Introduction to Linguistics

Module 5
MORPHOLOGY

INTRODUCTION
This module examines the segmentation of words into their meaningful elements,
the principles that govern the construction of words from meaningful elements and
the function of words.

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of this module it is expected that you will be able to:
1. Identify meaningful elements in words;
2. Describe what it means to know a word;
3. Discuss the ways in which a language can expand its stock of words.

LEARNING CONTENT
We can recognize that English word forms such as talks, talker, talked and talking
must consist of one element talk, and a number of other elements such as –s, -er, -
ed and –ing. All these elements are described as morphemes.

Morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function. Units of

grammatical function include forms used to indicate past tense or plural.

Example : The word tourists contain three morphemes. There is one minimal unit of
meaning tour, another minimal unit of meaning –ist (marking a person who does
something), and a minimal unit of grammatical function –s (indicating plural).

The morphemes are of two types. These are:

1. Free Morphemes
2. Bound Morphemes

1. Free Morphemes

A morpheme that has individual meaning and can be formed independently is

called a free morpheme. Examples are the word free, get, human, song, love,
happy, sad, may, much, but, and, or, some, above, when, etc.
All of the words have individual meanings and are free morphemes. Free
morphemes can be categorized into two sub-types. These are Lexical morphemes
and Grammatical or functional morphemes

a. Lexical Morphemes. The lexical morphemes are those morphemes that

are large in number and independently meaningful. The lexical morphemes
include nouns, adjectives, and verbs. These free morphemes are called lexical
morphemes. Examples are the words dog, good, honest, boy, girl, woman,
excellent, etc.
b. Grammatical or Functional Morphemes. The grammatical or functional
morphemes are those morphemes that consist of functional words in a language,
such as prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and pronouns. Some examples are
words and, but, or, above, on, into, after, that, the, etc.
2. Bound Morphemes.

A morpheme that doesn’t have any independent meaning and can be formed
with the help of free morphemes is called a bound morpheme. Examples are less,
ness, pre, un, en, ceive and ment. Bound morphemes can be categorized into two
sub-classes. These are
Bound roots and affixes.

a. Bound Roots- are those Bound morphemes that have lexical meaning
when they are included in other bound morphemes to form the content words. For
example, -ceive (perceive, deceive), and -tain, (retain, contain)

b. Affixes- are those bound morphemes that naturally attached different

types of words and used to change the meaning or function of those words. For
example, -ment in payment, enjoyment, entertainment, en- in enlighten, enhance,
enlarge, ‘s in Joseph’s, Lora’s –ing in reading, sleeping, and singing.

Affixes can be categorized into five sub-classes according to their position in

the word and function in a phrase or sentence. These are prefixes, infixes, suffixes,
derivational and inflectional.

1. Prefixes are kind of bound morphemes included at the beginning of different

types of words. For example, in- (injustice, incomplete), un- (unable, uneducated),
and sub- (subway)

2. Infixes are those bound morphemes included within the words. There are no
infixes that exist in the English language.

3. Suffixes are those bound morphemes included at the end of different types of
words. For example; -able (available), -less (careless), -ness (happiness), and –en
(shorten).

4. Derivational Affixes. Derivational morphemes make new words by changing

their meaning or different grammatical categories. In other words, derivational
morphemes form new words with a meaning and category distinct through the
addition of affixes.
Thus, the derivational morpheme ‘-ness’ when added to 'kind' (adj.) becomes
kindness (noun), and –less when added to ‘care’ (noun) becomes the adjective in
careless. This is how derivational morphemes make new words by changing their
meaning or grammatical category. Derivational morphemes can be categorized into
two sub-classes. These are:
 a. Class-maintaining derivational morphemes
b. Class-changing derivational morphemes

a. Class-Maintaining Derivational Morphemes are usually produced in a

derived form of the same class as the root, and they don’t change the class of the
part of speech. For example; -ship (relation (noun) to relationship (noun), leader
(noun) to leadership (noun)), -hood (man (noun) to manhood (noun).

b. Class-Changing Derivational Morphemes usually produce a derived

form of the other class from the root. For example, -ish added to boy (noun)
becomes boyish (adj.), -al added to nation (noun) becomes national (adj.), -er
added to teach (verb) becomes teacher (noun)

5. Inflectional Affixes. Inflectional morphemes are not used to produce new words
rather indicate the aspects of the grammar function of the word. For instance,
inflectional morphemes indicate whether a word is singular or plural, past tense or
not, and comparative or possessive forms. English has eight Inflectional
morphemes, all of which are suffixes.

The inflectional morphemes of English

Suffix Function Example Attaches to
1. -s plural cats Nouns
2. -’s possessive brother’s Nouns
3. -er comparative taller, faster Adjectives
4. -est superlative tallest, fastest Adjectives
5. -s 3rd person singular present tense (she) walks (he) eats Verbs
6. -ed past tense walked, called Verbs
7. -ing progressive walking, giving Verbs
8. -en past participle (have) given,(have) eaten Verbs

Morphology
In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and
their relationship to other words in the same language. The term morphology is
Greek and is a make-up of 'morph' meaning shape or form, and 'ology' which means
the study of something.
It analyzes the structures of words and parts of words such as stems, root
words, prefixes and suffixes.
Morphology also looks at parts of speech, intonation and stress, and the ways
context can change a words pronunciation and meaning.

Morphological Description-refers to the idea of separating the elements or

morphemes in a sentence.
Morphs and Allomorphs

Morph is a meaningful group of phones which cannot be subdivided into

smaller meaningful units, (Francis, 1958). They are defined as “an element of
speech or writing that represents and expresses one or more morpheme. For
example-

1) the word ‘man’ is carrying- 1 morph, 1 morpheme while the word ‘men’ is
carrying- 1 morph and 2 morphemes (man + plural), because the form ‘men’ cannot
be divided so it is the actual form of the word means the ‘the morph’ but this single
form is carrying two different meanings (man + plural) means “the two
morphemes”

2) the word “students” is carrying two morphs (student + -s) as well as two
morphemes (student + plural marker).
Thus, a morph can be defined as a physical form representing some
morpheme in a language. It is a recurrent distinctive sound (phoneme) or sequence
of sounds (phonemes).

Allomorphs are the variants of the same morpheme. They are said to be the
different realizations of one morpheme. Allomorphs are the positional variants of a
morpheme; they are in complementary distribution means ‘where one occurs the
other cannot occur’.

For example- the plural marker /-s/ has three allomorphs /-s, -z, -iz / which
occur in three different environments such as cats, dogs and buses where we find
that
1- /-s/ after voiceless sounds such as /p, t, k/ etc. except affricates and sibilants.
2- /-z/ after voiced sounds such as /b, d, g/ etc. except affricates and sibilants.
3- /-iz/ after affricates and sibilants.

Similarly, /-t, -d, -id/ are the positional variants (allomorphs) of the same
morpheme /-ed/ the past tense marker.
Thus, we can say that if the different morphs represent the same morpheme, they
are grouped together and are called the allomorphs of that morpheme.

WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

The study of the origin and history of a word is known as its etymology. There are
many different ways in which new words can enter the language. We might view the
constant evolution of new words and new uses of old words as a reassuring sign of
vitality and creativeness in the way a language is shaped by the needs of its users.

In linguistics, word formation process is the creation of a new word by making

changes in existing words or by creating new words. In other words, it refers to the
ways in which new words are made on the basis of other words.
 Word Formation process is achieved by different ways to create a new word
that includes; coinage, compounding, borrowing, blending, acronym, clipping,
contraction, backformation, affixation and conversion.

1. Compounding

Compounding is a type of word formation where we join two words side by

side to create a new word. It is very common type of word formation in a language.
Some time we write a compound word with a hyphen between two words and some
time we keep a space and sometime we write them jointly. All these three forms are
common in all languages.

Common examples of word compounding are:

1. Part + time = part-time
2. Book + case = bookcase
3. Low + paid = low-paid
4. Door + knob = doorknob
5. Finger + print = fingerprint
6. Wall + paper = wallpaper
7. Sun + burn = sunburn
8. Text + book = textbook
9. Good + looking = good-looking
10. Ice + cream = Ice-cream

2. Borrowing

In word formation process, borrowing is the process by which a word from

one language is adapted for use in another language. The word that is borrowed is
called a borrowing, a loanword, or a borrowed word. It is also known as lexical
borrowing. It is the most common source of new words in all languages.

Common Examples of borrowed words in English language are:

1. Dope (Dutch)
2. Croissant (French)
3. Zebra (Bantu)
4. Lilac (Persian)
5. Pretzel (German)
6. Yogurt (Turkish)
7. Piano (Italian)
8. Sofa (Arabic)
9. Tattoo (Tahitian)
10. Tycoon (Japanese)

3. Blending

Blending is the combination of two separate words to form a single new word.
It is different from compounding where we add two words side by side to make a
new word but in blending we do not use both words in complete sense but
new/derived word has part of both words. The word smog and fog are different
words and when we blend them to make a new word, we use a part of each word to
make a new word that is smog. We took first two letters from first word (sm)
from smoke and last two (og) from fog to derive a new word smog.

Some more examples of blending are:

1. Smoke + murk=smurk
2. Smoke + haze= smaze
3. Motel (hotel + motor)
4. Brunch (breakfast + lunch )
5. Infotainment ( information + entertainment)
6. Franglais ( French + English)
7. Spanglish (Spanish + English )

4. Clipping / Shortening / Truncation

Clipping is the type of word formation where we use a part of word instead of
whole word. This form of word formation is used where there is a long/multi-syllable
word and to save time we use a short one instead of that long word. The
word advertisement is a long word and we use its short form ad (ads for plural form)
instead of whole word.

Here are some examples of clipping:

1. Ad from advertisement
2. Gas from gasoline
3. Exam from examination
4. Cab from cabriolet
5. Fax from facsimile
6. Condo from condominium
7. Fan from fanatic
8. Flu from Influenza
9. Edu from education
10. Gym from gymnasium
11. Lab from laboratory

5. Acronyms / Initialism

An acronym is a word or name formed as an abbreviation from the initial

letters in a phrase or a multi syllable word. The initials are pronounced as new
single words. Commonly derived word are written in upper case just like in NATO.
Some common examples of acronyms are:
1. CD is acronym of compact disk
2. VCR is acronym of video cassette recorder
3. NATO is acronym of North Atlantic Treaty Organization
4. NASA is acronym of National Aeronautics and Space Administration
5. ATM is acronym of Automatic Teller Machine
6. PIN is acronym of Personal Identification Number

Some time the word is written in lower case (Initial letter capital when at start
of sentence)
1. Laser is acronym of Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation
 2. Scuba is acronym of Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
3. Radar is acronym of Radio Detecting And Ranging

6. Contraction

A contraction is a word formed as an abbreviation from a word. Contractions

are abbreviations in which we omit letters from the middle of a word or more than
one words.

Some common contractions are below:

1. Dr is from Doctor.
2. St is from Saint.
3. He’s from He is.
4. I’ve is from I have.

7. Affixation

Affixation is the word formation process where a new word is created by

adding suffix or prefix to a root word.

1. un+ plug -unplug

2. Care + less- careless

8. Zero-derivation (Conversion)

Zero-derivation, or conversion, is a derivational process that forms new words

from existing words. Zero derivation, is a kind of word formation involving the
creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form, which is to
say, derivation using only zero. Zero-derivation or conversion changes the lexical
category of a word without changing its phonological shape. For example, the word
ship is a noun and we use it also as a verb.

1. Beach hotel has a ship to enjoy honeymoon.

2. Beach hotel will ship your luggage in two days.

In first sentence, the word ship is a noun and in second sentence the word
ship (verb) is derived from the action of ship (noun) that transports luggage, so the
word ship (verb) has meaning of transportation.

9. Backformation

Backformation is the word formation process where a new word is derived by

removing what appears to be an affix. When we remove last part of word (that looks
like suffix but not a suffix in real) from a word it creates a new word.
Some very familiar words are below:
1. Peddle from peddler
 2. Edit from editor
3. Insert from insertion

10. Coinage / Neologism

It is also a process of word formation where new words (either deliberately or

accidentally) are invented. This is a very rare process to create new words, but in
the media and industry, people and companies try to surpass others with unique
words to name their services or products.
Some common examples of coinage are: Kodak, Google, Bing, Nylon

11. Eponyms

In word formation process, sometime new words are derives by based on the
name of a person or a place. Sometime these words have attribution to a place and
sometime the words are attributes to the things/terms who discover/invent them.
For example, the word volt is electric term that is after the name of Italian scientist
Alessandro Volta.
Some common examples of eponyms are:

1. Hoover: after the person who marketed it

2. Jeans: after a city of Italy Genoa
3. Spangle: after the person who invented it
4. Watt: after the name of scientist James Watt
5. Fahrenheit: after the name of German scientist Gabriel Fahrenheit

REFERENCES

Crystal, D. (2010) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Third Edition. New

York:
Cambridge University Press

Finegan, E. & Besnier, N. (1989). Orlando, Florida: Harcourt Brace Jovanorich, Inc.

Yule, G. (2006). The Study of Language. New York:Cambridge University Press

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