UNIT ONE MORPHEMES 1.

1. DEFINITION CHARACTERISTICS

What is a morpheme?

- A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language.

- A morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three
criteria:
1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning.
2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without
violation of its meaning or without meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in different verbal environments with a relatively
stable meaning.
2. HOW TO DISTINGUISH MORPHEMES FROM PHONEMES,
SYLLABLES AND WORDS?
2.1. MORPHEMES vs. PHONEMES
- A morpheme differs from a phoneme in that the former has
meaning whereas the latter does not. Although phonemes have
no meaning, they have distinctive features that help to
distinguish meaning.
- Most English morphemes are intermediate in size between {of}
and {strange} and consist of about two to six phonemes.
2.2. MORPHEMES vs. SYLLABLES
- A morpheme happens to be identical to a syllable, e.g. the
morpheme {strange} and the syllable /stre1nd2/; and so are
many English morphemes. However, any matches between
morphemes and syllables are fortuitous. Many poly-syllabic words
are mono-morphemic.
- In English, a morpheme is not identical with a syllable. The
syllable is a phonological unit whereas the morpheme is the basic
unit in morphology.
 2.3. MORPHEMES vs. WORDS
- Words are made up of morphemes. In other words, morphemes
are the constituents of words.
- A word may be composed of one or more morphemes:
1. One morpheme: boy, desire
2. Two morphemes: boy + ish, desir(e) + able
3. Three morphemes: boy + ish + ness, desir(e) + abil + ity
4. Four morphemes: gentle + man + li + ness un + desir(e) +
abil + ity
5. More than four morphemes: un + gentle + man + li + ness
anti + dis + establish + ment + ari + an + ism
3. CLASSIFICATION OF MORPHEMES
It is always found that morphemes can be grouped into certain
classes, each with a characteristic distribution. There are two
basic classes of morphemes: free morphemes and bound
morphemes. Affixes are almost always bound whereas bases can
be either free or bound.
3.1. BOUND MORPHEMES vs. FREE MORPHEMES
3.1.1. FREE MORPHEMES
- A free morpheme is one that can be uttered alone with meaning.
- A free morpheme can be used on its own.
- Free morphemes may stand alone as words in their own right, as
well as enter into the structure of other words.
- E.g. Drink is a free morpheme which occurs as a word free base
in drink able, undrink able, drinking-water, drink on its own and
as a ing-fountain, etc.
3.1.2. BOUND MORPHEMES
- A bound morpheme cannot be uttered alone with meaning. It is
always annexed to one or more morphemes to form a word.
- A bound morpheme is never used alone but must be used with
another morpheme.
- Bound morphemes may occur only if they combine with another
morpheme.
- E.g. the English suffix ing / 17/ must be used after a verb form:
writing , living , driving , etc.
3.2. BASES (or ROOTS) vs. AFFIXES
3.2.1. A BASE (also called A ROOT)
- A base is “that morpheme” in a word that has the principal
meaning.
- It is the central morpheme, the basic part of a word. There are
two kinds of bases:
- A FREE BASE is a base which may be a word on its own right once
the other morphemes have been stripped away [Jackson, 1980:
53].
- E.g. break in unbreakable, act in deactivated, friend in friendship,
etc.
- A BOUND BASE is a base (i.e. it is the basic part of a word and
has the principal meaning) which can never occur on its own but
can only be joined to other bound morphemes.
3.2.2. AN AFFIX is a morpheme (usually a bound morpheme)
that occurs before or behind a base [Stageberg, 1965: 87].
3.2.2.1. Classified according to their POSITION in words, affixes
have three main subclasses:
 PREFIXES occur before a base [Stageberg, 1965: 91] as in
import, prefix, reconsider, unkind, understate, over-react,
etc.
 SUFFIXES occur after a base [Stageberg, 1965: 92] as in
shrinkage, noisy, quickly, nails, dreamed, mouse-like, etc.
 INFIXES are inserted within words, e.g. the infix umin
Tagalog, which shows that a verb is in the past tense: sulat
(to write) sumulat (wrote).
 According to their FUNCTION in words, there are 2 kinds of
affixes:
- INFLECTIONAL AFFIXES, which are always suffixes in English,
perform a grammatical function; they are representatives of
grammatical categories.
- DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES, which may be prefixes or suffixes in
English, have a lexical function ; they create new words
morphemes by their addition.
- Generally speaking, bases are central and affixes are peripheral.
In English, affixes are almost always bound morphemes and
bases are nearly always free.
derivational prefix – base - derivational suffix(es) - inflectional
suffix
4. VARIATIONS OF MORPHEMES ALLOMORPHS
4.1. DEFINITION: An allomorph is any of the different forms of a
morpheme

DERIVATION AND INFLECTION

1. DERIVATION

1.1. DEFINITION: Derivation is the formation of new words by

adding affixes to other words or morphemes. For example, the
noun insanity is derived from the adjective sane by addition of
the negative prefix in and the noun forming suffix ity [Richards,
Platt & Weber, 1987: 77].

1.2. TYPES OF DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES: There are two

subgroups:
- Class-changing derivational affixes change the word class, (also
called the grammatical category or the part of speech) of the
words to which they are attached.
- Thus, when a verb is conjoined with the suffix able, the result is
an adjective, as in desire + able or adore + able.
- Class-maintaining derivational affixes do not change the word
class of the words to which they are attached.
2. INFLECTION
2.1. DEFINITION:
- Inflection is the process of adding an affix to a word or changing
it in some other way according to the rules of the grammar of a
language. For example, English verbs are inflected for 3rd-person
singular: I work, he works and for past tense: I worked. Most
nouns may be inflected for plural: horse horses, flower flowers,
man men [Richards, Platt & Weber, 1987: 77].
2.2. VARIOUS KINDS OF INFLECTION
2.2.1. NOUN INFLECTION
- Almost all English nouns have two forms: the plain form (also
called the unmarked form) used in the constructions like a book
or the book and the inflected form (also called the marked form)
which is formed by adding inflectional suffixes to the plain form.
The plain form and its three inflected forms together make up a
four-form inflectional noun paradigm , which is a set of relative
forms of a noun. Not all nouns have three inflected forms.
2.2.2. VERB INFLECTION
- The inflections of a verb are more complicated than those of a
noun. The paradigm of an irregular verb has four inflected forms :
breaks, breaking, broke, and broken.
2.2.3. ADJECTIVE INFLECTION and ADVERB INFLECTION
- There is a three-form inflectional paradigm for adjectives of one
or two syllables and for monosyllabic adverbs though it does not
apply to all members of either the adjective or the adverb class.
3. HOW TO DISTINGUISH DERIVATION FROM INFLECTION
3.1. DERIVATION
3.1.1. Derivation can be observed in the following formula:
- A BASE (also called A ROOT) + DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES  NEW
DERIVED WORDS
3.1.3.THE BASE (also called THE ROOT) of a derivational
paradigm is the ultimate constituent element which remains after
the removal of all functional and derivational affixes and does not
admit any further analysis. Thus, HEARTen, HEARTen ed,
disHEARTen, disHEARTen ed, HEARTy, HEARTi ly, HEARTi ness
HEARTless, HEARTless ly, andHEARTless ness, all share the same
base: HEART.
3.1.4. A DERIVATIONAL PARADIGM is a set of related words
composed of the same base morpheme and all the derivational
affixes that can go with this base
3.2. INFLECTION
3.2.1. Inflection can be observed in the following formula:
- A STEM + INFLECTIONAL SUFFIXES INFLECTED FORMS OF
ONE AND THE SAME WORD
3.2.2. INFLECTIONAL (also called GRAMMATICAL or
FUNCTIONAL) SUFFIXES serve to convey grammatical meaning.
They build different forms of one and the same word
- THE STEM (of an inflectional paradigm) is the part of a word
that remains after the removal of all inflectional suffixes
- AN INFLECTIONAL PARADIGM is a set of related words composed
of the same stem and all the inflectional suffixes that can go with
this stem.