratroops (parachute + troops)
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What Filipino words were combined to produce the new word above?
f. BORROWING: It is the process whereby new words are formed by adopting words from
other languages together with the concepts or ideas they stand for.
Below are examples of Ilokano phrases/ sentences with embedded loan words as
reflected on Ilokano speakers’ interaction on Facebook (Leonin, 2016):
Word Meaning in Context Word Meaning in Context
agtamtampo showing resentment or makimeeting to attend a meeting
grievance
paboritok my favorite Itxt to text a message
nagsarapen That/ It is delicious agselfie to take selfie
nagbaksyon nak I had a vacation ipaduplicate to have something
duplicated
tay gusgustok … the one I really like most weldingan to join pieces of metal
together
eburger nak You treat me a burger nacutetan was affected by
someone's cuteness
nakaduty He is on duty nagemote to be emotional
agburger to eat some burger sinabim you said
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Based on the words presented above, the loan words are joined based on the following
patterns:
mamisdaka
g. EPONYMY: It is the process by which a number of words for places, inventions, activities,
etc. have been derived from (or based on) the proper names of persons somehow
connected with such places, inventions, activities, etc. for example:
Washington, D. C. has been named for George Washington
District of Columbia for Christopher Columbus
kaiser and tsar for Julius Caesar
ohm for George Simon Ohm
watt after James Watt
sandwich after the 4th Earl of Sandwich
denim for de Nimes (France)
J. PUNS
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A pun or paronomasia is a play on words that produces a humorous effect by using a word
that suggests two or more meanings, or by exploiting similar sounding words that have
different meanings.
● In the Internet, “people invent new words and even dialects in textual interaction.
Among the novel words that have entered our lexicon are spam, flaming, and
blogging” (Baym 2010, 62).
● David Crystal (2011), in his book, Internet Linguistics, lists down several factors that
● “The writers might be ignorant of the standard usage. They might know it but be
bothered to use it. They might be bothered, but do not have keyboard skills up to the
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task of typing it correctly. They might think they have typed it correctly, when
actually they have not, and failed to read their message through before sending it.
They might make a conscious decision not to bother with the standard form,
because they feel it is unimportant. They might, consciously or unconsciously, use
the nonstandard form in order to accommodate to the usage of their peers. They
might deliberately use it to create a special effect” (Crystal 2011, 62).
from Spanish and Japanese. Names of celebrities and politicians, both local and
international, plus trademark brands are used in this homosexual slang. (Day
Translations).
● Most gay slang, gay lingo, gay speak or gay languages arose as a form of anti-
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Reference List:
● Estrada, A. (2012). The Ilocano youth online: how ilokanoness is displayed in social nerworking
sites. Undergraduate Thesis. University of the Philippines Baguio
● Fotobam, an image. Retrieved on April 17, 2020 at https://www.rappler.com/nation/148398-
sawikaan-2016-salita-taon-fotobam
● Fromkin, V. (2012). Morphology: the words of language. Books-library.online. Retrieved 21 April
2020, from https://books-library.online/files/books-library.online-12181721Hm0P8.pdf.
● Kemmer, S. (2016). Words in English: types of word formation. Ruf.rice.edu. Retrieved 17 April
2020, from https://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/wordtypes.html.
● Kleinman, Z. (2010). How the internet is changing language. BBC News. Accessed April 14,
2020 at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10971949
● Jamet, D. (2011) A morphophonological approach to clipping in English: can the study of
clipping be formalized? Accessed March 27, 2020 at http://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?
url=http://lexis.univ-lyon3.fr/IMG/pdf/Lexis_special_1_Jamet.pdf-
● Lee, A. (2009). Using wikis, blogs,and podcasts un the foreign language classroom: a task-
based approach. In Mobile Applications by R. S. Ling and P. E. Pedersen. (pp. 49-70).
International Association for Language Learning Technology.
● Leonin. A. (2016). Ilokano discourse iti facebook: a descriptive analysis. Master’s Thesis.
University of the Philippines Baguio
● Muniandy, A. (2002). Electronic discourse (E- discourse): spoken, written or a new hybrid?
Retrieved May 4, 2020 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/pbns
● New Philippine English words in the oxford dictionary. Retrieved on April 22, 2020 at
athttp://www.philippinestudies.net/ojs/index.php/ps/article/viewFile/3206/5776.
● Parker, F. & Riley, K. (2010). Linguistics for non-linguists: A primer with exercises (5th ed.).
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
● Pook-Sapot, an image. Retrieved on April 23, 2020 at https://www.tagaloglang.com/pook-sapot/
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● Racoma, B. (2013). Swardspeak: the colorful language of the filipino gay community. Day
Translations Blog. Retrieved 2 May 2020, from https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/filipino-
gay-community/.
● Remoto, D. (2016). On Philippine gay lingo. philstar.com. Retrieved 1 May 2020, from
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2016/03/11/1562061/philippine-gay-lingo.
● Sulatroniko, an image. Retrieved on March 22, 2020 at https://filipiknow.net/rare-tagalog-words/
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